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On August 30, 1992 in Sydney, media were invited to a press conference to launch a new national political party: The Australian Greens. It was a Sunday, and no television crews bothered to turn up. One journo who did was Robert Garran from the Australian Financial Review, who reported that:

The Greens Party, representing green political groups in Tasmania, NSW and Queensland, has agreed to a constitution, and aims to contest Senate and House of Representative seats in the next federal election. The high-profile Tasmanian Green MP, Dr Bob Brown, said the party offered the electorate the choice of abandoning the two-party system, which had failed to address the nation’s problems.

Brown, who first rose to fame for his environmental campaign against Tasmania’s Franklin Dam, said his party was “more than a one-issue group”, describing its values as being “about social justice, enhancing democracy (particularly grassroots democracy), solving our problems in a peaceful and non-violent way, and about looking after our environment”.

Read more: The Greens grow up.

The launch was also reported by a rather interesting (and useful if you’re an historian/geek like me) publication called GreenWeek. Its editor Philip Luker was sceptical of the nascent Green movement’s momentum (rightly, as it turned out), offering this verdict:

Drew Hutton of the Queensland Greens is talking through his hat when he predicts green governments all over Australia in the next decade.

Almost 20 years later, during the battle over the fate of Julia Gillard’s carbon price, Brown was interviewed by The Australian. He pushed the timeframe back, predicting that “within 50 years we will supplant one of the major parties in Australia”.

Therein lies the main problem for the Greens. Many of the things they’ve been warning about have come to pass (deforestation, the climate crisis, human rights meltdowns), yet still they haven’t managed to break through with their calls for change. This is even more alarming given that the real history of the Greens precedes their August 1992 launch by more than two decades.

1971 and all that

There was something in the air in the early 1970s. Readers of a certain vintage will remember songs like Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush (“Look at mother nature on the run, in the 1970s”), Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology), and Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi.

Even the Liberal government of the day could hear the mood music, as the new Prime Minister Billy McMahon created the short-lived Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts. (Not everyone was quite so enlightened; the new department’s minister Peter Howson complained to a colleague about his new portfolio of “trees, boongs and poofters”.)

Meanwhile, a battle was raging in Tasmania over the plan to build three hydroelectric dams that would flood Lake Pedder National Park. In his fascinating and inspiring memoir, Optimism, Bob Brown wrote:

In 1971, Dr Richard Jones, his foot on a Central Plateau boulder, had seen the pointlessness of pursuing ecological wisdom with the old parties and proposed to his companions that a new party based on ecological principles be formed.

The United Tasmania Group, now seen as the first incarnation of the Green Party, contested the 1972 state election, and Jones came within a whisker of being elected.

Lake Pedder was lost, but other battles were still to be fought: green bans, Terania Creek, campaigns against nuclear power and whaling.

In Tasmania the next big skirmish was the Franklin Dam. Green activists mobilised, agitated and trained in non-violent direct action. Amanda Lohrey, in her excellent Quarterly Essay Groundswell, recalls:

An acquaintance of mine in the Labor Party lasted half a day in his group before packing up and driving back to Hobart. “It was all that touchy-feely stuff,” he told me, grimacing with distaste. Touchy-feely was a long way from what young apparatchiks in the ALP were accustomed to.

Those culture clashes between Labor and Greens have continued, despite a brief love-in engineered by Bob Hawke’s environment minister Graham ‘whatever it takes’ Richardson. To the chagrin of Labor rightwingers, the 1990 election was won on preferences from green-minded voters. But by 1991 it was clear that the Liberals would not compete for those voters, and Labor gradually lost interest in courting them.

So in 1992 the Greens went national, and so began the long march through the institutions, with gradually growing Senate success. In 2002, thanks to the Liberals not standing, they won the Lower House seat of Cunningham, NSW in a by-election, but couldn’t hold onto it.

In 2010, after receiving the largest single political donation in Australian history (A$1.68 million) from internet entrepreneur Graeme Wood, the Greens’ candidate Adam Bandt wrested inner Melbourne from Labor, and has increased his majority in 2013 and 2016.

Critics, problems and the future

Doubtless the comments under this article will be full of condemnations of the Greens for not having supported Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in December 2009. Despite Green Party protestations to the contrary, Gillard’s ill-fated carbon price wasn’t that much better at reducing emissions (though it did have additional support for renewable energy).

