Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Fossil South Australia St"

Surficial sediments of Gulf St. Vincent, South Australia, are predominantly bioclastic, cool-temperate carbonates. Benthic foraminifera are abundant and distribution of species is closely related to water depth. For example, Massilina milletti is most common at depths ca. 40 m, while Discorbis dimidiatus is characteristics of shallow, subtidal environments. Elphidium crispum, a shallow-water species, and E. macelliforme, favoring deeper water, provide a useful numerical ratio. Their logarithmic relative abundance, in the sediment size fraction 0.50–0.25 mm, correlates strongly with water depth. Vibrocores SV 4 and SV 5 recovered undisturbed sections of Quaternary strata from the deepest part (ca. 40 m) of Gulf St. Vincent. Amino acid racemization and radiocarbon age determinations show that late Pleistocene sections of the cores were deposited over the time ca. 45,000 to 30,000 yr B.P. Species of fossil foraminifera, recovered from these sections, are mostly extant in modern Gulf St. Vincent, thus allowing paleoecological inferences of late Pleistocene sea levels. These inferred sea-level maxima can be correlated with those determined from study of Huon Peninsula coral reef terraces. Initial estimates of tectonically corrected sea levels for transgressions in Gulf St. Vincent at 40,000 and 31,000 yr B.P. are −22.5 m and −22 m, respectively. The intervening regression lowered sea level to −28 m.

The Proteaceae family is a large Gondwanan plant family with a major centre of richness in south-western Australia. Modern pollen–vegetation relationships in the two areas of species richness in the northern and southern sandplains of south-western Australia were investigated to calibrate fossil-pollen studies concurrently conducted on Eocene, Pliocene and Quaternary sediment. Results indicated that the Proteaceae component in modern pollen rain can be quite high, contributing up to 50% of the count. Some sites showed a dominant type (such as Banksia–Dryandra), whilst others had up to six different genera represented. Exactly how and when the biodiversity of Proteaceae in south-western Australia developed is unknown. This work provides a benchmark for comparisons with studied fossil material to unravel patterns of diversity of this family in south-western Australia.

Seeking Australian specimens collected in the 19th century always needs detective work. Fossils collected by one colourful collector, the Polish 'Count' Paul Strzelecki, from early travels in the colony of New South Wales are being sought. A 30-year search has still not brought to light in Australia or Britain the first fossil fish found from the Lower Carboniferous of New South Wales.

The Cuddie Springs site in south-eastern Australia provides the first evidence of an unequivocal association of megafauna with humans for this continent. Cuddie Springs has been known as a fossil megafauna locality for over a century, but its archaeological record has only recently been identified. Cuddie Springs is an open site, with the fossil deposits preserved in a claypan on the floor of an ancient ephemeral lake. Investigations revealed a stratified deposit of human occupation and fossil megafauna, suggesting a temporal overlap and an active association of megafauna with people in the lead up to the Last Glacial Maximum, when conditions were more arid than the present day. Two distinct occupation phases have been identified and are correlated to the hydrology of the Cuddie Springs lake. When people first arrived at Cuddie Springs, sometime before 30,000 BP, the claypan on the lake floor was similar to a waterhole, with five species of megafauna identified. Flaked stone artefacts were found scattered through this level. After the lake dried, there was human occupation of the claypan. The resource base broadened to include a range of plant foods. Megafauna appear to be just one of a range of food resources exploited during this period. A return to ephemeral conditions resulted in only periodic occupation of the site with megafauna disappearing from the record around 28,000 BP. The timing of overlap and association of megafauna with human occupation is coincident with the earliest occupation sites in this region. The archaeological evidence from Cuddie Springs suggests an opportunistic exploitation of resources and no specialised strategies for hunting megafauna. Disappearance of megafauna is likely to be a consequence of climatic change during the lead up to the Last Glacial Maximum and human activities may have compounded an extinction process well under way.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Discipline of Geology and Geophysics, 2003?
Includes Publication list by the author as appendix A. "July 2003." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-324).

