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Guests in the The Sustainable Hour on Earth Day 22 April 2020 are Suzie Brown from Australian Parents for Climate Action, Karina Donkers who is starting a climate leadership course in May, and Robert Rothko, who launches his new climate-related song today: ‘Coffee’.
Week 5 of our covid isolation in The Tunnel
Colin Mockett starts off today’s program continuing on from the report he referred to on last week’s show by the head of the United Nations Environment department, Inga Anderson. She points out that during the Covid-19 lockdown, the air is much clearer. This is mainly because there are fewer planes in the air and people aren’t driving cars anywhere near as much. This is well and good, but when the inevitable economic stimulus follows, we must not return to business as usual. Now is time to reset and focus on clean energy sources and healthier green jobs. The Europeans already have an expression and a hashtag for it: #GreenRecovery. This is what is essential if we want to face up to the climate emergency that hasn’t gone away. Much more about this further down on this page.
Our first guests is Ocean Grove resident and co-founder of Australian Parents for Climate Action, Suzie Brown. She explains what AP4CA have been up to during our isolation and their plans for when the coronavirus releases its grip on us. They are planning to give strong support for the Students Strike on May 15 and beyond, and they are also calling for Geelong residents to have their say on Council’s new Sustainability Framework. Council has invited community input, which is open until 30 April 2020 – on www.geelongaustralia.com.au/yoursay

This is followed by another local in Karina Donkers who explains the online course she will be running on Climate Leadership. Her course is going to be delivered via Zoom. It will consist of eight two-hour weekly classes. Each class will feature a different facet of personal growth – spiritual, emotional and physical. She will no doubt bring her extremely wide skillset into play. Karina is very conscious of a responsibility to create a support network for all the participants.
More history is created on our show – we have our first song launch. Melbourne musician Robert Rothko tells us about his background as well as why he chose to release it on Earth Day’s 50th anniversary. We end the show with Robert singing his latest song ‘Coffee’. We wish him all the best with this.
From The Sustainable Hour’s tunnel, we wish our listeners a happy Earth Day. Until next week, be the difference!
“Breathe in the songs of the ancestors deep into your lungs, let the messages land within the cells of your body and dance with your entire being, so that they may guide us to embodied pathways rooted in the power and wisdom of the old as we bring about the sacred new.”
~ Karina Donkers, climate leadership trainer
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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 land. They nurtured it and thrived in often harsh conditions for millenia before they were invaded. Their land was then stolen from them – it wasn’t ceeded. It is becoming more and more obvious that, if we are to survive the climate emergency we are facing, we have much to learn from their land management practices.
Our battle for climate justice won’t be won until our First Nations brothers and sisters have their true justice. 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…

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”
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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Wake up and smell the coffee
Robert Rothko gives us a song for Earth Day about climate change and the role we all play in ensuring a sustainable future.
Robert Rothko sees it as his mission to reach those who so far have ignored the climate threat. He believes that in the current disruption caused by COVID-19, people are now more receptive than ever to new ways of viewing the world.
“As a supporter of Centre for Climate Safety, and as one who shares the same goals, I wanted to offer this song as a resource, to be used in any way that may raise awareness and inspire action,” Robert told us. “This Earth Day has the ability to be an especially impactful one, and with everyone working together with a common message, we can carve out a beautiful new trajectory for our planet,” he said.
Robert has also released a music video that features the work of photographers from around the world.

