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The Sustainable Hour no. 535 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Our guests in The Sustainable Hour on 12 February 2025 are Kirsty Bishop-Fox from Waste Free Victoria and Mark Carter from Flight Free Australia.
The podcast episode features a mix of political discussions, environmental insights, community action and songs – with a strong focus on climate leadership, sustainable living, and the power of independent political voices.
It encapsulates the intersection of climate, politics, and personal action – urging listeners to step up in the fight for a sustainable future.
. . .
We open the Hour with António Guterres’ urgent message: “Failure is not an option” – highlighting that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with global temperatures already reaching 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels.
Zoe Daniel, Independent MP for Goldstein, then critiques both major parties for lacking vision on climate and governance, while defending community independents against political attacks.
Election campaigns are heating up – the Greens launched their candidates in Corio and Corangamite, and Community Independents in Corangamite are seeking a candidate to challenge the status quo, organising a launch event at Barwon Heads Hotel on Friday at 5:30pm.
Colin Mockett revisits a UN climate report, detailing the devastating human cost of climate breakdown, from deadly heat waves to forced displacement.
Australia’s emissions remain high despite global efforts, with scientists warning of accelerating climate instability.
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Sustainable living
Kirsty Bishop-Fox is rethinking meat consumption, encouraging plant-forward diets while avoiding ultra-processed food. She introduces us to her upcoming Sustainability Festival workshops, including “Smart, Sustainable, Delicious – Eating for You and the Planet” on Thursday 20 February – exploring food choices as climate action. Tickets here.
Kirsty is also part of the festival event Costa’s Picnic Extravaganza on Sunday 16 February. Tickets here.
We listen to an ABC report about the Bermagui keepcup movement – a game-changer in banning single-use coffee cups, proving that local communities can lead real environmental change.
Kirsty is a sustainability educator and changemaker, known for empowering people to embrace sustainability in their everyday lives. She consults and delivers impactful education programs for community groups, businesses, schools, and councils, inspiring positive change through practical solutions. Kirsty also consults for the National Sustainability Festival, is a member of the Maroondah Environment Advisory Committee, and co-founder and president of Zero Waste Victoria, Kirsty is deeply immersed in the sustainable living movement.
→ You can connect with Kirsty via Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
You can help Zero Waste Victoria with a short survey about fruit and vegetable packaging. Zero Waste Victoria is looking to understand how people use packaging when buying fruit and vegetables, and your thoughts on fruit stickers. The survey is anonymous, takes less than five minutes, and you could win one of five fruit and vegetable hampers.
. . .
The PM climate speech we’ve been waiting for
Mark Carter shares his clever “PM Climate Speech We’ve Been Waiting For” – a visionary take on how Australia could truly commit to emergency climate action, including zero emissions by 2030 and urgent carbon drawdown.
Mark has been on our show before as the founder of Flight Free Australia. Here are the links for people and events he mentioned in his chat today:
→ Website and event: www.pmclimatespeech.au – festival online event
→ Margaret Klein Salamon’s book ‘Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth’
→ Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration
. . .
Discussion on AI’s role in political messaging
Mark warns of AI’s growing carbon footprint, while Mik and Colin raise concerns about its impact on trust and misinformation during elections.
The episode features AI-generated climate anthems, including “We Are the Voices” – a song celebrating Community Independents’ fight for integrity and sustainability.
The show closes with the song “I Heard It on The Sustainable Hour” – a track capturing the spirit of collective action and the urgency of the climate crisis.
The songs we played in this hour

Taste for Zero Waste | Lyrics

I Heard It On The Sustainable Hour | Lyrics

Rising Voices | Lyrics
→ Listen to more of our songs
Another episode which has given us much to think about. Both Kirsty and Mark know that a safer, more just, sustainable, inclusive and healthy world is possible. They are both determined to work with others to make it happen in their own ways.
Kirsty’s spirit is inspirational. She is on a mission to reduce waste and refuses to be put off by “business as usual”. And Mark’s speeches are exactly what we need to hear at the moment. They display true visionary leadership.
So many of us find it completely incomprehensible that our politicians are incapable of doing what the science is demanding of them. How can our politicians spend weekends in loving relationships with their kids and grandkids and then return to Canberra and make decisions like approving fossil fuel projects in full knowledge of the devastating impacts this will have on the world in which their kids and grandkids will grow up?
It seems they are more motivated by political ambition than their parental and grandparental responsibilities. How did politics get to this? What must that be doing to their mental health?
As always: Be the difference! as you process these questions and the issues raised in our show today.
To be continued in seven days’ time.
“I produced this to put some focus on the risk that we now face of a devastatingly unsafe future with us having passed 1.5°C degrees last year – and focusing on the effective climate action that’s sort of now required. And to put out there, to make more real, what an effective response might look like and the leadership that’s required to implement it. Giving some character to what we can demand. Because we seem to be trapped in normal-world thinking, most of us, and certainly the media and politicians.
There’s a lot of people calling for climate action, but it’s a sort of a generic term and climate action seems to be often limited to sort of deregulated market economy based measures that aren’t cutting emissions anywhere near fast enough, and that aren’t drawing down those already dangerous ones that are already in the atmosphere that are creating the weekly climate disasters we’re witnessing.”
~ Mark Carter, Flight Free Australia founder and part time inspirational climate crisis speech writer for true political leaders
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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→ More info on the website pmclimatespeech.au where you can endorse the speech and read a transcript
POLITICS | THE FEDERAL ELECTION
→ The New Daily – 10 February 2025:
Labor risks Victorians using federal poll as referendum on both Allan and Albanese
“The weekend byelection in the outer suburban seat of Werribee saw the widely-anticipated slap-in-the-face to Victorian Labor, which is absolutely on the nose. The question is – to what degree were electors venting against federal Labor too?”
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 535
António Guterres, UN Secretary General:
Failure is not an option.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong. The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to the elders – past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re on stolen land, land that was never ceded. Always was and always will be First Nations land. There is a great wealth of ancient wisdom that they’ve accumulated from nurturing both their land and their communities for millennia before their land was stolen. And we have so much to learn from them as we confront the climate crisis.
