Rapid population growth in the city of Mandurah south of Perth sees an equally steep hike in the number of people sleeping rough, forcing the council to reach out for help to contain the growing problem.

By consciously naming and understanding our grief around the myriad losses the COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it, we can move through it. Professor Kim Felmingham, clinical psychologist from the University of Melbourne shares how to deal with the collective grief that is accompanying mass layoffs, change and job uncertainty. And then Colin James, business coach, facilitator and remote meeting guru gives us some guidance on taking the pain out of video conference meetings.

If you’ve noticed a change in your mental well-being over the past few weeks you’re not alone.  As the effects of the pandemic and the conditions of isolation begin to be take hold, manyAustralians are searching for support for the first time in their lives. So if you choose to ask for help, how do you takethe first steps. 

Water is fast running out across the Macquarie Valley, with one town preparing for the possibility of closing the hospital

Abortion service providers are left with chartering private flights to regional Queensland, saying infrequent schedules and short-notice cancellations during the COVID-19 pandemic make flying commercial untenable.

With towns facing "zero day" water crises National Party MPs are frustrated not enough dams are being built, but states are spending billions to fix a system ill-prepared for crisis.

Renters in Tasmania could be safe from eviction until at least September under emergency laws to shield them during the coronavirus crisis — with New South Wales tenancy advocates welcoming the development and calling on "all governments" to follow suit.

Ella Ross and Thomas Edwards were all set to buy land in southern Tasmania and build their first home until coronavirus put a hold on their plans when they were told their casual work "could not be counted".

Leaders show us their true colours during a crisis, and Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein — only in the job three months and following the popular Will Hodgman — is already giving clues as to how he will fare, writes Emily Baker.

A day after the Prime Minister announced a moratorium on evictions, this doctor was given an ultimatum by her landlord — either she stop working at a hospital or move out.

Victorian households could be separating rubbish into six or more bins instead of the usual two or three if the state adopts recommendations from Infrastructure Victoria, which has released its ideas for dealing with the recycling crisis.

The COVID-19 death toll at the Newmarch nursing home rose to 14 over the weekend, while a further 63 infections have been linked to staff and other residents.

The former South Australian Premier said it's now time for states and territories to take control of childcare and treat them more like schools.

In his first two international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond explored what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now in the third book in his trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis.

The NSW nurses' union says a staffing crisis at Shellharbour Hospital's mental health unit is putting staff and patient safety at risk.

Some think Australia is spending billions in a "wasteful splurge on old-timers who were going to die sometime soon anyway". But it has Australia well placed to cautiously remove coronavirus restrictions while protecting lives, writes political editor Andrew Probyn.

An online petition and Facebook page to negotiate better deals on high-cost airfares for regional West Australians is gaining traction.

A social welfare advocate says without the Federal Government's support, poorer Tasmanians without housing will be "left behind", dismissing the State Government's latest efforts for short-term accommodation solutions.

Louise Murphy spends every day caring for her elderly mother, but says no-one is helping her care for herself. She says her carers' fatigue is compounded by the fact that respite care is expensive, and her fears about putting her mother into aged care.

With a rapidly ageing population, few Australians have been left untouched from navigating the vast and often complicated aged-care system be it for a parent, partner or themselves.

A shortage of volunteers and funding has triggered serious concerns for animal welfare in far-north Western Australia, with cats, dogs, puppies and kittens "very much at risk" of being euthanased.

Australia's island state is known for its rich history and pristine environment it also provides 50 per cent of the raw materials that go into the powerful painkillers at the centre of the United States' opioid crisis.

A tent in his sister-in-law's back yard has been Paul's home for the past year, and despite government plans to build hundreds of affordable homes he is not optimistic of getting a roof over his head.

Plans to relaunch a South Australian ferry service hit a snag with the vessel the Aurora V caught up in political turmoil in South America.

A local council warns Victoria's "culture of recycling" is at risk as the state's waste crisis deepens and an estimated 780 rubbish trucks' worth of recyclable material is sent to landfill in a week.

Allegations of treachery and collusion have dominated Question Time in Parliament, as the Government's citizenship crisis deepens. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce revealed yesterday he was a dual New Zealand citizen, but is arguing he should retain his ministerial duties and vote, while the High Court makes a ruling. Mr Joyce's citizenship status emerged in the same week a New Zealand Labour MP asked about the issue, and the Government is now accusing the Opposition of trying to use a foreign parliament to bring down the Government.

Leaks from one of Adani's most significant contractors for its Carmichael coal mine, engineering firm GHD, show it has been rocked by internal dissent and management has been bombarded with complaints and questions about its work on the mine.

During the past 15 years, the Northern Territory's public service numbers have been closely tied to programs targeting Aboriginal advancement, with any major surges driven almost exclusively by these strategies. Yet many are quick to point out these programs have largely failed.

Wodonga grandmother Janice Marcuzzi is among those residents crossing state borders to take advantage of container deposit schemes.

Up to one in three Australian women have experienced birth trauma and one in 10 women emerge from childbirth with post-traumatic stress disorder, prompting calls for a major shake-up of the maternity system.

A Queensland community was hit hard when seven young people took their own lives in the space of six months. It's now striving to get more support to those in need.

Sydney has lost nearly 20 per cent of its essential workers in the past decade because of the city's housing affordability crisis, a report finds.

She already had years of experience in humanitarian work, but Carly Learson describes her Myanmar role as "probably the toughest job I've ever had".

The NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro says "green tape" is standing in the way of long-term solutions to the drought crisis, and suggests the state could borrow money to reshape water infrastructure.

As the days of social distancing become weeks, some have turned to poetry to cope with such strange times. OPB spoke with a few Oregon poets to hear what they are writing about right now.

The ABA Journal recently published an article entitled Bar Exam Does Little to Ensure Attorney Competence, Say Lawyers in Diploma Privilege State, describing the experience in Wisconsin, the only state that currently has the “diploma privilege.”  Under the Wisconsin rules, in-state law school graduates can become licensed without taking a bar exam.  These graduates must … Continue reading The Coronavirus Crisis Provides an Opportunity to Adopt Better Systems for Licensing Lawyers than the Bar Exam →

The decades of disinvestment have placed Colorado universities in a precarious financial position with little margin to maneuver through the coronavirus pandemic. Students are already considering whether to stay home next fall. Raising tuition could cause enrollment to dip further, putting in jeopardy colleges’ main revenue source.

Angela Rye deep-dives into the student loan crisis.

December 6, 2015, 10:50 AM|Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, believes there must be an international coalition led by Arab nations in the fight against ISIS. Continue reading →

Seguridad, aplicaciones estratégicas y analítica móvil son clave para que las organizaciones inteligentes mejoren sus resultados

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they’ve harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing. 

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards. 

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. 

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. 

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

These challenging times require fierce, broad, and intersectional activism – which is just what Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) has been doing for the past four decades. This now-independent nonprofit, which used to be affiliated with Hampshire College, continues its unique movement-building work preparing younger activists to work on the front lines of today’s struggle for reproductive justice. Please consider supporting CLPP today with a generous donation. 

As we know, the Covid-19 pandemic is disproportionately harming those in our communities who were already facing ... More

The post Please Support Civil Liberties and Public Policy During the Covid-19 Crisis: An Appeal from Judy Norsigian appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.

In a guest piece, industry executive Aaron Simpson explains how the animation industry had been preparing for this disaster for decades without even knowing it.

The post For The Animation Industry, The Coronavirus Crisis Has Created A Big Opportunity appeared first on Cartoon Brew.