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Forester’s unique legacy in Queensland

4 April 2025 / 2 Comments

Queensland’s national parks are a testament to the foresight and dedication of its early foresters. What set forest management apart in Queensland from the other states was the role of foresters in managing national parks. While their counterparts in other states focused primarily on timber and the sustainable utilisation of the timber resource, Queensland’s foresters were pioneers in balancing conservation with economic interests.

The year Santa never made it to Darwin

20 December 2024 / 1 Comment

It began as a deep distant rumbling, like the stirring of some gargantuan subterranean beast.

It was unsettling at first, ominous, something you felt in your guts more than you heard with your ears, an eerie subsonic vibration that seemed to rise from the bowels of Hades.

As the she-devil crept closer, the wailing began.

Is too much pounding the table the problem with science today?

2 August 2024 / 12 Comments

“Science requires open debate. It does not advance by consensus or political pressure”.

What is science

“The scientific method requires scientists to test all theories. Science progresses not by claiming a theory is true but by proving a theory is false”.

I will start this essay by clarifying what science is not.

Hostages to fortune – soldiers and civilians lost and forgotten in the fog of war

19 July 2024 / 5 Comments

Rabaul and its strategic military importance

Rabaul, a town of striking beauty nestled on the north-eastern tip of New Britain in Papua New Guinea, boasts magnificent deep-water harbour encircled by a stunning volcanic flooded caldera three kilometres wide. This natural fortification, combined with its strategic location, made Rabaul a coveted prize for colonial powers and, eventually, a significant battleground in the Pacific theatre of World War II.

Can rangeland pastoralists survive by riding on the goat’s back?

5 July 2024 / 5 Comments

During our trip through western New South Wales in March 2022, we saw significant numbers of feral goats. These goats were everywhere, spanning from Broken Hill east through Wilcannia and Cobar onto Nyngan, covering over 600 kilometres in mulga country.

We had an overnight stop on the Barrier Highway at the Meadow Glen Rest Area, about 60 kilometres west of Cobar.

The 6th Mass Extinction Crisis – speculation without substance?

3 May 2024 / 2 Comments

Unfortunately, conjecture based on limited facts has produced “research” trumpeting catastrophic fears of extinction. Jim Steele

Introduction

Our planet now faces a global extinction crisis never witnessed by humankind. Scientists predict that more than 1 million species are on track for extinction in the coming decades.

As the world commemorates another Endangered Species Day, you will undoubtedly read or hear claims like the above.

The humble clothes peg

29 March 2024 / 4 Comments

Ever since humans have worn garments, they have had to wash them. Where to put the garments to dry has a fascinating history. We always think that pegs hung them. However, clothes pegs only have a relatively recent past. Before the nineteenth century, laundry was hung on bushes, limbs or lines without fasteners to hold the clothes in place. … Read more

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Fudging the figures

1 March 2024 / 4 Comments

“The fundamentals of science are you do not tamper with the original evidence. That has happened with our temperature record, where the past has been cooled and it makes it look as if we’re warming. That is fraud.” Ian Plimer

“BOM are right often enough to be considered, but wrong often enough not to be relied upon.

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Wake up Australia – renewable energy won’t save the planet if it costs the earth

6 October 2023 / 7 Comments

“Sadly, our climate and energy policy remains in the grip of an intelligentsia that lacks the wisdom to recognise the boundaries of its own ignorance”. Nick Cater

“…destroying the landscape with inferior technologies that cost more and do not achieve the desired policy aim of Net Zero is insane”.

The cable cutters

11 August 2023 / 2 Comments

“I’ll put a girdle ‘round the earth in forty minutes”

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

While travelling around the country, I came across yet another little-known wartime story which again highlights the heroics of Australians. This time it involves midget submarines and divers cutting underwater telegraph cables to thwart the Japanese communication efforts towards the end of World War II.… Read more

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