Etikett: Theconversation.com

Two weeks after the US president, Joe Biden, signed off on a US$60 billion (£50 billion) package of military aid to Kyiv, the impact on the battlefield has been relatively modest.

According to an assessment by the Washington-based think-tank the Institute for the Study of War on May 6, Russian offensive operations have continued unabated. Vladimir Putin’s invasion force continues to achieve incremental territorial gains along key parts of the frontline in the east and south.

The most critical battle at the moment appears to be around the eastern town of Chasiv Yar, just ten kilometres west of Bakhmut, which Russia captured a year ago. If the town were to fall, it would be an indication of both Russia’s success on the battlefield and the incredibly slow pace of the conflict. Nevertheless, it would be a further indication that despite the US aid package momentum in the war remains with Russia, for now.

It would have been unrealistic to expect Ukraine to regain the military initiative immediately. This is despite the fact that the US defence department had already positioned key supplies, including air defence capabilities and artillery ammunition, in advance of Biden’s signature and was able to deliver these to Ukraine in some cases within hours.

But the continuing Russian advance also indicates likely delays on the Ukrainian side in distributing new supplies to frontline troops. And even when these logistical problems are overcome, they will not necessarily quickly make up for the unfavourable overall balance in equipment and manpower that Ukraine still faces.

The battle for Chasiv Yar, May 7 2024.
Institute for the Study of War

But neither should the impact of the US aid package be dismissed as irrelevant. It provides Ukraine with a lifeline. Its stocks of vital war-fighting equipment had been depleted to such an extent that a Ukrainian defeat did not just seem possible, but increasingly probable. Apart from a boost to morale, the US aid package will likely buy Kyiv enough time to repel a Russian offensive that is expected later this spring.

This would almost certainly ensure that Ukraine and its European allies will be in a position towards the end of 2024 when they can produce enough equipment and ammunition to see Kyiv through what will likely be another difficult winter – regardless of the outcome of the US elections in November.

Hardening positions in Europe

As always, there is a bigger picture here as well which provides some clues about the trajectory of the war. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, recently urged his European partners to contemplate sending troops to Ukraine as a last resort to prevent a Russian victory. When Macron initially floated this idea in February it was roundly rejected by key Nato allies.

Nothing came of it at the time, but the fact that it is back on the table is due, to some extent at least, to French grandstanding. So far only Lithuania has responded somewhat positively, indicating it would be prepared to send troops to Ukraine on a training mission. But Macron’s vision suggests that any hawks in the broader debate about how Europe should respond to the threat that Russia undoubtedly poses well beyond this war have found a powerful ally in the French president.

A similar change of direction is indicated in the UK. While Lord Cameron, the British foreign secretary, continues to rule out “boots on the ground” in Ukraine, he has explicitly affirmed that Kyiv can use UK-supplied weapons systems to strike targets inside Russia.

Tougher stance: the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said Ukraine can use British missiles to hit targets in Russia.
EPA-EFE/Foreign Affairs ministry handout

This hardening of French and British positions prompted Russia to announce drills for its tactical nuclear forces. This kind of nuclear sabre rattling is nothing new, and was likely expected in Paris and London. But Britain’s decision suggests that at least some in the west are prepared to call Putin’s bluff. Using British weapons to hit targets in Russia was previously a red line the UK government was unwilling to allow Kyiv to cross. This reversal in the British position gives Cameron’s gambit an immediacy well beyond even Macron’s boots on the ground rhetoric and explains why the Kremlin’s response has also included threats to strike the UK.

Thanks to the US aid package, growing European capabilities, as well as its own increased capacity to manufacture arms, Ukraine is now in a position to target Russian supply lines, storage areas and bases in the immediate areas on the other side of the border. This could significantly diminish Moscow’s ability to mount and sustain future large-scale offensive operations. Even if Ukraine was successful in doing this, it would not suddenly turn the tide decisively in its favour. But it would relieve some of the pressure that Russia had been able to apply of late and add an element of uncertainty to Putin’s calculations about the outcome of the war against Ukraine and – perhaps more so – the wider geopolitical confrontation with the west.

No end in sight

In this uncertainty, Moscow is not alone. In Washington, too, there are still few, if any, signs of a clear sense of the endgame or its timing. The US national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, seems content that US military aid will allow Ukraine to hold the line for the remainder of the year and possibly to mount another counteroffensive in 2025.

On the upside, that Ukraine is still in a position to deny Russia a victory on the battlefield is a testament to the country’s will to fight and to the ability of its western partners to assist in that fight. On the downside, it suggests that to the extent that there is any western strategy it appears to remain focused on preventing Ukraine’s defeat, rather than enabling its victory.

Above all, it is not a strategy for ending the war. This halfhearted support will not only continue to prevent a negotiated compromise, but might ultimately lead to defeat for Ukraine – and the west. Läs mer…

Gas is back – if it ever went away.

Yesterday, the Albanese government doubled down on gas with the release of its Future Gas Industry policy.

Under this proposal, gas will be part of our power mix until at least 2050. New gas fields will be opened to avoid the supply problems that have bedevilled east coast users. And our gas exports will remain a source of income and diplomatic power.

What about climate change? Well, the strategy is littered with references to low-emissions gas, carbon capture and storage, decarbonisation and the need to shore up energy supply as coal departs the grid. As it states:

Continued gas development and more flexible gas infrastructure is needed to increase the resilience of Australia’s energy system and keep costs down as we transition.

But this is a fig leaf. We cannot open new gas projects and still meet our climate goals. If we want to make sure we have enough domestic supply on the east coast, we could simply reserve some of our export gas, as Western Australia has done.

Having your cake and eating it too

Gas still supplies more than a quarter of Australia’s power within the National Energy Market. By 2028, the report forecasts supply shortages will begin to hurt the east coast. But this supply crisis could be solved easily with a WA-style reservation policy, where a percentage of gas extracted from existing supply is mandated to be reserved for the domestic east coast market. The fact the government is not pursuing this option means the supply crisis is of our own making.

Cynics would say the domestic supply issue is a cover for vastly larger interests, namely the A$17 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry which sells about 90% of our gas overseas with demand for LNG in the Asian region expected to continue until 2050. Over the past decade, our LNG exports have risen sharply. For several years, Australia was the world’s top exporter, competing directly with the likes of Qatar. Gas now accounts for 14% of our export earnings.

Last year, we exported 80 million tonnes of the stuff – roughly 114 shiploads. That’s the first drop in production since 2015.

