Danicley Aguiar

A lot of misinformation has been circulating online that puts all the blame for Australia’s unprecedented fires on arson or green policies – anything other than climate change. Spreading the myth that most fires were deliberately lit is a diversion that is both dangerous and wrong.

Like many ecologists, every week I read announcements about a new “game changing” technology that promises to turn our ecological crisis around. The game rarely changes. Knepp wildland © Charlie Burrell Governments and corporations cling to the belief that the world economy can grow forever, even as resources are depleted and carbon emissions keep increasing.

Those who set out to “change the world,” may discover that common sense is not always common, that status quo institutions resist change even as they pay lip service to new ideas, and that even social change institutions can stumble over old habits of hierarchy, money, or power. How does real, enduring change actually occur in a complex social and biological environment? Russian sailors reading Greenpeace literature on SOLO, Kara Sea.