Environment and Climate
What do we call this terrifying summer? The special bushfire edition of ABC’s Four Corners predictably called it Black Summer. Perhaps the name will stick, for it builds on a vernacular tradition. Firestorms are always given names, generally after the day of the week they struck. There are enough ‘Black’ days in modern Australian history to fill up a week several times over – Black Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays – and a Red Tuesday too, plus the grim irony of an Ash Wednesday. The blackness of the day evokes mourning and grief, the funereal silence of the forests after a firestorm. Black and still. And when the fires burn for months, a single Black Day morphs into a Black Summer.
... (read more)The Rising Tide: Among the islands and atolls of the Pacific Ocean by Tom Bamforth
‘We’ll be going this earth’: an environmental survey
To complement the reviews and commentaries in our Environment issue, we invited a number of writers and scholars to nominate a book that will give readers a better appreciation of the environment.
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The Australian outback has long been a muse for artists and storytellers. Australian flora – including the iconic eucalypt in its many forms – has the ability to tell a story about cultural identity and our rich history with the land. This extends to our urban landscape, with native plants common throughout our bustling city streets and parks – they can transf ...
The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat: A rodent history of Australia by Tim Bonyhady
Wind Turbine Syndrome: A communicated disease by Simon Chapman and Fiona Crichton
Project RAINFALL: The Secret History of Pine Gap by Tom Gilling
A Future History of Water by Andrea Ballestero & Anthropogenic Rivers by Jerome Whitington
Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s goldfields by Susan Lawrence and Peter Davies
Asbestos in Australia: From boom to dust edited by Lenore Layman and Gail Phillips
