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The Sustainable Hour no. 543 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Degrowth tourism and radioactive roadblocks to a sustainable shift
In this week’s Sustainable Hour, we explore two radically different visions of Australia’s future – one rooted in community and reconnection, the other tangled in the politics of delay. Our guests are degrowth tourism researcher Yannic Kuna and nuclear expert Dr Jim Green from Friends of the Earth.
What if slowing down could move us forward? This week The Sustainable Hour explores how tourism can be reimagined for sustainability – and how nuclear power risks derailing Australia’s energy future. Two guests, two perspectives, one urgent hour of climate truth and possibility.
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Yannic Kuna, a researcher and advocate for degrowth tourism, joins us from a mountaintop community in northern New South Wales. He’s building a new way to travel – one that supports local resilience, connects visitors with nature and cultural practices, and challenges the unsustainable logic of endless economic growth. As part of his thesis for his Master’s degree in international development at SOAS, the University of London, Yannic shares how tourism can become a force for systemic change – not by growing, but by slowing down.
Yannic is also a member of Degrowth Network Australia, the main body for degrowth advocates in Australia, which you can connect with on Facebook and Instagram. The Degrowth Tourism Infograph can be found at the Degrowth Resource Hub.
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Dr Jim Green, long-time national anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and a member of the Nuclear Consulting Group, delivers a clear-eyed critique of Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy plans. He exposes how the proposal for seven new reactors is not only wildly expensive and impractical, but serves as a strategic distraction to halt the renewable energy shift. Jim also outlines the hidden costs of the AUKUS submarine deal, and the unresolved dangers of nuclear waste, water usage and security threats. Share this interview.
Jim Green has a First-Class Honours degree in Public Health and a Doctorate in Science and Technology Studies for his thesis on the debates over the replacement of Australia’s nuclear research reactor.
To find out more about Jim’s work go to nuclear.foe.org.au and dont-nuke-the-climate.org.au.
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Colin Mockett OAM provides his Global Outlook with sobering updates on extreme weather in the US, record-breaking renewable energy growth, and a rise in climate concern in the UK. We also hear from the world’s greenest football team, Forest Green Rovers.
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This episode features two new and original songs relating to the interviews:
→ More songs from The Sustainable Hour
We close with an invitation for you to join our special Earth Day recording event, taking place on Monday 14 April at 11am in Eastern Park, Geelong. More info further down on this page.
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Our guests once again leave us with lots to think about. They are focussing on different issues, but the one thing they have in common is working for a better world. Dr Green challenges the notion that nuclear driven power has to be part of our energy system in the future. Like the fossil fuel industry which we have critiqued many times for being experts at prolonging their demise, the nuclear industry is full of false promises and pretty pictures in its advertising about the safety of all aspects of its being. A major one being the safety of the waste it produces. Waste that is toxic for thousands of years. Where does it go?
It’s interesting to note that Peter Dutton’s earlier policy of seven nuclear energy producing reactors should the LNP win the election on May 3 has had absolutely no comments during the campaign. This doesn’t mean they have dropped it as a mandate if they win.
Ex-Geelong resident Yannic Kuna left town looking for a manifestation of his long held dream of a simpler life style and how this could be applied to tourism. Like many people before him, he found this on the New South Wales Northern Rivers on Country near Kyogle which is about an hour from flood ravaged Lismore. There 15 people share that dream to show that a meaningful tourist experience doesn’t have to detract from the amenity of the area. What they are doing isn’t being driven by capitalism. They aren’t there to make a fortune. After expenses, every dollar of profit is poured back into their “conscious tourism” project. They are being the change they want to see in the world.
It’s such a joy to bring you our listeners stories like these each week. Next week, we will be back with our annual Earth Day ceremony and celebration, this year in Eastern Park. The only person to ever shut down The Sustainable Hour for a couple of minutes in complete silence will be returning. What will he have in store for us this time?
Geelong and district residents are invited to come along and share in this very moving event. As always, we’ll be going live on 94.7 The Pulse, Geelong’s community radio station, at 11am next Wednesday. Till then, find your “B”, if you haven’t already…
Be informed. Be aware. Be degrowth. Be anti-nuclear!
“Stupid and thuggish”
“It’s the most extraordinarily bad politics. I mean, by all means, if they wanted to play this game, then they could promise to repeal the legal ban against nuclear power, and let a thousand flowers bloom, and see if there’s any corporate interest in pursuing this project. But you know, what they’ve done is said that taxpayers are going to front up with the $331 billion required just to build the reactors, and local communities will have no say in the matter. And if the companies that are currently operating these coal plants that Dutton wants to replace with nuclear, if they don’t play along the government will use compulsory acquisition powers. State government opposition and state government legal bans will be overridden. So it’s… if you wanted to pick a couple of words, it would be: stupid and thuggish.”