The reason? Production is likely to have peaked. Many gas fields are running dry, and exploration has slowed. Late last year, the oil and gas industry put out a report stating:

investment in supply is also required to meet current long-term LNG commitments with the current committed and anticipated production also declining over time to below contracted levels in the medium-term.

Now we have a new government strategy, calling for renewed exploration and development.

Gas consumption in homes is projected to fall – but industrial use would stay high.
JWPhotoworks/Shutterstock

Is there a role for gas?

The gas industry would, of course, like us to keep using gas for as long as possible. But how does that square with the need to get to net zero as soon as possible? To meet Australia’s commitment to net zero by 2050, emissions from gas must be reduced.

As Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King says in the foreword to the new gas strategy:

Under all credible net zero scenarios, natural gas is needed through to 2050 and beyond, though its production and use will change over this period[…] Gas will be a transition fuel that firms renewable power generation and is required for manufacturing and minerals processing until such time as alternatives are viable. Gas can support our future made in Australia. However, the greenhouse gas emissions associated with gas must sharply decline and where gas use cannot be reduced, emissions must be increasingly abated and offset.

This has some truth. We cannot simply turn off the gas pipelines overnight for our domestic consumption. Homes still use gas. Industries rely on it. Gas peaking plants have taken up some of the slack left by coal leaving the grid. Development of lower emission alternatives such as biomethane, hydrogen gas, pumped hydro, batteries and other bio-fuels will take time, especially for industrial use.

The report envisages the steepest domestic falls in demand in east coast buildings, which essentially means Victorian homes, as the state most reliant on gas. Here, the state government has signalled it wants to end this reliance. But the report sees industrial demand remaining high due to a lack of alternatives, and an increase in gas demand on the west coast for new industrial users, such as fertiliser plants coming on line, which will use gas as a key feedstock.

So is the government actually planning for the time when gas stays safely in the ground, where it does not add to corporate coffers and also does not add to the tally of planet-warming gases?

Not exactly. Under the most ambitious emissions scenario in the report, the government foresees global demand for gas dropping 30% by 2043. That’s almost two decades away, and a 30% drop is not much on that kind of timescale. Further, the report states gas “underpins a wide range of economic activity in Australia and globally, with secure gas supplies being a core component of energy security.” So, our Future Gas Strategy will continue to be aligned with the production and export of gas, despite out Net Zero commitments

What’s also clear in the report is the importance this government places on gas as a geopolitical tool. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global gas prices skyrocketed as major gas consumers scrambled to find alternative supplies. By and large, they have – and Australia is one of the beneficiaries of the global gas grab.

As King notes in her foreword:

Australia is and will remain a reliable and trusted trade and investment partner, including for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Our trade partners have made large investments over decades in Australia’s resources industry.

The Greens, teals and independents have seized on this report as evidence the government is simply doing whatever the gas industry wants. Vocal independent David Pocock described the strategy as “morally bankrupt”.

It’s hard to write that line of argument off completely. As the International Energy Agency has said, large new fossil fuel projects are simply not compatible with cutting emissions and tackling climate change.

Read more:
Gas is good until 2050 and beyond, under Albanese gas strategy Läs mer…

The future belongs to the analogue loyalists. Fuck digital.

As a tsunami of CDs, DAT tapes and samplers swept the recording industry in the late 1980s, Big Black frontman and alternative music agent provocateur Steve Albini threw down the gauntlet in defiance.

His commitment to analogue recording processes and the permanency of analogue media resonated among alternative music communities sceptical of the major record industry, and their perceptions of impending digital doom.

This quote, taken from the liner notes of Big Black’s sophomore album Songs About Fucking (1987), signified the end of Albini’s band and the beginning of his recording career.

Albini’s untimely death at the age of 61 is a huge loss to independent music.

An analogue sound

A protégé of London’s Southern Studios recordist John Loder (CRASS, Ministry, Jesus and Mary Chain), Albini peeled the remnants of analogue recording from Southern’s sticky floors and stuck it all over Chicago’s alternative music scene.

He quickly carved out a reputation as a go-to recordist for artists wanting to achieve a transparent representation of a live sonic aesthetic.

From The Jesus Lizard to Manic Street Preachers, Pixies to The Stooges, Albini applied his same raw-and-roomy drum microphone techniques alongside uncompromisingly upfront guitars to every session – regardless of whether the client was an indie rock giant or an emergent local band.

In 2003, Albini’s commitment to technologically unobtrusive recording sessions was immortalised in David Josephson’s e-22S – a small diaphragm condenser microphone built to Albini’s requirements and bearing his Electrical Audio studio insignia.

The power of words – and music

As a journalism graduate from Northwestern University, Albini routinely provoked outrage with his nonchalant commentary of extreme events and material, writing for local fanzines and reviewing the Chicago punk scene.

Armed with a Roland TR606 drum machine and a penchant for horror stories in the local news, I previously described Albini’s noise-punk as “designed to confront listeners with real-life horrors of suburbia, to reflect bigotry and social exclusion and to mediate the extremities of human behaviour via equally confronting music.”

In 2020, Albini apologised for his confrontational writing – and later band name Rapeman – as “unconscionable” and “indefensible”, a result, he said, of his unchecked privilege.

All apologies aside, it is hardly likely the dozens of women and LGBTQI+ artists Albini recorded – including Laura Jane Grace, The Breeders, Nina Nastasia, Screaming Females and PJ Harvey, to name but a few – would have set foot in his studio had Albini’s deviant satirising reflected his true politics or beliefs.

After all this is the man, who when writing to Nirvana to pitch the recording for their In Utero album, told them he’d “rap your head with a ratchet” in the same letter he humbly insisted on no points or royalties.

The only person I wanted to call

Albini’s reputation as an unapproachable and prickly recalcitrant was far from the truth.

For those fortunate enough to have recorded with Albini, he was known as a kind, patient and accommodating engineer, eager to make bands feel at home and committed to capturing the truest possible representation of their live sound.

This was my experience, too.

As a young doctoral student researching sound recording and production techniques in 2009, Albini was only too happy to discuss his career and recording techniques with me.

“I feel like it borders on the fraudulent for me to charge for a recording session knowing that the product of that recording session is going to be impermanent,” he told me. He was adamant tape was still the only reliable recording medium well into the 21st century.

A couple of years later when we needed a keynote for the Art of Record Production conference, there was only one person I knew to call. Albini happily obliged – despite spending most of the conference weekend glued to online poker tournaments.

