As I said on Twitter yesterday, there can surely be no greater honour than having a Category 5 hurricane named after you. Thank you, members of the Academy, and I hope that Hurricane Rick blows itself out before coming ashore.

(This item is my entry for Blog Action Day October 15, 2009. It has also been posted to Earthwitness.)

There are times when it is really frustrating to be an Australian. We're in a great position to be a world leader in renewable energy production. Our politicians think so too... but only after they change the definition of "renewables".

Something very noticeable about local television when I was in Newcastle for a few days last week were the frequent ads featuring a chappie from the Central Highlands Regional Council speaking on behalf of the Australian Coal Commission and promoting its Orwellian "cut emissions not jobs" website. With the Newcastle viewing area being host to a number of collieries, this was clearly one of the areas that the ACC was targeting with an intense advertising campaign.

In 1987 Midnight Oil released one of the greatest songs about Australia ever recorded. A song forever associated, through its chorus, with the campaign for indigenous land rights, the official music video a work of art in itself which is, frame by frame, etched into my brain and that of many other Australians of grandchild-bearing age.