~ Dr Jim Green, Friends of the Earth anti-nuclear campaigner
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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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Tribute to the Earth – gratitude for Earth Day
Join us for our annual Earth Day celeration, which we record for The Sustainable Hour on Monday 14 April at the Rotunda near the playground, not far from the Botanical Gardens, in Geelong’s Eastern Park. We meet at 10:45am for the 11:00am recording start.
Sustainable Hour guest speakers at our Earth Day celebration
We’re honoured to be joined by two thoughtful and deeply grounded voices from the Geelong region:
Margie Abbott is an educator, spiritual director, and author whose work bridges ecology, spirituality, and social justice. A Sister of Mercy, Margie has written several books, including Cosmic Sparks and Reflective Walks, which guide people to connect more deeply with Earth and the sacred. Her workshops and retreats draw from the Universe Story, Laudato Si’, and eco-theology, helping individuals and communities cultivate ecological awareness and care.
Peter Martin is a retired Anglican priest who served the community of Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff for many years. With a strong interest in interfaith dialogue, peace-building, and environmental stewardship, Peter continues to inspire others through his reflective presence and compassionate action. His ongoing commitment to the wellbeing of people and planet makes him a fitting voice for Earth Day.
Margie Abbott and Peter Martin will assist us in raising the flag for and paying tribute to the Earth.
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If you’d like to hear how we went about it last year, listen here or go to this page.
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MORE ABOUT NUCLEAR
“About 90% of the nuclear generation capacity the Coalition proposes to build would not have access to enough water to run safely, according to a report commissioned by Liberals Against Nuclear.“
→ The Guardian – 9 April 2025:
Not enough water available for Coalition’s nuclear proposal to run safely, report finds
“Analyst says nuclear is the ‘thirstiest’ energy source, as report commissioned by Liberal supporters throws doubt on plan’s feasibility.”
→ Pearls and Irritations – 7 April 2025:
Where is the ‘mature debate’ about the health impacts of nuclear power? Informed consent matters
“There is a clear disconnect between the claims of the nuclear lobby and the real-world adverse consequences of nuclear energy. Communities, workers and indeed all Australians need accurate information about the health impacts.” By Margaret Beavis
→ Follow Yeah Nah Nukes on Instagram:
www.instagram.com/yeahnahnukes
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Post Growth = Work Less, Have More
Growth Mindset = Work More, Have Less
| Excerpt from a newsletter by Matt Orsagh on 27 March 2025 Photo by Rafael Cisneros Méndez on Unsplash |
Sometimes lost in the discussion about degrowth is the destination of a degrowth path. The destination is an economy that prioritizes human wellbeing over economic growth (a wellbeing economy) in which our economy operates within planetary boundaries. That’s the destination, but there is a lot of noise on the way to that destination.
Degrowth friendly policies such as a four-day work week, universal basic income, universal basic services and shrinking environmentally harmful industries get a lot of attention because they are frankly shocking to many people who have never considered them. People who are new to degrowth often get stuck on many of these policies they may see as socialist, anti-capitalist and not based on the market economy they are used to.
These types of new ideas, along with the word degrowth itself often stops people in their tracks before they can either consider the destination that degrowth promises. So here it is.
Work Less, Have More.
The promise of degrowth is to work less and have more.
The promise of our current system is to work more and have less.
Which do you choose?
It is at this point that a good capitalist says, “Hold on buddy, you have more if you work more. You will have less if you work less, because the thing to have is material wealth and possessions.
But is it?
If you have more material wealth and possessions, what have you got? Studies continually show that over a certain level of income, we are no happier. But the economic systems in the West (which is where most people reading this live) value GDP growth as the only metric of success. As citizens in these Western countries we all understand that our economies need to grow a bit each year in order to avoid a recession, which is a prolonged slump in GDP.
Barring war or an invasion from aliens, we all understand that a recession is the worst thing that can happen to us or our economies. Recessions means jobs get cut, we all have less money and material stuff and people suffer. But that suffering comes because people are serving the economy, and the thing they have to have to get by is more money. The focus is not their own wellbeing. Money is not the same as wellbeing. Up to a certain point it can help with your wellbeing, but by making more money everyone’s goal (which is what chasing the GDP fix for the economy is what you get) you can never get to a point where you are secure.
If change what the definition of the thing we want to have more of, then the whole reason for our current economic model falls away. Which is fine.
