Electric sparks from the unstoppable transformation

The Sustainable Hour no. 487 | Podcast notes


Our guests in The Sustainable Hour on 13 December 2023 are forest activist Dr Colette Marmsen and energy advisor Tim Forcey for a COP28-inspired talk about lethal fossil psychopaths, a popular energy efficiency movement and conservationists taking drastic action. We also play a range of audio and video clips about the global climate summit in Dubai and the fossil madness surrounding it.

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Dr Colette Marmsen is a veterinarian, wildlife defender and forest activist who has just been released after three months in prison in Lutruwita (Tasmania).

In talking to Colette, we find out why she dropped her veterinarian registration to become a forest activist, what motivates her work and what life in prison was like for her.

You can find out more about Colette on the website www.doingitfortheforests.com

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Tim Forcey is an ex fossil fuel employee, who has since assisted tens of thousands Australians to decarbonise and electrify their homes via the Facebook group My Efficient Electric Home, now in its ninth year with over 108,000 members.

Tim will publish his first book ‘The My Efficient Electric Home Handbook’ in June 2024 on Murdoch Books.

He is referred to as one of Australia’s leading home comfort and energy advisors, having sat at thousands of dining tables and kitchen benchtops, chatting with thousands of Australians about ways they can make their homes healthier and more comfortable, shrink or eliminate gas and electricity bills, take advantage of renewable energy technologies, and lessen each home’s climate and environmental impacts.

Tim has published home-economics research with the University of Melbourne as well as several dozen articles covering topics from home moisture management, to the future of gas in homes, to how to buy a hot water heat pump.

During earlier career stages, Tim worked as a chemical engineer in the energy efficiency, renewable electricity, gas, oil and petrochemical sectors with companies such as ExxonMobil, BHP, the Australian Energy Market Operator and Jemena.

To learn more about Tim’s work or join his Facebook group, go to: www.fb.com/groups/MyEfficientElectricHome

For those not on Facebook, see this article on www.thefifthestate.com.au

During our chat, Tim recommended this excellent site from Geelong Sustainability: www.energytips.org.au

And Environment Victoria’s Electrify Victoria page.

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The opening statement today is from Dr Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest AO, business leader and philanthropist, speaking at Oxford University. You can see and listen to this speech on www.energy.ox.ac.uk

We hear Tzeporah Berman, Chair of Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, explain that renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels appear competitive with ever-cheaper renewables only because their production has been subsidised and their producers insulated from the costs associated with the damage they cause: hurricanes, bushfires and floods.

Half way through the hour, after our interview with Colette, we play the youtube video: Territorians launch Supreme Court challenge to fracking approval.

Together with Tim Forcey, we listen to the tv commercial from Shell Energy Australia: “Zero Starts Here”.

American actress Jane Fonda talks about the fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold over our governments in an online talk she gave at COP28 in Dubai. We listen to a two-minute excerpt.

Towards the end we hear a short fossil statement from professor Mark Maslin speaking on Good Morning Britain – and rounding of the hour, we listen to author George Monbiot talking on BBC Question Time about how serious the climate crisis is and how the fossil fuel industry is trying to stop us from dealing with it, along with Missy Higgins‘ song ‘The Difference’.

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Colin Mockett OAM‘s Global Outlook for the week begins, of course, in Dubai at COP28. There, America’s climate envoy John Kerry held a surprisingly upbeat and frank press conference that switched from dire warnings to praise of China’s efforts, and then presented a positive forecast with the strong message that America was now on an unstoppable course to meet its climate commitments and would achieve it even if Donald Trump wins next year’s election. He said there was a sense of urgency at COP28 that hadn’t been present at previous summits. He said it was recognised that the only way to hit the critical target of net-zero emissions by 2050 was through a phase-out of fossil fuels, which directly addressed the biggest issue facing negotiators in the United Arab Emirates.