Palaeobotany illuminates past environments by relating the fossilised species to the existing geological conditions. This has previously been done with fossilised leaves and spores but not with fossilised wood. The recovery of a significant quantity of wood from an area of Tertiary sediments in New South Wales, enabled the used of fossilised wood as a palaeoenvironmental tool. Tertiary sedimentary deposits of south eastern Australia are diverse lithologically, occupy distinct areas and are limited in vertical and horizontal extent. However, samples in museum collections together with samples from field work and descriptions of fossil wood from previous researchers enabled an analysis of the fossil wood. The geological and palaeontological aspects of the fossil wood were considered for each specimen. Only specimens with precise information concerning location and description of the sedimentary deposits in which the specimens were found were investigated. Lithology, sedimentary structures and the relationship with surrounding geological units were also considered. The samples were then classified and identified. It was possible to identify fossil wood to Family level by comparison with existing taxa. In the majority of cases, identification to species level was not possible due to the lack of detail in the specimen and because features such as colour cannot be used with fossilised specimens. With Australian fossilised wood, a systematic nomenclature based on structure observed within the palaeotaxa, would be more relevant. Comparisons of cell structures with previous work on palaeoenvironmental indicators was found to be possible. Fossil wood has two uses. Firstly, as a local environmental indicator, usually in conjunction with sedimentological data, assessing the rate and direction of water flow, types of depositional environments and localised floral assemblages. Secondly, as an indicator of regional climate. Within any one particular time period, comparisons between the cellular structures of wood found in different parts of south eastern Australia show gross changes in cell size, mean growth ring size and vessel size, which enabled generalisations about climate for each epoch in the Tertiary. Palaeoclimatic indicators from the wood concurred with previous climatic interpretations based on palynology and sedimentology. Cool conditions during the Palaeocene were clearly indicated by small cells and small growth rings which gradually increased throughout the remainder of the Tertiary. Several areas e.g., Dargo High Plains, where cold conditions existed in isolation could be clearly distinguished. This corresponds with the gradual northward movement of the Australian plate with consequent increasing temperatures on the mainland.

South-western Australia is a globally significant hotspot of plant species diversity, with high endemism and many rare plant species. Proteaceae is a major component of the south-western flora, though little is known about how its diversity developed. This prompted the present study to investigate changes in the abundance and diversity of Proteaceae, in south-western Australia, by concurrently studying three sediment sequences of different ages over the Cainozoic and a modern pollen rain study. Modern pollen-vegetation relationships in the two Proteaceae species rich nodes of the northern and southern sandplains were quantified. It was found that Proteaceous genera can contribute up to 50% of the total pollen rain. Banksia/Dryandra pollen was the most abundant with Isopogon, Petrophile and Lambertia also commonly noted. The vegetation and environmental setting during three pivotal periods of the Cainozoic: Holocene, Pliocene and Eocene, were investigated. Eocene sediment from Lake Lefroy confirmed the presence of a Nothofagus dominated rainforest in the Middle to Late Eocene. At this time Proteaceae species were at least as diverse as today, if not more so, contributing up to a maximum of 42% of the total pollen rain. Taxa recorded included: Banksieaeidites arcuatus, Propylipollis biporus, Proteacidites confragosus, Proteacidites crassus, Proteacidites nasus and Proteacidites pachypolus. Several taxa remain undescribed and unnamed. This study also identified that Proteaceae pollen representation varies across small lateral distances. Thus as samples varied spatially and temporally, single core samples are not sufficient to identify spatial patterns in Proteaceae or other low pollen producing taxa. Some 7.91 cm of laminated Pliocene sediment from Yallalie, south-western Australia, was also examined. It covers 84 years of record and confirmed other regional reports that south-western Australia was covered by a rich vegetation mosaic consisting of heathy and wet rainforest elements. Although Proteaceae species were a consistent component of the pollen counts, diversity and abundance (maximum of 5%) was low throughout the studied section. Banksia/Dryandra types were most commonly noted. A 2 m core was retrieved from Two Mile Lake, near the Stirling Ranges and provided an early Holocene vegetation history. Geochemical and palynological evidence recorded little change, suggesting the environment of deposition was relatively uniform. Proteaceae species were noted throughout the core, though in low numbers, at a maximum of 3.5 % of the total pollen rain. Banksia/Dryandra was the most abundant while Isopogon, Lambertia, Petrophile and Franklandia were also noted. A regression model was developed through the modern pollen rain study to predict the number of Proteaceae in the vegetation. This was also applied to the fossil pollen records. The estimated number of Proteaceae species in the Eocene suggests a maximum of 20 and a minimum of 10 taxa. For the Pliocene record, an estimated 7 - 9 species was found and for the Holocene pollen, between 7 - 8 were present. Thus the Eocene was similar in Proteaceae diversity to today. The results from the Pliocene and Holocene suggest that Proteaceae diversity was lower than today. Findings of this research indicate that Proteaceae species are an important and consistent component of vegetation in south-western Australia over the Cainozoic. It is likely that both changing pollination mechanisms and changes in associated vegetation are important in the determining the dispersal of Proteaceaous pollen. By understanding how the vegetation has changed and developed in south-western Australia, present vegetation can be managed to include intra-specific variation and ensure the majority of species are conserved for present and future generations to enjoy.