The economic system most of us operate under is all about having more, and that having is more wealth and possessions, because that keeps the economy slowly growing. There is a mental toll for never being secure and never accepting happiness. That model has the nasty side effect of slowly destroying the natural world.
So the deal is that we have to strive to always have more at the expense of our physical and mental health. This is not a good deal.
More agency, not more wealth.
What if we just change the thing that we want to have more of? What if we swap out material wealth and more possessions for that physical and mental health that our current system is making more impossible to achieve. Take out the middleman of capitalism, because that system isn’t healthy.
Why don’t we adopt a way of life where we work less and have better health – a wellbeing economy? This doesn’t mean we all live in caves or some socialist dystopia, it just means that we work as much as we need to in order to provide for ourselves and our family and use that extra time to do whatever we wish. Here’s a little secret, that extra time will often be used to contribute to building a better society because as social creatures that is what we desire. If we aren’t rats in a race, we tend to build community. That’s not a bad option.
This isn’t some anti-capitalist screed. This is just realizing that the reality we are sold isn’t working, so let’s stop buying it. Yes, a transition to a post-growth world won’t be easy, but the destination is a pretty sweet one.
On that path most of us will have much more agency than we have now. That can be a little scary, but unlike the current path we are on, it doesn’t have to end in self-destruction. If that increased agency you have has the safety net of community under it – then there isn’t much to worry about. Yes, life will still be hard, and bad things will still happen to people. But you won’t go bankrupt from a medical emergency, you won’t have to work two jobs to just stand still, and you won’t have to make self-destructive compromises just to tread water.
What are you climbing to reach?
They never tell you that when climbing the ladder of success, you are allowed to stop when you reach happy. You can keep climbing if you want, but in our current society, most of us don’t have that choice. We have to keep climbing, often leaving happy somewhere in our wake. We have to keep climbing just to survive. We keep climbing, and there is nothing at the top of the ladder, because the ladder goes on forever. It’s designed that way. Then you die never having reached the top.
That ladder doesn’t really go anywhere. Stop at happy. Work less, have more. As for what it is you are going to have, well, that’s up to you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the agency to make that choice for yourself.
You can. It’s at the end of the degrowth path.
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 543
Antonio Guterres, UN General-Secretary:
The climate time bomb is ticking.
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 the broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrong 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. They nurtured both their land and their communities for millennia before their land was stolen. And in the process they acquired ancient wisdom. Wisdom that we’re going to require as we face up to the climate emergency.
Mik Aidt:
At the moment, the Australian house owners who got solar up on the roof, they’re actually saving $3 billion every year, $3 billion on their energy bills, thanks to those solar systems. And yet, we have Peter Dodden and here in Corangamite Darcy Dunstan explaining to us that, uh-oh, solar is no good, wind is no good, we need to throw hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars after building seven nuclear power stations so that we can get what they call ‘reliable baseload power’. But not now, no-no! In 20 years from now. A vote for Darcy in Corangamite is a vote for Dodden and a vote for that nuclear power fantasy that will never happen. And why? Well, we’ll get to the bottom of that later in the sustainable hour today. But first, it’s time for the global outlook with Colin Mockett OAM. We can’t wait to hear, Colin, what you have for us today?
Colin Mockett’s Global Outlook:
Yes, thank you Mik. Our roundup this week begins in the U.S. But this time it’s not about the orange man in the White House and tariffs. It’s about climate-related deaths across three southern states, which last week were hit by more than a dozen tornadoes. Relentless, life-threatening weather conditions continued for four straight days including severe flooding in Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas, as tornado watches from Texas to Kentucky. At least 12 people died amid this outbreak of severe weather, including a nine-year-old boy in Kentucky who was swept away by floodwaters as he was trying to get to a bus stop. And more people died and are missing after a Force 3 tornado ripped through the city of Selma Tennessee.
Now this is embarrassing for President Trump who has just cut back on emergency services and the personnel who man them. They’ve all been sacked and got rid of.
But now to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates where the International Renewable Energy Agency released its renewable capacity statistics report for 2025.
Now this sounds a little dull by comparison with deaths in tornadoes, but it contains some very interesting reading. The report showed that there was a massive increase in the world’s renewable power capacity during 2024. We reached 4,448 gigawatts, which is 585 gigawatts more than the 2023 figure.
But although the 2024 figure marks another benchmark in renewable energy capacity and growth, progress is still falling short of the 11.2 terawatts that’s needed to meet the global target. And that’s to triple installed renewable energy capacity by 2030. To reach that goal, renewable capacity must now expand by 16.6 per cent annually until 2030. And the report highlighted the world’s geographic differences and these are interesting reading. As in previous years, most of the increase occurred in Asia, with the greatest share being contributed by China, almost 64 per cent of the global added capacity, while Central America and the Caribbean contributed the least at 3.2 per cent.
