On the night of the 1st of September, a category 2 cyclone hit Melbourne. I was alone in my parent’s house, lying high and awake in my childhood bed. Checking my notes app the next day, I noticed that I’d written something.
“It’s two forty-five in the morning. I’m alone in my childhood home, and I’m a little scared.”
I used to love storms. I still do, at least on an intellectual level. There’s something empowering about the natural world, and the quiet strength of our buildings withstanding a battering. But it’s been three years since I was in Melbourne for a proper storm, and I’m not used to them anymore. Melbourne isn’t entirely home anymore.
The storm, and my reaction to it, cemented a realisation that’s been dawning on me for some time; I’m getting older. I’m not the same Henry as I was in first year. When I first moved to Canberra, I was a fresh-faced (albeit hirsute) eighteen-year-old. There were endless streams of new people to meet, and I had complete freedom for the first time in my life. As these years went on, Canberra became home. Daley Road became home. I don’t know when Canberra became home, though I know that it is. But now, I’m about to turn twenty-one, and I’m preparing to leave this leafy home. Moving out of Daley Road feels like I’m moving into a new phase. I’m on the precipice of adulthood, and I’d be lying if that wasn’t daunting.
Canberra is a transitory place. Most of us never plan to stay here forever, though many of us will. As students in Canberra, we live a quasi-nomadic life. Our friends are from all over, and there’s endless trips to someone’s hometown that can be made. Since moving to Canberra, I’ve spent more time in Sydney than I ever thought I would. I’ve become familiar with a smorgasbord of small towns —places I didn’t even know existed when I decided to leave Melbourne.
Just like Canberra, being college-age is transitory. For the past three years, my identity has been in constant flux. Every possible experience is handed to you on a platter. I’ve attended talks at embassies immediately after coordinating some of the Engineering School’s brightest minds to make a bong. That’s the beauty of early adulthood. It’s a period of constant discovery. Of constant change, excitement, and experimentation. There’s a reason you don’t see many 40 year olds packing into the forests near Pialligo for a doof. After a while, the chaos becomes disorienting. I’m aware it’s bizarre that I’m writing this sentence but nevertheless, I’m getting old.
Adulthood excites me. A while back, I had a conversation with one of my best friends. Being from Melbourne, we’re both rarities in our Sydneysider friendship group. Driving along Hoddle Street in Melbourne, on our way to a day of unnecessarily expensive sandwiches and thrifting in Fitzroy, he asked me whether I’d rather get older or get younger and redo my childhood. I generally avoid existential crises before lunchtime, but this dilemma gripped me.
I didn’t have a good answer at the time, but I can now confidently say that adulthood excites me more than youth. Stability is more thrilling to me than chaos. I think that makes me boring and I think that’s what scares me the most. I was asked once if I’d prefer to be happy or interesting. At the time I said interesting. But I can’t stand by that answer anymore. I would rather be happy and simple.
The tragedy of youth is that it ends. We can only be interesting for so long, at some point, normalcy comes knocking. What is daunting to me now is that I know I’ll open the door. As I attend my last college events, as I go to house inspections and fill out rental applications, as I apply for APS and paralegal jobs, as I leave hospo behind, I am walking down the corridor. I don’t know if I’m ready to open the door, but that doesn’t matter. I’ll have to turn the knob anyway.
It’s you from the future. I just wanted to let you know that life is good. It’s not always rainbows and sparkles, but it’s good. I’m happy – even though the thought of university makes me stressed, and it always feels like I’m running out of time – I’m happy despite it all.
Nowadays I say yes to spontaneous activities because I know life will never feel as free and liberating as it does right now. I make mistakes but it’s okay, because I try to grow from them – it’s not always easy, but it’s been working so far.
I still hold onto our friendships from home but I now understand that sometimes people grow up and apart. I love every new person I meet here, which isn’t surprising because you and I always fell in love with strangers. Every day I wake up and learn something new. I am learning how to be an adult and how to be a better person. I make an effort to be good and kind. I’m discovering my true self and it’s really fun. You would love to see it.
I try not to worry about the little things, remembering that embarrassment is merely a social construct. Still, sometimes those self-critical voices in my head get a little too loud and it gets hard to ignore them.
I’m still anxious about the future, even though our Buddhist background taught us to be present; I’m always trying to plan ahead. That used to be the only way you knew how to get work done, to complete all of it a few days early. Do not procrastinate. Reward yourself only after all the hard work is done.
Now I’m realising that maybe that only worked when I had the safety and stability of being at home with that clean and strict routine of being at school for six and a half hours and coming home just to be taken care of. I take care of myself now, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
I just wish you, my younger self, knew that you didn’t always have to know the right answers. Remember what Mum always says, “you never know what will happen tomorrow”. Why do you still feel uneasy about your career? If you believed that, why did you always feel uneasy about the future?
Maybe it’s because no one ever told you that growing up is tough, or maybe they did and you didn’t believe them. You didn’t know if there would be a safety net waiting for you when you fell down the rabbit hole. You could never think past getting into university, and now that you’re here you still don’t know what’ll happen once you get your degree. But now I know it is okay not to know. You don’t know that life is a cycle of trial and error, but I do.
I love you, my younger self, but sometimes I think you may have conditioned me to be an over-ambitious perfectionist. You made me dream big and want to change the world and, while a part of me still wants those things, I’m worried that if I fail I will be disappointing all the people counting on me. That seems unfair, right? To have the burden of the expectations of everyone I care about and love.
You still have lots of dreams, but the pathway just seems a bit unclear. I think that’s what scares me: the unknown and the lack of clarity. To dream as big as I have is a scary thing. That irresistible drive to achieve every dream you ever dared to have is what’s driving me to keep going now.