As an analogue loyalist, Albini was perhaps the recording industry’s last man standing. Technically accomplished, sonically subversive and fiercely independent, in his later years he showed a rare humility for a decorated recording engineer, and an open willingness to teach in the face of relentless industry gatekeeping.

Never a nostalgic, Albini demythologised recording processes with a stream of recording videos shot from his own Electric Audio studios. Dressed in his trademark navy blue overalls and beanie, just a week ago Albini happily explained the schematic of a SamAmp VA tube preamplifier in a video that effortlessly blends in-depth electronics theory with an exuberant punk joy de vivre.

Albini’s final album with band Shellac, To All Trains, will be released on May 17. Läs mer…

This week American rapper Macklemore released a new track, Hind’s Hall, which has gained a lot of attention because of its explicitly political nature.

The track is unapologetically pro-Palestine. It declares the artist’s solidarity with student protesters occupying campuses across the globe in response to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide.

The title refers to student protesters renaming Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall as “Hind’s Hall” when they occupied it. Hind Rajab was a six-year-old Gazan girl who died in horrific circumstances – trapped for days in a car with the bodies of her family members killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military also killed Red Cross emergency responders who tried to come to her aid.

Macklemore has previously been known for more lighthearted songs such as Thrift Shop and Downtown but ventured into (safer) political territory with Same Love in 2012, a celebration of LGBTQI+ relationships.

This new track goes beyond the politics of previous work in taking a no-holds-barred stance on Palestine. It also calls out problems with policing and censorship in the United States, and its role in enabling the slaughter in Gaza.

The song concludes in a celebration of protest and collective action:

If the West was pretendin’ that you didn’t exist, you’d want the world to stand up and the students finally did.

The legacy of protest music

Hind’s Hall is of course just the latest in a long line of protest songs released in relation to key political moments. Previous examples include The Specials’ song Nelson Mandela protesting against apartheid, Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit commenting on violent racism in the United States, and numerous iconic songs from the anti-Vietnam War movement.

The entire genre of hip-hop has been built on a foundation of social commentary and protest – often about race and social conditions – making it a fitting vehicle for Hind’s Hall.

Even political parties understand music’s potential to convey messages, which is why they, too, often use music to drive their campaigns. The song It’s Time from the 1972 Gough Whitlam campaign was used to evoke feelings of hope in voters through music, lyrics and the involvement of well-known Australian musicians such as Little Pattie.

This doesn’t always go to plan, however. Artists have pushed back on their songs being used by politicians they don’t agree with.

There have also been cases of politicians using songs where the message doesn’t align with their own. For instance, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA has been used several times as a pro-US anthem by politicians who missed its critique of the country.

This raises an important point. An artist might try their best to convey a political point in a song, but they can never guarantee the audience will understand it in the way they want.

Why music?

Can a song like Hind’s Hall really galvanise the public into taking action on an issue? The link between political songs and people taking political action is by no means clear-cut. Often the clearest outcome of protest songs is that they strengthen the bonds between people who already agree on an issue, rather than changing their position.

That said, we know music has the power to hit people on several levels and to translate political messages in a powerful way. That’s because it elicits strong emotions and sensations that go beyond words or facts. Someone who has never felt strongly about a political issue may become engaged if they are moved by a song.

Music is also fundamentally social and creates community and belonging. When a song like Hind’s Hall explodes, people respond not only to its instruments, melodies and lyrics, but also to other people’s reactions to the song.

In this way, music can raise the public profile of an issue and make it challenging for people who have otherwise disengaged to remain disengaged.

Macklemore’s song has received coverage in media outlets around the globe.

Meanwhile, media coverage on the ground in Gaza has been highly politicised. Journalists themselves been targeted and Israel has recently moved to shut down Al Jazeera’s operations in the country.

Against this backdrop, we can see the significance of Hind’s Hall giving media space to the people under siege and the protesters supporting them. Millions of people who might have not known who Hind Rajab was will now remember her name.

What happens next?

There’s a risk that comes with putting too much weight into the potential of a single song (however powerful) by a well-known musician. That is, it could simply be used to manufacture attention and strong reactions for the sake of clicks.

What matters is what happens next. Will Macklemore’s song stop the US government and its allies (which include Australia) from funding the war on Gaza? Probably not. Will it encourage more people to participate in campaigns and protests? Maybe. Will it help maintain motivation for the people who are already taking action? More likely.

What it will undoubtedly do is provide a focal point around which people can discuss how to oppose the killing of tens of thousands of people and the stoking of a wider regional war. It will also add to the increasing domestic and international pressure the US government is already being compelled to respond to, such as by pausing weapons shipment.

It may also encourage more artists to speak about the issue. As Macklemore notes in the song, “the music industry’s quiet, complicit in their platform of silence”. Many artists are no doubt scared of speaking up on such issues.

Rihanna tweeted ‘#FreePalestine’ before quickly deleting it.
X/screenshot

In 2003, the Dixie Chicks almost had their careers ruined following a comment they made onstage that critiqued George W. Bush’s decision to take the US to war in Iraq.

Nonetheless, as Macklemore has shown, artists’ voices have weight. In dark and difficult times, it may make a difference if they use them. Läs mer…

Back in 1992, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama announced the end of history as a process of evolution and predicted the world would embrace Western liberal democracy.

Democracy’s downward trajectory over the following three decades is best summed up by the character in a Hemingway novel who described the process of going bankrupt as “gradual, then sudden”.

Already in 2024 we have seen several populist and authoritarian leaders across the world succeed by leaning into conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation. Sydney University democracy expert John Keane has described this approach to political leadership as a form of “gaslighting”. A formerly obscure book by US philosopher Harry Frankfurt, “On Bullshit”, is now being widely quoted as an insightful text on modern political communication.

Experts will differ on precisely what is driving the rise of populism in our politics, but one thing is clear: the emergence of digital media and social media has comprised our information ecosystem.

Today it is just too easy to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation. The rise of artificial intelligence is only accelerating this trend.

All this, in turn, has eroded trust and made it easy for bad actors to take advantage of the confusion. How are we to get out of this mess?

No one has a simple solution – and don’t believe anyone who tells you they do. If we’re to nudge democracy back on track, a lot of things will need to go right – and one of the most important is improving the quality and trustworthiness of the information available to all citizens.

This is where The Conversation has a role to play. We take the work of the world’s best academics and make it widely available, for free, to people who need unbiased explanatory journalism to be better informed.

This is vital for democracy because better information will lead to better decisions, in politics as well as our everyday lives.