The IRENA Director General, Francesca La Camera, said, the continuous growth of renewables we witness each year is evident that renewables are economically viable and readily deployable. Each year they keep breaking their own expansion records. But we also face the same challenges of great regional disparities and the ticking clock as the 2030 deadline is imminent.
Now commenting on this report, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said: “Renewable energy is powering down the fossil fuel age. Record-breaking growth is creating jobs, lowering energy bills and cleaning our air. Renewables renew economies, but the shift to clean energy must be faster and fairer, with all countries given the chance to fully benefit from cheap clean renewable power.”
The report showed that solar and wind energy expanded the most, jointly accounting for 96 per cent of all net renewable additions in 2024. The world’s supply of solar energy increased by 32 per cent last year, followed by wind energy which grew by 11 per cent. The decommissioning of fossil fuel power generators continued to drive the upward trend for renewables.
But however, more needs to be done to reach the world goal of tripling clean energy capacity by 2030, and that was what was agreed in the Paris Agreement. Now, a drill down into the figures shows that China alone added 278 gigawatts to the total solar expansion, followed by India at 24.5 gigawatts. The increase in hydropower generation was again driven by China, with Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Tanzania and Vietnam, each adding more than 0.5 gigawatts each. Geothermal increased by 0.4 gigawatt overall and that was led by New Zealand, followed by Indonesia, Türkiye and the US. Now after that longish report, I thought it was worth putting in because it was really interesting stuff.
We’ve got a little short thing from the UK where a majority, 52 per cent of Britons, now say that climate change is one of the most, if not the, single most important problem the country faces. Now that’s up from 46 per cent last year. That’s a new survey over there.
And finally, also in Britain, the world’s greenest sports team, Forest Green Rovers, lost at the weekend, 2-1 away at Wealdstone, but they remain in third place on the ladder in a promotion place and their women played Sherborne Town Ladies and they won 3-0 away for them, and they’re also in a promotion in their ladder. That is my round up for the week.
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Jingle (at 08:09)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Tony:
Our first guest today is Yannic Kuna. Now, apart from being a serving coffee in Geelong in the past, he’s moved on, he’s now up in northern New South Wales and he’s working on dig growth essentially, but with a specific focus on tourism. So Yannic, thanks for coming on!
Yannic:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. I’m calling in from Gallebo country in the Northern Rivers and I’m very excited to talk about degrowth and tourism. It’s my favorite thing to talk about.
It’s actually it goes in hand with what I’m working on, which is writing a master’s thesis on degrowth tourism. And I wanted to get some experiential knowledge as well, specifically on community-owned tourism.
So that’s when a community – It’s not just based in the community, but they own and manage the business. It’s slightly different. And I found a place near Kyogo, which is where I’m based at at the moment together with my partner and working the theoretical part out, reading papers about degrossed tourism and seeing how that pans out in the flesh as well. But basically, so just to maybe set the stage, can briefly say degrossed tourism, it’s an alternative form of traveling, an alternative way of organising travel. But just to for that to really land, for that message to really land, I think it’s good to just set the stage and ground us in the reality where we’re in. We’re living in capitalism, right? And degrowth is basically a response to the capitalist status quo. And what is capitalism? Capitalism is basically, just to give you one example, is why despite having 15 million bedrooms in Australia, free.
Every night we’re building new housing. We’re a quote housing crisis, right? It’s just an endless growth that is required in capitalism to basically sustain the system. It always needs to grow. So it’s disconnected from human needs. It’s just about production and consumption. And that’s obviously an enemy to sustainability, which is not a surprise.
So just to get a common misconception about degrowth out of the way. A lot of people think degrowth is just less growth or we can say less tourism. But it’s not. It’s about reforming tourism so that it can appreciate bigger concerns. So you know permaculture, have the eight forms of capital. They talk about not just financial capital, but you get value from and you can invest in cultural capital, social capital, you can invest in spiritual capital and so on.
What is happening at the moment is that our system, capitalism, is high-checking the whole, the broad picture by just obsessing, fixating on financial capital. And degrowth is the crowbar that is wanting to liberate us and having a fuller human experience and not wreck the planet.
Colin:
That all makes sense to me, Yannic, except for the fact that I can’t figure out a way to put the two together. Yes, we are ridiculously linked to capitalism and growth, but how does that work with tourists? If I were to come into your town, you’re going to show me around in what regard and how has that got to do with sustainability? And would you charge me for showing me the sustainable aspects of your way because I mean then you’re just being a capitalist.