“If you’re going to reduce the emissions, and you’re actually going to hit the target net zero by 2050, you have to do some phasing out. There’s no other way to get to that target … this is crunch time,” he said. “The Arctic is at a crazy rate of melting … and you look at the fires in Greece and Australia, Russia and around the world. Come on. What do you need?”

He called the first seven days of the Dubai conference “a pretty darn good week”, naming progress on loss and damage arising from climate change, a pledge to triple renewable energy and a methane trust fund to help reduce flaring and emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas left him feeling “a different sense of mission and urgency” than before.

He also gave credit to China for working “harder to try to transition more rapidly”, but he said differences remained over the challenge of “new coal”. Asked by U.S. journalists if a change in government at the 2024 U.S. presidential election would derail progress such as the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act which aims to triple clean energy capacity by 2030, Kerry made it clear. “In other words, what happens if a certain person is elected?” he asked, acknowledging that Donald Trump, as president, pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

“Over 1,000 [U.S.] mayors and 37 governors all kept moving forward on the things that they pledged to do,” Kerry said. “So even when Donald Trump was president, 75 per cent of new electricity in the United States came from renewables. [Trump] may have pulled out of the Paris Agreement, but I’m telling you, the American people stayed in that agreement. We will get to a global low carbon, no-carbon economy – we will get there. The only question is will we get there in time to avoid the worst consequences of this crisis?”

Since last week, COP28 has hosted leaders and representatives from almost 200 nations and new attendance figures show more than 100,000 are in Dubai. At the moment negotiators are working to produce a final agreement for all nations to sign. A draft of the final text indicated that negotiators were considering calling for an orderly phase-out of fossil fuels.

Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was typically evasive and non-committal. He told ABC Radio the government would support “stronger language on that sort of thing [fossil fuels],” but he wouldn’t be drawn on specifics. “In my experience, you go into these negotiations with a degree of flexibility, but you also go in pushing for stronger and more action,” he said. “That’s what I’ll be doing.”

Meanwhile the OPEC oil cartel’s latest meeting demonstrated to the fossil fuel industry something that we’ve all known for years. You can’t trust the fossil fuel industry at all. It’s addicted to lying, even to each other.

We’ve covered over the last two weeks that the cartel was holding meetings to agree to cut the world production of oil in order to drive up prices against a background of the accelerating take-up of EVs and consequent drop in demand for petrol and diesel. Since last Thursday’s announcement that they had reached an agreement to cut their production by 2.2 million barrels a day, or a bit over 2 per cent, oil prices went down by more than $US8.50 a barrel. That was because, put simply, countries agreed to cut production then carried on as before. Some might even have increased their supply. You have to remember here that you’re dealing with countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Iraq who simply can’t be trusted to do as they say.

Of course it could be that the price drop is because of a drop in demand, because oil prices are volatile and subject very much to demand. But it certainly looks like the oil producing cartel is in disarray and doesn’t know what to do about the double threats of falling prices at the same time as reducing demand.

Now we just need the same thing to happen with the supply of coal and gas – and we’ll know that the world is moving in the right direction. And that little bit of hope ends our roundup for this week.

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That’s it from us for another week, and almost for another year. Next week’s show will be our last regular Hour for 2023. We have produced a number of special climate revolution shows to go out at the normal time of 11am on Wednesdays over the summer break. This will include our 2023 Music Special where we nominate this year’s Anthem for the Climate Revolution. We’ll return to our regular weekly programs on Wednesday 7 February 2023.

Our 500th episode will go out in Earth Week, on 24 April 2024. We have some really good news about the guests we’ll have on that show early in the new year.

COP(out)28 in has once again been a bitter disappointment. The fossil fuel psychopaths got what they wanted. Maybe next year, we’ll give up on these annual talk fests and instead hold The People’s Gathering For Real Action on Climate. We’ll gladly be part of that. Together we can bring on the climate revolution.

