Petra Tschakert: Geologist, Anthropologist, IPCC Scientist
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
"Overshoot means we consciously and willingly allow to go above 1.5 while waiting for the right technology...to then rapidly bring down the overshoot. It would fulfill the goal laid out in the Paris Agreement however the damage done on the way is tremendous. The obligation of scientists is to lay out different ( plausible) scenarios. Its governments and industries who then take these plausible scenarios and insist that we have the luxury to wait because technical solutions will save us in the end. The reason why this interpretation is so flawed (and I think this is when I cracked...
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Peter Newman: Environmental Scientist and Sustainable Transport expert
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
"We changed the world to start to see that automobile dependence was not a good thing...we were much hated by the automobile associations, the vehicle companies, the oil companies. They used to run people who would follow us everywhere. And they were given money to write papers attacking us." Professor Peter Newman reflecting on his work in the US with colleague Professor Jeff Kenworthy _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ WA Scientist of the Year in 2018, Peter Newman AO...
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Saul Griffith: Australia's Electric Future
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
If you follow thought leaders on the energy transition, you’ll be familiar with the hashtag Electrify Everything. The argument is that a huge proportion of ‘global energy needs’ can be met with electricity sourced from renewables – and to use it we simply need to – electrify everything. This is the message of Australian inventor and engineer Saul Griffith – recently returned from two decades in the US where he’s advised, among others, NASA and the Biden Administration. Saul Griffith's book, “The Big Switch – Australia’s Electric Future” details some very clear thinking...
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Paul Cleary: Yindjibarndi Native Title Fight
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
"I think it’s a scandal in this country that so much wealth is being extracted and Aboriginal people are no better off."
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Matthew Evans: Soil
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
The people who can sweep us along in their enthusiasm and can-do attitude offer solid foundations for optimism as we witness the earth struggling …and the solutions seem too much for us as individuals to contemplate.
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David Carter + Jeff Hansen: An Unlikely Alliance
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
It began with a deep sea cod. David Carter and Jeff Hansen
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Andrew Wear: Solved
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
Andrew Wear is a very experienced public policy expert from Melbourne. He’s worked across a vast array of different policy areas from Planning and Community, Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources and that came in handy when he decided to write a book that just generally looked at how some of the world’s biggest problems were being solved. The book is called SOLVED and it details how ten countries solved ten big problems from climate change to multiculturalism.
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Tom Cronin: The Portal
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
The idea of “saving the world” is one tossed out in a glib way in conversation, a grandiose statement few believe can manifest
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Matthew Kemp: Inventing the Artificial Womb
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
The idea of an artificial womb – a place where a prematurely born baby could continue to safely gestate closer to full term, is one scientists have worked on intermittently since the late 1950’s. Until recently it’s been considered a wild card, a fairly unorthodox angle on dealing with pre-term birth. In this conversation, Assoc Professor Matthew Kemp discusses the determination, dedication and serendipity that has gained the artificial womb project significant recognition.
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Dominic Smith: Writing The Electric Hotel
Rare Air with Meri Fatin
Dominic Smith's fifth novel The Electric Hotel is set around the birth of cinema, the three decades across which most silent film was made.
info_outlineReligious vocation isn’t commonly discussed anymore, so it’s hard to get a sense of how prevalent the calling is. When we think of vocation, it’s often the image of a nun or priest in robes that springs to mind.
Major Margaret MacDonald’s story is a modern story of vocation, of giving one’s life to God’s work by rolling up sleeves and getting amongst the marginalized in the community. That’s the Salvation Army way.
She grew up in a Salvationist family in Wales, who came to Australia as Ten Pound Poms, finding their feet in the Salvationist community in Bunbury. Margaret first felt the calling to the ministry as a teenager and was champing at the bit to get started, but was strongly encouraged to continue her education, which she did. She finished a DipEd and began a teaching career, which she found so rewarding it threatened to derail her earlier plans.
But when she and her husband Alan took stock, in the early years of their marriage and careers, they realized they could no longer ignore the powerful call to the ministry, so they headed to training college for two years and then into the community to do God’s work.
What does that mean for a Salvationist? Assisting people at a grassroots level in their community in so many ways, intervening in domestic violence situations, offering help and advice when money is tight, even providing food and shelter in your own home. As Margaret puts it, it’s “to be God in that community”.
Margaret and Alan have faced some enormous hurdles, some of the placements they were given by the Salvation Army were truly challenging, especially raising three boys at the same time.
Sincere thanks to Margaret MacDonald, to her family and to the Salvation Army Floreat Corps for their generous help in bringing this story to life.