Yannic:
Yeah, that’s right. Okay, so just to get one really important metaphor that I like a lot right now, or I don’t know if it’s a metaphor or a phrase or whatever, but right now tourism, the tourism industry uses the destination for their purposes. Degrowth tourism wants to turn it around so that this destination has more autonomy and can use tourism to their benefits. Just to make that flip, right? So not tourism using the destination, but the destination using tourism.
And what happens in that switch is that the tourism flow can be adjusted. A destination, or where I’m staying at right now, a community, they can say we want more tourism or we want less tourism. They have the autonomy. Right now, that’s not really possible. It’s really hard. I come from Croatia in Split, which is a popular tourist destination. The mayor fought for years and years to get less cruise ships, coming to the harbour and he managed to do that for a few years but he left and it’s just the cruise ships are in again so it’s really really hard once that pandora’s box is open so how can it be sustainable it’s, I think, it has to be from the ground up where in the landscape of capitalism little pockets use tourism to enable them to live in a small localised degrowth society so basically just if i can paint a picture for you where I’m living at right now.
We are 10 people permanent residents plus volunteers who are all eating together. We barely use our cars. We are planning to fully sustain ourselves with the food that we on the land. We’re not quite there yet at the moment. But just imagine that it’s 15 people that are getting the money that we need from little eco… – We call them ecologists basically.
built them ecologists that tourists can stay. So basically city people can come to nature and learn about nature and cultural practices in a experiential sort of manner. Because it’s also been a mistake of degrowth to just appeal to the head. We want to appeal to the heart. So an experiential experience that we are providing so that the mind the common sense can change in that way and that can be done sustainably. So localisation is a big part of degrowth tourism as well. Does that make sense at all, Colin?
Colin:
Well, a little bit, yes. Are you involving the First Nations people?
Yannic:
We are actually, yes. So where I’m at is a holy mountain and it’s been used for man’s rites of passage in the past and we are involving, we have one, it’s called Uncle Andrew and he’s doing the smoke ceremonies, for example, in the retreats that we’re holding and yeah, acknowledging country all the time. I’m obviously not from Australia. I’m learning all the time about the rich history as well, but that’s really important, of course, yeah.
Are you hoping that when your tourists leave after you have shown them the experience, are you hoping that they’re going to change their way and live a less capitalist and less, a better, more sustainable life? Are you aiming to teach as well as just show what you do?
That’s the challenge, right? We are hoping to create such a beautiful experience for our guests that they see, yeah, okay, there’s more value in, for example, having a quick gratitude circle before dinner instead of just watching TV and eating food. And I believe like in those small little steps, like just slowing down, which is basically degrowth as well, right? Slowing down, like less production consumption needs to happen just to survive.
So yeah, we are definitely hoping that that’s the case. are planting seeds. We’re hoping to turn on some light bulbs that when people are going back, they are like, yeah, my uncle has a homestead in the country. Why am I destroying myself working for a marketing organization just to make the boss richer, right? It doesn’t, we’re hoping to make those kinds of clicks so that if happiness is found in human relations, we hope to bring that a little bit closer to heart.
Colin:
What’s the title of your thesis?
Yannic:
It’s a mouthful, it’s it’s degrowth tourism in the land down under and The subtitle I recently changed it, but it’s how to encourage systemic change through tourism.
Now you mentioned the mayor of Split and his attempts to try and stop cruise liners coming in and how they failed in the finish because capitalism has got the money. It’s easier to do for him when the truth is known than it is for you to try and control the numbers that are coming to be tourists in your place. What are you going to do if a busload of people rolls up and suddenly you might say we’re not going to have any more tourists today because we’ve done our quota and then a bus load rolls up. you going to just say no keep moving? Going tourists elsewhere?
Well that’s exactly what’s happening in Europe everywhere. Venice has protests. In Barcelona they have protests. They’re attacking people with water guns regularly and there are signs everywhere tourists go home. So they have exactly this problem of basically Airbnbs are pushing out locals and gentrification or it’s I’ve also read it the term Disneyfication where it’s just you’re selling basically a place and you’re turning into your into what you’re selling.
So people are not happy, it’s already happening. This is not some sort of fiction that we can think about. This is happening in Barcelona and what they are doing is capping tourism. It’s too much. There’s a certain amount of people that a tourism destination can hold and it’s just being exploded. Just to give you a quick fact about tourism in general, globally, we’ve had 25 million tourists, international tourism arrivals in 1950.
