PERHAPS WE DO NEED to question our assumptions and beliefs a little more. New Scientist magazine (27 June 2009) recently carried a story challenging the Gaia Theory developed by Bristish atmospheric scientist, James Lovelock. Lovelock, recently criticised by environmentalists and the anti-nuclear lobby for his acceptance of nuclear energy as a means or ameliorating climate  Read more »

JAMES BOYCE’S BOOK, Van Diemens Land, is a tale of how geography and environment can influence culture. The culture in question is that developed by convicts who were landed at the time that the colony was founded in 1803. Until the 1820s, when things changed to become harsher for convicts, they formed the majority of  Read more »

A FRIEND OF MINE now avoids the popular practice of taking a break or meeting friends in cafes. It’s not that she has suddenly become anti-social or that she has taken a dislike to our national beverage, coffee. It’s just that she finds cafes and coffee bars to be too… well… too noisy. “I don’t  Read more »

THEY CAME FROM COUNCILS and health services, NGOs and universities, farms and government… and they filled the NSW Parliament House theatre to capacity. This was no convention of the curious. It was the launch event for the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance’s (SFFA) drive to develop a food policy for NSW. The impetus from the well-attended  Read more »

I’ve just finished reading William Gibson’s Spook Country, his most recent novel. Having now put it aside, I guess I’m trying to gather some thoughts about it. That remains a largely incomplete project and scenes from the book buzz around my head in a largely disconnected and somewhat random way. Gibson is noted as a  Read more »

Talk about rapid response. Within a couple days of Michael Shuman finishing his Brisbane address, something like $36,000 had been raised to set up a local economic initiative. It seemed like the idea of LEI’s – Local Economic Initiatives – that emerged in the 1970s only to soon disappear, had been reborn. Michael is an  Read more »

The City of Sydney’s community garden tours help locals get started in community gardening…