Copies of author's previously published works inserted. Bibliography: p. 173-197. Provides significant insight for studies on cool-water carbonate accumulations throughout the geologic record. The model effectively serves for interpreting the diagenetic pathways in ancient calcitic facies, and can be applied towards directing the course of exploration for hydrocarbons and economic ore deposits.

Thesis (B. Sc.(Hons))--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, 1998.
National Grid Reference 1:250 000 Geological Series Sheet SI 53-2 and Sheet SI 53-6. Includes bibliographical references (6 leaves ).

This volume brings together different varieties of English that have so far been treated separately: postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes. The different contributions examine these varieties of English against the backdrop of current World Englishes theorising, with a special focus on the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces (EIF) Model (Buschfeld and Kautzsch 2017). Building on the general conception of Schneider’s (2003, 2007) Dynamic Model, the EIF Model aims at integrating postcolonial and non-postcolonial Englishes in a unified framework of World Englishes. The editors of the proposed volume claim that in the development of any kind of English around the world, forces from both outside and inside the community are in operation and lead to different outcomes as regards the status and characteristics of English. Each chapter tests the validity of this new model, analyses a different variety of English and assesses it in relation to current models of World Englishes. The case studies examine English(es) in England, Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Australia, North America, The Bahamas, Trinidad, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena, Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, Ireland, Gibraltar and Ghana.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

Australia is in energy transition despite a national policy supportive of fossil fuels. Regional and remote areas, however, remain dependent on fossil fuels, including diesel. Renewable energy is becoming accessible for some regional communities, due to renewable energy incentives. This chapter considers the energy transition in Australia through the energy justice lens. It analyses the distribution of benefits and burdens of energy activities upon remote Indigenous communities, and examines energy price impacts and consumer protection reforms in liberalized electricity markets in the south. The analysis examines how social justice needs to inform the energy transition, also recognising that energy injustice cannot be separated from other social ills, such as poverty and discrimination based on factors including class, race, gender, or indigeneity. It concludes that there are significant protections emerging for energy consumers in the national electricity market, but an inequitable distribution of energy benefits and burdens in remote Aboriginal communities.

This chapter aims to investigate the potential cooperation between Australia and the SAARC nations to facilitate generation and distribution of energy to better manage this sector and fulfil their commitments towards climate change conditions. As carbon emissions from non-renewables severely threatened the climate conditions, an effective transition to renewable resources is essential. In the Paris Agreement, Australia and SAARC nations committed to reduce their individual carbon emissions. But the SAARC lag in their commitments as they fail to unleash renewables and rely on fossil fuel. Australia leads in renewables, and SAARC provides a large market for it to relate services and technologies and improve energy efficiency and competitiveness. This chapter investigates the opportunities for strategic collaboration between these nations; challenges of energy trading, energy security, inefficient institutions, volatile prices and investment flows, collaborative capacity generation and distribution; and analyses comparative advantages for the countries to have mutually beneficial agreements to meet UNSDGs of affordable clean energy and climate action.