However, we should remember three things. First, Rudd made no effort to keep the Greens onside (quite the opposite). Second, hindsight is 20/20 – who could honestly have predicted the all-out culture war that would erupt over climate policy? Finally, critics rarely mention that in January 2010 the Greens proposed an interim carbon tax until policy certainty could be achieved, but could not get Labor to pay attention.

The bigger problem for the Greens – indeed, for anyone contemplating sentencing themselves to 20 years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within – is the problem of balancing realism with fundamentalism. How many compromises do you make before you are fatally compromised, before you become the thing you previously denounced? How long a spoon, when supping with the devil?

You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Focus too hard on environmental issues (imagining for a moment that they really are divorced from economic and social ones) and you can be dismissed as a single-issue party for latte-sippers. Pursue a broader agenda, as current leader Richard Di Natale has sought to do, and you stand accused of forgetting your roots.

Can the circle of environmental protection and economic growth ever be squared? How do you say “we warned you about all this” without coming across as smug?

As if those ideological grapples weren’t enough, the party is also dealing with infighting between the federal and NSW branches, not to mention the body-blow of senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters becoming the first casualties of the ongoing constitutional crisis over dual nationality.

Read more: If High Court decides against ministers with dual citizenship, could their decisions in office be challenged?.

The much-anticipated breakthrough at the polling booth failed to materialise in 2016. Green-tinged local councils work on emissions reductions, but the federal party remains electorally becalmed.

The dystopian novel This Tattooed Land describes an Australia in which “an authoritarian Green government takes power and bans fossil fuel use”… in 2022. It still sounds like a distant fantasy.

ANCIENT WHALES: The ancestors of today's gentle giants of the ocean were equipped with the razor-sharp teeth of a fearsome predator and could have hunted seals and penguins, rather than the tiny krill they eat today, scientists say.

‘Last-chance tourism’ spurs on other visitors but there has been lull in bookings after coral bleaching, senators told

Overseas tourists have begun to doubt the value of a trip to the ailing Great Barrier Reef and it is getting increasingly difficult to “show people what they expect to see”, a dive operator has told a federal Senate inquiry.

A Port Douglas operator, John Edmondson, said “last-chance tourism” was spurring on other visitors but there had been a “weird” lull in bookings this year after back-to-back mass bleaching events made dead coral an unavoidable sight on reef visits.

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Devastating floods in Nepal have sparked regional tension, with Nepali politicians and media outlets claiming that Indian infrastructure along their shared border has left Nepal vulnerable.

In a visit last week to India, Nepal’s prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba released a joint statement with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi pledging to work together to combat future flood disasters. But relations between the two countries remain strained, and many in Nepal still resent India for a three-month blockade of supplies in the wake of the 2015 earthquakes.

Read more: Two years after the earthquake, why has Nepal failed to recover?

One source of this tension is simply the geography of the Himalayas, where a dam or road built in one country can cause inundation in its neighbour.

The result is an international blame game, with India, China and Nepal accusing each other of shortsighted and self-interested politics. Without region-wide organisations to effectively share information and coordinate disaster relief, many more people have suffered.

Tangled geography

Floods are almost annual events in the Himalayas. Huge rivers originating in the Himalayas pass through the densely settled Terai flats that span both India and Nepal, and these rivers swell enormously in the monsoon season.

A rough outline of the Himalayas.

But this year’s floods have been particularly devastating. In the past two months more than 1,200 people have been killed and 20 million others affected by floods in Nepal, India and Bangladesh.

These trans-border floods are a political as well as a logistical problem. In the case of the recent floods, Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs pointed to two large Indian dams in the Kosi and Gandaki rivers, as well as high roads, embankments and dykes built parallel to Nepal’s 1,751km border with India, arguing that this infrastructure obstructs the natural flow of water.

India, for its part, has blamed Nepal for creating floods in the past and – although disputed in scientific circles – many believe deforestation in Nepal contributes to water overflow into India.

The problem is that infrastructure in one country can have a serious impact on its neighbours, especially in monsoon season. At least a dozen people were injured last year in clashes over an Indian dam that the Kathmandu Post reported will inundate parts of Nepal when completed.

