Blog

I write about climate, human rights, biodiversity, and uncomfortable truths. From the wisdom of First Nations caring for Country to the global action needed to protect ecosystems and ensure intergenerational equity, these stories are personal, political, and urgent. They aim to inspire hope.

Explore my Yeah But... series for sharp takes on deflection, denial, and double standards. And scroll through Climate Conscious Man's reflections on what it means to live responsibly on a heating planet.

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Where Your Blueberries Really Come From

Spoiler alert, it's not from the pretty pictures on the punnet. It's from places like this on Gumbaynggirr Country in the Clarence Valley: a huge old gumtree cut off at the base, one of many sacrifed for endless rows of plastic tunnels. Cycling up the NSW mid-north coast from Nambucca to Grafton I saw the landscape changing in real time. Paddocks, forests and small-scale farms being turned into industrial blueberry estates: steel hoops, white plastic, dams, pumps, chemical sh

Gregory Andrews

Nov 14, 20252 min read

Talking Climate with the Adikaram Familiy

The climate crisis has no borders - and nor should our responsibility Cycling through Coffs Harbour on my #eBike4Australia ride, I met the Adikaram family from Sri Lanka. Senaan, his mum and dad, and his sister were on a road trip along Australia’s east coast. We got talking beside my loaded-up e-bike, the sun hot on the concrete, and within the space of five minutes our conversation turned from travel to the climate crisis. The Adikarams told me of climate impacts back home

Gregory Andrews

Nov 14, 20252 min read

Climate Change Through Aboriginal Eyes

Uncle Gary Williams on changing seasons, shifting species and hope This morning I had the privilege of meeting two remarkable people: Gumbaynggirr Elder Uncle Gary Williams and his wife Diedre Bear. We sat together in Nambucca Heads, a place that has carried stories, food, floods, families, and ceremony for thousands of years. Uncle Gary told me he worked with my own Uncle Gavin back in the 1980s during the Land Rights movement and the establishment of NSW Land Councils. Two

Gregory Andrews

Nov 13, 20252 min read

Rural Climate Leaders: Perspectives from the Nambucca Valley

Local heroes caring for Country - Janette Blainey, Luby Simson, Dinah Eadie and Marc Percival Last night, after cycling 200km from Taree and watching the sun drop over the Nambucca River in Macksville, I had the privilege of sitting down with four remarkable people: Janette Blainey, Luby Simson, Dinah Eadie and Marc Percival. Each, their own way, embodies the kind of climate-and-Country leadership Australia desperately needs. Janette Blainey, from the Miimi Aboriginal Corpora

Gregory Andrews

Nov 13, 20252 min read

Dolphins, a Ferry, and the Truth We Already Know

Today, while crossing Port Stephens on the Tea Gardens Ferry , something simple and beautiful happened. Two dolphins began to swim in the bow wave. One person spotted them and pointed. Then another. And soon it seems everyone on the boat was taking turns, leaning over the rail, smiling, laughing, calling to strangers they hadn’t spoken to before. One woman just kept turning around to anyone who would listen and saying, “This is wonderful! Isn’t this just wonderful!” And it w

Gregory Andrews

Nov 11, 20252 min read

Australia’s Dirtiest Open Secret: We Export the Climate Problem

As I waited for the Stockton Ferry to cross the Hunter River this morning, the truth sat in the air. I could smell coal. I could feel its dust in my eyes. Looking across to Newcastle’s loaders and endless coal trains, I saw what Australia rarely says out loud: we’re not just a coal country; we’re an coal export nation. We're shipping the problem offshore while counting the profits at home. Newcastle is the world's largest coal port. It ships out 150 million tonnes of coal a y

Gregory Andrews

Nov 11, 20252 min read

Climate Adaptation is a Relationship, Not a Project

How First Nations wisdom and leadership can guide Australia through the climate crisis. Just after dawn this morning, I sat in Newtown with my Aboriginal brother Lee beneath the “I Have A Dream” and Aboriginal Flag mural on King Street. The sun was low, the air was warming, and we were just two fellas sitting in the shadow of a truth we both know: Australia will not get through climate change without First Nations wisdom and leadership. The Climate Crisis Isn’t Coming. It’s H

Gregory Andrews

Nov 10, 20253 min read

What’s Really Choking Prime Farmland? Hint: It’s Not Wind Farms

As I cycled across Ngunnawal and Gundungurra Country today from Canberra, to Goulburn and into the NSW Southern Highlands, I couldn't help noticing massive blackberry thickets smothering good Country everywhere. It made me think about the story that climate change denialist politicians like Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and Angus Taylor love to spruik - that wind farms and solar are “taking over” productive land. But here's the thing. The data says the complete opposite: invasi

Gregory Andrews

Nov 9, 20252 min read

I'm Off to AlterCOP 30 Australia - Riding for Climate, Country and Hope

Panniers packed. Bike oiled. Heart full. This weekend I begin my next big #eBike4Australia journey. I’m riding more than 2,400 kilometres from Canberra to Brisbane and back. For AlterCOP 30 Australia , where as Guest of Honour on Day One, I'll be speaking on A First Nations Vision for Caring for Country in 2050 . For years I sat inside the so-called “real” COPs drafting paragraphs, negotiating commas, and watching ambition shrink in the shadow of politics and fossil-fuelled p