We do our work with no political agenda – our only goal is to help people access the information they need. We make all our work free because we think meaningful participation in democracy shouldn’t depend on wealth.

We also make our articles free to republish to give our colleagues in the media access to leading experts. We hope this will lead to better public debate and build social cohesion.

But to keep doing all this, we need your help. This week we launched our annual donations drive. If you value the work we do, please donate whatever you can afford and help us build a democracy that is better informed, less confused and more cohesive. Läs mer…

On a freezing spring night in March, Georgia’s national soccer team beat Greece in a nail-biter penalty shootout to qualify for the Euro 2024 championships. The atmosphere on the streets of the capital Tbilisi was electric – it was a euphoric and self-affirming moment for the small Caucasian nation. More than just a soccer match, it signalled to many Georgians their country was on the right path after finally gaining official European Union candidate status in December 2023.

Barely six weeks later, however, Georgia’s European future hangs in the balance. The warm, convivial atmosphere of that post-match night has been replaced by violent street clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters who fear the increasing Russification of their country.

From my house in Tbilisi, I hear the reverberations of these demonstrations grow louder each night, moving from their epicentre outside parliament to Heroes Square – a monument built to honour Georgians who have died fighting for the integrity of their nation.

As the movement grows beyond Georgia’s capital, tens of thousands continue to rally against a controversial bill being pushed through parliament by the ruling Georgian Dream party. Critics say the legislation was taken straight from the pages of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook.

Police use tear gas against demonstrators near the parliament building in Tbilisi on May 1.
Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP

Read more:
Georgia is sliding towards autocracy after government moves to force through bill on ’foreign agents’

Why the bill is causing anger

The so-called “Foreign Agents Bill” would require groups in Georgia that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”. It is a move that Georgian Dream claims will increase transparency among media, civil society and other non-governmental organisations, and protect Georgian statehood.

The government first introduced the bill last year, but was forced to withdraw it under pressure from protesters and Georgia’s Western allies.

As tensions on Tbilisi’s streets have heightened over the past week with the first and second parliamentary readings of the bill, opposition groups have urged the government to withdraw it again. They fear it will lead to a crackdown on independent media and civic liberties as it did in Russia when a similar law was introduced in 2012 and then expanded a decade later.

Demonstrators scuffle with riot police during an opposition protest in Tbilisi on May 1.
Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP

The legislation is just the latest in a series of questionable actions by Georgian Dream that seem to be leading the country away from its constitutionally enshrined Western path and into alignment with Kremlin-style authoritarianism.

EU leaders have warned the law could derail the country’s hopes of joining the bloc, if it is passed. With recent polls indicating nearly 90% of Georgians support joining the EU, this prospect was enough to compel many angry, mostly young citizens onto the streets.

As Niki Tarkhan-Mouravi, an independent publisher and activist who has been attending the nightly protests, told me:

We are scared the new legislation will give the government more control over Georgian people, on what they do and how they get funded. If passed, it will slowly shut down all organisations working hard in Georgia to promote Western values, such as individual rights and our commitment to building a more open society, as it did in Russia. And we do not want to be like Russia – our future is in Europe.

A test of a young democracy

This is a familiar story across the post-Soviet landscape, where the Western aspirations of young democracies frequently collide with the realities of living in Russia’s orbit.

Georgian Dream came to power in 2012, largely in response to then-President Mikheil Saakashvili’s increasingly unpopular neoliberal reforms and confrontational approach to Russia, which many believe led to the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

Since then, Georgian Dream has maintained a fragile balance between pursuing the public’s Western aspirations and appeasing Russia, Georgia’s neighbour to the north. It has increasingly favoured the latter, however, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, another neighbour, in 2022.

Indeed, domestic politics in former Soviet republics are often far more complex and delicate than Western critics may fathom. One need only look at Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to see what happens when citizens of Russia’s neighbours begin to voice civic aims that stray too far from Putin’s sphere.

Police detain opposition supporters during a protest calling for free and fair elections in Kazakhstan in 2019.
Igor Kovalenko/EPA

Georgia has been deeply scarred by the experience of wars with Russia. Some 20% of its territory is still occupied by Russian forces from the 2008 conflict. Georgian Dream has exploited the public’s fear of Russian aggression as a pretext for domestic political gain.

Yet, Georgian citizens also understand the predicament of living in Russia’s shadow.

Images of security forces using water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds of peaceful demonstrators in Tbilisi are strikingly reminiscent of Ukraine’s 2013 Euromaidan protests.

These were prompted by then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to renege on Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU in favour of closer ties with Russia. The protests grew into Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity several months later, which ousted Yanukovych and gave rise to a new generation of anti-corruption, pro-democratic leaders.

However, the revolution also prompted Russia to annex Crimea and incite an insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014. This laid the groundwork for Russia’s war in Ukraine today.

A pro-European protest on Independence Square in Kiev, Ukraine, on December 17 2013.
Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

Where Georgia goes from here

It remains to be seen whether the protests in Georgia will grow into a Euromaidan-style revolution. However, a nascent civil society is clearly defining its core values more sharply in response to threat.

Georgia is at a crossroads not simply because of the government’s decisions, but because a young, civic-minded population is coming of age and wants to safeguard its democratic future.

But if Georgians truly want to parlay their Western aspirations into a more resilient democratic future, they must back up their anti-Russian rhetoric with a deeper sociocultural and historical reckoning.

This will involve in-depth public discussions about the past and future direction of the nation. Georgian politicians and citizens alike must recognise the collective responsibility of building and maintaining an open society.

For now, my Georgian friends and their fellow citizens await the bill’s final reading in parliament on May 17. At a time when even established democracies are grappling with deep fragmentation and polarisation, it is clear these protests are more significant than merely the domestic affairs of a peripheral Caucasian nation. Läs mer…

This month, the much-anticipated television adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz premiered on Australian streaming platform Stan. Before its release, significant publicity announced it as an all-star production: Melanie Lynsky and Academy Award nominee Harvey Keitel in leading roles; an original score by Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer; an original song written and sung by Barbara Streisand. The series has been applauded as a “courageous, unforgettable, human story” and as both “a love story and reminder of the Holocaust and its horrors”.

The book on which the series is based was published in 2018 by the Australia-based, New Zealand-born author Heather Morris. The Tattooist of Auschwitz has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. It tells the story of Ludwig “Lali” Sokolov (né Eisenberg), as recounted to Morris over three years of personal meetings.