Zoe Daniel, Indepedent Member for Goldstein, speaking at the National Press Club:
Mr Dutton has dubbed community independence a radical, extreme communist movement. So it’s radical to support broad-based tax reform, extreme to address the existential threat of climate change, and communist to demand the government not tax unrealised capital gains in any changes to superannuation arrangements. When one side bases its pre-election approach on what can be weaponised. And the other plays defence by default. Who’s coming up with the vision? Who’s providing the hope? The community independents on the crossbench who behave like normal, reasonable people. And that’s much needed because real reform takes time and it takes patience.
Mik Aidt:
The election is already running. On Saturday, the Greens launched their campaign in Corio. And this Friday, the Community Independents movement of Corangamite will launch the fact that they are now advertising in the newspapers that they’re looking for a qualified candidate to represent the community of Corangamite. And they will be meeting at Barwon Heads Hotel on Friday at 5:30 in the afternoon. So… important things for anyone who wants to stand up for protecting the climate and for everyone’s future on this planet is happening right now. It’s time to get involved as a volunteer or as a donor or even – in the Community Independents case: as a candidate.
You can step up now and get involved in supporting one of these election campaigns that you think is the right one for you, someone who is listening to the science and taking action on the climate breakdown, which means on our pollution, our emissions and so on. We don’t know yet what the date of the election will be, but that’s going to be very interesting now to follow and we will keep you updated here in The Sustainable Hour, of course, where we’ll also today be talking more politics in the second half. But first of all, let’s hear a little bit from around the world. We have, as usual, our global reporter Colin Mockett OAM who is ready with news from around the world. Aren’t you Colin?
Colin Mockett’s Global Outlook:
Yes, thank you very much, Mik. I’m not really up to date this week. I’d like to go back a month to a speech that got lost in all of the Christmas New Year media silliness and the fact that Trump was re-elected and it was easy to lose stuff in the media. But during that time, the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, in his New Year’s message to the world, began with the information that our planet experienced its hottest year on record with the average global temperature reaching 1.6°C degrees above the pre-industrial era. And this was years before the scientists expected to see such an increase. And then he said, and I quote:
“Today I can officially report that we have just endured a decade of deadly heat. The top 10 hottest years on records have happened in the last 10 years, and that includes 2024.”
And he added, “This is climate breakdown in real time. We must exit this road to ruin and we have no time to lose.”
Now his words were endorsed by another end of year report. This one came from the WWA, the World Weather Attribution, which has researchers in major institutions around the world, all studying the links between climate change and weather extremes. Their figures show that climate change contributed to the deaths of at least 3,700 people during 2024 and caused the displacement of millions more. And they only studied in detail 26 weather events.
It’s likely the total number of people killed in extreme weather events intensified by climate change is in the tens or hundreds of thousands, said the WWA in its end of year report, but those are the ones that they know about. It found that climate change had 41 days of dangerously high temperatures last year, including a 50°C degree day leading to a surge in hospitalisations in Mali, and contributed to record-breaking floods in several countries and severe droughts across South America.
One of the contributors, the Australian contributor, is Professor Mark Howden, who’s director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at ANU. He said that 2024 was Australia’s second hottest year since the Industrial Revolution and that the pace of warming had shocked scientists. If you went back a few years and you made a proposal that we’d be here at 1.6°C degrees by now, people would have said, well, that’s a bit extreme. You would have been pretty much alone in saying that, he said.
Professor Howden said he expected temperatures in Australia to remain high this year, but not break new records due to the cooling impact of a weak La Nina effect in the Pacific Ocean. He said that last year global fossil carbon emissions were at their highest level in history and this was despite 10 years of efforts to restrain them via the Paris Agreement.
He said that over the longer term I think that what we’re going to see is further increases in temperature because we’ve got increasing greenhouse gas emissions and continuing buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “At the moment, we’re nowhere near slowing that down.” He said Australians could expect to see hospital admissions and deaths rise among the elderly and infirm from heat stress, fire threats increasing, energy systems faltering, and even crime rates spiking on the increasing number of days of extreme temperatures.
In November, the World Meteorological Organization projected that total carbon dioxide emissions for 2024 would be 41.6 billion tonnes. Now that’s up from 40.6 billion tonnes in 2023, but it’s the latest figures that we have, the latest that have been released. They show that emissions from Europe and the US have trended down in recent years, while emerging economies such as India have increased. But that was expected and predicted in the Paris Agreement, which acknowledged that the majority of greenhouse gases accumulated in the atmosphere had been emitted by advanced economies as they industrialised. That’s us, of course.
Now, under the terms of the Paris Agreement, the world agreed to an effort to stabilise the climate at well below 2°C degrees above the pre-industrial average, and as close to 1.5°C degrees as possible. Though the world has now experienced a full calendar year with average temperatures over 1.5°C degrees, under the terms of the Paris Agreement, the target will not be considered to have been passed until the average temperatures have stayed over the threshold for what is termed as some years. That allows even more wriggle room for politicians and fossil fuel industry to weasel out of the agreement that they signed. And that depressing note ends my roundup for the week.
Jingle
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Tony:
Our first guest today is very much a friend of the show: Kirsty Bishop-Fox. Kirsty has been on a number of times. She’s the founder and president of Waste Free Victoria. And last week we had Luke Taylor on talking about the great events that are coming on during February, the National Sustainability Festival. And Kirsty is going to run one of those workshops. So, Kirsty, welcome to The Sustainable Hour. Tell us about what you got planned for your workshop coming up.
Kirsty:
Yes, yes, wonderful to be back. I guess there are a few things that I’m involved in in the Sustainability Festival this year. One is we’ve got Costa’s Picnic Extravaganza, which is one of the Botanic Gardens on the Sunday the 16th of Feb. And that’s really based around his children’s book, which has come out. But it’ll be a great day for the kids and the family. And I’ll be along there with Zero Waste Victoria, talking to people about how they’re reducing their single use plastic with their fruit and veg, is great. And the other event which I’m really excited about is Smart, Sustainable, Delicious.