I wish you had learnt not to compare yourself to others at a younger age. I would tell you, “you don’t have to be doing the most all the time and that you’re allowed to take things slow and go at your own pace”. I know it’s easier said than done, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
The thing is, I keep comparing myself to you too. I keep thinking about how productive you are compared to me now. I’m fearful of losing motivation and of giving up. I don’t want to disappoint you, little Chetha, but I don’t want to be exhausted either. I am trying to maintain that balance but it feels like walking on a tightrope. If I concentrate on moving one foot in front of the other, I know I’ll be okay.
Life is uncertain and dreams are expensive. But I wanted to tell you that I now know it’s okay to change plans. I know that I’m worth more than the grade I get on an assignment. I know that I can make decisions and pursue my dreams at my own pace. I don’t want you to be worried about me, I promise I’ll be someone you’re proud of.
Lots of love, always and forever,
Chetha (from today) xx
PS. When overwhelmed, listen to the lyrics of this song. I think you’d appreciate it.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
We never know what will happen tomorrow. We never even know what will happen in the next few hours of each day. We have so many questions and not enough answers. We make plans just for them to change. Life itself will always be uncertain, but isn’t that what we should love about it? The possibilities are always endless. But sometimes all we yearn for is confirmation that everything will be okay. That we’ll be happy and healthy and that all our dreams will come true.
Do you have any uncertainties in your life at the moment? What do you wish you could confirm, if life was to be ever so generous?
Whether or not I can study abroad in Japan this year?! Anonymous, 20.
COVID! Everything is really uncertain in jobs, travel, education and socialising. It’s changing so often that it’s hard to keep up to date. Ruby, 19.
What I’ll be doing one year from now. Will COVID catch me if I go to Europe in the middle of the year? Clancy, 20.
I wish the world would tell me if he liked me back. Anonymous, 23.
I feel like I have many uncertainties in my life that I wish I knew all the answers to. But to be honest, the beauty of life is this idea of not knowing. You have no idea what will be happening in a week, a month or a year, etc. Anonymous, 19.
Whether I will be successful, not just career but whether I will be happy and content with my life. Anonymous, 20.
My love life lol. Anonymous, 19.
Will life, in particular uni, ever actually get back to normal? I feel as though I might never get the uni experience I was looking forward to for years and talked about by friends and family. Dacey, 19.
As I approach my graduation, I feel very uncertain about what my life will be like in one year’s time. Where will I be? What will I be doing? Who will I be? Will I enjoy it? Rose, 21.
My fit for Badger on Thursday. Anonymous, 18.
Where I can confidently handle being COVID positive in the inevitable situation that I contract the virus and what my health will be life after. Anonymous, 47.
My future. Anonymous, 19.
Everything, I guess. Mainly if I’ll end up where I want to, even if that plan changes. Jasie, 19.
I want to know if I’m liked. I want to know whether people find me annoying or not, not so that I can dial down my personality for others, but so I can find a balance which will make everyone feel comfortable around me. Anonymous, 18.
If my family is happy and healthy. Anonymous, 20.
I feel uncertain with my place in the world as a person of colour. I’ve so often been belittled by white people. It’s hard to feel safe when quite often, white people speak over POC or try to suppress them. Anonymous, 23.
If this is going to be the year of my burn out or revival. Anonymous, 20.
Employment and financial future. Currently super poor, I wish I could be told that everything will be okay. Pete, 20.
What I’m eating for dinner tonight. Matilda, 19.
I worry about the fact that I’ll probably never be able to buy a house. Anonymous, 20.
Whether I’ll fail my supplementary exam, lmao. Anonymous, 19.
Uncertain on the direction of uni life and my career following. Gus, 18.
Uni experience and whether it will be fun or sad. When will COVID stop defining our lives? When will I pull myself together? How to get rid of pantry moths. Anonymous, 19.
If I have COVID or not or if I’m going to get it in the near future. James, 19.
I’m uncertain about what the world is going to look like in 10, 20, 30 years etc. When, from an environmental standpoint, the path that we humans have been on isn’t a reciprocal one, but a more linear destructive one. And that’s the reason I’m doing the degree that I’m doing. Because I’m uncertain about what the natural world is going to look like in 30 years. I want to be a part of those who try their best to preserve it and find more sustainable and regenerative ways for us humans to live. Jack, 19.
Whether I will ever eat a quesadilla as good as the one I just had. Tiarna, 20.
I’m really uncertain about where I’ll be in 10 years from now. Sean, 21.
If my car’s going to break down today or tomorrow. Sarah, 21.
I’m uncertain about my future, like whether I will succeed in life and be happy and content. I’m uncertain about the future security of the world, both in war ways but also access to resources such as food. Maddie, 20.
Whether my package is going to arrive on time. Olivia, 20.
Uncertainties abound and yet the most troubling of all seems to be my own indeterminate feelings! How much could the going-ons of the outer world matter when my own inner world is wildly thrashing shades of sensation that I must say are the emotions and thoughts of a sentient being? Anonymous, 19.
I am uncertain as to whether I am on the right path and if the decisions I am making now are leading me to the life I want to lead. Ollie, 19.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Each year in October, students, researchers and STEM professionals tune in for the awarding of one of the highest honours in the science community: the Nobel Prize. In the categories of physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics, scientists are presented with these awards in recognition for their exemplary contributions to their respective fields of science. This year, nine accomplished scientists were awarded Nobel Prizes and joined the ranks of extraordinary past Nobel Laureates such as Marie Curie, Alexander Fleming and Albert Einstein. So, who were these scientists and what did they discover? Find out below from ANU’s own next generation of scientists and engineers!
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Many organisms require oxygen to create energy in a process called aerobic respiration. Although we have been familiar with the importance of oxygen for a long time, our understanding of how individual cells adapt to changes in the availability of oxygen has been limited.
In 2019, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for their ground-breaking discovery on ‘how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability’. The result of their research has opened new doors on promising and exciting new ways to treat a variety of diseases, such as anaemia and cancer.
