For over a year the NSW south coast has slowly cracked and dried.

A little over a week ago a neighbour and his friends tried to save native fish as they struggled to survive in a coastal lagoon that had gone so rank everything living in it was starting to die. A few days later it began to rain and the lagoon smashed open to the sea. And then, for a few days, it was dry again. Last Friday it once more started to rain, soft and gentle at first. But today a low pressure system formed on top of us. I watched kangaroos, which a week ago were searching for fodder, being swept away in floodwaters into a coastal lake.

Farm dams filled so fast that spillways couldn’t cope and the water simply breached dam walls.  Our entire front paddock was under a foot of water. My fish-rescuing friend rang to tell me that he saw something moving upwards in the floodwaters. They were eels, life again on the move.

‘Dad look at this,’ my nine-year-old daughter said to me in awe. Polite, silent, internalised groan. Was it Bindi Irwin on television again? Some new lyric she’d finally heard in a Taylor Swift song? No, in her hand was an apple.
‘It’s the perfect apple,’ she said as proudly as if she was the smug chicken that had laid a glorious double-yolker egg.
All week she had been picking apples from our apple tree which, being a youngster itself, is producing its first crop this summer. Sometimes she has been eating three or four in a row and she’s stuffing her lunch box full of them. The whole time I have been thinking she is a matyr for health – the victim of some new Department of Education good food campaign.
The adults in the family are too wise to fall for the old pretty apple trick. We are all victims of post traumatic floury apple disorder, which manifests itself by spitting out mouthfuls of soggy tasteless fruit into the bin, uncontrolled swearing and flashbacks to the bill for how much that damned inedible bag of apples from the supermarket cost.
It is part of that spectrum of emotional disorders that also includes apricot head shaking syndrome. ‘No, I will not buy those tempting apricots at the supermarket, I must resist because if I come home with another bag of tasteless but expensive and beautiful fruit my wife, Prue, will divorce me.’
Still, so many times, in spite of the abuse, I have succumbed. I have looked at the shelf of apricots at the supermarket and my mouth starts to water, I pick an apricot up and before I know it I have greedily stuffed a bag full with a couple of kilograms, fooling myself that this time it will be different.
I come home and walk in the door and hold the bag of apricots aloft as if it is a leg of woolly mammoth I have butchered for dinner.
Prue says: ‘What the hell were you thinking?! You know they will taste crap.’
And, of course she is right. I have brought home a bag of orange things that taste like someone has forgotten to add the apricot part.
But even by the standards of the modern pretty apple my daughter was right about the gem she held in her palm. ‘It’s even got a bright green leaf growing out of it,’ she continued.
I held it in my hand and turned it around and round cynically. Sure it looked good and that leaf growing from the stalk was a nice aesthetic touch.
It had perfect clouds of red spread around its absolutely spherical waistline and the underlying green was enough to give the environmental movement renewed hope. You could almost understand how something that wondrous got humanity kicked out of Eden and inspired Isaac Newton to discover gravity.
But how many times have we all been fooled by the glorious piece of fruit that tastes like a chomp out of that famous Egyptian mummy, Tutankhamen?
It was my birthday. And my daughter was making an offering. ‘You should try it Dad.’
But I am done with apples. No matter how many doctors they keep away and how good they are for your constitution I swore off them years ago. Along with strawberries, tomatoes, nectarines and peaches.
Dig deep enough into our fruit bowl and there will always be some poor shop-bought apple that has slowly dried there for weeks and has the skin of a 102-year-old.
So my apple was placed in the fruit bowl, the scene of so many mass apple witherings, the epicentre of countless, thwarted vitamin C fantasies.
The day passed, my birthday was wrapping up, it was 10 pm. I stood in the kitchen and pondered my gifts - my flash new wallet, my new Johnny Cash dvd – and my attention was again grabbed by the present I had disdained, the sublime little apple in the fruit bowl.
I held it once more and decided to take a photo of it instead of eat it. But then on the spur of the moment I took a bite. ‘My God,’ I said to my wife. ‘This is beautiful.’
The skin was like a fine crust that disappeared in my mouth, the flesh of the fruit was as white as bleached paper and as crisp and juicy as a good potato. It was sweet beyond belief and I ate greedily, not stopping until all that was left was a core, stalk and leaf, which landed after a three-pointer throw with a satisfying little thud into our compost bin.
When you grow your own food you start to wonder what the hell is being done to the stuff we buy in supermarkets.
Who is behind the great flavour and texture theft of our fruit?
Prue got herself through uni by fruit picking across Victoria and she blames early harvesting, lengthy refrigeration and waxing as the main culprits in the crime against apples.
But I blame laziness – my own. Why has it taken me until I am in my forties to grow my own apple tree? It’s not rocket science, in fact since it was planted, so dismissive have I been of its worth, I have never given it a moment’s thought. But few homes are too small to grow one and so, at least for a few weeks a year, everyone should know the joys of a proper piece of fruit.

