© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

climate change

Why is war the answer to every question?

Humanity is confronting a global pandemic, climate change, horrendous inequality in resource allocation, pollution, an energy crisis and a massive wave of species extinction. Every alarm in the building is ringing. The clock says it’s a minute to midnight. Sick and frightened, we look to our governments and our leaders for help and guidance. And their answer is? War. War now, war tomorrow and more war after that. The Titanic is sinking, so let’s just fight over the deckchairs, shall we? Idiots. You could go out today and pick 50 random people from different countries around…

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Read more about the article Stop trying to think outside the square: a presentation for young journalists

Stop trying to think outside the square: a presentation for young journalists

IN 2005 I was invited by my union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, to give a presentation to young journalists on "thinking outside the square". I suspect the attendees may have been rather bemused by what I offered them. Reading it again, 15 years later, there isn't much I'd change, however. "Thinking outside the square": it's a piece of jargon from those awful new-age management seminars of the 80s and 90s where they used a pat routine of clever tricks and illustrations to show people that their thinking was constrained. It’s become a cliché. Inside…

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Time to wake up, Australia

While Australia was sleeping this month, dreaming of new coalmines for tax-dodging multinational corporations based in overseas tax havens and of government-subsidised tax-free gas-fields for political party donors, a few things happened. Carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere hit their highest in recorded human history, Antarctica experienced a new record hot day and a massive iceberg broke off an Antarctic glacier – prompting one scientist to remark that: “What you are looking at is both terrifying and beautiful”. Yes, these can feel like terrifying times, despite exhortations from Australia’s truth-proof political leadership to avoid anxiety and…

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