Kaelin, Ratcliffe and Semenza’s combined work led to the identification of key regulatory protein structures and genes, which demonstrate an oxygen sensing mechanism on a molecular basis. Semenza examined the gene responsible for the production of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO), which mediates the production of red blood cells. He discovered that vicinal segments of DNA were involved in regulating the response to changes in oxygen levels. Ratcliffe’s group also studied this gene and both teams found this mechanism to be present in essentially all tissues, such as muscle and fat. Semenza discovered a key oxygen-dependant protein called the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) that controlled this response.
Kaelin, a cancer researcher studying von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL) which involves a dramatic increase in the risk of cancer, discovered that the VHL gene was linked to an overproduction of oxygen-regulated proteins. This gene was then found to physically interact with HIF in a process that regulates our oxygen-sensing mechanism.
As a consequence of their research, our understanding of how oxygen levels influence integral physiological processes has greatly expanded. Oxygen-sensing is fundamental to the finetuning of metabolism in muscles, the immune system, foetal growth and the development of new blood cells. More importantly, a failure to detect levels of oxygen is related to a number of diseases, such as cancer. Cancerous cells can take advantage of the systems that are controlled by oxygen to trick the body into growing blood vessels to supply a growing tumour. Because of Kaelin, Ratcliffe and Semenza’s research, intense effort is directed towards the development of drugs that will interfere with oxygen-sensing mechanisms to treat these diseases.
Sai Campbell, Bachelor of Philosophy (Biochemistry)
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics this year is dedicated to astrophysics: a very interesting field that is perhaps almost as overused in science fiction as quantum mechanics is! The 2019 prize was recently announced on October 8 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with the winners being James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. James Peebles was awarded half of the price for ‘theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology’, with Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz each sharing a quarter for ‘the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar type star’.
Peebles
In the 1960s, physical cosmology was considered a ‘dead end’ and had very little interest from the community, but Peebles remained committed. His dedication did not fail him: he made significant contributions to the Big Bang Theory, most notably the prediction of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). When looking at the sky with a radio telescope, a white noise at around a 15 megahertz frequency can be constantly heard. Interestingly enough, this frequency does not change at all no matter the direction you point your telescope, as it is homogeneous and isotropic. This is because of CMBR: the weak but engulfing energy that fills our universe. This radiation is thought to be the relic of the Big Bang, and an attribute to the expanding universe.
Imagine this: in the beginning, a small, primal universe would have been filled with hot, intense opaque energy ‘soup’. As it expanded, this soup would cool down as it was spread over more space. At some point, it would cool down enough so that atoms, the building blocks of the universe, could form. As these atoms were formed, they would leave space for light particles to travel freely instead of bouncing off smaller particles, like protons and electrons, as they did previously. As the universe kept expanding and cooling down, wavelength of these light particles, known as photons, would get longer as they lose energy until they would get to microwave wavelengths. The existence of this visible radiation that fills the universe massively supports the Big Bang model, helping to detail the origin of our universe. Peebles was a part of the team led by Robert Dicke, who predicted that since the early universe was filled with energy, there should be some residue of this energy that still exists today. Following this prediction and then subsequent discovery, Peebles went on to focus on understanding the structure and the growth of an early universe that can be extracted from CMBR. His research played a large role in shaping physical cosmology as the field we know it today.
Mayor & Queloz
The second half of the Nobel Prize focused on exoplanets. A binary system, where two large masses spin around each other, can be discovered through the analysis of radial velocity, which is the rate of change of distance between an object and an observing point. In Mayor and Queloz’s research, the observing point was our dear planet Earth and the objects were stars. When viewing different stars, they noticed that some were wobbling towards, and then away from, Earth in a periodic pattern. This indicated that there must have been a body of mass near these stars, and that these two objects were spinning around each other to create a wobbling effect. Through refining the measuring equipment, they could measure smaller radial velocity which allowed them to observe smaller wobbles and, consequently, smaller masses around these stars. In 1995, the pair noticed a mass wobbling around the star 51 Pegasi. After analysing the tiny radial velocity, they could conclude that this was a planet roughly the same size as Jupiter, orbiting 51 Pegasi . This was the second time a planet was found to be orbiting a main sequence star, the most common type of star, with the first being our own sun. This discovery pushed an intensive search for more exoplanets research, and awarded them half of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Especially following these Nobel Prize recognitions, no one can deny that astrophysics is pretty cool!
Lam Tran, Bachelor of Advanced Science (Physics)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
It is rare that a Nobel Prize is awarded for something that almost everyone has touched or held in their own hands! This Nobel Prize discovery underpins the world’s digital devices, electric cars and provides energy storage for renewable power… The 2019 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to the scientists who developed the lithium ion cell battery. Three researchers, material and mechanical engineering professor John Bannister Goodenough, and chemists Michael Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino, collaborated on the chemistry and design of the battery to bring it to Nobel Prize glory. They were driven by the 1970s oil crisis and the need to store renewable energy.
Modern lithium batteries are scalable: small for phones and big for electric cars. They work by allowing charged lithium atoms, known as lithium ions, to naturally flow from one battery material to the other, which creates an electric current used by a device. There is a finite number of these atoms in the battery and when they have all flown out of the old material the battery needs recharging. When charged, the lithium ions are forced flow back to the original material, ready to flow down when unplugged and make more electricity. That’s what happens every time you charge and un-charge your phone battery. It’s like rolling a ball up a hill (charging), and then letting it roll back down again (discharging).
In the development of lithium batteries, Whittingham discovered the energy-rich material called titanium disulphide, which had the ability to store lithium at the atomic level. This battery was effective and could store ten times the energy as lead acid, which was a common battery composition. Unfortunately, this design would explode after extended use.
In 1980, Goodenough swapped titanium disulphide for another material: cobalt oxide. With this change, batteries were now creating a battery voltage of up to four volts – roughly the voltage of a modern AA battery.
Finally, Yoshino’s contribution was replacing the metallic lithium in the battery with the material petroleum coke layered with lithium ions. This development was the one which made the battery much safer. This form was commercialised and first sold as a rechargeable battery by Sony in 1991.