A Slovakian Jew, Sokolov was transported in 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was eventually assigned the role of Tätowierer at the camp, tattooing individual prisoner numbers on the forearms of thousands of new arrivals. While tattooing, Lali met Gita Fuhrman, also a Jewish deportee from Slovakia, and the pair instantly fell in love. “I tattooed her number on her left hand, and she tattooed her number in my heart,” Lali told Morris.

Both survived almost three years in Auschwitz and, after a period of separation, were reunited in Slovakia. Lali and Gita married and, in 1949, emigrated to Melbourne, where they raised their son and made a new life for themselves.

Following the success of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Morris released a sequel Cilka’s Journey (2019), and later Stories of Hope (2020) and Three Sisters (2021), adding to an ever-expanding genre of stories of love and hope set in Auschwitz – one that includes works such as Roxane van Iperen’s The Sisters of Auschwitz (2019), Ellie Midwood’s The Girl who Escaped from Auschwitz (2021), Keren Blankfeld’s Lovers in Auschwitz (2024) and Lidia Maksymowicz’s A Little Girl in Auschwitz (2023).

The six-part television adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, directed by Tali Shalom-Ezer, joins a well-established genre of cinematic representations of Holocaust histories focused on love stories that includes Sophie’s Choice (1982), Life is Beautiful (1997) and The Reader (2008).

Based on – or inspired by?

Despite its international success, the book of The Tattooist of Auschwitz generated a lot of controversy. The main criticism related to its historical inaccuracies.

Morris initially claimed 95% of the account was factual. She insisted she had only fictionalised scenes where she put Lali and Gita “into events where they really weren’t”. Historians remained sceptical. They soon revealed Morris had uncritically relied on Sokolov’s account, failing to verify key details. Some reviewers even claimed she had intentionally and unethically manipulated Sokolov’s testimony.

Relatives of some of the characters, including the couple’s son Gary Sokolov, felt uneasy with the final version. The stepson of Cilka Klein, the main protagonist of the sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, threatened Morris with a lawsuit.

The Auschwitz Memorial published the most scathing response. In a painstaking review, Wanda Witek-Malicka listed historical inaccuracies, including even minor errors that border on nitpicking, starting from a wrong prisoner number tattooed on Gita’s hand and extending to the book’s simplified and unlikely depiction of a relatively free prisoners’ life in the camp.

Witek-Malicka concluded that the book should “be perceived as an impression devoid of documentary value … only inspired by authentic events”. She did not recommend the book as a “valuable title” for those who “want to explore and understand the history of KL Auschwitz”.

But why is it so problematic to make a fictional story containing historical inaccuracies about the Holocaust? If we can make a fictional story about other historical events, featuring real characters, why not the Holocaust? Its history is well-known; everybody recognises the gates of Auschwitz and the gas chambers as ultimate symbols of inhumanity. Authors publish scores of fictional accounts set within a fictionalised version of the Holocaust each year and they do not elicit such heated debates. One gets the impression that Morris became the victim of her success, which made her mistakes more visible.

Samantha Mitschke, a Holocaust theatre scholar, opposed the criticism, arguing that The Tattooist of Auschwitz “is a novel, not an affidavit … A novel is meant to convey emotions”.

Television critic Robert Lloyd made a similar point about the adaptation, suggesting that “the re-creation of Auschwitz feels trustworthy”, but observing that “we’re looking at the past through a scrim of art … it’s a translation of a work of fiction based on a memory of an experience; a filtered reality, and only a slice of it”.

Historical distortions

The main concerns here are Holocaust distortion or outright denial, especially in the approaching post-witness era. Morris’s critics believe that authors who write about the Holocaust have a special responsibility to do proper fact-checking.

Morris, and to a degree the television series, put real historical characters and events into fictional encounters, and in doing so use several Holocaust clichés. The aim is to achieve a dramatic effect, but also to make the story look “real”. The Tattooist of Auschwitz balances on the line between facts and fiction, which for some makes the events seem credible, but for others discredits the whole effort.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is not the first Holocaust book and film to be criticised for historical distortions. Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List (1993), particularly the shower scene in Auschwitz, attracted criticism that it could fuel Holocaust denial. Other blockbusters, including Life is Beautiful and Boy in Striped Pyjamas (2008), have been rejected by historians for containing what they regard as dangerous and unethical historical inaccuracies.

The television adaptation of The Tattoist of Auschwitz partially shields itself from criticism of its historical accuracy. A disclaimer at the opening of each episode reminds the audience the story is based on Lali’s memory and aspects have been fictionalised. Countless faces of the victims Lali encountered in the camp appear on the screen as reminders of those who did not make it. The device of jumping between present and past also draws attention to the issues of testimony, trauma and survivor guilt.

The authors of the screenplay have corrected some of the major mistakes from the original version of Morris’s book. They have also changed the structure of the plot. In the screen version, we listen to the story through old Lali, who invites Morris to his apartment and shares his memories. This allows the authors to acknowledge the possible inaccuracies and gaps in his testimony.

As Morris patiently listens to the gruesome details from the camp life, Lali makes mistakes, sometimes intentionally. He corrects himself, or tells Morris to keep parts off-record. He is haunted by his memory, which he tries to manipulate, omitting details about his involvement in Nazi crimes. To save Gita, for example, Lali abetted the murder of prisoners by Dr Schumann, a character based on the notorious Josef Mengele.

The depictions of survivor trauma and troubled memories have been praised as the strongest part of the series. The depiction of the camp is also visually promising, and the narrative is largely well dramatised by the actors, especially Keitel as the older Lali.

Harvey Keitel as Lali Sokolov in The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Stan Originals

The danger of trivialisation

The audience is constantly reminded that The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a love story. Such is the focus on the love between Lali and Gita that the complex history of the Holocaust comes dangerously close to functioning as a well-recognised mise-en-scène. The striped uniforms, box cars, barracks, abuse, starvation and death form the backdrop to a story of courage and hope with a redemptive, triumphal ending.

The educational value of the history is, in this way, subordinated to entertainment. But what if such fictionalised blockbusters, simplified though they are, do more for Holocaust awareness than meticulously researched Holocaust documentaries?

The Auschwitz Memorial complained that after the publication of Morris’ book, visitors began to ask for special tours in the footsteps of the tattooist. Did the book bring them to the museum? Isn’t this the role popular culture should play? Its job is not primarily to educate, but to raise awareness and generate interest that will lead people to educate themselves.

Criticism of popularised Holocaust representations is certainly not new. The debate has been active since the late 1970s, when it was provoked by the premiere of the CBS television miniseries Holocaust: The Story of Family Weiss (1978). The series was based on reality, but was essentially a soap opera, a Hollywood version of events with many inaccuracies.