It’s like eating for you and the planet. And I’m really excited about this because not only are we getting an opportunity, I’ll be alongside Costa and Kerry Gill, who’s a public health researcher. We did this talk in Woodford under a different name, sustainable eating is activism, but we’ve got a different approach with this one. But it’s really encouraging people to think about the food choices they make and the food that you choose to eat. Is that supporting your health and nutrition? Is that beneficial to the planet or is it having a negative effect? Because every time you actually make that food choice, you can choose to support or not support and often we look at food as just something that we eat, but we need to look at food as something that nourishes us. And when you have that shift, then it starts to shift your choices, which are for you and the planet.
Colin:
That’s really interesting, Kirsty, and you’ve clearly done this a few times. Have you got a sort of a pattern that you now choose to use when you’re recommending what people eat in the way of foodstuffs? Are you recommending that people move to vegan or move away from meat or move into how and what general area are you recommending?
Kirsty:
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I recommend a high plant-based diet, but a plant-based diet isn’t necessarily vegan or not vegan. And I say that because I know vegans that don’t eat a high plant-based diet, they eat a highly processed diet.
And when you look at some of the processed foods, like some of the not meat substitutes, some of them have got all sorts of additives that I’d rather not have in my body. They’re made with ultra processed ingredients, synthetic ingredients, and that’s having a negative impact on yourself and the planet, and it’s not being talked about enough.
I also know that I’m not a vegan myself, but I don’t eat a lot of meat. I’m very particular when I do. But I eat a lot less meat than what I used to. And what I’m finding, and I know sometimes I cop flak for this, but I’m prepared to cop flak for this, is that to get people to stop eating meat has actually proven to be incredibly difficult.
And I’ve got some personal family reasons, particularly with my teenagers who won’t shift. But what I do is if I actually, for instance, if I’m having like a burger, instead of just having plain meat and I put carrot and zucchini, then I’m using half the amount of meat and I’m putting extra plants in. And if we could get everybody to do the same, we would drastically reduce our intake, which is what we need to do. And instead of having a barrier, because I have had so many barriers, and I should say with Zero Waste Victoria, one of the most contentious issues is to eat meat or not eat meat. It brings them out on very extreme sides. And I really, you know, I respect anyone who doesn’t eat meat, and I respect anyone who eats it ethically. But if we can steer away from the processed meats and put more plants and veg in, that is the approach that I
Tony:
Kirsty, what will your workshop, first of all, when is it, where is it, and what will it involve, specifically?
Kirsty:
It’s on Thursday the 20th of February at Ngaamnagoo Library, which is city of Melbourne. It’s near Queen Vic Market. In this talk, we don’t really talk about meat in the same way that I just did. Really what we want to do, if people eat meat, if people eat avocados, if people drink coffee, it doesn’t matter what it is. I don’t want to signal at any particular single food group, if that makes sense. There should be a thought process behind it.
So if somebody’s going to eat meat, then they should find the most sustainable, ethical meat that they can. If somebody’s going to drink coffee, they should find the most sustainable, ethical coffee that they can. And that’s why I don’t like to single these types of things. When you look at some of the substitutes, like even the alternate milks that people drink, they’re not created equal either.
So it’s getting people to think about those choices and then also think about where they’re purchasing it from, in the sense that there are four supermarkets who have 80 per cent of the grocery power in Australia. Two of them have 65 per cent. So when you think about how many, I don’t know how many hundreds, probably thousands of supermarkets there are, that’s a lot of power with few small corporations. And we’ve heard all the negative things about price gouging, farmers being done over, and all those things.
So if we actually go: ‘Right, okay, am I supporting that? – or am I NOT supporting that?’ And then on those supermarket shelves, there’s about a dozen companies worldwide who stock those shelves in pre-packed food and beverages. And most of those items, particularly with the beverages and many of the pre-packed foods, are ultra-processed. About half of the pre-packaged items in a supermarket are classed as ultra-processed foods, and they can have negative impacts on our health as well.
So we start looking at that and go, right, okay, well, do I want to support the company that’s selling that? Is that food, good food going into my body? When you start looking at the food in through this lens, and I say that because this talk really came about or this topic came about, I do a lot of talk about reducing food waste and reducing food waste is really, really, really important. But the food choices that we make before it gets to waste are even more important again. Does that make sense?
Tony:
Yeah, absolutely. Kirsty, going back to ethical and sustainable meat, what are the things that people could look at there in making their decision?
Kirsty:
Yeah, so they can look at where it’s raised, how it’s raised, and also to the quantity that they eat. The reality is, you know, when you look at chickens as a classic example, you know, there are caged chickens, that’s one. There’s free range chickens. They’re fed in different ways. I’m a little bit spoiled and I realise the privilege that I have in the sense that the eggs I get are from a friend who lives down the road and those chickens are in her backyard.
So I know exactly how they’re fed and exactly how they’re bred. And I know that not everybody has that luxury to do that, but the next best thing is to look at the farm that it’s coming from and look at their ethos. And if you’re happy with that ethos, then just stick with that one supplier, whether or not that’s, you you live close enough to do it in your own way or whether or not… that’s at your local store. Like a lot of fruit and veggie stores sell eggs as well too. And just knowing that there are some brands that are great and some could do better.
Tony:
Yeah, so it’s about being, getting informed, making informed decisions.
Kirsty:
That’s right, it’s making that. And sometimes you might be, I’m really conscious of not creating overwhelm with that because there’s a lot of food choices that we make, but eggs is actually a reasonably easy one to start with because a lot of that information is on the box. And a lot of the farms who do great things have actually got, you can go to their website to get that information. It’s not always as easy to get that information with other types of food.
Colin:
But we’re in the 21st century, Kirstie, with misinformation and disinformation everywhere. And you would know that there are very clever people working out the correct phrasing to get away with the fact that you’ve got a battery hen plant and you’re still going to call it sustainable in some way. Do you take this on board at all with your talk? So the fact that you’ve got to really still be very careful about what your understanding of the food stuff is.