And the problems aren’t just caused by dams. Hydrologists and disaster experts in Nepal claim that recent floods have been worsened by significant illegal mining of the low Churia hills for boulders and sand, for use in the rapidly expanding construction sector in India.

India, China and Nepal

The disputes aren’t limited to India and Nepal. India and China signed a deal in 2006 to share hydrological information on the huge rivers that run through both their territories, so as to cope better with annual flooding. But earlier this year India’s Ministry of External Affairs accused China of failing to share vital data, exacerbating floods in India’s northeast.

This is not an isolated incident. In 2013 a huge flood in northwestern India, called the Himalayan tsunami, killed around 6,000 people and affected millions more.

At that time, India officials claimed that they did not get information from Nepalese officials on heavy rainfall in Nepal’s hills, or on glacier conditions. Nepali officials, in turn, responded that China is in a better position to share information about climatic conditions on that part of the Himalayas. Studies conducted later concluded that efficient information sharing and early warnings would have reduced the resulting damage.

This problem becomes more urgent as the Himalayas come under pressure from climate change. Climate scientists have warned that “extreme floods” in the region are becoming more frequent, driven by less frequent but more intense rainfall.

It is now vital to think differently about how institutions handle these disasters. India and Nepal announced last week that they would establish a Joint Committee on Inundation and Flood Management, and a Joint Team of Experts to “enhance bilateral co-operation” in water management, which is a positive sign.

But the Himalayas urgently needs institutions with a region-wide perspective, rather that country-specific remits. These organisations can effeciently share information on weather patterns, take action to reduce overall impact of floods, and consult each other while developing infrastructures that could have trans-boundary consequences.

Human interference and myopic political action have intensified the impact of these floods. We now need every country in the region to accept shared responsibility and commit to helping those affected, regardless of their nationality.

Jagannath Adhikari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

At least 14 people have died and tens of thousands evacuated as Houston continues to be battered by catastrophic rainfall. Can we decode the disaster?

• Tropical storm Harvey – live updates
  

A tropical storm that is on course to break the US record for the heaviest rainfall from a tropical system. Meteorologists say the 120cm-mark set in 1978 could be surpassed on Tuesday or Wednesday.

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Protesters hope appeal court will uphold council’s decision to reject planning consent for Cuadrilla, which was overturned by Sajid Javid

A last-ditch legal challenge to prevent fracking in Lancashire is being launched at the court of appeal.

The case brought by anti-fracking protesters, to be heard on Wednesday and Thursday, seeks to overturn planning consent that was granted to Cuadrilla by the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, last October.

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Haze that led to 150 people seeking treatment caused a pollution spike and ‘might have been caused by a ship venting’

Authorities investigating the cause of Sunday’s chemical cloud are working on the assumption that it came from a ship in the Channel after environmental monitoring sites picked up a localised spike in pollution levels.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is working with the Environment Agency to establish the source of the cloud, which left 150 people seeking medical treatment and caused the evacuation of Birling Gap beach in East Sussex.

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Canada has a hand in the misery Haitians are fleeing. Asylum should serve as reparations

The minders of Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s brand are surely displeased. He’s spent two years cultivating an image of Canada’s refugee system as the political equivalent of airport hugs and teddy-bears. And now the pressure is on him to act like that were remotely the truth.

The image of the country as a welcome haven was pitched to win the support of millions of people in Canada who rightly feel two things: compassion for the plight of refugees and disgust for the antics of Donald Trump. But refugee rights advocates had warned what would come to pass: desperate people would take Trudeau at his word.

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Floridians have long recognised the threat of climate change to their homes. Amid the latest disaster, home buyers may increasingly look to higher ground

• Tropical storm Harvey – live updates
  

If Florida gleaned anything from Hurricane Andrew, the intensely powerful storm that tore a deadly trail of destruction across Miami-Dade County almost exactly 25 years to the day that Hurricane Harvey barrelled into the Texas coastline, it was that living in areas exposed to the wrath of Mother Nature can come at a substantial cost.

At the time the most expensive natural disaster ever to hit the US, Andrew caused an estimated $15bn in insured losses in the state and changed the way insurance companies assessed their exposure to risk for weather-related events.

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Birds rely on smell to find their bearings when land is out of sight, according to a study.