And now we’ve got 1.3 billion tourism arrivals every year, 1.3 billion, and it’s supposed to double again in the next 15 years. So that is the exponential fact about growth. When I talk about capitalism, tourism is extremely capitalist. In Australia as well, I’ve been reading through the official documents. Tourism Research Australia, which is the official body for tourism research Australia.
In the little five-year forecast, they’re all about growth. They want more tourist arrivals. That’s what they want, right? So we need to change the dialogue. It’s already unsustainable. And just because you’re putting First Nations people on the front and beautiful, pristine beaches in the little report you did doesn’t mean it’s sustainable. right now, yeah, I’m going on a tangent. Yeah, Tony?
Tony:
I’m trying to get a sense of how it would work. So I see an advertisement to you or I hear about your place. What do I do? How do I, what’s the process that I need to go through to get there? And is there any sort of filtering so that I’ve got pure intent in going there?
It should be for everyone. It’s not really that special. And by the way, I sent in the show notes, I got 12 ideas for your next vacation that are degrowth inspired. So I put it together with a little team. I put together an infographic. So if you’re one of my main messages of why I want to come on here today is to inspire vacation within Australia. That’s just the sideline. I got 12 different ideas on how to do that because it’s basically,
Colin:
Doesn’t matter if you’re going to Japan or to Europe or whatever, what matters is if your needs are met and you can do that closer to home as well. That’s just a little side note. But who can come up here? It’s everyone. And how does it look like? We call them reconnection retreat and reconnecting people to the different forms of capital that I talked about earlier on. So we want to show them different cultural practices. Some of them inspired by deep ecology, some of them inspired by…
First Nations traditions and connect them to nature. And basically what it is, it’s very, it’s hanging out in nature with shared meals and all of that. And it’s very simple and it’s de-growth inspired because we’re doing less. We’re not, you shouldn’t be exhausted after vacation. And the idea is you can have a completely different day to day driving two hours from your city because we’re two hours away from Gold Coast.
But yeah, it’s a… I think it’s quite promising model and how is it not capitalist if you’re making money? Obviously, structurally it’s super important that you are not for profit when you’re doing that kind of stuff. Otherwise, profits just get extracted and there are lots of retreats also in Australia where just the top guy, it’s usually a guy, just makes a lot of money and is off to India or is off to whatever. That’s not the point obviously. The money we make, we reinvest. The people that come in are charged.
Colin:
How it works? Is that so much a day or depending on how long they stay or yeah some information around that.
Yannic:
Yeah, of course. we have, and this is not like an advertisement, by the way, there are plenty of things around, but just where I’m staying, it works like this, that we have different offerings. but one that we’re really trying to promote at the moment actually is the, those reconnection retreats. And it’s five days for $785. And that would be, that’s the lowest sort of tier. You bring your own camping equipment and that’s all. Workshops all foods included or we got so private little cabins and We got a we call them guest nests or sort of a dormitory kind of space as well very simple because it doesn’t need to be fancy and yeah, so you you basically you’re paying for five days – 785 dollars, which I Know it’s not we want to make it very affordable
And I know not everyone can afford that but that’s just the lowest operating cost that we can afford at the moment and
Colin:
Hey, what’s the name of your local town? Yannic? Question one. Question two is: Have you got water guns ready for when you’ve reached your limit?
Yannic:
We are very lucky when it comes to water. We’re drinking from the spring up here. So the closest town is Cuyahoga. Yeah, not a lot of people have heard of it, but it’s if you drive out one hour from Lismore.
An hour from this one – the place, a not-for-profit, is called Arcoora – A r c o o r a – that’s just one of the suggestions I put in this in the show notes.
Colin:
What we are doing now is promoting it, so you’re going to get people that you’re going to have to turn away.
Yannic:
Yeah, I don’t think so. We have plenty of space.
Tony:
They can come the next week – or the week after. Did you get the idea of this community when you were in Geelong? You were doing research?
Yannic:
That’s right. I was reading articles about it and then with my partner just together we tried to find this place. Like where is it? They have to have it here. So yeah, that’s how I ended up here.
Tony?
And your thesis will be on looking at a write-up of what’s happening there? Action research?
Yannic:
It’s more of an academic article, less about Arcoora. I mentioned Arcoora, but it’s more about what I talked about in the beginning about how capitalism works, how capitalism uses tourism for its own benefit rather than the other way around. Yeah, it’s still interesting, maybe, yeah, again, the show notes might be more relevant to your personal experience.
Tony:
Yeah, no, that’s terrific. And when does that need to go in?