Kirsty:
Yeah, no, that’s a good point. It’s not something that we’ve done a deep dive into. The trouble with these talks, and I say the trouble, is that we’ve got an hour for these talks, maybe an hour and half as we do this in a couple of Thursdays. And it might sound like a lot of time, but it’s actually really not when you look at all the different things that we can deep dive into. So what I like to do is give people agency. I actually can’t have an answer for everything.
I’d like to, but I can’t. And I can’t for a lot of reasons. If someone is in Geelong, if someone is in Queensland, if someone is in different area, there’s going to be different variables. you should be getting the eggs or anything that you buy as local as you can. So that’s going to vary. What I like to do is empower people to give them the skills and tools to ask those questions. So if you’re buying from a supermarket, then it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get the answers than if say you’re buying from a farmers market or even like a local store. So if I shop at a local retailer, like before I was here this morning I was at a local fruit and veggie store picking a few things up and I got into a conversation. Now that conversation was actually with a new staff member, it was not about the food itself but with the owners I can actually ask them where they get them from and I know that I’ve been told okay so the pictures that you’re getting they are local which means that they’ve been grown in a local park orchards area which is local to me.
And that makes a lot of sense compared to a supermarket where they might be grown in Montrose, gone into the depot and then back to Montrose on that supermarket shelf. So if you are shopping somewhere they can answer your questions, then that’s half the solution.
Tony:
Kirsty, what’s happening with Zero Waste Victoria? What’s up front for them at the moment? I guess there’ll be the festival coming up again this year, but anything else?
Kirsty:
Yeah, we do. We’ve got the festival coming up in September. I think it’s the 6th of September. I’m put on the spot. It’s the first weekend of September. I’m sure I’ll be speaking to you again before then. We’ll be launching details for that probably mid-March. The campaign that we have, and I think I touched on before, is really researching and understanding people’s shopping behaviours with their fruit and veg. And that came about in the sense that we were trying to encourage people to use less single-use plastic, which sounds very easy on the surface, you know, just don’t bag bananas. But then I was in a workshop session and we actually writing down all the different actions and it turns out there’s a lot of different actions like don’t bag bananas but make sure you take a bag for your beans.
In discussions I realised that with Mark Boullet, who’s from Behaviour Works, they’ve done a lot of research on shopping behaviours and that type of thing, is that people go into autopilot and sometimes don’t make conscious decisions the way they think they do. And when people get a plastic bag… I was shopping once with my father’s partner and she grabbed the silver beat, which I grabbed the silver beat thinking I’m going to get that without plastic because she’s someone who I’m gently converting and she put it straight in a plastic bag. I was like, why did you do that? She said because it was wet and I didn’t want it to get through the rest of the shopping. Now I didn’t think it was wet but she did and it was her perception. So what we’re trying to do is understand those things so we can actually assess where is going to be a good place to target to reduce plastic from the store owner and to reduce plastic from the individual and to push for legislation to make it easier for us all to shop without this single use plastic that we all cringe and hate and don’t want to have in our lives.
Tony:
Kirsty, before you mentioned that you’re at the Woodford Festival running a similar workshop to the one that’s happening next week. Would you like to talk about the experience of that whole festival? To me, it’s one of the… I do a few festivals, I guess, and it’s… When I lived in the Northern Rivers, was the must-go to each year between Christmas and New Year. So what was the experience like for you?
Kirsty:
Yeah, so it’s the second time I’ve been to Woodfit. The first time I had a very different experience because I went there as a volunteer and I volunteered on a stage which was beautiful for me because it was a stage, they had a lot of music, it’s largely a music festival but they also have a stage with environmental and social type talks which is the stage that I fit on. And so I actually got to volunteer on that stage and support them but also listen to the talks that I was going to anyway so it was a win-win-win that, because sometimes they do need volunteers and it’s a great way to get in there. can get in there for free but I also feel not just for free that my experience was enhanced because I love to volunteer. But the talk that we did at Woodford, we overfilled the venue which was amazing. There’s such an incredible vibe. It’s almost like a pop-up community for a week if you’re there for the week.
The people just there, I don’t know, they’ve just, I think they’re in that relaxed mode, that smiley mode. And you can, for me it was great because I could bounce between a talk about climate and sustainability and then go and chill with some music and catch up with friends and find new friends and I highly recommend if you’ve never been to anyone listening to make 2025 the year that you go.
Colin:
Yes, it’s an amazing thing how music festivals and environmentalism now sit hand in glove. Virtually all of the music festivals that are still going are environmental. They’ve got systems whereby you’ve only got keep cups if you want to get a cup of coffee and things like that. And they don’t have throw away plastic in the takeaway food stalls and things like that. And they will have people there from the, what can you say, the Greens and their fellow travellers, environmentalists will have, always have a presence at music festivals. Woodford have remained true on form and yet they’ve also kept up with the modern ways. So it’s not at all unusual that you were there on an environmental stage.
Kirsty:
Yeah, and the other thing that they do, mean, they’ve actually got a block of land which the festival owns, which is very unique in itself. And they’re doing it, it’s a massive revegetation program. Like it used to be an old, I think it was dairy, there was definitely cattle there. And they’ve revegetated that. And other people think that people can do in the festival is go on tours. So people take them on butterfly tours, bird tours, and that type of thing. And they also have programs throughout the year and different events throughout the year, the space can be hired out.
So it’s not just that one-off thing. So there’s some really great things that they do. But speaking of environmental, I wanted to tell you what I did at the festival.
I was camping, although I was meeting people, was effectively camping alone. And so I decided to buy all my food from the food trucks there, which is a great exercise in curiosity because I had to, I was really big on asking them about how they source their food and that type of thing so I could choose the most sustainable vendors. But I also had my camp plate with me and of course my reusable cup and cutlery which meant that they had the disposable cutlery. Sure, it was compostable, but compostable has its own sets of issues. But I managed to do it completely waste-free. I say managed, it was no effort. I just asked them to put the food on my plate and then I wiped it over when I was done. It was really, really easy. And that’s something that I encourage people to do, not just at festivals, but anywhere they can.