We now see these batteries everywhere, and in the present world we would struggle without them. The development of lithium ion batteries is certainly a deserving and practical Nobel Prize.
Harry Carr, Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical and Material Systems, Biomedical Systems)
Comments Off on How A Virtual View Of Earth Can Change Humanity
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
– Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, on seeing Earth from space.
When Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth in 1961, he was more impacted by the overwhelming beauty of the planet than the magnificent universe outside. As hundreds of astronauts follow Gagarin’s lead into space and told their stories, a pattern emerged.
The overview effect is a state of mental clarity reported by generations of astronauts while viewing Earth from outer space for the first time. Seeing our fragile blue globe ‘hanging in the void’ creates a sense of interconnectedness that makes many space travellers feel compelled to protect Earth and fight against inequality when they return. Astronauts describe the experience as sudden, but life changing. The phenomenon can entirely reshape how one sees environmental, social and political issues.
Experiencing the overview effect gives astronauts a cosmic perspective that others – particularly world leaders – lack. Due to the nature of modern politics and the pressure of public opinion, politicians fail to think beyond their terms, and prioritise cheap, short-term solutions over long-term human progress. Of course, sending everyone to space to transform their views is impractical, at least until space tourism becomes affordable and effective. But there is an accessible and exciting alternative on its way.
Now, in hopes of waking people up to the bigger picture, scientists are attempting to recreate the intense visual and emotional experience using virtual reality (VR). Recent innovations in software development, screen technology, and headset design make it possible to simulate the overview effect. There is compelling evidence from Stanford University suggesting that VR experiences can produce positive changes in behaviour and increase empathy towards fellow humans – even from short recordings in low resolution headsets. Many have already had a taste of the overview effect while playing mainstream VR games. In a recent trial conducted by the University of Missouri, psychologists are recruiting 100 people to try the VR headset at a spa. Volunteers will climb into a dark, salt-laden flotation tank to mimic the zero gravity sensation of being in orbit. The VR headset will play a high definition, 360 degree immersive video set in space. Though not everyone is expected to experience the overview effect, the experiment will reveal what happens when people’s senses are fooled into believing that they are observing Earth from outer space.
Cognitive scientists report that storytelling is crucial to designing a VR experience that generates the same feelings as the overview effect. Flawless movements and a smooth narrative arc, with the overview effect as the climax, are required. This also enhances presence, which is vital to eliciting emotional responses.
Further, recent studies on altruism conducted by the American Psychological Association and Guangzhou University suggest that people are more likely to make ethical decisions, be generous, and promote prosocial behaviour after experiencing awe. Researchers believe that the overview effect works in a similar way, and hope that the effect can be used to address the environmental concerns that Earth is currently facing. More could be done about the climate crisis, for example, if a global consciousness could be created, a cognitive shift breaking down political and social barriers and promoting care for the environment.
Collectively sharing this new VR experience could have profound effects. If the upcoming experiment is successful, it has the potential to unite people in a time of great division and increase action on multi-generational problems. This gives VR and the overview effect incredible power, and may well spur collective solutions to several global challenges currently facing us.
Comments Off on All Tip and No Iceberg: Ceremonial Economics in Australia
What is something ceremonial? Shiny objects like orbs, crowns and sceptres? Or grand and powerful characters such as the Governor-General, the Pope or the Queen? They are highly revered, and beautiful to look at. However, too close a step can offer a glimpse beyond the façade and reveal the idleness beneath the surface. The power of ceremony is that it can distort the true meaning of things with fancy rhetoric and hyperbole. The Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom, while beautiful and famous, is still an object. The Pope, while admired and worshipped, is still human.
Ceremony is also present in our politics and economics. Over the past 40 years, countless governments and oppositions have coated simple phenomena and concepts in spin and hyperbole to distort their meanings for personal benefit. They have created ceremonial economics in order to sell political narratives to voters for political gain.
Today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s surplus is the best example of ceremonial economics. If, as the Liberal government has promised since they were elected in 2013, there is a return to surplus this year, it will not mean what the government wants us to believe it means. Morrison will spin it as a return to the predictable and prosperous fiscal discipline of the ‘Howard years’, and as an indication of a healthy and rot-free economy. It will be presented as a sign of economic and political success that belies its actual significance and implications. A budget surplus now has a conferred ceremonial power which alters its true meaning.
The creation of ceremonial economics has had alarming effects on our politics and public discourse. As the state of the economy and fiscal management are key concerns of Australian voters, real political outcomes are decided on the basis of distorted meanings and ceremony, while meaningful substance is neglected.
Since Morrison came to power in 2018, he and his treasurer have emphasised the government’s determination to return the federal budget to surplus in the 2020 to 2021 financial year. In the 2019 federal budget, the centrepiece of Josh Frydenberg’s speech was restoring ‘fiscal discipline’, announcing that Australia’s gross national debt had steadily decreased, and that there would be an $11 billion surplus in the coming year.
Federal budgets, while officially a statement to the public about the state of the national accounts, are always political. The return to surplus was qualified with the assertion that ‘only one side of politics can do this’, with a casual reference to former Prime Minister John Howard and former Treasurer Peter Costello’s paying off Labor’s ‘debt’. Neither in the speech, nor in the election material that followed, was there any exploration of what paying off Labor’s debt would mean for voters. Instead, the Coalition used the misleading ‘surplus’ to convince voters that it had saved the Australian economy. And it worked. They won the ‘unwinnable’ election, and proved that in elections, economic management is always supreme.
Despite this victory, and the surplus we will no doubt see within in the next three years, the Australian economy continues to sputter, one painful limp at a time. In October of last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted that the economy had grown just 1.7 per cent in 2019, and would only grow by 2.3 per cent in 2020. This was before the catastrophic bushfires that have devastated much of NSW and Victoria. This makes 2019 the worst year for the Australian economy since the Global Financial Crisis 11 years ago. Given that a healthy growth rate is considered to be between two per cent and four per cent, there is considerable cause for concern.
