Letters to the Editor
Tobacco, not alcohol, causes most harm in Australia
April 15, 2025
Ross Fitzgerald correctly asserts that alcohol is a significant sources of illness, trauma, premature death and social distress for users and people close to them. However, in terms of its harm, alcohol is not by far Australia’s most dangerous drug. While the proportion of the Australian population that smokes tobacco has fallen dramatically, tobacco is still the drug which causes the most illness and premature death. In terms of disease burden in Australia (as measured with DALYs which combines premature death with years living with a disability), in 2024 tobacco was the top behavioural risk factor and alcohol was...
Peter Sainsbury from Sydney
In response to: For an alcoholic, abstinence is the surest path to long-term recovery
Not enough children or too many people?
April 15, 2025
In this article, the Edgars assume that by having more children we can maintain society as it is today. In the seventies when the Paul R. Ehrlich published The Population Bomb there were 2.5 billion people on Earth. It was a time of massive famines in Africa. Ehrlich warned that we had reached the limit of what the natural world could support without borrowing from the future. Young women, like I was then, concerned for others and the planet, adopted the meme replacement only. My husband and I had two children. It was considered immoral to have more...
Robyn Friend from Launceston
In response to: There Is No Future Without Children
Clues to a Dutton Government
April 15, 2025
Jack Waterford, while fairly critical of Peter Dutton, omits the latest clue to the nature of a Dutton-led Australia. Jacinta Price, full of confidence, announced to a campaign rally on 12 April that the Coalition would Make Australia Great Again. Dutton decided to go for broke at the ensuing press conference and gave Price free rein. She doubled down, saying ideologically-driven Labor was ruining the country, she would do an “audit” of government waste and “reset” the curriculum. Price openly aligns with far-right group Advance, which is committed to Australia being “centred once more on the founding freedoms of...
Fiona Colin from Melbourne
In response to: Federal Election: A different type of beauty contest
Population – it's all in the numbers
April 15, 2025
I am seeing an imbalance in articles extolling the virtues of immigration to Australia. There is no doubt that we benefit in so many ways, culturally, socially, via innovation, investment and economically. However, there appears to be little consideration of the cost of an increasing population. The question is, what is the right number and mix? World population growth is the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gasses and global heating. Growing populations encroach on prime agricultural land, they require more water and energy. They displace wildlife and reduce the areas available for outdoor recreation. Growing populations require a massive...
Geoff Rohan from Canberra ACT
In response to: If I was Immigration Minister I would develop a population plan: Abul Rizvi
Belgrano, war crime?
April 14, 2025
I'm not defending any war or actions, wish we could end them all today. However, the sinking of the Belgrano has never been declared a war crime except by a few groups of anti-war protesters. Even the captain, Hector Bonzo, stated years later, It was not a war crime but an act of war.
Jerry Cartwright from Perth
In response to: submarines-are-not-instruments-of-peace-a-q
Lack of transparency at Four Corners
April 14, 2025
Reading Marcus Reubenstein's article made the penny drop. I watched the Four Corners program and had felt very uncomfortable with the overly hawkish reporting. Where was the balance, I thought. In fact, the ABC had omitted to let the viewers know that this was an American production (PBS), was from last year and had been edited. Shame on the ABC.
Einion Thomas from Woombah NSW 2469
In response to: ABC has Four Corners with just one angle: Anti-China Media Watch
Australia unlikely to hold inquiry into AUKUS
April 14, 2025
Years ago I had the opportunity to make a submission to the UK inquiry on Iraq headed by Lord Chilcot. Our own government never held one. Today readers of P and I have the opportunity to make submissions on AUKUS to the UK parliamentary inquiry, as our own parliament has shown no signs of opening up the debate. Here is the portal. Good on the SMH for pushing for an Australian inquiry, but don’t hold your breath.
Geoff Taylor from Perth, WA
In response to: AUKUS turning point – Sydney Morning Herald calls for review
Trump's days in the White House may well be numbered
April 14, 2025
I do not believe Donald Trump is going to be in office for very long. Vance is being quiet because he suspects this to be the case. Yes, Australia needs to get rid of AUKUS and buy military weapons from a range of suppliers, including Japan and the EU. We need weapons for defence, not ones that help us join the US in more wars. As soon as Labor wins the election, they need to start taxing mining companies that are getting our resources free. The money needs to be used to build housing and lots of it....