Some Holocaust scholars and survivors were offended at the trivialisation, arguing that the Holocaust was a singular event, beyond representation. Famous Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel stated:

Auschwitz cannot be explained, nor can it be visualised. The Holocaust transcends history. […] The Holocaust [is] the ultimate event, the ultimate mystery, never to be comprehended or transmitted. Only those who were there know what it was, the others will never know.

But there were those who disagreed. The miniseries brought the Holocaust to audiences well beyond scholars. It made the history broadly accessible for the first time. Showing that history, even with inaccuracies, allowed audiences to begin to construct their own understandings and meanings of a complex past. This may lead to the conclusion that it is better to show something of the Holocaust, an approximation of what happened, than nothing at all.

The impact of the Holocaust miniseries cannot be understated. Half a billion people worldwide viewed it. It allegedly encouraged a Papal visit to Auschwitz, contributed to the creation of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust (leading to the opening of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993), and encouraged Germany to extend the statute of limitations on war criminals.

Many film scholars credit the miniseries with pushing cinematic representations of the Holocaust forward, for better or worse. Major films followed, including Schindler’s List and Life is Beautiful, which proved equally divisive. They were critically acclaimed, but criticised for stereotyping, inappropriate use of humour, and presenting love stories against a backdrop of death.

At the climax of the first episode of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, when the audience is finally rewarded with seeing the young lovers meet, “romantic music swells on the soundtrack and, as they temporarily part, they both smile. For half a second, we almost forget where we are”.

Is this a trivialisation or a distraction from the reality of history? Does the love story serve as misdirection or mediation that moves us away from the totality and reality of the Holocaust? Or does it perhaps provide an entrance point – a recognisable narrative device that allows audiences to engage with the Holocaust, at least in some way?

Stories in which love and courage triumph over the ultimate evil may be problematic, but they don’t discourage audiences from watching them in the way a more brutal depiction might. And is this not the overarching imperative? Never look away? Never again?

Auschwitz.
Dieglop, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Trauma and the ambiguity of survival

Responding to the premiere of the television series, the Auschwitz Memorial was quick to release another statement. It emphasised that “immortal love” would not be enough for Lali and Gita to survive almost three years in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Both were lucky to get lighter job assignments, which meant they did not have to labour in the fields, exposed to the elements and brutal kapos.

The book and television series both raise the uncomfortable issue of privileged prisoners in Auschwitz, Lali among them. The SS created a hierarchy, which gave functions to some of the prisoners in exchange for better working and living conditions. Lali, as a tattooist, had his own private room and better food. According to the book and series, he even developed a close, albeit strange, relationship with one of the SS men, Stefan Baretzki. “To me he was like a brother,” Lali said in his USC Shoah Foundation interview in 1996.

These scenes were criticised as unrealistic. But others have noted that close though bizarre relationships could develop between the SS and veteran prisoners. Morris, for example, includes a story about a football game between a prisoner team (headed by Lali) and the SS.

This scene was omitted from the series. Yet in his famous essay The Gray Zone in The Drowned and the Saved (1986), Primo Levi, a prominent voice among Holocaust survivors, mentions a similar game between the SS and the Sonderkommando, a Jewish unit that operated the crematoria. For Levi, this was the ultimate example of inhumanity and the “most demonic plan” of the SS: “we have embraced you, corrupted you, dragged you to the bottom with us”.

Primo Levi (1919-1987).
Monozigote, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Lali is troubled by his status as a privileged prisoner who works for the “Politische Abteilung” (Camp Gestapo): “I can only hope I am one day not judged as a perpetrator or collaborator.”

These scenes, and the trauma depicted in the series, remind us about the difficult histories of the Holocaust, and of survival in extremis. Survivors, such as Lali and Gita, carried the burden of survival for the rest of their lives.

While Holocaust film and popular literature production has not stagnated, the debate launched in the 1970s appears to be at an impasse. Morris’s book and its television adaptation show that the interest in representing this aspect of the human experience, ultimately to achieve the goal of entertaining and captivating audiences, shows no signs of abating.

If we accept this, perhaps it is the responsibility of educational institutions, museums and memorials to use these productions as learning opportunities – certainly providing correctives where necessary, but most of all maintaining critical engagement with an audience who has already shown a willingness to engage with the Holocaust in some way. Läs mer…

Imagine every ton of carbon dioxide a company emits is slowly inflating its costs — not just in terms of potential fines or fees but in the capital it needs to grow and operate.

This isn’t just an environmental issue, it’s a stark reality many companies experience today.

Our new research, looking at more than a thousand Australian-listed companies from 2007 to 2020 reveals higher carbon emissions significantly increase the costs to business.

Similar analysis has been done in Europe and North America where environmental regulations are tough and longstanding. But ours is the first analysis of its type in Australia where regulations are less stringent.

Emissions linked to costs

Our research, using panel regression analysis – a statistical method often used in social science, demography and econometrics – shows companies with higher emissions are seen as riskier investments.

Due to confidentiality agreements about financial data, we are unable to disclose company names. But the trend was consistent across utilities, energy, industrial and other sectors.

This risk isn’t about stock market ups and downs; it’s about how individual companies stand out from others due to their environmental practices.

In finance, this type of risk is known as “idiosyncratic risk”. It refers to the dangers a company faces on its own, separate from the broader market, often driven by specific actions like how much carbon it emits.

Higher risk translates into higher costs when these companies try to raise money. Whether it’s taking out a loan or selling shares, the market demands greater returns to compensate for the higher risk, driving up costs.

Essentially, the more a company pollutes the more expensive it becomes for it to fund growth and operations.

The markets are watching

Today’s markets are increasingly vigilant about environmental impacts.

Investors and lenders make decisions based on how companies manage their carbon emissions. For every extra ton of emissions, a company’s expansion costs can jump by 18.5% due to higher operational and compliance risks.

Investors take notice of how companies manage their carbon emissions.
Anna Nekrashevich/Pexels

Higher expansion costs can cut into profits and damage a company’s financial health. A big carbon footprint risks putting off environmentally conscious investors and consumers, reducing market value.

Reducing footprints isn’t just about corporate goodwill, it’s a critical financial strategy. It lowers the perceived risk and, subsequently, costs.

Energy efficient companies have a smaller environmental impact and greater investment appeal.

Managing risks and finances

The implications of our research extends beyond individual companies.