The government has reassured people that despite ‘economic headwinds’ the ‘fundamentals’ of the economy are strong. What these fundamentals are, if wages are stagnant, trade tensions are rising, and interest rates are dangerously low, is unclear. A budget surplus in the near future will not solve these problems. At a time when the Governor of the Reserve Bank has pleaded with the government to spend to stimulate the economy and prevent recession, a manufactured surplus might be the last thing we need. In fact, it will be window dressing, the much anticipated delivery of a political promise made in 2013. The Coalition will use it as evidence of their prudent economic management and remind the electorate of how long it took to clean up ‘Labor’s mess’. This is despite the threats that Australia faces and the deep structural imbalance of our economy.
The $11 billion question is why, at a time of great economic uncertainty, is this surplus, the result of inaction and political points-scoring, so celebrated? Why isn’t it seen for what it is? Why is it all tip and no iceberg?
The answer is, ceremony. For decades both sides of politics have painted one another as incompetent economic managers, and pronounced themselves as the only party that can be trusted with the economy. This has led to 40 years of spin and ritual. Simple economic phenomena have been dressed up so much that their significance has become distorted and their meaning malleable, if not broken altogether. Through endless attacks, rhetoric, and tricks, a lack of fiscal discipline has become deadly in Australian politics. Politicians have conferred a type of nominal power on economics, resulting in its purely ceremonial meaning.
In 1975, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his government, the first Labor administration in over 20 years, werewas removed from office in a crushing electoral defeat after just three years. Despite their sweeping social reforms, the Whitlam government was plagued by chaos and economic mismanagement. The Coalition argued that Labor had failed to control inflation, led the country into an oil crisis, and induced a recession. This, compounded with the many scandals of the Whitlam administration, was enough to remove Labor from office. The failures of the Whitlam government became the foundation of a narrative that economic mismanagement is always linked to internal chaos and instability.
In 1983, the newly-elected Hawke government turned the tables on the Coalition by publicly revealing that the deficit left by former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was $3 billion larger than what was stated during the campaign. This deficit of $9.6 billion (around $31 billion in today’s dollars) meant that the incoming government would have to cut most of its spending plans for its first term. The blame was used to paint the outgoing government as fiscally incompetent, unbalanced, and untrustworthy. This cycle was repeated in 1996 when John Howard inherited a $14 billion deficit (roughly $24 billion in today’s dollars), which was significantly larger than expected. Howard also came into office with the national debt approaching 20% of GDP, the highest level since Whitlam.
In both these cases, highly unpopular governments were swept from power in dramatic fashion. Fraser in 1983 and former Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1996 were both vehemently disliked, and avoided answering questions about the deficit and the net debt accumulated during their time in office. In both cases, fiscal mismanagement was linked to untrustworthy, unpopular, and chaotic administrations.
Conversely, Howard was able to marry economic prosperity, rising wages, and low inflation to surplus after surplus. After the 1997 to 1998 budget, all but one of Peter Costello’s next nine budgets were in surplus. Howard and Costello won four successive terms and governed for over 11 years. In the minds of the electorate, stability and general wellbeing went hand-in-hand with a balanced budget.
A crucial element of Labor’s successful campaign in 2007 was painting themselves as ‘economic conservatives’ who would not spend big as Whitlam and Keating did, but would follow Howard’s prudent fiscal management. However, Labor was forced to erase Australia’s budget surplus, and spend to avoid a potential recession brought on by the Global Financial Crisis. Despite the fact that Rudd’s policies likely prevented a recession, the opposition used this to convince the public that Labor could not manage the economy. This was not helped by the instability that plagued Labor from 2010 onwards: a minority government, a midnight coup, and spill after spill followed by deficit after deficit. Once again, economic mismanagement followed chaos and instability.
Whitlam proved that governments live and die on their management of the economy. Hawke tied together unpopularity, failure, and untrustworthiness with a massive budget deficit. Howard married political stability and economic prosperity with unbroken rivers of gold flowing from the treasury. As the Rudd/Gillard government ate itself alive, the public again saw headline after headline about a rotten budget and a sky-rocketing national debt. Gradually, the meanings of economic terms hadwere been eroded, and all that remained was their raw political value. Because a surplus must be good and a deficit must be bad, their significance is lost. Instead, the budget is smothered in ceremony as complex economics are reduced to ritual talking points on breakfast television programs Sunrise and Today. Both sides of politics have used the state of the federal budget to attack each other and promote themselves, to the point where a surplus has become the jewel in the crown of competent economic management. Like a crown, when removed from ceremony, it becomes irrelevant.
The problem is that the state of the budget is so much more than just a shiny object. The finer, but more important, implications of budgets and economic phenomena are so often lost in political noise.
As the last four decades have made the national accounts purely ceremonial, the government is chasing a budget surplus to try and once again marry a balanced budget with prudent economic management. However, a political, at-all-costs surplus is the last thing the Australian economy needs. All signs point to a global slowdown and stagnant growth in the very near future. A recession is more than possible. Interest rates are at historic lows, and monetary policy has run out of room. If the government continues to chase a surplus it will be unable to stimulate the economy, resulting in a recession for the first time in 25 years, rising unemployment, falling revenues, and years of recovery. It would be a surplus that Australia could not afford.
“It will be fire” – the unceasing echo of David Harsent’s 2014 poetry collection, Fire Songs. Harsent’s apocalyptic images of environmental catastrophe and damnation seem, read today in one of the worst bushfire seasons ever seen in Australia, apposite and freakishly prescient.
The collection of poems is bound in flames, metaphorically and literally. Contained within are four eponymous ‘Fire’ poems around which all else is structured. Fire’s power to cause ruin – to human life, to love and truth, to the earth and our environment, and to human reason – is one of many leitmotifs that run through the work: “it burns. Whole libraries on an updraught. Cascade of wings. / Substructure meltdown. What the night-sky brings. / Ashfall. Stars failing, fading. Unbreathable crosswinds. / Torrent of wildfire”.
