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Our guest in The Sustainable Hour on 7 August 2019 is Derek Ryan from Transition Street Saleyards in North Geelong. His amazing Do-It-Yourself effort with storing and recycling water in his home is featured in our ‘Show Me How’ episode 4, ‘Storing and recyling passion in pipes’
Kate Sandle from B Lab UK, working together with 200 UK businesses on “using business as a force for good,” introduces us to their new guide for businesses, ‘How to declare a climate emergency’.
Alan from Extinction Rebellion Melbourne talks about the #SpringRebellion and what is going to happen in Melbourne in the week starting on 7 October, where the group plans to “shut Melbourne down” just like thousands of activists did it in London in October last year. More about this further down on this page.
Colin Mockett gives us an overview of the current status for councils’ climate emergency declarations, and what is happening on this front in Victoria, and also mentions a UN report on pollution, which is predicted to claim millions of lives prematurely by 2050.
We can’t not play an excerpt of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg’s marvellous speech to the French parliament.
“July has rewritten climate history, with dozens of new temperature records at local, national and global levels,” World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement a few days ago. July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, and extreme heat is baking the Arctic. None of the 300 weather stations in Alaska have recorded a temperature below freezing since the end of June. Wildfires are burning their way through much of Siberia. The climate emergency keeps escalating – but “where are the adults?”, as Greta asked.
In The Sustainable Hour, we keep wondering: where is the media? Why don’t even our public broadcasters have any serious level of coverage and analysis of this? In the meanwhile, The Sustainable Hour promises to keep you up to date in this space.
We play a song with Gaia’s Eye about the Earth emergency, and end the hour with an excerpt of Paul McCartney’s ‘Despite Repeated Warnings’.
“The government’s role should be to protect the future from the past, not the past from the future. When government refuses to lead, others must.”
~ Ian Dunlop, formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, and David Spratt, research director of Breakthrough
Listen to The Sustainable Hour no. 279 on 94.7 The Pulse:
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LISTENER SERVICE:
Content of this hour
Links, excerpts and more information about what we talked about in this Sustainable Hour
#CLIMATEEMERGENCY:
Kate Sandle: Business declares a climate emergency
Certified B Corporations are accelerating a global culture shift to reinvent business. They are companies that use the power of business to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
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#CLIMATEEMERGENCY:
Major Extinction Rebellion action in Melbourne
Starting 7 October 2019, there are plans to do disruptive actions all over the world in major capital cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, New York and San Franscisco.
Australia and New Zealand get to kick things off with a bang. Extinction Rebellion groups in most states of Australia will be staging disruptions in their capital cities during that week.
If you would like to know more about this and how you can get involved, you can contact us at The Sustainable Hour – our email is tsh@climatesafety.info – or go to www.facebook.com/XRVictoria
Book it in. Prepare. On Sunday 6 October, pack your rucksack. Come to Melbourne. It is time to disrupt and rebel.
→ Sign up and let others know you are coming: on Facebook
“Governments have known since at least the mid-’90s about the potentially devastating impact of human-induced climate change. But for the most part they have either disputed and denied this, or pretended to be responding to scientists’ findings.
Despite overwhelming evidence that the world has already passed certain tipping points, setting off large and unpredictable changes in the climate, why are governments still refusing to act on the scale and pace required?”
“With the clock ticking, climate activists need to interrogate how we got to this stage and work out the next steps. To do that effectively we need to understand class politics. We also need to understand the power that large numbers of people, organised in a sustained way, have to force change.”
~ Pip Hinman
→ Resilience – 9 August 2019:
What Kind of Rebellion will it Take to Save Humanity from Extinction?
→ See all the news from around the world that the mainstream media completely failed to let you know about
Global water crisis
“A quarter of humanity faces looming water crises”, wrote the New York Times on 6 August 2019.
Have a look at the map. Some of Australia will be among the hardest hit. Note the dark red areas around Melbourne.
#TRANSITIONSTREETS: #WATER:
Storing and recyling passion in pipes [Show Me How 4]
#ENVIRONMENT:
Over 4,800 people die from air pollution in Australia every year
Greenpeace wrote about air pollution:
“Everyone has a right to clean air, no matter where you live, what you do for work or how much money you make. But over 4,800 people die from air pollution in Australia every year and Australia’s coal-burning power stations are among the dirtiest in the world.
