The reach of climate change encircles the world
Reach of climate change
Having grown up in London, I read with interest David Crowe's description of life there under climate change (' The heat is on in London and it's turned deadly ', 19/7).
They have many problems with out-of-date infrastructure like buses and housing. It is encouraging that much is being done overthere, like conserving water and using more appropriate species of plants.
My former home city is a case study in climate action and inaction. More could have been done sooner, but short-term political and financial interests often got priority. Now London has sweaty buses and hundreds of extra deaths in worsening heatwaves.
There is also inadequate action in Australia and elsewhere. The Age on Saturday carries other relevant stories, including of Victorian farmers helping each other after a severe drought, withextra farm costs pushing up prices of lamb and beef in our supermarkets.
Another article describes how the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is threatened by rising seas and coastal erosion. Many Tuvaluans want to migrate to Australia.
Impacts of the climate crisis will be relevant more and more in our news, and in our lives.
John Hughes, Mentone
Out-of-touch Liberals
The charmless and contrarian attitude of the Liberal Party is on full display with its claim that Anthony Albanese's trip to China is 'indulgent' (at least they didn't go so far as to call it a junket). It must really gall them that in a little over three years the relationship with China – our biggest trading partner by far and one with which we have a significant trade surplus – has so dramatically improved. But then it was Peter Dutton who said we must prepare for war, and although he didn't say it out loud, it seemed pretty obvious which country he was referring to. So I guess for them nothing has really changed, except that they have proven to be even more out of touch with what Australians want from their government.
Brandon Mack, Deepdene
Left behind
Columnist Jake Niall has only scratched the surface (″ A fix to AFL's flawed fixture ″, 18/7). For a ″fair″ competition to exist there is only one way this can happen. Like virtually all other national team sport competitions, each team plays each other team twice, once at home and once away. In this respect the AFL is a national disaster, and the AFL should have been working towards something like this when it first formed decades ago. Increasingly it is moving further and further away.
This dimension of unfairness within the competition (there are many others eg, variations in the interpretation of rules between and within umpires) is why I have no interest in the game now. It is so unfair.
Ian Anderson, Maldon
Not wild about this AFL
Wildcard rounds exist in US professional sports as part of, or entry to, the competition's final series. Many of these competitions are split into conferences, and then divisions, with division winners typically gaining automatic entry to the finals. However, you can have the situation where the runner-up in one division has a superior record to the winner of another division. Wildcard games give well-performed teams who did not win their division a chance to play in the finals.
The AFL sports media has been constantly raising a proposed extension of the current finals system by a week, with 7th playing 10th, and 8th playing 9th, prior to the regular finals and persist in calling this a ″wildcard″ round. There is nothing wild about it, it's just another week of finals in a competition without conferences.
Pedantry aside, extending the AFL finals series to 10th would reward inferior teams. In the past 10 years, only two teams finishing 10th have won more than 50 per cent of their games – Fremantle last year (12 wins and a draw) and Geelong in 2015 (12 wins). In the same period, four teams finished 10th winning fewer than half of their games. Do we really want teams with a losing record to be playing finals?
Mark Southby, Oakleigh
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The Age
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- The Age
Australia news LIVE: Morrison tells US Congress Australia ‘going to sleep' on China threat; top court makes key climate ruling
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Sydney Morning Herald
a few seconds ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Australia news LIVE: Morrison tells US Congress Australia ‘going to sleep' on China threat; top court makes key climate ruling
Latest posts Latest posts 6.47am Labor going backwards on transparency, new analysis finds Labor is hiding information from the public more often than the Morrison government despite campaigning on a platform of integrity, frustrating a critical accountability mechanism intended to maintain faith in bureaucrats and keep politicians honest. Analysis by the Centre for Public Integrity shows Canberra's culture of secrecy has sunk to its worst point in more than a decade, with the proportion of freedom of information requests released in full plunging from almost half in 2021-22 to just 25 per cent under Labor in 2023-24. The government is increasingly releasing documents to the public filled with black ink covering up key sections of text and Labor is more often ignoring Senate votes requesting details on policies and ministers' decision-making. Independent senator David Pocock said the data under Anthony Albanese's watch was shameful compared to the prime minister's predecessor, Scott Morrison. 6.37am Australians 'going to sleep' on China threat, Morrison tells US Congress By Michael Koziol Former prime minister Scott Morrison has told the United States Congress that Australians are at risk of 'going to sleep' on the security threat posed by China, and warned the US and its allies they must be prepared to wear economic pain to stand up to Beijing. Appearing before a congressional hearing on the Chinese Communist Party, Morrison cited polling by the Lowy Institute that showed, in 2025, 50 per cent of Australians said China was 'more of an economic partner to Australia', whereas 47 per cent said it was 'more of a security threat'. That had changed significantly from 2021-22, a time of strained relations between Canberra and Beijing, when 63 per cent said China was more of a security threat and 33 per cent said it was more of an economic partner. 'That is an objective of the CCP – that Western democracies will go to sleep on the threat,' Morrison told the hearing. 6.35am What's making news today By Daniel Lo Surdo Hello and welcome to the national news live blog. My name is Daniel Lo Surdo, and I'll be helming our live coverage this morning. Here's what is making news today: The Albanese government will march forward with its legislative agenda after introducing two key draft laws on Wednesday. Labor is hoping the passage of its legislative agenda will be expedited behind support from the Coalition, which also appears receptive to its student debt reduction bill. It comes after the first question time of the 48th parliament on Wednesday, with the government and opposition exchanging blows spanning topics including housing affordability, climate change policy and superannuation tax reform. Former prime minister Scott Morrison has warned the United States Congress that Australians are at risk of 'going to sleep' on the security threat posed by China, and warned the US and its allies they must be prepared to wear economic pain to stand up to Beijing. He later told reporters that Australians' level of awareness of the security threat posed by China had clearly diminished significantly over the past three years. Countries besieged by the effects of climate change can legally pursue their neighbours for reparations if they fail to uphold their obligations to curb emissions, a top court has found. The historic advisory ruling was handed down by the International Court of Justice, and paves the way for massive compensation claims in a case brought by a group of law students from Vanuatu.
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Australians ‘going to sleep' on China threat, Morrison tells US Congress
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