The poems, with their images of destruction and environmental catastrophe, call up images of the bushfires that have caused wide-spread devastation over the southeast of Australia and been ever-present on news and social media platforms since September last year. 2019 was Australia’s hottest year on record, 1.52 degrees Celsius above the long-term average recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology. This eclipsed the previous record of 1.33 degrees Celsius above average set in 2013. In fact, every year since 2000 has been above average, with the five hottest years on record all falling since: 2017, 2018, 2005, 2013 and now 2019. The conclusion is obvious: Australia is getting hotter.
This has come hand-in-hand with harsher bushfire seasons. At the time of writing, this 2019 to 2020 season so far has brought the destruction of 10.7 million hectares of land, over 5900 buildings and killed 29 people. Towns along the coast of NSW, in Victoria and in southern parts of Queensland have been devastated by bushfire damage to property, land, livelihood and life. The human cost of these fires is immeasurable.
The fires are of an apocalyptic nature mirrored in Fire Songs. In Fire: End-Scenes and Outtakes, Harsent’s image of a town bears resemblance to towns currently devastated by fires: “the crackle and flare / of phosphorous, mother and child taken up as one, / the horizon ablaze, just as the fires / rolled in on the settlements”. A similar image is created in Fire: A Party at the World’s End: “the trek / to the sea under thin white skies, the firestorms at their backs, / their burdens, their weeping cries, the way the line / would lean as if for emphasis into a driven pall / of dust and dreck”. This bears resemblance to people in Cobargo and Mallacoota (and Batemans Bay, Jervis Bay, Bermagui, Mogo, Nowra, Moruya…) seeking refuge from the bushfires on beaches and the coast.
The smoke currently enveloping NSW, Victoria and now even New Zealand also has a parallel in the collection. In the poem Icefield, “there was a time… when the skyline was set / clean as a scar on glass… now the horizon’s a smudge; now there’s a terrible weight / in the air and a stain cut hard and deep”. Icefield, coincidentally, was commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, an agency now fundraising for the bushfire emergency. Smoke emanates through the work, folding, shrouding, covering, choking, of a nature with which we are all now familiar.
Also contained within the collection is a ternary poem Tinnitus, split between three sections of the work. Here, Harsent manifests the human propensity for lies within a central metaphor: “a single note drawn out / beyond imagining, / pitched for a dog or a rat / by a man with a single string / on a broken violin…. too sharp and shrill to be anything but lies”. This false and urgent shriek changes to the clamour of violence in the second section: “rough music in the lane, / the love-child lapped in blood / and safe at her breast, the pain / echoed in wood on wood, / steel on steel, as they come”. Finally we only hear the rattle of approaching chains: “now chains on gravel. Make of it what you will. ” The trajectory is from lies to violence to judgement.
Truth is absent and lies are everywhere in the collection. In Fire: Love Songs and Descants, the written word is thrown on the pyre: “so leap these on, letters, cuttings, poems, diaries, notebooks… everything said wrong, everything said in haste”. Old writing, old lies, are described as “all that’s left of counterfeit and fear”. Perhaps this is a response to our current state, replete with echo chambers, agenda-heavy media, ‘fake news’ and information overflow. Even in the current bushfire crisis we have seen some of it, in the ‘disinformation campaign’ carried out by fake social media accounts pushing arson as the cause for the fires, undermining the connection between bushfires and climate change. The Fool at Court is a poem of a single couplet – there is, after all, no substance to a fool – that could truly be applied to some modern-day politicians: “he wears seven colours in his coat and lies / with the Queen at night, and lies and lies and lies.”
With these parallels, Fire Songs seems to prophesy. Written in 2014, it is, in this respect, similar to many environmental studies conducted through this century and the last of the dangers of accelerated climate change. Many studies warned of an increased risk of bushfires due to rising temperatures, the increasing length and severity of droughts, changing rainfall patterns and other climate change-related phenomena.
For example, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Co-Operative Research Centre has been modelling the increased occurrence and severity of fires – which they suggest is highly likely tied to increasing temperatures in Australia – since 2003, the year it was founded by the Australian Federal Government. Similarly, the 2018 combined report of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO showed a one degree Celsius increase in Australia’s climate since 1910, an 11 per cent decline in rainfall in southeast Australia since the late 1990s, and long-term increase in extreme fire weather across large parts of Australia.
Many studies appeared to predict the 2019 to 2020 bushfire season catastrophe, such as the 2008 Garnaut Climate Change Review, which stated: “recent projections of fire weather suggest that fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense. This effect increases over time, but should be directly observable by 2020”. Similarly, a report from the Climate Institute of Australia predicted the number of days with a ‘very-high’ fire danger, by the Fire Danger Index, to increase by up to 30 per cent in NSW and Victoria by 2020.
We have been given the information necessary to put in place protection mechanisms, safeguards and adaptation strategies. The failure to do so before this catastrophe has resulted in the widespread shock and anger at political institutions over Australia. That our governments have ignored such warnings is justifiable cause for anger.
Further cause for anger is the lamentable lack of effective climate change policy; in the recent 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, Australia was ranked worst out of all 57 participating countries, with “the dismissal of recent IPCC reports, the government not attending the UN Climate Action Summit in September, and the withdrawal from funding the Green Climate Fund”, as well as the failure to propose renewable energy or emission reduction targets, resulting in the lowest possible overall score, 0.0 out of 100.
We are not acting on climate change. Bushfires are a catastrophic and manifest danger that have resulted directly from increased temperatures. The devastation caused to lives, homes, livelihoods and land are only direct consequences. We are also facing decreased food security and increased cost, displacement and bushfire refugees (adding to the millions upon millions of people already displaced in the context of disasters and climate change worldwide), damage to our water treatment and supply infrastructure, and a serious water shortage – country towns in NSW and Queensland are approaching Day Zero for water, and it’s only mid-January. There are also many other dangers of climate change: longer and worse droughts, rising sea-levels, the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, of rainforests. Fire Songs again prophesies: “it will come to fire, so they say, despite the roar and roll / as continents calve from icefields, as rainforests fall, / as the sea first takes the lowland then takes the rest, / fire nonetheless, fire on the skim of the sea, fire at the core”.
