Licence to probe: the liberating beauty of fiction after journalism | Michael Brissenden

Cut free from the constraints of reporting, a story can take its own shape, can lead you down rabbit holes you'd never expectedDuring my nearly 40 years as a journalist, the climate crisis has been a constant, creeping refrain - from the first greenhouse conference in the late 1980s and the first IPCC report in the early 90s. There was the Hawke governments' plan to cut emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, and the subsequent walking back of that plan.Then on through the decades of bitter political division and debate and policy failures; the proposal for an Emissions Trading Scheme under John Howard; Kevin Rudd's "great moral challenge of our generation"; the ill-fated Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the Gillard ETS, the relentless campaign against it by Tony Abbott and the wasted decade of what's become known as the "Climate Wars" that followed.Sign up for Guardian Australia's free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...