Louise O'Brien from Sydney Australia
In response to: Trump
New defence minister needed after election
April 14, 2025
It is good to see the persistent P&I campaign on this key strategic and economic matter bearing fruit. I would say that the recent public interventions by Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating were also crucial. Reviewing AUKUS is now clearly on the mainstream agenda for the next government. We need a new defence minister as part of a desirable post-election reshuffle. Richard Marles is too compromised; he is a US defence industry mouthpiece now.
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: AUKUS turning point – Sydney Morning Herald calls for review
The end of genuine, independent analysis on Syria in P&I?
April 11, 2025
Many Australians may agree with Barb Dadd’s views on Syria as they have been pushed by the mainstream media for 14 years. However, that should not be a reason to give them an airing on P&I when John Menadue, P&I’s founder, has made a point of wanting to tackle the issues swept aside by mainstream media. He wrote, Consistently, Pearls and Irritations publishes informed analysis and commentary on issues that matter to Australians… If you google Pearls and Irritations + Syria, you will find a long list of articles on Syria by analysts such as Dr Jeremy Salt (former...
Susan Dirgham from Melbourne
In response to: Where is Assad now? And why do the world's worst men get away with it?
It's time to rethink socialist principles amid the ruins of neoliberalism
April 11, 2025
Most of the social problems we now face in this country have slowly evolved since the rise of neoliberalism. I say slowly evolved because neoliberalism has profited by leaching the fat from government-built projects of the past e.g the PMG, Telstra and the NBN. How many times can one government-built institution be sold off? (I’m told the retrieval of the copper PMG network is still profitable) How many times can these privatised companies come back with their hands out to fix no reception black spots? In South Australia, the them LNP premier bought a variety of electricity supply companies...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: It’s time to rethink socialist principles amid the ruins of neoliberalism
Trump is like a bee in a bottle
April 10, 2025
Re Wang Wen’s article today. The tariff war has seemingly been more or less staved off for 90 days for most countries except for China, only hours after being activated. In which time, according to Donald Trump, US$2 billion has already been collected. Why the pause? Well, according to Trump, “[he] thought that people were getting a bit yippy, a little bit afraid.” “It looked pretty glum, I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history. He said: ”I know what the hell I’m doing”. “No other president would have done what I did. ”World...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Will there be a war between China and the US?
Was Assad really responsible for chemical attacks on his own people?
April 10, 2025
This article begins with the following unproven allegations: Remember Bashar al-Assad? The man who crushed his own people under a mountain of rubble and fear? Who turned peaceful protests into mass graves, dropped barrel bombs on neighbourhoods, and used chemical weapons on children? Seymour Hersh, among many, many others, including UN investigators, who refused to sign the trumped-up report on the so-called chemical attacks, have proven that the lies about Assad were equal to the charge that Saddam had WMDs. Why does Pearls and Irritations publish these US claims, crap and propaganda?
Dieter Barkhoff from Melbourne
In response to: Where is Assad Now?
Perhaps reading the truth might answer some of Barb’s questions
April 10, 2025
No doubt Barb Dadd writes with the best of intentions but linking Bashar al-Assad to some of the world’s worst villains is wide of the mark. Assad was a victim of the United States' wrong-headed desire for regime change to benefit its national resource exploiters to the detriment of the host country. To that end it armed rebel Muslim extremist groups and set them to undermine the Assad regime. Russia supported Assad (who headed a secular Christian country). But with the aid of US weaponry, the Muslim extremists were able to oust Assad, replacing his regime with a...
Richard Creswick from Virginia, via Darwin
In response to: Where is Assad now?and why do the worlds worst men get away with it?
Article fails to address its title
April 10, 2025
I am surprised that John Stace's article fails to consider informed media commentary about the degree of involvement of the Israeli military in the events immediately following the Hamas breakout and attacks which occurred on 7 October, 2023. There was no mention of the Israeli military's Hannibal doctrine or of the role of the military's helicopter gunships in the violence which occurred after the attacks commenced, or of their impact on Israeli party-goers attending the rave event that had been curiously relocated to the very edge of Gaza and inadequate security offered for the event. There was no...
Bruce Foskey from Blackwood, Vic
In response to: Was Israel Complicit in the 7 October 2023 Massacre?Article
Trump’s irresponsible insouciance
April 9, 2025
Bob Douglas’ article raises the existential threats facing us. Yet Trump has just boosted coal and is ending any US green plan. His latest statement that [any resulting sea level rise] will increase the amount of waterfront property is just mindblowingly stupid and callous. In parts of the Pacific, it threatens to sink all property.