Comments Off on A Story About Cricket and Climate Change
A few years ago, a number of Australian academics wanted to focus their expertise in media and communications studies on the issue of climate change and sports media. In an article for The Conversation, they stated their goal was “to try to move beyond needlessly partisan political debate by investigating the capacity of professional sport – arguably the most popular form of media on the planet – to communicate environmental issues and awareness.”
They were encouraged by many high-profile examples elsewhere such as the Olympics, and the simple fact that Australia is a sporting nation. Understandably, they saw great potential in using the huge platform that is our sports media as a way to help Australia in the face of serious ecological challenges.
It’s a simple idea, tapping into what’s popular to promote a message, but doing so can be highly effective. As such, it might not surprise you to learn that when these academics applied for government support through the Australian Research Council (ARC) grant process, their project was approved. Titled Greening Media Sport: The Communication of Environmental Issues and Sustainability in Professional Sport, their project was given $259,720 to cover the costs of research staff, and a green light to proceed.
For most researchers, winning an ARC grant is a big deal. For one, the process is gruelling and highly competitive, so it represents an achievement in its own right. Winning a grant also reflects well on a university, and by extension, its employees, so it can be a career booster too. As many academics will attest, however, it is often things beyond the prestige that matter most. Financial support is the lifeblood of research, and often the only way to pursue topics of interest and importance. With this project, the necessity and urgency of their work is difficult to understate. Unfortunately, though, not everyone saw it that way.
Having gone through the arduous approval process, won a grant, and now being on the cusp of beginning some sorely needed work, these academics eventually discovered that their project had been personally rejected by then Education Minister Simon Birmingham. It was among ten others that he had disapproved. Notably, these rejections were all focused on just one of the eight panels he oversaw: Humanities and Creative Arts. If new criteria were being attached to funding these projects, it was not communicated to applicants. Indeed, the entire process was opaque, and it took almost a year for applicants to even realise that they’d ultimately been rejected – a year many people spent wasting efforts on a doomed project.
In their public quest for answers from the Education Minister, it’s clear to see that these researchers care more about helping with climate change than they do about this project’s cancellation acting as speed bumps in their personal career trajectories. It’s equally clear to see that they are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency in this process. Birmingham’s decisions were made according to some unknown criteria, and his successor, Dan Tehan, declared that future projects would need to pass some kind of ‘national interest’ test.
This is standard right-wing theatre, folks: needlessly invoke nationalism, while simultaneously fanning the flames of culture war between ‘everyday’ Aussies on the ground and the detached intellectual elites up in their ivory towers. You can see it permeating Tehan’s idea about ‘national interest’ and the way he spoke about the rejections:
“The value of specific projects may be obvious to the academics who recommend which projects should receive funding but it is not always obvious to a non-academic.”
In other words, Tehan doesn’t think that these projects pass the ‘pub test’. It’s not really about the national interest though; it’s about ivory tower elites not ‘getting it’. Usually, in these narratives, the worst offenders are the same ones who were targeted here: academics in the arts and humanities. Despite its irrelevance, they’re invoking nationalism because that particular posture plays well with their political base, especially when they’re trying to play ‘ordinary Aussies’ against academics.
In reality, ARC applicant rates have sunk to historic lows of around 10 per cent. The process is becoming increasingly competitive. It’s difficult to see how a grant makes it through without somehow serving the national interest already. Looking at our sports media article, it seems to tick many boxes: national interest, industry partnerships, and sport.
Yet, here’s Simon Birmingham on Twitter defending his decisions: “I‘m pretty sure most Australian taxpayers preferred their funding to be used for research other than spending $223,000 on projects like ‘Post orientalist arts of the Strait of Gibraltar’.”
Again, the narrative that they’re trying to push here, as with Tehan, is that the research canned was esoteric academic bullshit that most people wouldn’t value, and they, as ordinary Aussies, can see past all of that. But of course, he reached for one of the more esoteric projects of the 11 that he canned. He cherry-picked, in other words. Remember, too, that this intervention was only in the arts and humanities discipline, the same area often attacked by right-wing critics as being out of touch with reality. Birmingham’s tweet with its selectively used data is a clumsily crafted lie, but to many casual or fleeting observers it is one that is convincing enough on the surface and that plays easily into well-established and well-accepted ‘us versus them’ narratives.
Imagine trying to write the same tweet, except this time it’s about having the odd climate change advertisement run between overs of a cricket game. It’s not a ridiculous concept, nor is it hard to understand. Worst of all, if it were done in the right way, it might even be accepted by their political base! Likely for these reasons, Birmingham never referred to this project, and it may be some time now before we ever see anything like it.
To me, that’s a great tragedy, and a missed opportunity of potentially gigantic proportions. Despite things like this happening all the time, it’s hard for us to notice these missed opportunities. By their very nature they are invisible. We can’t see the things that never happened. They only exist in hypotheticals now. But one key motivation in writing this was to lament what could have been.
CONTENT WARNING: Violence, Police Brutality
The beginning of a new year is usually a time of great celebration. New Year’s Eve parties are held all around the globe as people end one year and ring in the next with fireworks, music, alcohol, and a general air of celebration and joy. However, this year, the atmosphere was a little different in some parts of the world. With major protests in Hong Kong and India, many people began their New Year on the streets, instead of at parties.
Hong Kong, which has seen large-scale, relentless protests since June 2019, saw another massive rally on New Year’s Day 2020. Tens of thousands of people gathered in various parts of the city, marching through the streets and shouting pro-democracy and anti-China slogans. The rally began peacefully, but later descended into violence. The police used teargas and water cannons. By the end of the night, they had detained 400 people, an exceptionally large number of arrests in a single day. The Civil Human Rights Front, the organisers of the protest, condemned the police’s actions and released a statement saying: “Hong Kongers shall not back down and peace shall not resume with the ongoing police brutality.” While it is difficult to be certain about the future of the movement, the large numbers at the protest indicate that perhaps Hong Kongers won’t really back down this year either.