Coffee
by Robert Rothko – featuring Sergio Sanchez
When will the people of the world agree?
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
We are all guilty, neighbor, you and me.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Our Mother Earth demands we act without delay.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Biodiversity declines more everyday.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Oh, you can be the change you see.
Oh, I can be the change in me.
The days and nights, they swiftly turn into years.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Complacent, we choose to ignore our fears.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Oh, you can be the change you see.
Oh, I can be the change in me.
And in the morning, I will rise and sing
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
Brothers, sisters, will you join the melody?
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
We are the farmers in the fields we never know,
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
And we will surely reap exactly what we sow.
(Wake up and smell the coffee!)
→ Robert Rohtko on Apple Music
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Karina Donkers: Climate leadership training
Karina Donkers’ Climate Leadership Training is an online education platform and digital community for people who wish to step up at this pivotal time in history and create the change that the world needs to see. Karina explains:
“The Earth is calling us to return home and in embodying this we can create profound change. This is our chance to rewrite the narrative of humankind. This course provides you with the tools to uncover your unique offering and how to use them. Through this training platform we will be exploring different facets of what it means to become a change maker.
Climate Leadership Training embraces a holistic approach in this course, as a key part of being a powerful change maker is to develop a strong relationship with yourself and the Earth. This training brings together wisdom from social work, community development, campaigning, leadership work, deep ecology, nature connection, The Work That Reconnects, yoga philosophy, chakra and energy work, embodiment and tantric practices, permaculture and event management to bring you this unique offering designed to best support you at this time.
The Climate Leadership Training program was made with the intention of supporting people to find their purpose in the world. This course was born from the growing outcry from people who wished to make real change but did not know how or where to start. This course will help you to move forward with purpose and direction so we may shift the narrative of humankind.”
Earth-centred leadership
The Climate Leadership Training is run under an Earth-centred leadership model developed by Karina Donkers. Earth-centred is a leadership model that gives us a framework to move forwards and create a better future. Earth-centred leadership is a leadership style developed to guide people back to an Earth-centred life. This model returns us to what is important in the world and back to a remembering the essence of life.
Throughout Karina’s journey she has developed eight elements that support people to show up fully and to create powerful change. Every action is one step towards returning home. Each step is a step towards reclaiming our sacred and innate wild earth selves.
“Throughout this training you will find that each section will link back to one or more of the principals of the Earth-centred leadership model.
The idea is for us to slowly cultivate these areas of leadership throughout the program so that at the end we feel more equipped to do the important work that needs to be done in the world. We need to awaken what is ancient in us so that we may address this crisis and become more active and engaged members of life. This framework re-orders our priorities and the lens through which we see the world. This model will help guide us back to Earth, grounding us and activating us to be powerful leaders in the world.
This training has been broken up into four modules to journey through. Each module is designed to expand your knowledge, experience and connection as you journey deeper into this work.”
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Green recovery – call to action
180 CEOs, ministers and NGOs in Europe launch appeal for green recovery after COVID-19 pandemic
The collective call for mobilisation says:
“We call on a global alliance of cross-party political decision-makers, business and financial leaders, trade unions, NGOs, think tankers, stakeholders, to support and implement the establishment of Green Recovery Investment Packages acting as accelerators of the transition towards climate neutrality and healthy ecosystems. We therefore commit to working together, sharing knowledge, exchanging expertise and creating synergies to deliver the investment decisions we need.
Covid-19 will not make climate change and nature degradation go away. We will not win the fight against covid-19 without a solid economic response. Let’s not oppose those two battles, but let’s fight and win them at the same time. By doing so, we will only be stronger together.”
→ Read the call for mobilisation
→ Forbes – 13 April 2020:
Use Lessons Of COVID-19 To Build A Green Recovery, Say EU Ministers
→ Forbes – 16 April 2020:
South Korea embraces EU-style Green Deal for Covid-19 recovery
South Korea’s Democratic party has won a landslide victory in elections, achieving a strong mandate for a European-style Green New Deal, making it the nation first in east Asia to enact a pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
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Hug a tree
→ BBC News – 15 April 2020:
Icelanders urged to hug trees to overcome isolation
“Iceland’s forestry service has come up with a novel way to overcome the sense of isolation many people suffer because of Covid-19 preventative measures.”
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World’s largest online climate conference
A public, free, online, no-fly climate conference marks the 50th Anniversary of Earth Week, one of the biggest climate movements in the world. Over 100 speakers from five continents will meet over the internet via the We Don’t Have Time studios in Stockholm and Washington DC.
Wednesday – Big ideas and education
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The Sustainable Hour’s bonus podcasts since last week
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Community sufficiency
“We’ve got this extraordinary opportunity to rewrite “normal” and to write a new future story. We’ve got this little window of opportunity and we’ve got so many more people to come onboard.”
~ Antoinette Wilson, Happen Films
Replacing growth with belonging economies
Last year Patrick Jones and Meg Ulman were invited to contribute a chapter to the forthcoming book, ’Food for Degrowth: Perspectives and Practices’, to be published by Routledge later this year. They called their chapter, ‘Replacing growth with belonging economies: a neopeasant response’. They offer it here as a film, stating it is their most significant collaborative writing project since their book, ’The Art of Free Travel’.
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‘I Am Australian’ – Everyday Choir | Virtual Choir | ABC Australia
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A sign of GIY (Grow It Yourself) going mainstream now?
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→ Podcasts and posts on this website about climate emergency
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The Sustainable Hour is usually streamed live on the Internet every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time), but that has been stopped due to the Corona lockdown.
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