Yannic:
I’ll submit it in honestly in the next couple of days. Yeah took long enough. Yeah
Tony:
Yeah, I’d be interested in reading it.
Yannic:
I’m happy to send it to you when the process is all done.
Mik:
Yannick, what you have done now, tell us just in brief what it has done to yourself.
Yannic:
It’s a cliché, right? Being happy with not a lot of material things and just time is the biggest luxury you can have. Just to have an afternoon for myself and to walk around, like who has that actually on a Tuesday – or what do we have even today? I don’t even know the day, that’s the luxury. It’s just the day. Yeah, so probably I would highlight that part of my experience up here.
Colin
I hate to say this: it’s Wednesday.
. . .
SONG (at 25:43)
“Reconnection”
[Verse 1]
I don’t know what day it is
and that feels like the richest thing
We sit outside with morning tea
kookaburras and magpies sing
No meetings, no agenda
just the wind and a little heat
We share our meals, we take it slow
Welcome! to Reconnection Retreat
[Chorus]
It looks like less – but this is more
More joy, more care, more play and fun
More meaning too – throughout the day
The gift of time – be in the now
[Verse 2]
I don’t need more to feel complete
Just the land beneath my feet
Stars show up on a purple sky
Space to breathe, friends nearby
Someone plays a gentle song
Someone else has been planting new seeds
We talk and laugh, we rest and stretch
We give each other what we need
[Bridge]
We don’t need more to find our joy
We only need to slow the noise
Less production, but more relation
Less control, and more connection
[Chorus]
It looks like less – but this is more
More joy, more care, more play and fun
More meaning too – throughout the day
The gift of time – be in the now
[Bridge] (sung gently)
We’re not selling the view
We’re not chasing a prize
We just made a little place
for people to arrive
[OUTRO] (slower, gentle harmonies)
This is not less, it’s more
It’s the day itself that is a gift
to sit, to share, to listen
and feel our spirits lift
A smoke ceremony by the fire
A walk along the stream
The simple things we thought we’d lost
Are so much closer than they seemed
. . .
Tony: (at 29:14)
Our next guest is Dr Jim Green. Jim has been a vehement anti-nuclear campaigner for many years. Jim, thanks for coming on and welcome to The Sustainable Hour.
Dr Jim Green:
Thanks, Tony.
Tony:
Tell us about your work, which for many years has been to stop the spread of nuclear in all its forms.
Jim:
Yeah, well, I just stumbled into it, as I guess most of us do throughout our lives. I did an Honours degree in Public Health and I needed a PhD topic. And at the time, the replacement of the Lucas Heights Nuclear Research Reactor was topical. So that’s what I wrote my PhD thesis about. And a couple of years after that, I was moving back to South Australia to help.
Aboriginal communities fought off a proposal for a national nuclear waste dump in South Australia. And a couple of years after that, John Howard was promoting nuclear power. So it’s just rolled on and on.
Tony:
What’s up front for you right now on that front.
Jim:
Yeah, well, obviously Peter Dutton’s plan for seven nuclear power plants around Australia is top of mind at the moment. The other issue that’s really interesting and important is the plan for nuclear powered submarines under AUKUS. And we’ve got to hope that if Labor is re-elected that there might be some reconsideration and review of the wisdom of nuclear powered submarines.
Beyond that, there’s Labor’s professed commitment to sign the UN’s Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. So that’s going to be key if Labor is re-elected and after that it’s the usual issues which are always bubbling along which are uranium mining and nuclear waste management controversies, and so on.
Colin:
Hey Jim, if I were to ask you for a very concise version of your thoughts to Peter Dutton… If you were to face up to Peter Dutton now, what would be your major argument against his nuclear generation proposal?
Jim:
Well, I think I would quote a new group called Liberals Against Nuclear. And it’s what it says on the box. It’s members and former officials of the Liberal Party who are actively campaigning against nuclear power and arguing that Peter Dutton, his only chance of winning this election is to very quickly ditch the nuclear power policy.
So I would try to echo some of those conservative liberal sounding arguments. I can quote a couple of sentences from this group called Liberals Against Nuclear. They say: “This is big government waste that betrays liberal values, splits the party and hands government back to Labor. It’s time for our party to dump nuclear. This policy contradicts core Liberal principles by requiring tens of billions in government borrowing, swelling the bureaucracy and imposing massive taxpayer backed risk.” So those would be my arguments to Peter Dutton.
Colin:
Brilliant! If I were to ask exactly the same for what you would say to Anthony Albanese against AUKUS submarine deal?
Jim:
I reckon I can just quote that same thing!
So I think I would use those same lines.