Tony:
Yeah, festivals are catching on to that message, being waste free and they’re actively boasting their attempts to be waste free, zero to landfill.
Kirsty:
Yeah, that’s right. Like we spoke about the Zero Waste Festival, we have a dishwashing, like the green mow plate comes in and washes them, which means that people don’t need to have their own reusables because we’ve got that covered. Woodford’s a very, very big festival. So to do that would be a massive undertaking. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t do it, but I’m saying for us to do it in one space with three food vendors is different to doing it with, I don’t know, they’ve probably got two dozen food vendors. I might’ve even underestimated that. It’s huge. It’s really, really huge.
So if a festival doesn’t have the capacity to have that, then just use your own initiative. Even if it’s just your reusable coffee cup, which is something on my horizons as well too.
I’m just gonna throw this in: As a town in Bermagui, you’re gonna have to get them on here one day very, very soon because they’ve banded together to have a reusable cup system. So if you want a coffee from there, you pay your $3, you get your cup, you return your cup, you get your $3 back, and they’ve done away with disposables.
The majority, I think it’s all but two and there are maybe 10 or 12, don’t count me on those numbers, but the majority of the cafes got together and that made it easier for all of them. So there’s lots of things happening in this space.
Mik Aidt:
Kirsty, maybe we should just listen to a short clip from the ABC because they actually covered the story that you mentioned there. It’s just two and a half minutes. And I think it’s, it’s nice to hear what’s possible. And I do believe that cafes in Geelong, if they got together, we could do it in Geelong just as well.
ABC report from Bermagui:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-31/bermagui-takeaway-coffee-cup-ban/104840958
Mr Hope, the cafe that Yuki Bird manages in Bermagui on the New South Wales’ south coast, is a community hub.
‘The biggest thing that coffee does for people is bring them together.’
But being environmentally conscious in the hospitality industry is a challenge.
‘Cafes suffer in that exact same way as anybody who is interested in more environmental ways to takeaway coffee cups being at the centre of the waste problem.’
Just down the street, Tim Northam’s Café Honour Bread is selling up to 250 takeaway coffees each day.
‘For the privilege for people just to be able to walk down the street or drink their coffee and then throw it in the bin, I think we need to have a really big rethink.’
So, nearly a dozen of Bermagui’s cafes came together to ban disposable cups. It’s now bring your own or purchase a reusable one for the price of a couple of gold coins for a one time only fee of $3, you get your cup and then you will get that refunded when you bring that cup back.
The initiative means all cafes sell the cups and any can refund them after use. Getting the majority of the town’s cafes on board was crucial.
The biggest fear for cafes to change across from throwaway cups to a reusable system is a fear that the customer will then go to the cafe next door.
A disposable coffee cup has an average lifespan of up to 20 minutes and after the beverage is finished around 1 billion cups end up in Australian landfill each year. Cafes here in the coastal town of Bermagui are hoping the reusable system will keep cups circulating for much longer. The community has been supportive and people are getting creative.
It’s only $3 so it’s not like raking the bank with it. I think it’s a great kind of sustainable
The new system was launched at the start of summer, a busy tourist period being the ultimate test.
So managing things like how we’re gonna cope with our washing up, how we’re gonna make sure that we have the right volume of cups.
But Bermagui remains positive and wants others to follow their lead.
The cafes in Bermagui are actually, in one sense, becoming a test case for how communities might be able to make this change themselves.
Reducing landfill one latte at a time. Isla Evans, ABC News, Bermagui.
SONG:
Taste for Zero Waste
A song for Zero Waste Victoria – mp3 audio
(Verse 1)
Bring your keepcup, take a stand,
Say no to plastic, give the planet a hand!
Refuse, reuse, let’s compost too,
One small change, yeah, that’s how we do!
(Pre-Chorus)
Feel the joy, feel the grace,
Living light, no money to waste!
Join the wave, it’s taking place,
Lots of things happening in this space!
(Chorus)
Zero waste, gives you a better taste,
Of life in a nutshell, when we do it well!
Less in the bin, more in your soul,
Step by step, we’re in control!
(Verse 2)
Got my plate, and my coffee cup,
No single-use, I level up!
Farmers’ markets, bulk-buy store,
Supporting local. And waste? No more!
(Bridge)
Picnics with Costa, reusing with style,
Swap and share — it’s all worthwhile!
Wash those dishes, ditch the trash,
Sustainable living, making a splash!
Short instrumental intermezzo
(Final Chorus – Big Finish!)
Zero waste, gives you a better taste,
Of life in a nutshell, when we do it well!
Less in the bin, more in your soul,
Step by step, we’re in control!
(Outro – fade out with group singing/claps)
One small step. And then one more.
Reuse and refuse, like never before.
Statements heard over the song are mostly from ABC Gardening Australia’s and Costa’s report: ‘Self sustainable zero waste productive home in Melbourne demonstrates future’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j335BTu_vFU
Jo Barret: I thought it was going to be quite a lot more demanding.
Matt Stone: Pick and eat, it never tastes better.
Joost Baker: That’s something that I’m so excited by.
Joost Baker:
Humans need to get to a point where it’s really bad before everybody wakes up and goes: ‘We need to do things differently’ and I think that throughout, that going to happen.
Matt and Jo:
So good, because we’re just picking it from the garden. We actually don’t have to do too much. You pick and eat, it never tastes better.
Joost Baker:
There’s a real call now to change the way we live, to change what we do, to change the materials that we use. That’s something that I’m so excited by.
Arnold Swartzenegger:
Hey!
Dr Melissa Lem:
There’s so many different things that we can do. It’s like a choose your own adventure park. And there’s no better adventure out there than working together to save the planet.