Gregory Andrews

Nov 8, 20251 min read

Thirty Years of Climate Talks and the Planet’s Still Burning

Why the COP Process is Failing I remember one year at the UN climate change talks in Bonn, we all waited for over two weeks for the meeting to start. When it finally did, it opened and closed on the same day. Why? Russia refused to agree to the agenda. Because there are no formally adopted rules of procedure under the UNFCCC, everything has to be agreed by consensus. That meant because one country objected, 195 others - representing nearly every nation on Earth - were powerle

Gregory Andrews

Nov 5, 20253 min read

Climate Conscience Man and Online Shopping

It seems like every second day while the house is quiet - kids at school and uni, wife at work - the doorbell rings. Parcels. It's always parcels. Rarely, if ever, for him. Usually addressed to his teenagers. Nike shoes. A second-hand dress from his daughter’s app. Things from Amazon. Sometimes Temu. Bubble wrap, cardboard, air pillows. The recycling bin so full the lid won’t shut. Out on the street delivery vans prowl all day, idling at corners like sharks. He has a strong s

Gregory Andrews

Nov 2, 20252 min read

Cars As the New Megafauna

#FloraAndFaunaFriday: how Australia has swapped wombats for Hiluxes Saul Griffith shared a graphic this week that makes the biodiversity crisis uncomfortably concrete. He riffed on a 2018 paper The biomass distribution on Earth that famously estimated the weight all the living animals and plants on Earth. That paper showed that wild animals now make up less than four per cent of the biomass of all mammals on Earth - humans, their pets and livestock comprise the rest! Saul’s

Gregory Andrews

Oct 31, 20252 min read

Climate Conscience Man Broke Up with ANZ over Dirty Money

Climate Conscience Man banked with ANZ for decades. Out of habit, mostly. He can’t even remember when their relationship started. But then he came across ANZ’s lending books and didn’t like what he saw. Dirty money. Hundreds of millions of dollars each year poured into fossil fuels . He didn’t want his savings doing night shift for the coal and gas industry. Following the money more deeply, he realised the Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac were just as bad. Collectively, the

Gregory Andrews

Oct 30, 20252 min read

1.5°C Is Blown: Put People Before Polluters

The United Nations Secretary-General j ust said the quiet part out loud: the world is going to overshoot 1.5°C. António Guterres calls it “inevitable”, warns of “devastating consequences”, and urges leaders heading to COP30 in Brazil to change course fast so the overshoot is as short and shallow as possible. That means slashing emissions now, not in the next election cycle. And it means fixing who gets heard. He’s blunt: while the lobbyists are there to protect profits, the p

Gregory Andrews

Oct 29, 20252 min read

Caught in Conflict: Journalism in Adversity with Integrity

A full house at the Canberra Writers Festival leaned in today as Peter Greste, Cheng Lei and John Lyons pulled back the curtain on what it takes to report truth when power would rather the lights stay off. It was a masterclass on journalism in adversity with integrity, expertly chaired by Karen Middleton. What struck me wasn’t only the courage on stage; it was the context. Peter Greste reminded us that last year was the deadliest on record for journalists since the Committee

Gregory Andrews

Oct 26, 20252 min read

Still Stuck at the Lights on Climate Action

I’ve just finished reading the latest State of Climate Action report which is released each year ahead of the Climate COPs. One line keeps echoing in my mind: “Most, if not all, of the bright spots represent isolated instances of rapid change - a far cry from the systemwide transformations urgently needed to close the greenhouse gas emissions gap for 1.5°C.” It’s a stark truth. There are glimmers of hope everywhere - solar uptake, electrification, people installing home batt

Gregory Andrews

Oct 25, 20252 min read

No Climate, No Koalas: Australia's Broken Environment Protection Laws

Australia’s making another supposed attempt to improve its ineffective environment protection laws. But this week Environment Minister Murray Watt confirmed the government’s re-write won’t include a “climate trigger”. Greenhouse gas pollution won’t be considered in project approval decisions. There will be no power to refuse projects on climate grounds. Let’s tell it like it is. Broken laws mean broken Country. No climate test means no protection, for Country or community. Wh

Gregory Andrews

Oct 24, 20253 min read

Climate Conscience Man’s Slow Wardrobe vs. Fast Fashion

Climate Conscience Man has never treated clothes like snacks. He likes clothes, but has never enjoyed buying them. He hates the shops and really doesn’t get the buy-wear-dump carousel. It frustrates him especially when it comes to the global plastics and climate crises. He’s read the stats on fast fashion - the water, dyes, plastic fibres, and waste. And he can’t shake the images of clothing from Australia washing up on beaches in West Africa. At home, he’s outnumbered by the

Gregory Andrews

Oct 22, 20252 min read

From COP to AlterCOP: Join Me for the People-Powered One

For years, I was part of the so-called COPs. I represented Australia at the global climate conferences where negotiators spend sleepless nights arguing over commas. While emissions kept climbing, I helped write dodgy paragraphs. I even chaired some of the negotiations. I remember at COP18 in Doha I didn't go back to my hotel for three days. I slept sporadically in a prayer room while the planet burned! Don't get me wrong. I'm a firm believer in the importance of the United N

Gregory Andrews

Oct 21, 20252 min read

We’re Touching 1.9°C - And It’s Only 2025

Real time data coming out of the world’s climate measurement systems should be stopping us in our tracks. The latest estimate by climate scientist Dr Karsten Haustein shows that, this week, the Earth is 1.9°C warmer than before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale. Haustein’s work is widely respected in the field of climate science. A researcher at the University of Leipzig and formerly of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, he specialises in the modelling and attr

Gregory Andrews

Oct 20, 20252 min read