David Attenborough reaching one hundred years of age feels reassuring. I grew up with him and he undoubtedly shaped my love of nature. In many ways he’s the original influencer, staring down the barrel of the camera from exotic locations with an unparalleled dedication to his craft. It’s as if nature is talking through him.
Despite the decades of enchantment, he has also witnessed the enormous destruction and loss of the natural world. He has given stark warnings about the climate crisis and spoken honestly about the profound grief and deep sadness it causes him. He’s a wise man with the curiosity of a child, and an elder, weeping quietly into his cup of tea.
He’s not alone. Young and old, we all share the complex trauma of being alive amidst the ongoing loss and fragility of our world. We feel the utter frustration and powerlessness as successive governments keep failing to act on critical issues we face.
Some genuinely try to make a difference. Independent senator David Pocock is one; he cares about people and the planet. He is engaged in a real David and Goliath battle trying to make the gas industry pay its way.
The gas industry is making a motza selling our common resource while paying relatively little tax. Pocock’s popular request for a 25 per cent tax on gas export profits flushed out the government and opposition and reveals where the power resides.
The gas goliaths hit back hard and threatened to pack up and leave. The government wilted under the heat and ruled out a tax. As a sop to those suffering under the deepening cost-of-living crisis, they meekly announced a policy to secure domestic gas supply and lower prices.
The government’s policy requires, wait for it, opening new gas fields in Victoria and NSW, while ensuring east coast gas producers reserve 20 per cent of their total export production for the domestic market to create a surplus and reduce prices, starting in July 2027. It’s fossil fuel business as usual, not a win for people or planet.
As Australian politics continues to circle around the plug hole, according to the recent V-Dem Institute report, it’s sobering that in 2026 autocracies now outnumber democracies around the world. Global freedom has declined for the 20th consecutive year, and along with Bulgaria and Nauru, the US has declined in freedoms more than any other country.
While Australia is still a functioning democracy, our freedom score has a downward trajectory. Being tied closely to the US is infecting the body politic and pulling us dangerously closer to the politics of fear, hate, and division.
Look no further than the Farrer by-election last weekend which saw the One Nation candidate win the long-held Liberal seat to gain their first federal lower house seat. Never forget Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart cosied up at Mar-a-Lago. The MAGA-style rot is setting in as the hand of Trump grabs our parliament by the pussy.
Screaming into the void
People clearly want change, and humanity is desperately searching for a new paradigm, but the angry void created is being deftly exploited by those with nefarious agendas. If billionaires bearing gifts for the people seems too good to be true, then it is.
As US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) recently said, ‘There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you can break rules, you can abuse labour laws, you can pay people less than what they’re worth, but you can’t earn that.’
The billionaire tech bros’ panoptic vision for a world controlled by testosterone, iffy ideas, and artificial intelligence, is freakishly sinister. These men and their corporations don’t give a jot about the planet or human rights.
Palantir Technologies’ CEO Alex Karp recently released a manifesto, and his dystopian vision is described as ‘antidemocratic and nihilistic in its worldview’.
Palantir, a defence contractor, specialises in creating detailed profiles of people using large datasets. According to Digital Rights Watch, they then provide surveillance capability to their customers including the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and US Immigration and Enforcement (ICE). Amnesty International claims Palantir is facilitating human rights abuse.
The Australian government has over $60 million in Palantir contracts in defence and national security intelligence.
We could learn from the Artemis II astronauts who travelled to the far side of moon and experienced the profound isolation and starkness of space. When they looked back at Earth, they didn’t see artificial lines on a map to wage war over or resources to exploit for profit. The ‘out of body’ experience they had gave them the opportunity to see their Earth home as a living, unified, fragile planet, with dynamic weather patterns and a surprisingly thin atmosphere, floating in the darkness of space.
Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and coordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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