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Can our human species be rescued?
Is this WIN News article true?
April 9, 2025
I have not seen any confirmation of the veracity of this article in the mainstream media. I have checked Snopes who also cannot trace its veracity. If it is actually happening, why isn’t it all over the media? I would really like to know the truth and not some dreamt-up thought bubble analysis. Editor's note: Not sure what you consider to be a reliable publication, but you can read a similar story on Bloomberg. There has been a genocide going on in the Gaza Strip for more than a year, but one does not see coverage...
Jaqui Fitch from Sydney
In response to: US LNG crippled as Australia seizes US$1.5B trade overnight
If I were Albanese...
April 9, 2025
If I were Anthony Albanese, I would say that Peter Dutton has no policies of his own, that all his policies are copied from Trump and that you only have to look at the US to see what will happen in Australia if Dutton is elected. If I were running as an independent, I would promise to cut all ties with the US, cancel all contracts and accords, and remain friendly, but not friends. Before you ask why should Albanese have the same policy, remember this is a small target election. But I would adopt the independent position...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: if-i-were-the-minister-for-health
Should we now look to join BRICS?
April 9, 2025
Now that ANZUS is superseded and presumably AUKUS is as dead as can be, we should be looking for a group of friends who are more naturally connected to Australia. Geographically – Indonesia, Malaysia,Thailand, Vietnam. Trade – China, and India. British background – South Africa Perhaps we are more naturally associated with BRICS and now is a good time to open some diplomatic dialogue about Australia joining this organisation. It would presumably take about five years for such work to bear fruit. BRICS appears to be a very tolerant organisation so we should fit in rather nicely....
Graham Revill from Chelsea, Victoria
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
Donald Trump and climate change
April 8, 2025
While we are all seriously concerned about Donald Trump's tariff war, we need to take even more seriously, his recurrent war against climate change action. His withdrawal for a second time from the global agreement on climate change action, and his interest in the promotion of company profits (including fossil fuel companies), should be deeply concerning to our nation’s leaders. The world is already suffering deeply, from droughts, floods and fires, that are influenced by fossil fuel emissions. Our two major Australian political parties are divided on climate change action. While one is committed to renewables and batteries, with...
Em Prof Bob Douglas AO from Bruce, ACT
In response to: Trump’s tariffs deliver a harsh truth for Australia
Members of RCEP are worst hit by tariffs
April 7, 2025
All but three of the countries you cite as being mostly heavily affected by US tariffs, are members of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes China and Australia. We’ll just have to put more effort into that. There is also still APEC, but I guess the US’ membership of that is effectively ended by Trump, and Russia’s membership is problematic.
Geoff Taylor from Perth, Western Australia
In response to: A message from the editor
Never get between bullies in a fight
April 4, 2025
I agree that climate is a major game and sinking archipelagos (Indonesia etc) are a major issue. To paraphrase the leader of the opposition, will they be swimming to a crowded north or empty south? It’s all very nice to say that in every war game attended, the US lost but there is no mention of how allies (friends) in a bully brawl are the first to suffer. If it came to a nuclear war, the main players will not bomb each others. if they do so it will only be as a last resort. Australia will be...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: In every China-US war game scenario I've seen, America has lost
On the subject of tariffs
April 4, 2025
What is the position on tariffs on the supplies (I presume) Australian businesses sell to the multitude of US bases and embassy in our country on our soil? I understand their embassy is considered to be on their soil. I think Australia has no jurisdiction over their ships and subs and don’t know about their troops barracked in our bases and Pine Gap. What they eat there is top secret, though I believe there once was a booming market in US muscle cars coming in via a secret installation near Alice Springs. .
Bob Pearce from Canberra
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
It is time to take BRICS seriously
April 4, 2025
Thank you for Paul Keating’s article. For me, I wonder, can I buy from Australia’s Antarctic Program a robotic penguin made in Heard Island, now subject to Trump’s new tariff on electrical and mechanical equipment from that place? But seriously, he is quoted saying today in The Guardian that he now expects other nations will come crawling to him. That is not a successful approach to a bully. By the way, has Trump actually formally withdrawn the US from the WTO, which would seem to be a prerequisite to his announcement on tariffs yesterday? A very recent P and...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
Rigging the US market
April 4, 2025
Ever since markets have existed — over 5000 years — unscrupulous individuals have known how to rig them. The usual trick is to drive prices up, sell out to promote a crash, then buy in at disaster prices – and get very rich. Amazingly, America, that cynosure of smart business, does not seem to get the Trump gameplan: it is to crash the US economy so his billionaire mates can swoop in and snap up the best pieces at bargain basement prices. Stock exchanges usually have strict rules against this behaviour – but there is no law that...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: Trump’s tariffs mean death knell
Has the world gone mad?
