Welcome to the October Environment issue! Highlights include:
- Stephen Orr’s Eucalypt Fellowship essay, ‘Ambassadors from another time’
- Mark Edele on the centenary of the Russian Revolution
- Susan Reid on the proposed Adani Carmichael Coal Mine
- Tim Flannery’s review of Call of the Reed Warbler
- Beejay Silcox on Michelle de Kretser’s new novel
- A photo essay by Philip Jones
- Open Page with Josephine Wilson
October 2017, no. 395
‘Ambassadors from Another Time’ by Stephen Orr
First, I need to visit Dean Nicolle’s eucalypt arboretum. Four hundred rows of trees, four specimens of each species of Eucalyptus, Corymbia, and Angophora (the eucalypts) nestled together, sharing pollen and landscape, dropping limbs in the grass. Each group of trees is a result of the previous year’s fieldwork. The year ...
'Why should you care about the Russian Revolution?' by Mark Edele
‘What about Lenin do you admire most?’ Catherine Merridale, author of Lenin on the Train (2016), answered as most historians would: ‘I can’t think of anything much to admire.’ That this question could be asked at all in 2017 shows that the Russian Revolution continues to fascinate. Such continuities with the mental world of ...
'Adani and the Galilee Basin' by Susan Reid
No amount of modelling or scientific assessment can foresee the full extent of the damage that will eventuate if the Adani Group’s Carmichael Coal Mine goes ahead. It would be the largest coal mine ever built in Australia and amongst the biggest in the world, extended over a thirty-kilometre-long area and comprising six open cut ...
Beejay Silcox reviews 'The Life to Come' by Michelle de Kretser
Humans are narrative creatures. We tell stories to make sense of ourselves, but our stories – be they historical, political, fictional, or personal – shape us as much as we shape them. In the service of narrative expediency, we often sacrifice nuance. We turn chan ...
