Excited to find my story for The Monthly, “The Totten Hots Up”, has been nominated for the Melbourne Press Club 2017 Quill for Feature Writing. Congrats to my fellow nominees – Michael Bachelard & Kate Geraghty (Fairfax), Margaret Burin (ABC), and Emily Woods (The Sunday Age). Continue reading
Category Archives: Climate change
Walkley Awards: Freelance Journalist of the Year 2017
Judge’s Comments: “Jo Chandler was chosen for her compelling body of work exploring climate change. Her self-funded research and reporting delivered engaging features with very human insights into the complex facets of this century’s biggest story.” The Freelance Journalist of the Year Award is awarded by the Walkley Foundation, which oversees Australia’s most prestigious journalism … Continue reading
Up the Creek? A journey up the Murray Darling
A decade ago, former Prime Minister John Howard announced a strategy to save the Murray-Darling Basin, ravaged by drought and overuse, “once and for all”. Now some states and communities say the pain of restoring the river is too great. Scientists are warning Howard’s vision of saving the river hangs in the balance. My story … Continue reading
Best Australian Essays 2016
What a buzz to find my work alongside pieces by the likes of Garner and Flanagan in this collection, published by BlackInc and out today. Editor Geordie Williamson says some lovely things about the very grim piece chosen for this anthology, “Grave Barrier Reef”, describing it as “balanced, finely-grained reportage … a monument of rational … Continue reading
Man Overboard: For Good Weekend magazine
My story on the sacking by CSIRO of one of the world’s top climate scientists coincides with some just published science which mades the sea levels discussed here look deeply conservative (In the Washington Post here). It all again underlines how desperately we need this expertise, and the continued collection & analysis of long-haul, boring, … Continue reading
Great Barrier Grief
‘We were diving in dissolving reef … it was like diving in ectoplasm. It was awful’ – Prof Justin Marshall. In the June edition of The Monthly I have a long piece on the devastating coral bleaching now playing out on the Great Barrier Reef. At the same time as news emerges that the Australian … Continue reading
Paris COP21 Climate Summit: Planet Earth Blog
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been engaged as a “guest blogger” by the University of Melbourne to provide some guided commentary on its “Pursuit” communications platform around the Paris talks. Mostly the focus was to delve into the university’s in-house expert resource, but I had a long leash. After the Agreement, the blog … Continue reading
El Nino bites hard in PNG: The Guardian
I’ve been trying for several months to get back to PNG to do some on-the-ground reporting about the climate impacts playing out there – most urgently the whopping El Nino. Sadly I couldn’t get the budget or editorial interest – so this piece for The Guardian is the next best option, reporting long distance, relying … Continue reading
Solar power in Australia: Yale Environment 360
My second piece for Yale Environment 360, a website produced out of Yale University to showcase reporting, analysis, opinion and debate on environmental science. This article presents a snapshot of the state of solar in Australia, rounding up the policy and politics that have put solar units on so many Australian homes (highest proportion of … Continue reading
New Scientist: Ghost of the cloud forest -Seeking the white possum
My feature for New Scientist magazine, looking for the white lemuroid possum – the endangered polar bear of the tropics – in the cloud forests of Far North Queensland. (Sorry, subs required)- Link here Continue reading
Notebook & Narrative by Jo Chandler 