April 4, 2025
Paul Keating is right to question thevalidity of any treaty with the US. There’s every indication that America, socially and economically, is now in the grip of a pirate gang of fanatics hellbent on assaulting any order that sits outside their credulous world image and shown they’ll plundering what they can from whomever they can, even their fellow Americans, in total disregard of the consequences. The evidence is clear. Scattergun targeted tariffs have overturned the global economic barrow. Internal descent has been punished financially and government functionality dismantled. Trumpian puppeteers have control of social media, and the constitutionally authorised...
John Mosig from Melbourne
In response to: Keating says Trump’s tariffs mean death knell for NATO and ANZUS
The failure of Peter Slezak's words
April 3, 2025
Peter Slezak writes, In fact, there has never been any antisemitism at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime. Peter knows very well that there is, and was, antisemitism in Australia, but he chooses, not merely to discount it, but to reject it entirely. If he was speaking at a different rally and had said, In fact, there has never been any Islamophobia at our rallies, at universities or anywhere in Australia in my lifetime, people in the Muslim community would be shocked at the ignorance of such a statement. Perhaps that's the...
Harold Zwier from Melbourne
In response to: Peter Slezak’s speech to the University of Technology Sydney rally on 26 March
Reject fearful militarism
April 3, 2025
Gareth Evans writes I totally accept that defence planning always has to be based on worst case assumptions. This voter doesn't accept that. I reject preoccupations with power and weapons. To varying degrees, I fear, loathe and despise them. I like it that Evans puts his argument in tension with decency and prudence, but he doesn't include ethics, neutrality or pacifism. Too many Labor pollies have gotten their jollies from guns and being power hungry.
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Pursuing Australia’s national interests in a ‘Might is Right’ world
Albanese should have left before it’s too late
April 1, 2025
The thing that Labor should have learnt from the US election is to jump ship early, get out before you're told to go (not that Dutton has the charisma of Trump) , and take the subs with them. Albanese and Marles should have stood aside for Chalmers and Plibersek straight after the failure of the Voice vote. Albanese, the loyal workhorse, and Marles, a tin soldier more worried about how his ADF uniform looks than working, neither capable of being dynamic leaders, should have walked all over Dutton, the broken dynamo from the past. But they haven’t! That...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: labors-in-with-a-fighting-chance-but-mu
Only global government can save us from ourselves
March 31, 2025
Growing up in the sixties, under the threat of nuclear annihilation, our mantra was we’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time. It is our generation, and our offspring, who now govern our planet and its major institutions. We’ve never lost that mantra. As Julian Cribb shows, in the decades since we have, through our unsustainable consumption and lack of concern for the environment which hosts us, so damaged our environment that it could become virtually uninhabitable. The rapidly shrinking glaciers, which provide so much of the fresh water on which we, and other...
Chris Young from Surrrey Hills, Victoria
In response to: Delete the Earth
Columbia's capitulation costs
March 31, 2025
This capitulation by US universities will surely have them plummetting down the global rankings.
Andrew Nichols from Dunedin, Aotearoa
In response to: Ivy League Convulsions - will we be next?
Australia buys Brooklyn Bridge (submarines )
March 31, 2025
This informative story in The Guardian makes one wonder how a spirited tabloid might have headlined it. Perhaps, “Slippery US submarine team collects the loot, then delivers a ‘sorry Bruce’ message to Down Under chumps. Have I got a deal for you? I've got a vote for the party that dumps the deal.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trashed-74
The need for submarines
March 31, 2025
Peter Briggs presents a strong case for the value and advantage of nuclear submarines over conventional submarines as well as their advantages for an island nation. However the article needs to be read in the context of what is critical to the security of this country and how best to address that. The greatest immediate threat to our security is the impact of global warming and Australia's defence resources should be focused on that. Nuclear submarines are not likely to be part of Australia's naval defence fleet until the 2040s, if ever. Meanwhile, we face extreme weather events which...
