The New Look AQ: Australian Quarterly

Looking at Climate Change as only AQ can.

2012 may not have been the end of the world but many people believe that destruction still looms large over the human race. For the first issue of 2013 AQ: Australian Quarterly brings you a Climate Change Special Edition that looks beyond the science to interrogate the gaping chasm between acceptance and action.

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The Current Edition

It’s Global Warming, Stupid – Perceiving Climate Change

Tony Eggleton

Global warming itself is almost impossible for us to sense. On any day the temperature might vary by up to 20°C. From winter minima to summer maxima the range is at least twice that. Over the last 100 years the mean global temperature has risen by only about 1°C. Even though our lives may be too short for us to feel global warming, it is not too short for us to see the consequences. Yet learning to perceive these changes may not be as easy as it seems.

The Ethical Considerations of Climate Change

Laura D’Olimpio and Michael J O’Leary

A stated moral consideration is contained within article 4.2 of the Kyoto Protocol. It claims that developed countries have been responsible for the greatest increase in GHG in the atmosphere and therefore should take the lead in reducing emissions. Yet countries ethical considerations are overshadowed by detached cost-benefit analysis and economic rationalism; we are failing to prioritise moral and social implications alongside economic and political concerns to manage climate change. Are we not ‘global citizens’ with responsibilities not only to our own country but to the world in which we live?

7 years ago / 7 years on 

Peter McMahon

Looking back over the last seven tumultuous years of Australian politics, Peter McMahon offers comparative analysis of where the debate on climate change was in 2006 and now in 2013. Have the Greens cemented their place as the third power in Australian politics? Is our national political system showing its cracks under the twin pressures of the global financial crisis and the climate threat? And in the last seven has anything actually changed at all?

For the full text of Peter McMahon’s 2006 article ‘Global Crisis &Australian Politics: Time for the Greens to Make Their Move’ see here: Global Crisis – McMahon

Ignorance: There’s a lot of it about

Oliver Mayo

When it comes to ignorance, it is clear that our grasp exceeds our reach. We all command far more ignorance than we need, just as we mostly possess less knowledge than we could use. For as long as there has been consciousness there has been ignorance and we are all guilty of it. Be it unconscious or conscious, ignorance can used as a weapon or as a bastion against that with which we disagree. From Plato to climate change, Oliver Mayo delves into the many facets of not-knowing.

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Fresh Face – Bright new Future

Combining the same in depth analysis with new regular sections, AQ continues to discuss, dissect and inspire the big issues facing Australia today. Over the course of AQ’s 84 year history the magazine has had many faces, now is the time for a bold new revamp that will set an exciting new course for the magazine into the future of modern Australia.

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