A study finds that accelerated growing conditions on some fish farms are causing hearing impairments in salmon. It’s a reminder that aquaculture’s own accelerated rise needs to be closely managed

To grasp the wide-ranging impacts of our industrial food systems, take a peek inside a salmon’s ear. That’s what marine biologist Tormey Reimer did when, in 2013 at the University of Melbourne, she began to investigate deformities that were developing on the structures that salmon use to hear.

Bony fish species have structures called otoliths in their ears, small crystals that they use to detect sound. Biologists have for decades relied on otoliths to age fish, using them like rings on a tree. But what Reimer saw was an altogether larger, lighter, and more transparent crystal called a vaterite, growing into the otolith and obstructing the fish’s ability to hear. “I did a bit of digging and found it was much more common in farmed salmon than wild,” she says. And, she began to suspect it had something to do with the accelerated growth rates in fish farms.

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This year, China’s government enacted a ban on ivory sales and started closing down carving workshops. How did such an astonishing U-turn come about?

For years Chinese government officials were followed around the world, at every meeting, by a single issue: the scores of dead elephants across Africa, and the international community that blamed China for this “ivory “holocaust”.

Even the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, could not escape lectures on poached elephants and the evils of China’s legal domestic ivory trade from foreign leaders. For years, China deflected the criticism with claims of a long cultural heritage and incremental policies, such as a ban on ivory carving imports two years ago.

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China has made incredible economic progress and is now making efforts to create a rigorous environmental law framework. But according to Amnesty International, some human rights lawyers who fall foul of the government do not receive fair trials.

The anti-cycling backlash in the media in the aftermath of Charlie Alliston trial suggests roads and streets overrun by dangerous cyclists, but is this true?

When cycling reaches newspaper front pages it’s usually the sporting kind. The last couple of weeks have been an exception, with blanket coverage of the trial of Charlie Alliston, convicted last week over the death of Kim Briggs after he struck her on his bike.

This piece isn’t about the facts of this very tragic case. It’s about the aftermath, more specifically the repeated call in some part of the media for something to be done about what these articles believe is a particular problem of reckless and law-flouting cyclists.

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No-one wants to invest in new baseload power. It makes no economic, or environmental sense. Deep down, Malcolm Turnbull understands this, but does he have the courage of his convictions, if that is what they were, to overcome the nonsense from the conservative ideologues?

Report says WA's Pilbara must first establish local solar industry if it wants to offer Indonesia competitive rates on PV generation.

Claxton, Norfolk Lined up on the telephone wires, they stretch, preen and snooze, riding the tide swell of air

The view from my office includes a junction box where five telephone wires converge at the top of a pole. For several years, it has been a favourite gathering place for the season’s young swallows and they wreathe this banal technology in the joyous rhythms of their movements and sounds.

The immatures are separable by pale fringes to their wing feathers, but also by the downturned yellow gape-lines at the corners of their mouths, which give them a wonderfully comic clown-like glumness. It is as if all the swirl of these late-August days – the balletic fly-snatching, the sun-blessed leisure, the quiet feather care as they sit amid a pool of the adult swallows’ desultory song – were a source of strange ennui.

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AGL tells customers of its ground-breaking "virtual power plant" in Adelaide that their installation will be delayed while it reviews its technology choices for the program.

AER's proposed demand management incentive scheme that could deliver flexible capacity equivalent to equal half the now closed Hazelwood power generator.

La Trobe University Bendigo student Kirra Coventry filmed her group of outdoor and environmental education classmates helping a koala that had become stranded by rapidly rising water in the Murray river. The students were learning to be river guides when they saw the koala on the edge of Ulupna Island. The students told associate lecturer Chris Townsend it was low in a tree and seemed to be trying to find dry land. They pushed an empty canoe out to it and it climbed aboard, took a seat, then disembarked once it reached shore, where it had a lengthy drink. Townsend said koalas, which are considered a vulnerable species in parts of Australia, were relocated to river islands like Ulupna in the late 1980s and there was now a healthy population there. ‘Koalas are very, very fussy about the trees they will feed in and live in,’ he said. ‘Obviously leading up to this it had found the perfect tree, but I think the floodwaters came up a little bit quickly and it didn’t have time to get down’

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