Les Mitchell from Port Macquarei NSW
In response to: Why does Australia need submarines? By Peter Briggs
Why Australia needs Australian submarines
March 31, 2025
A convincing article. I’m convinced, Now convince me why they need to be nuclear. Where do we store the waste? Why we need to buy them from the US? Most importantly, why have we waited until the locally made product was so far past its use-by-date that we find ourselves in our current dilemma? Looks to me like our ADF and politicians have got it very wrong, given a lifecycle of 25 years before major refit. That’s five LNP and three Labor governments and a lot of generals who haven’t done their well-paid jobs.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: why-does-australia-need-submarines
Pacifism and neutrality
March 31, 2025
I particularly like Marcus Rubinstein's sceptical stance regarding expectations of war, and especially the calls Australia should respond with armaments. I have read with concern the reports of China's intentions regarding imminent invasion of Taiwan. I feel pity for those who could be invaded, and living in apprehension, and wonder about the extent of China's war pose. Could it possibly be as bad as the US? No, says Rubenstein. I know that only neutrality and pacifism could make me proud to be Australian. Peter Briggs's argument for AUKUS is laudable for its quiet rationality, but it recreates and...
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Anti-China Media Watch
Hooray for Barb Dadd!
March 31, 2025
Yes indeed, mainstream politics and politicians aren't working, and we the people might could should withhold payment. But take it a little further, perhaps? Party politics is largely broken, and Lib and Lab parties have long existed in order to hold power. Hence, Anthony Albanese said early in this term, I intend to be in power a long time and Keir Starmer undermined Jeremy Corbyn and then triumphantly declared, Labour is not the party of protest. Party politics has destroyed democracy all over the world. Party politics is illegitimate and due to be abolished. Vote independent!
Henry Sheerwater from Taroona
In response to: Who’s really the boss? Taking back control of government
Hegseth’s tatts and the Christchurch shooter
March 31, 2025
The five-minute scroll 105 notes the bombing of Yemen. Some years ago the Christchurch shooter killed 51 Muslim worshippers. His inscriptions in Georgian channeled 400-year-old battles against Muslims in eastern Europe. At the beginning of this week of 24 March, 53 were killed in Yemen by US air weaponry. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly has tattoos including one channeling the 1000-year-old Crusader fight against Muslims, and one with the word “kafir”, meaning an unbeliever in Muslim eyes. In an “accidentally” released Signal message, he was shown to be ordering actions which would inevitably cause similar killings, but...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: A five minute scroll
Climate security risks abound
March 28, 2025
Thank you to David Spratt for highlighting the issue of Climate Change and National Security. As independent Senator David Pocock has suggested, the government sitting on the Office of National Intelligence’s Climate Risk Assessment report since early 2023 is “recklessly negligent” (“Exclusive: Secret briefings on climate national security risk”, The Saturday Paper, 15/3). The public deserve to be informed and have the ability to hold the government accountable to act on such reports. Commendably, independent MP Dr Monique Ryan recently hosted what was considered to be the first public forum about Climate Change and Security in Australia. Former Chief...
Amy Hiller from Kew
In response to: Government refuses to articulate 'frankly terrifying' security risks
Queens and WA land rights
March 28, 2025
David Lee’s article brings back memories of what could have been from just over 40 years ago. Senator Susan Ryan got a bill through the Senate for land rights in Queensland in 1982-3. Here in WA we in the Aboriginal Treaty Support Group crafted a land rights act for WA based on Senator Ryan’s bill. Senator Michael Macklin, Australian Democrats, was having it prepared by parliamentary counsel and announced in the Canberra Times in November 1982 so that it would be introduced. The WA Burke government introduced a much watered down bill in the mid-80s, but it failed to...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Gove and the native title revolution
The democratic police state of Australia
March 28, 2025
For whatever arguably good reason these laws are passed they eventually apply to any other good cause that the public may be protesting about. Any curtailing of our right to peaceful protest moves us closer to the dictatorial/fascist states we see on our nightly news and the violence that invariably follows them. We have sufficient laws about damage, graffiti, violence and freedom of speech without politicising everything and every opinion. My concern is not that we have too many public servants, it’s that we have too many politicians with nothing better to do than pass laws only...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: behind-australias-antisemitism-hoax
American attitude to China
March 27, 2025
Jimmy Stewart made many movies. In 1960, he made The Mountain Road, set in China in 1944, when America was supposedly helping China against Japan. Stewart's character slowly developed an antipathy to the people he was helping and the final scenes escalate as the innocent Chinese villagers become collateral damage in his attack against Chinese brigands. (Yes, some Chinese fought anyone with whom they crossed paths). Some say it was Stewart's anti-war movie, but I cannot help but notice comparisons with American attitudes to Asians, especially Chinese, today. A lot of collateral damage can be expected if a...