Tony:
Now, before I interview our next guest, who is Mark Carter, I’d just like to say… Two or three weeks ago, maybe a little bit more, I heard, woke up and got online as I usually do. And the first thing I heard was this speech from Albo. And it was what I thought, like, at first I thought it was real. But he was saying every single thing that I had dreamed of him saying for years. So, I did a bit of digging around and came up with the creator of that speech, Albo’s chief speechwriter in the future: Mark.
Mark’s been on the show before, he’s from Flight Free Oz, but he’s just created two versions of a speech that to me were very, very profound in that it was, as I said, it was what we had hoped, so many of us had hoped that Albo, the direction that he would go in and his public talks to people.
Albo speech (simulation):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkyRpBKi5KQ
Today I am announcing the formation of a cross-party national unity government to deal with the unprecedented threat to our future from climate disruption. Within the next decades we face a future beyond human experience of unbearable heat and increased social unrest and geopolitical conflict on top of a global food crisis. Our reliance on the marketplace to reduce emissions efficiently has been misplaced.
Today we commit to the task of stopping the nation’s emissions by 2030 and to drawing down our share of past emissions to cool the planet.
Stand by, for today’s new targets to be decried as too hard, as damaging the economy. Are they saying we can’t afford to make life safe? We have responded in similar ways successfully to emergencies before. It’s how we fight bushfires, rescue and rebuild from floods, and how we responded to the pandemic and defended the nation through World War II. As I said, when we came into government, it is a show of strength to collaborate and work with people, not weakness. Thank you.
Tony:
Now, Mark, tell us about how that came about.
Mark:
Thanks, Tony and Mik and Colin, for having me on the show and giving the speech some publicity. I’m on Jaja Wurrung land in central Victoria.
Yeah, it came from, it’s been on my mind for quite a while that, I mean, many of us are despairing at the current demonstrably ineffective national climate policy and actions from the government. in the absence of effective action, there’s, I, myself and detecting others’ frustration – and I decided that it was worthwhile trying to make more real the emergency response to our current climate predicament that’s necessary and one that’s coincidentally now with an election coming up in a month or so, the possibility of making the issue a bit more potent.
And to put some focus on the risk that we now face of a devastatingly unsafe future with us having passed 1.5°C degrees last year and focusing on the effective climate action that’s sort of now required. And to put out there, like, I’d say, to make more real what an effective response might look like and the leadership that’s required to implement it, and giving some character to what we can demand. Because we seem to be trapped in normal world thinking and most of us certainly the media and politicians.
There’s a lot of people calling for climate action, but it’s a sort of a generic term and climate action seems to be often limited to sort of deregulated market economy based measures and that aren’t cutting emissions anywhere near fast enough and that aren’t drawing down those already dangerous ones that already in the atmosphere that are creating the weekly climate disasters we’re witnessing.
So it was an attempt to put a positive message to sit beside sort of the despair a lot of us are feeling. And there’s a section in the middle of the 15 minute full speech where I put forward a sort of a psychology, a way that’s worked for me to understand our predicament. it’s largely come from Margaret Klein Solomon. A few listeners will be familiar with her work with Climate Mobilization in the U.S.
And she wrote a book, ‘Facing the Climate Emergency’, a few years ago. And in that, she frames our predicament as one of grieving for the loss of the future that we thought we had, that the normal world is… The world is not normal anymore. And the framework of loss and grief and the stages we go through in grieving a loss, our anger, our sort of bargaining, our despair, she sort of frames those responses as ways of possibly, for some, or certainly for me, to understand our climate predicament and that only when we can accept that loss of the normal world, that kind of frees us to see another world, a future that’s possible. I think, I mean, lot of us, like I say, trapped in this normal world thinking that there’s not enough action and we’re sort of despairing because the tools we’re looking at are constrained to sort of normal world, you know, free market economy kind of instruments and stuff. And so the emergency response that the Breakthrough Centre in Melbourne and David Spratt’s work have sort of continually addressed is, in my view, a realistic and necessary framework for government policy as an effective response to our climate predicament.
Colin:
Have you any idea at all whether Albo himself has heard this and whether you’ve got any response? I would think that the by-election results in Victoria that occurred last weekend would have had some sort of repercussions in the Labor Party especially. And I wonder whether you think that it’s going to actually make him move in the direction that you want him to be, the system of your speech that you’ve written for him?
Mark:
I haven’t heard back. I’ve emailed links to the website, www.pmclimatespeech.au that has the 60 second little grab and the full 15 minute speech to cabinet members and the Prime Minister. No, haven’t heard back. I’ve sent it to Greens and Teals and others. I haven’t sort of formally heard back.
I released it a little while ago during the Christmas lull. So they are in Parliament, back now. But no, I guess, being realistic, I wasn’t necessarily expecting to hear back from them. It was more, the purpose was more to engage climate concerned Australians, climate activists and others, to put forward a possible way of relooking what our climate action looks like.
Mik:
And the events in the weekend?
Mark:
Yes, it’s hard with the Greens holding their primary vote in Paran, but with Labor, I mean, we’re all despairing at Labor’s alignment with the Liberal Party when against the Greens continually. It’s, yeah, in the real world, it’s a difficult ask, but though it’s difficult and challenging, I get value in putting it out there with the hope that it does catch on with some, that our mainstream sort of climate political sort of framework is trapped. if the voting public can see things a little bit differently, they might step up and ask a bit more of their members.
It’s, yeah, as we all know, it’s very challenging.
Plus, course, Albo has made the decision, we do know this, to dump the environmental package that was put together by his own environmental minister, Tanya Plibersek, because he thinks it might cost him votes at the upcoming election. That’s something which is really quite scary.
Yes. Yeah. Well, when an effective climate response is lined up against the major parties and mainstream media that’s biased towards business as usual and mining companies with all their money and their lobbying power and their ability just to get straight into Parliament House and on the phone, it’s hard for a bigger picture description of how to address our situation to get through.
Mik:
Mark, I think this is where I would like to bring in a quote we’ve often referred to: Buckminster Fuller, the American author, who once said: ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’ And to me, the answer to politics in Australia is the Community Independents movement. That is a new way of doing things in Australian politics. What’s your comment on that whole movement where we’re now seeing in more than 30 electorates voters now have the possibility of putting their vote on a community independent? That’s new!
