Welcome to Lyrebird Dreaming, where Indigenous wisdom meets visionary leadership led by Gregory Andrews.
The virus is unavoidable. But an extinction crisis should not be. This is me on Christmas Island back in 2014, when I was Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner, meeting an endangered Abbott’s booby. Sorry about the name. This Abbott has done nothing wrong! But joking aside, that photograph now carries a significance I couldn't have imagined at the time. The Abbott’s booby nests in only one…
Pauline Hanson is trying to distance One Nation from homophobia following remarks by a former One Nation candidate who described homosexuality as a “mental illness” and blamed parents for their children’s sexual orientation. Homosexuality hasn’t been classified as a mental illness in Australia for more than half a century. And even back then, that was wrong. Hanson says the comments don’t reflect…
Will 2026 be the hottest year ever recorded, or merely the second hottest? The answer will depend on which global temperature dataset is used. Some datasets place the projected 2026 temperature just above the 2024 record; others put it a few hundredths of a degree below. That distinction matters to climate scientists. But it means little to us, the communities confronting heatwaves, fires and…
Climate disasters often reveal something unexpected. Not just how vulnerable our landscapes have become, but how easily we mistake the real story. I was yarning with someone this week about the catastrophic fires sweeping through France. Their immediate response was, "Oh yes... this is really going to wreck French wines." I don't blame them. In fact, I suspect many of us would instinctively reach…
This week's #FloraAndFaunaFriday post is about Australia's endangered Gang-gang Cockatoo, one of our most iconic and distinctive birds. For many people living in the Canberra region like me, its creaking call is the sound of autumn. For Aboriginal people, including my own D'harawal community, Gang-gangs are more than that. They’re a part of Country. But sadly, Gang-gang populations are declining…
How often do we hear that renewable energy survives only because of government subsidies. Well the facts tell a very different story. A new report by WWF-Australia has found that Australia's Federal and state governments provide around four times more financial support to fossil fuels than to renewables. They put a total of $14.9 billion into fossil fuel subsidies in 2024-25, compared with $3.5…
For #FloraAndFaunaFriday this week, let’s talk about the Wallabies. Not Australia's rugby players. I'm talking about the small, cute, fury ones. Most people think a wallaby is simply a small kangaroo. That's broadly true, although the distinction isn't as scientifically tidy as you'd imagine. “Wallaby” is not a formal taxonomic category. It's a common name generally given to the smaller and…
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier is almost the size of Victoria, and more than two kilometres thick in places. It holds enough land-based ice to raise global sea levels by around 65 centimetres when fully melted. Now scientists believe its remaining eastern ice shelf - the floating extension that protects the glacier’s front - could break apart as early as this year. “The last bit of ice shelf in…
If you follow climate policy then you'll have heard of carbon offsets. The idea sounds logical enough. Rather than reducing all of its own emissions, a company can pay for emissions reductions somewhere else and claim those reductions against its own pollution. Supporters say offsets provide flexibility, lower costs and help with the 'transition' to 'net zero'. And in an ideal world perhaps they…
How Gaza is being divided, enclosed and transformed while the world looks the other way Most Australians have heard of the Berlin Wall which separated Germany during the Cold War. And many know of the Green Line that delineated Israel and the Palestinian Territories back in 1967. But few have ever heard of the Yellow Line. And if history judges our generation harshly over Gaza, it may very well be…
Artificial intelligence is increasing emissions, undermining renewable energy gains and threatening our environment. Artificial intelligence presents significant opportunities and benefits. It’s already helping doctors diagnose disease, scientists model climate change and businesses become more productive. But it has also arrived at a pivotal moment in the global energy transition. Just as the…
Every so often the Earth produces a signal that is impossible to ignore. This graph is one of them. It shows sea-surface temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific, one of the most important parts of the Earth's climate system. Each blue line represents a different year since 1982. The red line is this year. It doesn't just set a new record. It has departed entirely from the…
This week’s #FloraAndFaunaFriday post explores a survivor from deep time. Whenever I’m in the Kimberley, one of the things that always captivates me is the magnificent boab trees. Their swollen trunks, gnarled branches and incredible longevity make them unlike almost any other tree on Earth. And when I was serving as an Australian Ambassador in West Africa, I was surprised to find also their close…
My good friend and Aboriginal brother Lee Willis-Ardler died this week after a courageous battle with an aggressive brain tumour. Lee fought it for 12 weeks. His sisters Fiona and Gillian lovingly cared for him at home every day. I met Lee almost 20 years ago. He was one of those rare people whose friendship never comes with conditions. He was loyal. He was compassionate. He was generous in ways…
Carbon capture and storage sounded seductive right? Keep the coal mines. Keep the gas fields. Keep the LNG export terminals. Keep the profits. Keep the political donations. Then bolt on a giant industrial vacuum cleaner and bury the pollution somewhere underground. That was the promise. The problem is that the promise hasn’t survived contact with reality. A new investigation has sharpened what…
If you’ve been watching the Socceroos in the World Cup on SBS expecting to see football like me, you’ll know what I’m talking about. A barrage of gambling ads! According to analysis from the ABC, more than one in every three ads during SBS’s Socceroos coverage promoted online gambling. That’s on an Australian taxpayer-funded national broadcaster, and after the Albanese Government proudly announced…
Good climate news can feel rare. But this week, we got some. According to new analysis reported by The Driven, the number of vehicles registered in NSW with an internal combustion engine peaked on 27 February 2026 at 6,309,403. And now its declining. That includes petrol and diesel cars, vans, trucks, buses, motorcycles, hybrids and plug-in hybrids. This matters. Because for the first time, new…
Imagine you’re driving down the highway. Your engine temperature gauge creeps up into the red. The next day again. Then the next. Twenty-eight days in a row. Would you ignore the gauge or accuse it of alarmism? Would you insist it was exaggerating? Or would stop and you ask the obvious question: Why is my engine getting hotter and what can I do to fix it? Earth’s oceans are our temperature gauge.…
Climate, Country, human rights and accountability are too important to be trapped in old ideological boxes. One of the great distractions of our time is the idea that every serious issue must be forced into a left-wing or right-wing box. Climate change becomes “left wing”. Human rights become “left wing”. Accountability becomes “right wing”. Welfare reform becomes “right wing”. Caring for Country…
Australia’s biggest industrial polluters are supposed to be reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. That is the purpose of the Safeguard Mechanism, the federal government’s flagship policy for cutting emissions from large industrial facilities. On paper, it sounds like a sensible approach. The country’s largest emitters are each given an emissions limit, and those limits become progressively…