It provides evidence for more rigorous reporting of corporate carbon emissions. Clear and consistent disclosure of these figures is good for transparency and improves company valuations.

For regulators and policymakers, these findings boost the case for stronger environmental legislation demanding rigorous emission disclosures and reductions.

Our findings are in line with the government’s proposed environmental regulations, to enforce stricter emission disclosures and reduction targets.

These measures are also designed to promote more favorable financial conditions in the capital markets, making Australian companies more competitive globally.

Everyone benefits

As pressure for sustainable operations increases, managing emissions is emerging as not just an environmental responsibility but as a savvy business move.

Companies with low-carbon practices have a competitive edge in market perception and real financial terms.

This isn’t just about combating climate change. Understanding and managing carbon emissions is about securing a financially viable future in an increasingly green economy. It helps the planet and the wallet.

Our analysis provides a critical insight into why businesses need to design strategies aimed at sustainability and business success is inextricably linked to effective carbon management.

By making environmental responsibility a financial strategy, companies can ensure their future is greener and financially sound. Läs mer…

The “latte line” is the infamous, invisible boundary that divides Sydney between the more affluent north-east and the south-west. Historically, people north of the line enjoy better access to jobs and education, and can capitalise on rising property wealth. This has reinforced economic inequality.

Despite our image as a classless society, similar spatial divides have long marked Australia’s other capital cities as well. So are things getting better or worse?

We set out to answer this question by investigating neighbourhood population changes across Australia’s five largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. We used census data to track patterns of wealth and disadvantage between 2011 and 2016. We looked at who moved in, out of or remained in each location, and who goes to work where.

We found clear evidence of social exclusion at work. These capital cities are becoming more segregated along socioeconomic lines. And the trend was worst in Sydney.

Measuring gentrification and exclusion

To see whether we could detect gentrification in action, we looked for evidence of lower-income people being displaced from well-located areas.

We were also interested in signs of the reverse. For instance, has the boom in apartments near transport and employment centres helped lower-income earners find more housing near their workplaces, counteracting spatial exclusion?

Using internal migration data from 2011 and 2016, we traced movement between locations using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) “Statistical Area Level 2” (SA2) – the smallest area for the release of full census statistics.

These localities also have Socio-Economic Indices for Areas (SEIFA) scores. This is a combined measure of socio-economic advantage and disadvantage, education, occupation and economic resources.

We classified every SA2 into one of four neighbourhood types:

escalator: people moving in come from SA2s with the same or lower SEIFA scores, and people moving out go to SA2s with higher SEIFA scores, so escalators signify upward social mobility
gentrifier: in-movers come from SA2s with higher SEIFA scores (more affluent areas) and out-movers go to SA2s with the same or lower SEIFA scores
isolate: in-movers and out-movers come from and go to SA2s with the same or lower SEIFA scores, so the movers have likely been “priced out” or excluded from other localities
transit: in-movers and out-movers come from and go to SA2s with higher SEIFA scores.

The four types of neighbourhood, with arrows indicating the main inward and outward flows of residents.
Source: Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, Sarkar et al 2024/AHURI, CC BY-NC

We counted the SA2s falling into each of these neighbourhood types. The results show clear, dynamic patterns of social exclusion along geographic lines.

In the most advantaged areas, isolate neighbourhoods dominate. This indicates lower–income earners have already been excluded from these locations.

By contrast, transit neighbourhoods cluster in more disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This suggests these locations may offer access to economic opportunity. But they are at risk of becoming gentrified, excluding and displacing lower-income residents.

Measuring access to jobs

Access to jobs is essential for economic opportunity. We measured connectivity to the main centres of employment at the SA2 level for all five cities, using ABS Census journey-to-work data .

Again, we found higher SEIFA-scoring neighbourhoods were better connected to employment centres than those with lower SEIFA scores. Higher-income earners can afford to live close to their workplaces. Lower-income workers can’t.

People on low to moderate incomes can’t afford to live close to employment centres so must travel longer distances to and from work.
Shutterstock

Housing and jobs create double disadvantage

The most advantaged households benefit from their high access to employment opportunities. This is reflected in high house prices and rents in those neighbourhoods. And that, in turn, reinforces patterns of household wealth, poverty and spatial segregation.

Our study revealed high-income and very-high-income earners are clustering in ever-tighter spatial groups. In effect, they live behind an invisible “neighbourhood exclusion barrier”.

Over time, moderate and low-income renters are displaced from these areas of affluence. Other lower-income earners can’t replace them as the housing has become too expensive. This effect persists despite the economic ties lower-income workers often have to these areas.

This results in a labour market where the highest earners are closest to centres of employment. Those on lower and moderate incomes are forced out to the city fringes and must travel more to get to work.

Residential exclusion and the employment connectivity divide combine to increase spatial inequalities in cities.

This is in addition to the inefficiencies created by the mismatch between the locations of jobs and housing.

So how do the cities compare?

Sydney emerged as the most segregated and unequal of the five cities. The latte line is getting stronger.

The locations of the four neighbourhood (SA2 areas) types and their SEIFA status (blue is top 10% of scores) across Sydney. Note: blank areas are non-residential areas of extremely low population.
Authors, Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, AHURI, using 2016 ABS Census data, CC BY-NC

Melbourne emerges as a much more equitable city than Sydney. The segregation effects are not as strong in Melbourne. When it occurs, like Sydney, segregation occurs at the higher ends of the market, rather than at the lower ends.

The locations of the four neighbourhood (SA2 areas) types and their SEIFA status (blue is top 10% of scores) across Melbourne.
Authors, Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, AHURI, using 2016 ABS Census data, CC BY-NC

Perth echoes Sydney, but weakly. The spatial concentration of moderate-income, high-income and very-high-income households has increased in Perth.

The locations of the four neighbourhood (SA2 areas) types and their SEIFA status (blue is top 10% of scores) across Perth.
Authors, Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, AHURI, using 2016 ABS Census data, CC BY-NC

Brisbane and Adelaide are the most stable cities in this study. However, they still show the general trend towards segregation.

The locations of the four neighbourhood (SA2 areas) types and their SEIFA status (blue is top 10% of scores) across Brisbane.
Authors, Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, AHURI, using 2016 ABS Census data, CC BY-NC

The locations of the four neighbourhood (SA2 areas) types and their SEIFA status (blue is top 10% of scores) across Adelaide.
Authors, Spatial segregation and neighbourhood change, AHURI, using 2016 ABS Census data, CC BY-NC

What can we do to create more cohesive cities?