Mark:
That’s new and I guess it’s been building for a little while. We’ve got to remember that the mainstream media and the major political parties want to continue presenting to the Australian population as just, know, twiddle-dum or twiddle-dee in their decision-making. So, you know, as we see in their polling, it’s always sort of Labor versus Liberal vote.
But now it’s a third, a third, a third, a third liberal, third Labor roughly, and a third independents and green. So there’s a completely different make up to the voting intentions of Australians. It’s not just Labor or Liberal anymore, which is obviously threatening to their agenda and their positions of power, let’s say. It’s a very important move. And I think people should remember that, yeah,
In the media coverage we get, it’s continually that because of the bias in the media, the Greens are represented as this minority, troublemaking, extremist agenda. on the ground, certainly at the last election, mean, Labor only got in on the back of Teals taking Liberal seats and Green seats. And so it’s my feeling is that there is still… a strong constituency out there that can see through the two-party spin and will still… To choose to vote Green or to vote Teal, I think you’ve had to sort work through the game that the two parties are playing and to choose to vote Greens or Teals or Progressive Independents, David Pocock and stuff.
So my feeling is that… Okay, there might be, you know, the cost of living crisis and that the framing of that is the sort of primary issue for voters. But there’s still this constituency that has a priority of climate concern that hopefully everyone’s talking about a crossbench, sorry, you know, minority government situations, whether how the crossbench lines up, whether it’s sort of more conservative right wing independents or whether it’s progressives, the Teals, Greens and other independents that have the majority on the crossbench.
Mik Aidt:
Balance of power. So as independent member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, she held a speech at the National Press Gallery, which was recorded and broadcasted live on ABC. She spoke for more than half an hour and I found it quite a brilliant speech, to be honest. We played a clip from it when we started The Sustainable Hour today. Here’s what she has to say about the two major parties and the Greens:
Zoe Daniel, speaking at National Press Club:
In this time of extreme personal stress and household hardship, what we’re getting from the major parties is timidity from Anthony Albanese and everything weaponised everywhere all the time from Peter Dutton, including politicising anti-Semitism, which is a disgrace. And the Greens? Grandstanding irresponsibly at the other end of the spectrum. Meanwhile, ordinary Australians shake their heads and mutter, they don’t care about us. They only care about themselves and winning.
Colin:
That’s all correct too. But it’s also, I think, a very clear picture of the way that politics were in Australia three months ago. None of it takes on board what’s happened in America and its repercussions around the world. I think there’s no doubt that Peter Dutton is going to take on board Trump policies that have proved to be popular with the far right.
We had Kirsty on earlier on, and she’s coming back again later on, I do believe, she was talking about the dissatisfaction with the two major supermarkets. I think you could draw a parallel with the way that we’re thinking about the two major parties, political parties too.
Yeah, I think, as I’ve said before, I think over some time now there’s been a growing frustration with progressives, traditional Labor voters with the Labor Party, particularly their historic sort of constituencies of, you know, working people and people on Struggle Street and that they’ve been, you know, captured by kind of mainstream interests and it’s without going sideways too much, I think there’s parallels with Trump. Like the struggles people are facing in their daily lives aren’t going to be solved by Trump’s sort of populism, but he has the appeal of, and in a sense, maybe Albo’s trying to do this, certainly Dutton’s sort of trying to do this to appeal to people’s sort of grievance and kind of victimhood and say, I’m listening to you. And on the other side, progressive, the Democrats in the US and to a degree the Labor Party here sort of lost. They’re not speaking to those constituencies that are, as Hillary Clinton said, they’re left behind, almost the deplorables. So it’s… I’m not sure whether the Labor Party’s got it in it to turn things around. I mean, is, there have been Labor Party policies, we’re getting off environmental stuff here, that the Labor Party’s introduced in its term that are kind of forgotten and washed over in the depiction of Albo as a sort of do nothing Prime Minister. He has introduced progressive reforms in other areas, but certainly as far as climate goes, he’s unwilling to… He doesn’t have the leadership capability to be honest with the public and provide them with a story of how we got here and what’s really a way of making the future safer.
Tony:
Mark, we’re just about out of time. I’m just wondering, any plans for another speech or two?
Mark:
Haven’t got one in mind, I am… I should put a plug in: The National Sustainability Festival, I’ve got an event teed up as sort of piggybacking on the back of the speech on the 25th of Tuesday, the 25th of February. It’s a Zoom event at 7pm. It’s listed on the Sustainability Festival website as the PM’s climate speech we’ve been waiting for. And I’ll be talking with David Spratt and Violet Coco, a climate activist, about this kind of framing that the speech is in effect sort of putting forward of what an effective response to our climate predicament can look like. So that’s on the immediate agenda. But I enjoyed putting the speech together. you’ve got to do stuff that you enjoy these days. So there might be other speeches coming along.
Mik:
That’s great. And you are using AI. We’ve also started using AI here in The Sustainable Hour to empower us in terms of the music that we play. We played three AI songs last week and we’re going to do it again this week. Here’s one about the Community Independents.
. . .
SONG
Rising Voices
A song for Voices of Corangamite – mp3 audio
[Verse 1]
They told us this is how it’s always been,
That power belongs to the few, not to us, not to them.
But we’re standing up, we know what’s right,
This election, we’re ready to fight.
[Pre-Chorus]
We’re not bought, we’re not sold,
We stand for truth, for stories untold.
No more lies, no more games,
We’re bringing real change.
[Chorus]
We are the voices – rising strong,
Speaking truth, righting wrongs.
No more whispers, no more fear,
We are the voices – loud and clear.
[Verse 2]
Integrity’s not just a word to say,
It’s how we lead, it’s how we stay.
No backroom deals, no hidden ties,
Just honest hands and open eyes.
[Pre-Chorus]
Respect for all, dignity too,
A Parliament that fights for you.
No culture wars, no divide,
Just a future we can build with pride.
