Disagree and believe many of the (cherry picked) stats quoted are very dated or simply incorrect. We need to be concerned because our politicians seem to be concerned with winning the political contest above all else and to the exclusion of climate change and best outcomes for the economy.

But rather, continue to act on asinine ideological imperatives, first and foremost. Were this not so we would be a nuclear powered and largely independent nation with a significant manufacturing arm. And SFA debt!

Instead, we/they wait until this or that crisis forces change unpalatable to conflicted or bought and paid for pollies serving this or that, powerful vested interest.

Once the boat has sunk it's too late to start bailing! Or shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted is ineffectual as our all but useless, spending taxpayers' funds like drunken sailors, pollies.
Alan B.

I worry about the reliance by many on fusion energy, which if successful may succeed if it escapes in turning this planet into a very small and short-lived star.

Today German scientists successfully created a very short-lived fusion reaction. Where two units created a third. This needed the power of some 119 lasers longer than a football field and heat greater than the centre of the sun!

This gain of one unit is misleading given the laser energy required was 1,000 units and the gain from a tiny pinhead of liquid hydrogen was a single unit. I see that as a 9099 loss, if you do the maths.

Moreover, the reaction lasted less than a nanosecond of a nanosecond. Acres of capacitators meant all the lights of Germany didn't go out when the truly massive lasers fired up.

The financial outlay (billions and counting) for something that may take a thousand years to perfect if ever isn't a rational or sane use of funds.

Funds, I believe, would be better directed towards ending unmet need, starvation, poverty and leopard tanks for Ukraine.

This insane outlay accomplished even as MSR thorium already very safely delivers everything fusion promised but may never fully and safely deliver.

I worry our political airheads may continue to rely on something that may never be delivered in several lifetimes if at all, all while the already world's cheapest energy and carbon free to boot (MSR thorium) remains mouldering on the shelf.

Better we the mug energy consumers go bankrupt trying to meet the rising cost of energy and everything as tin-eared, indolent or incompetent (blah, blah, blah) seriously overpaid pollies try not to change very much!

If you're not worried, then you're dead between the ears.
Alan B.

As the Dalai Lama wisely stated:
If you can do something about it, why worry?
If you can`t do anything about it, why worry?
We`ve stuffed our beautiful (only) planet. Why worry?
It`s too late to do much about it sadly.

I mostly agree with this article. I can think of no measure of human material welfare that hasn’t improved enormously over the longer term across the world – living standards, life expectancy, infant mortality, education, health, access to clean drinking water, medical and other services, etc.

But I don’t agree that everything is getting better. The impact of human activity on the environment is significant and negative, and possibly the biggest threat to further growth in living standards in future. Climate change is the most obvious example, but there are many others, including species extinctions, loss of wild ecosystems, and over-use of natural resources.

And the human ingenuity that has produced such material progress also creates new means by which it could be destroyed. The 20th century not only saw the fastest improvement in living standards in human history, it also gave us two world wars, the Holocaust, and nuclear bombs. More recently, the war in Ukraine and rise of China show the risk of complacently taking for granted the gains we have made.

There are many reasons to celebrate human progress. But we should also be realistic about the threats to current and future prosperity.

The insinuation is, media just reports, the "bad" environmental news.

Not true. Media loved, the UN triumph, of eight billion humans. Media worships, the UN fraud of "net zero" emissions. Media repeats the UN lie, the answer is "education", not contraceptives and birth control.

Book & Film reviews are such a waste of time. Stop spoiling the story before people have a chance to read or watch !
If someone doesn't get the gist of a story then no number of reviews will be any enlightenment for them !