Climate change, higher temperatures, impact on well being

Showing all posts about Australia

Climate change, higher temperatures, impact on well being

27 August 2025

A MIT lead global study of posts on X, and Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, has revealed higher temperatures not only effect health and workplace productivity, but also — perhaps unsurprisingly — well-being and emotions:

A massive study of social media data revealed that individuals become significantly more irritable in extreme heat. The research implies that rising temperatures may directly affect the emotional health of millions of people around the world.

This during a recent late winter bout of unseasonably mild weather hereabout (though the tables are soon to be turned). I left the house yesterday morning wearing a hoodie, but had taken it off about two minutes later. Hate to think what summer’s going to be like, if winter is quite warm.

Mind you, with above average rainfall predicted for parts of Australia’s east coast, over the next few months, maybe temperatures will remain relatively mild.

There are more guns in Australia than before 1996 gun buy back

27 August 2025

Collectively Australians own four million guns, about twice the number held in 2001.

This despite strict gun ownership laws introduced following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, bans on certain types of firearms, and a gun buyback program in 1996, which resulted in over six-hundred thousand weapons being destroyed.

Australians can still legally own firearms, but must satisfy a number of prerequisites to do so. These include showing a genuine reason for possession — which some people, farmers for example, might have — along with keeping guns stored securely when not in use.

Four million guns is a lot, and equates to about one gun for every seven Australians. While some people feel gun ownership is a right, and have no problem adhering to ownership laws, others in the community are concerned legally owned firearms might somehow fall into the wrong hands.

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Australia, current affairs

Australia Post to stop shipping some parcels to the United States

27 August 2025

Australia’s primary provider of postal services, Australia Post, has suspended delivery of “low-value parcels” to the United States, on account of tariffs imposed by the US government.

Packages with a value of less than eight-hundred dollars (US), will be subject to tariffs as of Friday 29 August 2025. The move will be a blow to businesses, particularly smaller operators, who sell items online to global customers.

Australia Post will continue to ship letters, documents, and gifts valued at less than one-hundred-and-fifty dollars though. I assume these gifts will be exempt from any tariffs.

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America, Australia, commerce, economics

Young Australians not banned from social media, just delayed using it

26 August 2025

Australians under the age of sixteen will not be banned from having social media accounts, when laws change later this year. Instead, as the Australian eSafety commission points out, they’ll merely have to wait until their sixteenth birthday before being able to sign up for social media access:

It’s not a ban, it’s a delay to having accounts.

The incoming social media age-restriction laws will make students of semantics out of us all.

The 2025 Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists

19 August 2025

Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser, winner of this year’s Stellar Prize, Highway 13 by Fiona McFarlane, and Juice by Tim Winton — which I’m presently reading — are among titles shortlisted in the fiction category of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Award categories also include non-fiction, Australian history, poetry, children’s literature, and young adult. Six-hundred-and-forty-five entries were received this year, indicating Australian writers are busy. The winners will be named on Monday 29 September 2025, at a ceremony in Canberra.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, a film by Peter Weir, released fifty years ago

9 August 2025

Yesterday, Friday 8 August, marked fifty years since Picnic at Hanging Rock, trailer, premiered in Adelaide, South Australia. They story about some students of a girls’ school who go missing during a picnic, continues to captivate, and baffle, film watchers.

The Sydney born Australian filmmaker Peter Weir has made a slew of top-notch movies. These include Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society, and The Truman Show, but Picnic at Hanging Rock is by far — to my mind at least — his most enigmatic.

The screenplay was based on the 1967 novel of the same name, by late Australian author Joan Lindsay. Much of mystery enveloping the film stemmed from the belief it was based on actual events. The story is in fact fiction (thankfully).

I re-watched Picnic at Hanging Rock a few years ago, and soon after saw a lesser known Weir feature, The Plumber, which is truly bat shit mad/disturbing. Take a look at the trailer. If not already, Weir’s work should be required learning at Australian film schools.

War of the Worlds 2025, with Ice Cube, scores ZERO on Rotten Tomatoes

8 August 2025

Jesse Hassenger, writing for The Guardian:

The real question is how audiences have made it through an unconvincing cheapie like War of the Worlds — a sci-fi epic that seems to take place in real time yet features a vast and coordinated worldwide mobilization of multiple armed forces — without shutting it off in disgust (it boasts a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Check out the trailer. The 2025 adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel — published as a book in 1898 — directed by American filmmaker Rich Lee, had been sitting in the store room since production wrapped five years ago.

War of the Worlds’ zero percent score on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, is in sharp contrast to the one-hundred percent score achieved by 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. At least for a time.

I only learned a few years ago Wells’ novel has an Australian connection, being written as a protest against the treatment of Indigenous/First Nations people in Tasmania, at the hands of British colonisers. In a bid to sway public opinion, Wells portrayed a terrifying invasion of England by powerful extra-terrestrials, to help people comprehend the atrocities taking place in Australia.

The dark patterns of online sellers to get more of your money

4 August 2025

An all too long list of what NSW Fair Trading, the consumer protection regulator in New South Wales, Australia, describes as dark patterns encountered by consumers when transacting with goods and service providers online.

Sometimes vendors will add extra, usually unwanted, items to an order. Or a business will make it difficult to cancel subscriptions by using confusing language. Sometimes a seller might suggest stocks are low of whatever a buyer is viewing, encouraging them to buy before it’s “too late”.

One thing that especially ticks me off when looking at something I might want to buy is a pop-up, that blocks the screen, offering, say, a five-percent discount on the item. If an order is placed immediately. And I haven’t even worked out if the product is suitable yet.

They’re like those blogs that spawn a pop-up seconds after opening a post, urging readers to sign-up for a newsletter, before you’ve had the chance to read a single word.

Another insidious ploy is confirm shaming, where a shopper is goaded into making a decision by potentially embarrassing them. For instance, an option to decline buying a guide to keeping fit might say, “no thanks, I’m not interested in keeping fit.” The list goes on. It’s a jungle out there.

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Australia, trends

Australians aged under sixteen banned from using YouTube

31 July 2025

The Australian government has decided YouTube will be made inaccessible to people under the age of sixteen. There had been thoughts the video platform might be spared, after the government decided to restrict access to the likes of TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram to younger Australians.

YouTube has recently been running a publicity campaign locally extolling their family-friendly credentials, in the hope they would not be effected.

I’m not in complete agreement with this decision. Obviously there’s all sorts of material on YouTube, but a certain amount has educational merit.

Cast of The Castle reunite, but not for a sequel, nor a prequel

16 July 2025

Alisha Buaya, writing for Media Week:

Uber has reunited Australian film icons, stars of The Castle, Michael Caton, Stephen Curry and Anthony Simcoe, to highlight Uber Green’s transition to a fully electric rideshare product.

The Castle was made by Australian actor, comedian, and filmmaker, Rob Sitch. The 1997 film is a feel good, David versus Goliath comedy, about a working class family attempting to stop property developers taking their home, their castle, away from them.

But wait until you see where the home is located.

The Uber promotion informs riders they now have the option to hire an EV for their journey. As yet, I’m not sure just how much of The Castle — aside from the stars — comes into this.

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