Compared to herpetological population adjustment patterns in North America (sec Holman, 1995c), the patterns in Britain and central and northern Europe seem to be rather straightforward. Basically, (1) very few herpetological species were present in ice-free areas during full glacial times, and (2) formerly glaciated areas were reinvaded by species from the south during warming cycles. Moreover, during climatic optimal warm times, several southern species existed well north of their present ranges. The invasion of southern Europe by northern populations in cold times is taken for granted (e.g., Rocek, 1995), although, as addressed in this chapter, it is difficult to document this in the fossil record. As indicated by geological and fossil evidence, the British Islands were connected to continental Europe during much of the Pleistocene. Although sea level changes in the British late Pleistocene arc a subject of some controversy (Stuart, 1982), it is generally agreed that Britain first separated from Ireland and then from the continent early in the Holocene. The classic idea is that the very depauperate British heretofauna of the cold part of the Devensian (last glacial stage) became somewhat, but not fully enriched by herpetological species during a warming trend that began about 10,000 ybp and lasted until about 8,500 ybp. The fact that Ireland has a much poorer modern herpetofauna (Triturus vulgaris, the rare Bufo calamita, Rana temporaria, and Lacerta vivipara) than Britain, which has six native species of amphibians and six native species of reptiles (Fra/,er, 1983; Smith, 1964), is attributed to Ireland's early separation from Britain. The Irish herpetofauna suggests that this separation occurred rather soon after the final withdrawal of the Devensian (last glacial) ice sheet. One of the most common questions asked about snakes, especially near St. Patrick's Day, is, "Have there ever been any snakes in Ireland?" No fossil snakes have ever been found in Ireland. But since Ireland lacks a terrestrial fossil record during most of the time that snakes have existed, it would seem that snakes could have lived in Ireland during some part of geological time. As far as I am aware, the few Pleistocene deposits containing herpetological remains in Ireland represent very late Devensian (last glacial) times.

As recent as 1955, cathedrals were still unbuilt or incomplete in the young and developing dioceses of the Global South, including in Queensland, the Northern Territory and New Guinea. The lack of an adequate cathedral was considered a “reproach” over a diocese. To rectify this, the region’s Bishops sought out the best architects for the task – as earlier Bishops had before them – engaging architects trained abroad and interstate, and with connections to Australia’s renown ecclesiastical architects. They also progressed these projects remarkably fast, for cathedral building. Four significant cathedral projects were realised in Queensland during the 1960s: the completion of St James’ Church of England, Townsville (1956-60); the extension of All Souls’ Quetta Memorial Church of England, Thursday Island (1964-5); stage II of St John’s Church of England, Brisbane (1953-68); and the new St Monica’s Catholic, Cairns (1965-8). During this same era Queensland-based architects also designed new Catholic cathedrals for Darwin (1955-62) and Port Moresby (1967-69). Compared to most cathedrals elsewhere they are small, but for their communities these were sizable undertakings, representing the “successful” establishment of these dioceses and even the making of their city. However, these cathedral projects had their challenges. Redesigning, redocumenting and retendering was common as each project questioned how to adopt (or not) emergent ideas for modern cathedral design. Mid-1960s this questioning became divisive as the extension of Brisbane’s St John’s recommenced. Antagonists and the client employed theatrics and polemic words to incite national debate. However, since then these post-war cathedral projects have received limited attention within architectural historiography, even those where the first stage has been recognised. Based on interviews, archival research and fieldwork, this paper discusses these little-known post-war cathedrals projects – examining how regional tensions over tradition and modern ideas arose and played out.

Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) is a gasification process carried on in non-mined coal seams using injection and production wells drilled from the surface, converting coal in situ into a product gas usable for chemical processes and power generation. The UCG process developed, refined and practiced by Ergo Exergy Technologies is called the Exergy UCG Technology or εUCG® Technology. The εUCG technology is being applied in numerous power generation and chemical projects worldwide. These include power projects in South Africa (1,200 MWe), India (750 MWe), Pakistan, and Canada, as well as chemical projects in Australia and Canada. A number of εUCG based industrial projects are now at a feasibility stage in New Zealand, USA, and Europe. An example of εUCG application is the Chinchilla Project in Australia where the technology demonstrated continuous, consistent production of commercial quantities of quality fuel gas for over 30 months. The project is currently targeting a 24,000 barrel per day synthetic diesel plant based on εUCG syngas supply. The εUCG technology has demonstrated exceptional environmental performance. The εUCG methods and techniques of environmental management are an effective tool to ensure environmental protection during an industrial application. A εUCG-IGCC power plant will generate electricity at a much lower cost than existing or proposed fossil fuel power plants. CO2 emissions of the plant can be reduced to a level 55% less than those of a supercritical coal-fired plant and 25% less than the emissions of NG CC.