Ian Bowrey from Hamilton South
In response to: Australia-China relations: A question of trust
What did you do in the war, Daddy?
March 27, 2025
We boomers asked our fathers what they did in WWII. How many children of this generation will ask their parents what they did during the Palestinian genocide when the major victims of WWII did their level best to wipe Palestine and Palestinians off the map? I suggest there won't be any equivalent of the many Holocaust memorials. Not enough people care to see that the same and worse is happening now, committed by the descendants of those memorialised in those museums. They won't want to be shamed in the future. We haven't made a mark on our government...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: The last chapter of the genocide
What budget? What democracy?
March 27, 2025
If nothing else, the recent events and behaviour of both major parties proves to me that we don’t live in a democracy and never have and that there is little point in a budget. The weeks leading up to the budget should be parliamentary leave without pay. What point is a budget when without any transparent discussion in Parliament the then prime minister can sign off on $300 billion and counting that wasn’t included in their own last budget? How can the present prime minister actively pursue the commitment of Australian troops to a peace-keeping force or the...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-fundamental-problem-at-the-heart-of-defence-policy/
Future of Americans loyal to Trump working in DIO
March 26, 2025
Jack Waterford presents a masterly piece of analysis. In P and I on August 3, 2023, Mike Scranton described the setting up of the Combined Intelligence Centre (CIC-A) within DIO, which includes US intelligence analysts. Well, Alan Kohler in ABC online on Monday called the Trump presidency a regime. We have our Australian Government Personnel Security Adjudicative Standard, which among other items includes loyalty to Australia. In view of the loyalty of US citizens to Mr Trump and the rapid changes for the worse in both US internal and external policies, what should happen about the American analysts...
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: We can’t unscramble the AUKUS and ANZUS eggs
Titanic struggle for the climate
March 26, 2025
The World Meteorological Organisation’s just-published ‘State of the Global Climate 2024’ report makes sobering reading. While the world is not yet beyond the possibility of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees, achieving this will need a co-ordinated global effort. The report shows many climate risk markers at dangerous levels. The WMO say that they ‘are intensifying efforts to strengthen early warning systems and climate services to help decision-makers and society at large be more resilient to extreme weather and climate’. At the same time, as Bruce Thom reported, Donald Trump is reversing American climate policies, downsizing the National...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: ‘Never happened before’: WMO finds past 10 years have been 10 hottest on record
Five-minute scroll provides invaluable information
March 26, 2025
I would like to commend the Pearls and Irritations team that gives us A five-minute scroll. I often find the information given invaluable. Today was no exception. I also call on the international community to do more to prevent the erasure of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. Apathy and indifference kills. Albert Einstein pointed out that the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch and do absolutely nothing.
Beverley Dight from Canberra
In response to: A five-minute scroll
I’m forever blowing thought bubbles
March 25, 2025
Where do our First Nations People fit into this discussion? They may well want to send us all home with our First Nations/Australian dual citizenship. Would it require a referendum to fix and how much is budgeted by our superior economic manager leader of the oppose everything party?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: dutton-has-no-idea-about-the-constitution
Dutton has no idea about the Constitution
March 25, 2025
Peter Hughes' excellent article in response to the usual thought bubble that emanates from Peter Dutton's 'pea brain amply illustrates why the latest is a horrible idea. In response, one has to ask how this would manifest itself as an amendment; Would it add another sub-paragraph to s51 or would it (like the failed Communist Party referendum of the 1950s, equally ill-considered) be a new section 51A and exactly what would it say? If the point is to stop antisemitism or anti-islam or similar persecution, would it mention these by name? If it were to focus on the...
Wes Mason from Gisborne, Victoria
In response to: Devaluing Australian citizenship
The population has exploded
March 25, 2025
In his rambling complaint about forecasting, Stan Glaser overlooks one salient detail: Ehrlich, broadly, got it right. When he wrote The Population Bomb in 1967 there were 3.4 billion humans and today there are 8.2 billion. The bomb exploded by 241%. However, in 1967 nobody foresaw the success of the Green Revolution in sustaining the boom in numbers. Ehrlich predicted famine, because that was what was happening in overpopulated countries at the time – but not the success in doubling the world food supply. His book was intended as a caution — as it still is — of...
Julian Cribb from Canberra, ACT
In response to: The science of being absolutely wrong