[Chorus]
We are the voices – rising strong,
Speaking truth, righting wrongs.
No more whispers, no more fear,
We are the voices – loud and clear.
[Bridge – Action Mode]
No gas in the Otways, no nuclear lies,
No drilling, no burning – it’s time to rise!
Fairness and climate, a future to share,
This is our moment – we know that we care!
[Final Chorus – Community Power]
We are the voices – standing tall,
For a future fair for all.
No more waiting, time is now,
We are the voices – hear us loud!
. . .
Dr Sophie Scamps:
My speech on the Community Independent Movement
This powerful and positive movement, the community independent movement has reinvigorated
Zoe Daniel, Press Club Speech excerpts:
Business is ready.
Forcing accountability.
Taking action.
Telling lies.
And they keep on coming.
I say to our young people…
Let’s go.
We commit to renewable energy transition.
Ordinary Australians have been feeling cut out and shut out of their democracy.
Genuinely represent the views and values of their community
Business is ready.
I’m inviting you to rise to this moment too.
It’s clear, the old way of doing things is done.
. . .
Mik:
This song was loaded with different quotes from speeches with the Community Independents and the local Community Independents, the movement is beginning to rise in Corangamite, and they will be meeting at Barwon Heads Hotel this Friday afternoon to celebrate that they now have an ad in the papers and many other things. So that is going to be interesting to see if that really takes off.
Kirsty, you’ve been listening to Mark talking politics and so on. In the field that you are in with food and plastics and so on, where do you stand in terms of when it comes to an election time?
Kirsty:
When it comes to election time, it’s about actually also being curious. Know who you’re voting for, know what they stand for, and if you are fixed with a particular party or a particular person, make sure that they’re really supporting you. It’s your voice, it’s your choice, and make sure that your voice is their voice too. And the other thing that we need to look at too is we need to push them, but push them with our actions. Push them with our actions by showing them that it’s plastic free.
Government make decisions based on what the people want. And when the people start taking action, there’s a lot of push to change the plastic bags at the checkouts. Now, I’m not going to get into that. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s a better system. We can do the same with the produce. We can do the same with the food choices that we make. And we can do the same with how we make those choices. So paying with cash can be incredibly powerful, more powerful than most people think because when you tap, you’re effectively paying a tax except the tax goes to the bank. It’s not really tax – it’s just lining their pockets.
So paying with cash instead of tapping your card at a sustainable ethical farmers market or shopping center or whatever it might be can make all the difference. And when your MPs or future MPs, I think there are many future MPs out there which is really super exciting, see this and when they’re part of this.
We want MPs that are supporting community and these MPs need to know that. So find someone out there who’s running and let them know what you think. And then when they get in, then all power to the people.
Mik:
Mark, last comment from you? We are heading out.
Mark:
I just wanted to… you mentioned AI before. With my speech, I was trying to deliberately avoid getting into the AI space by putting my voice badly and clearly not lip synced with Albo to avoid getting the content of the speech, discussion of the content of the speech distracted by, it’s kind of AI and ‘Is it real? Is it fake?’-kind of thing. And on the coat of arms, I changed the coat of arms and stuff. A defamation lawyer gave me some advice on things to avoid getting drawn into those distractions from the content with AI, I’m a bit wary of AI. I mean, it can be useful, but it is along with Bitcoin and stuff. It’s one of the largest, fastest growing sources of emissions, the AI sector, the computer power, the electricity to use to run all the AI programs and software.
Mik:
There’s an aspect there to consider.
Colin:
My problem is one of trust. When you get to the point where you’re not sure whether something you are experiencing is for real or is AI, then your trust in everything becomes eroded.
Mik:
And this is a major problem at election time!
Mark:
Yes.
Mik:
We always end on a “Be…”. Kirsty, what will you ‘be’ today? I think you said: ‘Be curious!’?
Kirsty:
Be curious, yes, be curious. And be curious with your MPs, be curious with your children and ask them why they’re making those decisions. And if you’ve got a friend and you’re not sure why they’re making that choice and you wish they were doing something different, instead of passing judgement or telling them they’re wrong, just ask them why.
Mark:
Be… I guess, on the theme of today, for me: be honest! As difficult as it is and as challenging as it is with friends and colleagues and workmates and others, to speak truth as difficult as it is to accept. Yeah: ‘Be honest!’
Colin:
And mine would be simply: ‘Be aware!’
Tony:
And we need to ‘be away’ now.
Mik:
And we can all ‘Be the difference’.
SONG
I Heard It On The Sustainable Hour
A song for The Sustainable Hour podcast – mp3 audio
[Verse 1]
I woke up feeling like the world’s on fire,
Storms are rising, rivers running drier.
But then I tuned in, turned the dial,
And found a reason to stay inspired.
[Pre-Chorus]
They said, “The greatest threat is thinking someone else will do it.”
But I can feel the change – I know we’re moving through it.
[Chorus]
I heard it on The Sustainable Hour –
Hope’s alive, and the time is now.
Stand up, speak out, let’s build our power,
Be the difference – we know how.
[Verse 2]
They talk of profits, pipelines, and delay,
But we’ve got voices that won’t fade away.
From city streets to the coastal sand,
We’re backing leaders who take a stand.
[Pre-Chorus]
They said, “A society grows great when we plant trees in whose shade we may never sit.”
So let’s rise up, this is it.
[Chorus]
I heard it on The Sustainable Hour –
Hope’s alive, and the time is now.
Stand up, speak out, let’s build our power,
Be the difference – we know how.
[Bridge – “I” to “We”]
We are the voices, we are the wave,
Lifting each other, brave and unafraid.
It’s not too late, don’t wait for someday,
Together we’ll light the way.
[Final Chorus – Empowerment Mode]
We heard it on The Sustainable Hour –
Hope’s alive, and the time is now.
Rise up, reach out, this is our power,
Be the difference – we know how!
. . .
MacKenzie King, former Canadian Prime Minister:
Unite in a national effort to save from destruction all that makes life itself worth living.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
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