India, too, began the New Year with large protests. The country has seen almost daily protests since December, when the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act was passed. The protestors, a large number of whom are students, have been rallying against a combination of government policies, police brutality towards students, and government clampdowns on dissent. While the ruling party has made constant efforts to stop the movement, supporters have consistently pushed forward, and the New Year protests show that they have no intention of stopping any time soon. There were protests in several major cities on the night of 31 December 2019, as well as during the day on January 1 2020 . New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad all saw New Year protests where people gathered to shout slogans, recite poetry, and speak out against the government.
News of protests at the beginning of the year might be scary or depressing for a lot of people. 2019 saw great political turmoil in many parts of the world. Fresh protests in the New Year might signal that nothing is changing, and that 2020 will be just as bleak. But to me, these protests are a sign that things are changing. 2019 might have been a year full of trouble, but it was also a year where young people all across the world stood up to face the trouble head on. From Latin America to Asia, young people have been leading the fight against government injustice, and have consistently been standing up for the values they hold important.
The world had a lot of problems in the 2010s, and it will continue to have problems in the 2020s. But all might not be lost. The new decade dawned to the cries of azadi (freedom) in India and ‘liberation’ in Hong Kong. I take this as a sign of hope.
Comments Off on Sol Invictus – The Unconquered Sun
From the very first automobile to cruise down the streets of Germany in 1879 to the little Hyundai Getz your parents bought you for your Sweet Sixteenth, society has long been dependent on a finite and increasingly scarce resource to power our transport. With the world’s fossil fuels predicted to only last another 70 years, finding alternative energy sources is imperative. It is the young scientists and engineers of today that are tasked with the challenge of developing feasible technologies to satisfy our increasing energy demands, so that when the time does come, our society is not plunged back into the Dark Ages.
Students at the ANU are joining the effort to develop renewable technologies to power the transport of the future. Team Sol Invictus – comprised of over 30 students from diverse backgrounds in varying fields of study – is one of many university teams worldwide focused on designing and building solar cars for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. This race, spanning over 3000km from Darwin to Adelaide, encourages bright and innovative young minds to perfect the application of solar technology and reinvent the way we consider transport. The competition includes two classes:
The ‘Challenger Class’: One-seat aerodynamic vehicles are judged for their endurance and efficiency.
The ‘Cruiser Class’: Practical and sustainable cars are evaluated for their commercial appeal, in hope of them becoming the first generation of market solar cars.
ANU’s Sol Invictus competed in their first Challenger Class race in 2017, with the ‘Sol Invictus Supercharge’. They are now in the process of designing a new and improved vehicle for the upcoming race in 2019.
So, what goes into designing and building a solar car? What are the challenges? When will we be able to see practical, affordable and sustainable solar cars on the market?
Building a Solar Car
When building a solar car, the main factors which contribute to design decisions are power efficiency, aerodynamics, weight and reliability.
The car must be able to: access enough power from the sun to drive at highway speeds, be as aerodynamic as possible to minimise drag, be as light as possible to maximise acceleration and reduce rolling resistance and stay in one piece during six days of driving across the continent. So, how do we achieve this?
Power
The top of the car is covered in 4m^2 of monocrystalline silicon solar cells, which rely on the photoelectric effect to convert the energy of incoming photons from the sun to electrical energy by the generation of a current. This process is highly inefficient, with only 24% of the total incoming energy providing power to the car. On average, the solar cells produce 900W of power – 300W less than the average toaster!
Aerodynamics
With such a finite amount of available power, it is crucial that the vehicle is designed to be as aerodynamic as possible, to minimise energy lost by air resistance. To achieve this, the frontal area of the car – which makes impact with incoming air as the car drives – is reduced and the shape of the car body is designed to mimic that of a teardrop.
Weight
The heavier the car, the more energy that is lost to inertia and rolling resistance. For this reason, the chassis and outer shell of most solar vehicles are built out of superlight composite materials, such as carbon fibre. The effect of this is significant – the average commercial car weighs two tonnes, while the standard solar vehicle weighs between 150-300kg. In perspective, that’s the combined mass of two to four adult humans!
Reliability
Even with over a years’ worth of planning, designing and building, things still go wrong. Our 2017 Supercharge once set itself on fire. UNSW’s Cruiser car pulled out of the race due to faulty suspension. The car from the University of Cambridge crashed before the race had even begun. These risks are inevitable for such a project, but the best way to minimise them is rigorous testing of every step of the design and building stages – lest 12 months of hard work result in an unfinished race!
Current Challenges and the Future of Solar Cars
We are currently still a far way from being able to harvest the sun’s energy to power our commercial transport. While the technology developed for the solar car competition is impressive, the conditions of the race are ideal – it runs on mainly a straight road through one of the sunniest locations in the world. The obvious challenges still exist: the car cannot drive all through the night, it cannot reach full drive potential if the weather is cloudy or rainy, and the car cannot drive safely on uneven terrain. The list of feasibility complications stretches much further, however, several potential solutions are being explored, such as developing solar cells with increased energy efficiency and batteries with greater capacity for storage.
Although you may not find commercial solar cars with ‘My Family’ stickers cruising the streets of Canberra in the next couple of years, it is critical for society’s future that we keep pushing towards a renewable and sustainable future. Maybe one day, our work at Sol Invictus and the work of dozens of other teams worldwide will contribute towards making solar cars a feasible, sustainable and affordable option for communities everywhere. Until then, we look forward to continuing designing and improving our technological masterpieces to race on the world stage!
Follow us to see our progress towards the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge!
FB: MTAA Super Sol Invictus
Insta: anu_sol_invictus_solar_car