BellingenNSW

“Settler colonialism” is an enduring “structure”

Aboriginal historian Barry Corr vividly investigates colonisation – but is less convincing on politics
"Surveying the Wild Abyss, by Aboriginal historian Barry Corr, is a history of colonial invasion of the Nepean–Hawkesbury rivers (“Dhurabang”) and the Sydney Plain they enclose."

“The stumbling block for decolonisation is the inability and unwillingness of the beneficiaries of settlement to recognise, acknowledge and address the nature and consequences of settlement." >>
https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-historian-barry-corr-vividly-investigates-colonisation-but-is-less-convincing-on-politics-289904
#IndigenousPeoples #FirstNationsPeoples #colonisation #decolonisation #SettlerSociety #mindsets #violence #SettlerNarrative #SettlerColonialism #EuropeanColonisation #governance #Books

Ungraspable global warming and a tornado 'like in a disaster movie'.

* Tornado causes damage as it rips through Ulladulla on NSW south coast
"The sky darkened before a strong wind swept everything away. Boats that had been chained to the harbour...were uplifted and thrown onto the car park." >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-03/tornado-tears-through-ulladulla-in-nsw-south-coast/107225262

* "In The Ecological Thought, Morton employed the term hyperobjects to describe objects that are so massively distributed in time and space as to transcend spatiotemporal specificity, such as global warming, styrofoam, and radioactive plutonium."

"For example, global warming is a hyperobject which impacts meteorological conditions, such as tornado formation. According to Morton, though, entities don't feel global warming, but instead experience tornadoes as they cause damage in specific places. Thus, nonlocality describes the manner in which a hyperobject becomes more substantial than the local manifestations it produces. Hyperobjects not only become visible during an age of ecological crisis, but alert humans to the ecological dilemmas defining the age in which they live." >>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Morton
#FossilFuels #ClimateCrisis #EcologicalCrisis #GHG #ClimateFiasco #tornadoes #WillyWilly #experience #stuff #hyperobjects #SpatiotemporalFrame #HumanAnimals #ungraspable #mindsets #anthropocene #ClimateNarrative

A careless transit space for cars or a 15-minute city?

* It is the holiday season in Bellingen. Motorists idle in the streets or are stuck in traffic after long commutes. The landscape is reduced to a careless transit space which one wants to fly along as fast as possible. Fast food packaging is piling up along the roads. Squashed birds and furry pancakes line the runways. The drive-through town offers the essentials for life: petrol, meat and plonk. The peri-urban areas are populated by recreational petrolheads revving 24/7.

* "Carlos Moreno makes the case for the "15-minute city," where inhabitants have access to all the services they need to live, learn and thrive within their immediate vicinity -- and shares ideas for making urban areas adapt to humans, not the other way around." >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ2f4sJVXAI
#MobilityDesign #Bellingen #cars #FossilFuels #NonPlaces #TransitSpaces #petrolheads #walkability #FootTraffic #landscape #ecology #15MinCity #proximity #access #QualityOfLife

Speeding fossil fuel vessels are shredding whales in their habitat.

"Whales on Australia’s ‘humpback highway’ are at growing risk of injury from boat and propellor strikes. Gruesome images of adult and juvenile humpback whales along Australia’s east coast with slash and gouge injuries from boat and propeller strikes highlight what experts say is a growing problem, as the population booms 60 years after the ban on whaling."

"One in 10 Australians have a boat licence and of the more than 970,000 registered boats, more than half a million are in Queensland and New South Wales...Globally, most collisions go unseen and unreported”."

"Experts say cutting speed limits for all vessels moving along migration routes, and making boats and ships more aware of the riskiest places and times of the year, would help." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/04/whales-australia-humpback-highway-boat-propellor-strikes
#whales #humpbacks #cetaceans #MarineLife #harm #FossilFuel #boats #BoatPropeller #speed #SpeedLimits #VesselStrikes #RoadKill #recreation #MigratorySpecies #NSW

Education
"Government taken by surprise by massive demonstrations": Children vs riot police.
"We’d rather stand here doing this than have to learn in poor conditions."

“School is a right, not a privilege,” read a cardboard sign as Sophia listed the grievances of teenagers across France: a lack of state investment in education, overcrowded classes of up to 40 children in crumbling buildings, poor teacher pay, staff absences and an unequal system in which social background determined success. Other reasons for the protest included the opaque and difficult online system for university applications as well as the unbearable temperatures in classrooms during the heatwaves in May and June."

"The education budget is being cut to shreds while so much extra funding is being put into the army." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/02/student-protests-shut-schools-across-france
#education #inequality #heatwaves #FossilFuels #climate #IntergenerationalJustice #governance

"Native bees play an indispensable role in ecosystems across Australia."

"Tragically, Australia’s native bees face a conservation crisis. Wild bees are declining worldwide, under pressure from habitat destruction, invasive species, pesticide use and climate change. Due to a lack of funding and attention, few people recognise how much native bees are struggling." >>
https://theconversation.com/are-australias-native-bees-thriving-or-declining-we-dont-know-but-can-find-out-292219
#biodiversity #NativeBees #conservation #pollination #HabitatDestruction #pesticide