The good news is that Australia’s air pollution standards are currently being reviewed for the first time in over two decades. We know so much more about the grave health impacts of toxic air pollution than we did then, but Australian standards are lagging behind the rest of the world.
If thousands of people like you and me can flood this review with submissions and show them just how many people care, we’ll be able to make the best possible case for the strongest protections each and every one of us deserves. Will you speak up and send your submission?”
ADDITIONALLY:
In other news
From our notes of this week: news stories and events we didn’t have time to mention but which we think you should know about
Deliberately obstructive federal policy:
Criminal negligence inflicting damage upon Australia
“The government’s role should be to protect the future from the past, not the past from the future. When government refuses to lead, others must.”
“The blatant inconsistency of Australia’s position beggars belief. We are signatories to the UNFCCC, supposedly committed to avoiding dangerous climate change, which is already happening. Australia ratified the Paris agreement to restrict temperature increase below 2C and ideally towards 1.5C, yet our emissions are rising rapidly even though there is no carbon budget remaining to stay below even 2C.
Incredibly, we ramp up new fossil fuel projects: Adani coal, gas expansion, fracking in NT and WA, and more. Then we have the gall to carry over unused carbon credits from the Kyoto protocol to obscure the failure of our wholly inadequate Paris emission reduction commitments; credits which were unjustified in the first place.
We are already the fifth largest carbon polluter globally when exports are included – about 5% of global emissions. On current projections, by 2030 Australia will be responsible for a massive 13% of global emissions. Our fossil fuel industries are subsidised annually by about US$29bn or 2.3% of GDP, far in excess of anything given to the low carbon industries.
And this in a country with probably the greatest low-carbon energy potential in the world – potential we are wasting, blocked by deliberately obstructive federal policy.”
~ Ian Dunlop, formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, David Spratt, research director of Breakthrough.
→ The Guardian – 3 August 2019:
Australia’s climate stance is inflicting criminal damage on humanity
“The government opts for conflict rather than change, while suppressing details on the implications of its climate inaction”
David Anthony Hood wrote:
“Ian Dunlop and David Spratt have no fear in telling our Prime Minister and his Government that they are participating in criminal negligence that is inflicting damage upon our world.
This is an excellent article by them from The Guardian, where refreshingly the truth is told, unlike the Murdoch media, and the commercial tv channels where lies, trivia, and shock jock hate is broadcast every day. That’s enough reason to join Extinction Rebellion.”
~ David Anthony Hood, deputy chairman of Beyond Zero Emissions, board director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Adjunct Professor at University of Queensland Energy Initiative.
By 2030, Australia is projected to be responsible for 13 per cent of global emissions. How is it possible that a government that calls itself ‘responsible’ can be thinking that this is ok? What is the rest of the world going to think about Australians – and how is this going to reflect on Australia’s business world?, for instance.
→ Financial Review – 8 July 2019:
Australia will emit 13pc of world’s carbon by 2030
Ben See – @ClimateBen – tweeted:
“Remember:
1. The Arctic is burning.
2. Greenland is melting.
3. The Amazon is being destroyed.
4. Marine food chains risk collapse.
5. Soil is being rapidly depleted.
6. Food systems mean extinction.
7. Water scarcity is exploding.
8. Famine has returned.
Climate chaos is now.”
“Greenland temperatures have increased by 16 degrees Celsius in less than a decade.”
~ Phys.org
“The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is being clear cut so rapidly — a rate of three football fields per minute — that it is approaching a “tipping point” from which it will not recover.”
~ EcoWatch
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Podcasts and posts on this website about climate emergency
Latest news on BBC about climate change
Acknowledgement
We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wathaurong People, and pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future.
The traditional owners lived in harmony with the environment and with the climate for hundreds of generations. It is not clear – yet – that as European settlers we have demonstrated that we can live in harmony for hundreds of generations, but it is clear that we can learn from the indigenous, traditional owners of this land.
When we talk about the future, it means extending our respect to those children not yet born, the generations of the future – remembering the old saying that…
The decisions currently being made around Australia to ignore climate change are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How utterly disgusting, disrespectful and unfair is that?
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