Mar 25, 2021From the ashes: art, activism and Fiona Lee’s “Carbon Tax”At the end of the small rectangular room, the eye is immediately drawn to two screens sitting on rusted saw horses alongside each other. On one, video footage of a green, still, scene with no clear subject. As you watch it, a small quail forages on a bare patch of…7 min read7 min read
Dec 13, 2020Change without return: postcard of a northern NSW holidayIt is because of the joy in my heart that I am your fit mourner. Judith Wright “Letter to a Friend” Part of 2020’s breakdown story for me is personal: at the age of 41, the partnership of love and labour that defined my life in my twenties and thirties…Climate Change8 min readClimate Change8 min read
May 19, 2020Nothing will come of nothingThe story of Australia’s failed attempt to create an emissions trading scheme in 2009 has been contested ever since, but the dramatic split the situation caused in the environment movement is not often part of the re-telling. Here’s how I saw the events of that fateful year. There’s a segment…Climate18 min readClimate18 min read
Apr 30, 2020Who is that knocking?Something is knocking. Entities with forgotten names roam beyond our walls, and hammer on the roof for attention. Some of us are watching at the windows, waiting. Some huddle, or hoard. Some had forgotten there was an outside at all. … I attended a strategy meeting a few years ago…Climate6 min readClimate6 min read
Jan 16, 2020Five things I’ve learnedTo have without possessing, to do without claiming, lead without controlling: this is mysterious power Tao Te Ching Chapter 51. Translated by Ursula Le Guin Dante’s Inferno famously begins something like this: “Midway upon the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest, the right path lost.” After…Climate Change7 min readClimate Change7 min read
Jun 28, 2019Where my anger sitsHere’s what I want to do: Sit down somewhere and not get up. Greta showed us that sitting down can be catalytic, when it channels the hearts and souls of millions. I don’t want to sit in front of traffic. I don’t want to hold people up on their weary…Climate Change3 min readClimate Change3 min read
Jun 3, 2019Panic and emptiness: climate activism and the emergency response“And the goblins — they had not really been there at all? They were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return…Climate Change9 min readClimate Change9 min read