By JAMES WOODFORD

I hate to say it but there is one small way Opposition leader Tony Abbott is right. His two most repeated and quoted recent comments on the environment may sound like hyperbole but he is in fact absolutely correct.
Whether it be an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax the new measure will be a big, new tax on everything.
And it is also true that Abbott is fighting a battle that is about the future of Australia.
There is no point pretending an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax, as it is ultimately and properly envisaged, is designed merely as a decoration to be hung at the front door of Australia’s tax laws. [Read more →]

By JULIA BAIRD

When I decided to move from Sydney to Manhattan three years ago, the most common response I had from my friends was; “What about the beach??” Implying of course, I was mad to leave behind the craggy coves I spent so much time in, as well as those luscious, long summer days. I laughed, and pointed out some of New York’s more obvious attractions – the lights, the theatre, the seasons, the snow. Now, I long so acutely for the sea I used to swim in daily, sometimes it is like an ache. It wasn’t until I read Sara Maitland’s book on silence, though that I realized why: when I swim I only hear the sound of the ocean. When I dive under, I can hear my heart beat. And that kind of silence is precious and rare.
It’s true there can be a certain peace in the tiny island of Manhattan. The parks are lovely – if crowded by buskers in summer – and the bike paths along the river eventually lead through quiet fields. For the first few years, my office overlooked Central Park, and I walked through it on my way to work – I loved watching the seasons. Then they renovated our offices, remaking the façade of the building and a jackhammer was positioned directly outside my office walls for three months. They renovated three townhouses on my street, causing not just noise but the movement of many, many disturbed mice. It’s an urban existence, one many of my American friends both depend on and long to escape. When you dream of escape in a city of concrete canyons, of course, you imagine the world abounds with quieter, more peaceful places.
Which is why I was fascinated by the story of Gordon Hempton, “The Sound Tracker” when I met him. He believes silence is becoming extinct and has travelled the globe documenting the steady erosion of quiet places. He has some sobering findings…watch his story here

Vivienne left a comment recently on this website which said: ”Environmentalists should be either vegan or vegetarian”. I am neither. By Vivienne’s reckoning, I am automatically part of why the world is in trouble.

I am the father of four carnivorous children - a fact several people have told me is inconceivably at odds with a green CV. In my defence, I have nearly had the snip twice and am now contemplating a third run-up at the sterilised scissors.

There is no denying, I am a meat-eating, fertile, cowardly male. I am thus already thrice excluded from environmental credibility. But it gets worse. [Read more →]

Kangaroo meat is low in fat, tender and delicious (when it’s cooked right) and environmentally sustainable. But are Australians ready to stomach eating the national emblem? Greg Bearup shoots a roo to serve to some slightly apprehensive guests. First published Good Weekend magazine 9/01/10.

As we set off into the scrub, up into the back paddocks after dusk, I wonder what two decades in the city have done to me. How will I feel? Will I get the shakes and miss? What if I maim the poor creature and we have to chase it, mutilated, through the eucalypts? Can I actually do this? It’s been a long time since I’ve killed something.
I am familiar with this New England mountain terrain - and the winter chill that seeps into your bones - because the land belongs to my oldest friend. I spent my school holidays in these paddocks, spotlighting for foxes, rabbits and kangaroos. Parents these days should be thankful for PlayStations - killing things was just what you did then, growing up in a place without a picture theatre or a skate park.

Picture by Stuart Cohen

[Read more →]

By James Woodford

SCIENTISTS have gained a glimpse into how the koala, one of the nation’s most loved creatures, may have acted tens of millions of years ago.

We may never know exactly how an ancient koala, living 24 million years ago in a since vanished rainforest, differed from its modern counterparts.

But a scientific paper, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, suggests some old habits die hard. The team of scientists included researchers from the CSIRO and the University of NSW. [Read more →]

At the end of a depressing week of bad news, I thought I would offer up a change of pace….

Every man has his story about his midlife transition to Speedos. Some hide behind the foil that they have no choice - an excuse like their surf club makes them do it. For others it follows the frustration of trying to select a pair of board shorts that don’t come down to your ankles or are covered in a design that looks like a pub carpet or a wall of graffiti.

For me it was a moment of being faced with a terrible choice: nudity or Speedos. Having driven 40 minutes to go for a swim but arriving and discovering I had forgotten to bring my $4 op-shop boardies, my first thought was to sit this one out. [Read more →]

Picture and Story by Andrew Cox

As one of his last acts as Premier, Nathan Rees announced last week that the NSW Government would protect the magnificent red gum forests of the Murray River.

Some are now seeking to undo this decision, but Nathan Rees had little choice. As the last forestry region in the State to undergo a conservation assessment, the evidence of an unstainable industry was crystal clear. [Read more →]

Stuart Kininmonth is a seafaring scientist - a sailor and researcher based on Magnetic Island, Queensland. Like every sector of society, yachties will be impacted  by climate change. And what hurts them, hurts us. Here is Stu’s take on the ill wind about to blow.

The light breeze fills the sails and quietly pushes me over the rolling seas towards Davies Reef, off Townsville. Cumulus clouds provide some relief from the tropical sun while Masked Boobies dive spectacularly into the fish-filled waters. It’s a perfect day yet on the horizon I can clearly see a storm brewing. It’s more perplexing than Switzerland winning the America’s cup, more devastating than the global financial crash and more controversial than Public Health Care. And unlike all of these, it is going to affect everyone of us. I am pointing to the climate change storm about to hit and strangely very few people seem to care. Most people casually say climate change is about the earth getting a bit warmer over the next century. A few degrees extra, as predicted by the science community, does not seem worth fussing over. Why then should we be concerned and more importantly what impact will this have on the cruising community? [Read more →]