Right Now is back

Our climate is in crisis and human rights issues have taken on a deeply personal urgency

Over the last year we’ve witnessed the game-changing federal election roll out in the shadow of the pandemic. A wave of results across the country sent an unambiguous message to Canberra that Australians want action on climate change, all while COP meetings continued to dash expectations, and increased intensity and frequency of climate disasters became a constant reminder of the way our daily lives are being impacted by climate change.

Our resolve to nurture new and established writers and artists remains unchanged, as does creating space for human rights coverage in ways that engage, inspire and motivate. 

Now we’re adding a few new features: editorial pillars devoted to climate justice and First Nations justice, and a commitment to resourcing investigative journalism. 

We’re honoured to feature Bundjalung and Worimi Saltwater woman Phoebe McIlwraith with ‘Dancing With Country’. McIlwraith interrogates mainstream environmentalism and capitalist traditions and our failure to “…appreciate the interconnectedness of all things. This isn’t a learning unique to Bundjalung people – Indigenous cultures all around the world have independently drawn conclusions about how people do not ‘have a connection with nature’ but that we are nature.” 

Partnerships with aligned organisations and institutions are essential to Right Now and we’re starting this season strong, with Melbourne University’s Centre for Advancing Journalism and The Age. Together we are investigating how climate change is impacting human rights in this country in a deeply personal way. 

Right Now’s Investigations editor, Gina McColl, is mentoring postgraduate students as they investigate how climate change is or will impact citizens’ rights – to housing, to health, to safe work, to Indigenous institutions and practices – in ways distinct to that locality.

These stories set in Melbourne suburbs are hyperlocal, but they’re also mirrored in cities across the world. 

Climate change is no longer a hypothetical concept – it’s playing out across our backyards, our bodies and our budget bottom line. The first two investigations in this series were co-published with The Age in January with more to come:

Trashed: the neighbourhood made sick by Melbourne’s landfill demands

Exhausted: the breathtaking cost of living near a freight route

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