Globally, segregated cities entrench disadvantage, drain productivity and deplete community wellbeing. Neighbourhoods, and mobility between neighbourhoods, matter..

Explicit targets to reduce spatial segregation should become front and centre of our spatial planning efforts. Wider government investment in social and economic infrastructure should underpin these targets.

A first step would be to make it mandatory for new developments across all suburban and regional localities to include affordable homes. Otherwise, the market will continue to sort lower-income earners into areas of lower opportunity.

Some parts of the United States, have so-called “anti-snob” laws to counter gentrification and exclusion processes. These laws allow affordable housing developers to override planning rules in areas that lack lower-cost options.

In Hong Kong, Singapore and the Netherlands, governments co-ordinate infrastructure and residential development with public transport services. They ensure or directly deliver a range of social and affordable homes for people of all incomes to rent or buy.

These examples show what can be done to fix our housing problem and reduce the segregation in our cities. Governments need to do more than call for new housing supply, or promise planning rule reforms to increase densities, or offer grants to first-home buyers. A target “number” of new dwellings isn’t enough.

We also need to have a planned and nuanced response to where these new homes would be located. These homes must be:

Setting measurable targets for affordable housing inclusion alongside investment in transport, education, health and cultural infrastructure would be a good start. Läs mer…

In media articles about unprecedented flooding, you’ll often come across the statement that for every 1°C of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.

This figure comes from research undertaken by the French engineer Sadi Carnot and published 200 years ago this year.

We now know there’s more to the story. Yes, a hotter atmosphere has the capacity to hold more moisture. But the condensation of water vapour to make rain droplets releases heat. This, in turn, can fuel stronger convection in thunderstorms, which can then dump substantially more rain.

This means that the intensity of extreme rainfall could increase by much more than 7% per degree of warming. What we’re seeing is that thunderstorms can likely dump about double or triple that rate – around 14–21% more rain for each degree of warming.

Thunderstorms are a major cause of extreme flooding around the world, contributing to Brazil’s disastrous floods, which have submerged hundreds of towns, and Dubai’s flooded airport and roads.

For Australia, we helped develop a comprehensive review of the latest climate science to guide preparedness for future floods. This showed the increase per degree of global warming was about 7–28% for hourly or shorter duration extreme rain, and 2–15% for daily or longer extreme rain. This is much higher than figures in the existing flood planning standards recommending a general increase of 5% per degree of warming.

Why are thunderstorms important for extreme rain?

For thunderstorms to form, you need ingredients such as moisture in the air and a large temperature difference between lower and higher air masses to create instability.

We typically associate thunderstorms with intense localised rain over a short period. What we’re seeing now, though, is a shift towards more intense thunderstorm downpours, particularly for short periods.

Extreme rain events are also more likely when thunderstorms form in combination with other weather systems, such as east coast lows, intense low pressure systems near eastern Australia. The record floods which hit Lismore in February 2022 and claimed the lives of many people came from extreme rain over many days, which came in part from severe thunderstorms in combination with an east coast low.

Thunderstorms are a major cause of extreme rain through the world, including when they combine together with other types of storms.
Dowdy and Catto (2017), Author provided (no reuse)

Climate change pumps up extreme flood risk factors

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that:

frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s over most land areas for which observational data are sufficient for trend analysis (high confidence), and human-induced climate change is likely the main driver

This increase is particularly clear in short-duration extreme rains, such as those caused by thunderstorms.

Why? In part, it’s because of the 7% figure – warmer air is able to hold more water vapour.

But that doesn’t explain everything. There’s something else going on. Condensation produces heat. So as water vapour turns into droplets, more heat becomes available, and hot air rises by convection. In thunderstorms, more heat fuels stronger convection, where warm, moisture-laden air is driven up high.

This explains why thunderstorms can now drive such extreme rainfall in our warming world. As water vapour condenses to make rain, it also makes heat, supercharging storms.

We are seeing these very rapid rates of rainfall increase in recent decades in Australia.

Daily rainfall associated with thunderstorms has increased much more than the 7% figure would suggest – about 2-3 times more.

Hourly rainfall extremes have also increased in intensity at similar rates.

What about very sudden, extreme rains? Here, the rate of increase could potentially be even larger. One recent study examined extreme rain for periods shorter than one hour near Sydney, suggesting about a 40% increase or more over the past 20 years.

In April, Dubai suffered the worst floods on record, driven by intense thunderstorms.
Christopher Pike/AP

Rapid trends in extreme rainfall intensity are also clear in other lines of evidence, such as fine-resolution modelling.

To model complex climate systems, we need the grunt of supercomputers. But even so, many of our models for climate projections don’t drill down to grid resolutions smaller than about 100 kilometres.

While this can work well for large-scale climate modelling, it’s not suitable for directly simulating thunderstorms. That’s because the convection processes needed to make thunderstorms form happen on much smaller scales than this.

There’s now a concerted effort underway to perform more model simulations at very fine scales, so we can improve the modelling of convection.

Recent results from these very fine scale models for Europe suggest convection will play a more important role in triggering extreme rainfall including in combined storms, such as thunderstorms mingling with low pressure systems and other combinations.

This matches Australian observations, with a trend towards increased rain from thunderstorms combining with other storm types such as cold fronts and cyclones (including low-pressure systems in southern Australia).

Days of heavy rain triggered floods on the Hawkesbury River in 2021.
Leah-Anne Thompson/Shutterstock

Does this change how we plan for floods?

The evidence for supercharged thunderstorm rainfall has grown in recent years.

Australia’s current flood guidance recommendations, which influence how infrastructure projects have been built, are based on extreme rain increasing by just 5% for each degree of warming.

Our research review has shown the real figure is substantially higher.

This means roads, bridges, tunnels built for the 5% figure may not be ready to deal with extreme rain we are already seeing from supercharged thunderstorms.

While Australia has become more conscious of links between climate change and bushfires, studies show we are less likely to link climate change and more intense storms and floods.

This will have to change. We still face some uncertainties in precisely linking climate change to a single extreme rain event. But the bigger picture is now very clear: a hotter world is likely one with higher risk of extreme floods, often driven by extreme rain from supercharged thunderstorms.

So what should we do? The first step is to take climate change influences on storms and flood risk as seriously as we now do for bushfires.

The next is to embed the best available evidence in how we plan for these future storms and floods.

We have already loaded the dice for more extreme floods, due to existing human-caused climate change and more to come, unless we can quickly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more:
Why is Australia’s east coast copping all this rain right now? An atmospheric scientist explains Läs mer…