“I had a fantastically large number of people write to me in prison and it was really lovely getting their words of encouragement and support. I tried really hard to answer as many as I could, just to thank them and to encourage them to step out of their comfort zones and step toward direct action. I guess that’s where I’m focussing. It also felt like a community of like-minded women. They recognised that I was similar to them in that I repeatedly broke the law so there was that solidarity with the other inmates that made it a lot more pleasant to be there.”
~ Colette Harmsen, forest activist from Lutruwita (Tasmania) recently released from three months in prison for continually taking part in non-violent actions to protect the forests there.


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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 millennia before they were invaded. Their land was then stolen from them – it wasn’t ceded. 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 the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How disrespectful and unfair is that?



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Have you read this article? If not, please do.

Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points

“Many of the gravest threats to humanity are drawing closer, as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels, scientists have warned.

Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Triggering these planetary shifts will not cause temperatures to spiral out of control in the coming centuries but will unleash dangerous and sweeping damage to people and nature that cannot be undone.”

→ The Guardian – 6 December 2023:
Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn
“Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms.”

“Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic … yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe,” wrote the eminent Australian climate scientist Will Steffen and colleagues in August 2022. Nothing at this COP has substantially moved us away from that trajectory. In fact, by fostering the delusion that “orderly” solutions remain possible, as opposed to the necessity of a disruptive emergency-scale mobilisation, it has made matters worse.

COP28 a “tragedy for the planet” as Stockholm Syndrome took hold



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Cognitive dissonance of our leaders

“The crisis is being driven by the mindless pursuit of economic growth on a finite planet. All of our leadership, industry, finance and governments are utterly wedded to and fixated on economic growth with no regard for the ecological costs. So these elites refuse to declare the climate emergency because it would mean in so many ways, halting or changing in some way the economic growth agenda.

Those at the top of decision making in society are part of the 1% of the richest people in society. Where they all lead extravagant lifestyles with massive carbon emissions. The top 1% account for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%. What is less understood that in Australia this actually represents over 580,000 Australians or 3.8% of taxpayers. The biggest driver of these emissions are in our superannuation funds which hold 50% of all fossil fuel investments all tax free on retirement and whose companies pay little or no tax on what belongs to we the people of Australia.

In their ecocidal pursuit of this economic growth to preserve and enhance their lifestyles is pure self interest because their wealth, power, status and luxury lifestyles depend on it. Just like the smoker who knows that smoking will ultimately kill them, the cognitive dissonance of our leaders is unconscionable. They know the consequences; they have read the science and IPPC reports but deep in their psyche they believe their wealth will protect them and their families.”

So this tiny demographic can simply block action by doing nothing, refuse to agree to the urgency of action, deliberately dissembling, lying through their massive budgets and false advertising in the media and the more insidious state capture of our politicians; demanding laws against peaceful, non violent protesters and lucrative board positions on retirement.

It is clear Net Zero by 2050 is unachievable not because it would fail to address the crisis but we are also facing a biodiversity crisis which is equally important as the climate crisis and will lead to ecological collapse, mass starvation and the deaths of 1 billion people and billions more climate refugees through loss of agriculture and fresh water. We either solve both or we solve neither.

This is a systemic problem, caused by the whole of the current economic system, imposed by government under the control of the economic elites. Only whole of system change to a degrowth, sustainable, circular economy with zero population growth that puts equal emphasis on ecological sustainability can we possible achieve halting rising emissions.”
~ Colin Hughes, formerly with the Flying Doctors service

→ Michael West Media – 5 January 2024:
Declare a Climate Emergency, or face catastrophic rising temperatures and sea levels
“World governments must declare a Climate Emergency if they are serious about science and the catastrophic effects of rising temperatures and sea levels.” By Colin Hughes

FINITE: The Climate of Change from Espresso Media International on Vimeo.



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Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour

Events in Victoria

The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.

Petitions

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List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name

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The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time).

» To listen to the program on your computer or phone, click here – or go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen Live’ on the right.



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