Mik:
Hm… And it’s not just tens of billions with the AUKUS. I heard these submarines and everything would cost something like 350 or 360 billion dollars over some years of course, but it’s still a massive amount of money.
Jim:
Yeah, also there are important differences and the most important being the proliferation implications of AUKUS. If it’s okay for Australia’s military to have access to explosive fissile nuclear material, then presumably it’s okay for the militaries of the other 190 countries in the world to have access to nuclear fissile material. It’s just… we’re going down a very slippery slope there.
Mik:
What about the waste? It seems to me nobody’s talking about that there is actually a pollution from nuclear, which is this waste that… I don’t know if… is there a solution to where to put it?
Jim:
Well, know, ideally these Generation 4 – or advanced nuclear reactors – could do the job for us. Theoretically, some of these reactors could gobble up nuclear waste and produce low carbon electricity in the process, so it’s a win-win arrangement. But the best known of these sorts of reactors are the fast breeder reactors, or fast neutron, or fast spectrum reactors, and they’ve been a complete disaster all around the world, Japan, France, Germany, the US. They’ve been very expensive. They’ve been accident prone. They haven’t gobbled up waste. They’ve created their own separate waste problems.
They haven’t solved the proliferation problem or made the slightest contribution to solving the proliferation problem. On the contrary, they have been used to produce plutonium for weapons.
So, that only leaves the option of disposing of the nuclear waste. And for high level waste we’re talking about deep underground disposal. And there are no operating deep underground repositories for high level nuclear waste anywhere in the world.
Finland is getting pretty close, after 40 years of work on their project, but it’s not operating.
There is one deep underground nuclear waste repository that is operating, and that’s in the United States. It’s called WIPP or the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and it’s notable because of the extraordinary mismanagement and the failure of regulation which led to multiple accidents, the most significant of which was an explosion in an underground nuclear waste barrel.
So that’s not a great track record. There’s one operating deep underground repository and they’ve already had one explosion.
Mik:
And what is it with the water? Because nuclear power stations need a lot of water, is that right?
Jim:
Yeah, they typically need say 25 to 40 per cent more water than coal. And coal is itself very thirsty, and conversely wind and solar PV use very little water. So it is a very significant issue. If you go around these seven sites proposed by the coalition, well, it’s not hard to imagine that possibly three or four of them might be complete non-starters just because of this issue of water. So it’s a big problem.
And to give an example: I was in the New South Wales sites in the Hunter Valley and in a good year they’ve got plenty of water, but it’s only five years ago they had the last significant drought. There wasn’t enough water for nuclear power plant in those dry years.
Tony:
It doesn’t really seem to have all that much going for it at all. And I think that message has got through to Dutton somehow, because there’s been very little said by anyone on the Libs or National Party. They’ve been asked plenty of times by journalists, and they just try and duck the issue. It seems like they’ve given up on it?
Jim:
I know, someone needs to write a PhD thesis about this. It’s the most extraordinarily bad politics. I mean, by all means, if they wanted to play this game, then they could promise to repeal the legal ban against nuclear power, and let a thousand flowers bloom, and see if there’s any corporate interest in pursuing this project. But you know, what they’ve done is said that taxpayers are going to front up with the $331 billion required just to build the reactors, and local communities will have no say in the matter. And if the companies that are currently operating these coal plants that Dutton wants to replace with nuclear, if they don’t play along the government will use compulsory acquisition powers. State government opposition and state government legal bans will be overridden. So it’s… if you wanted to pick a couple of words, it would be: stupid and thuggish.
Mik:
Don’t you think actually what happened here was that someone from the coal industry or the fossil fuel… the gas industry gave a tip saying: “If you propose nuclear, that’s going to take another 15 years. And that means we can shovel in selling our products for another 15 years.” And that’s the only thing they are actually about. It’s not about building these nuclear stations. It’s about delaying doing anything.
Colin:
And also delaying doing anything in the way of sustainable energy generation because if it’s got one purpose, and it is: not using renewable energy.
Jim:
Yeah, well generally I agree with those sentiments, but as I mentioned before the operators of these coal plants are not interested in nuclear, and they’re less and less interested in coal, because as it’s operating an increasingly high renewables grid, it gets crowded out of the market, and these coal plants for the most part are aging and unreliable and increasingly unprofitable.
So there is that important caveat. But yeah, I’m sure that the Coalition is… well, I mean, we know that they’re actively supporting the expanded use of fossil fuels, including both coal and gas. And I think that’s a big problem with the nuclear plan, really. It’s not the nuclear part of it, because that’s probably never going to happen. Even from opposition, Peter Dutton is putting handbrakes on the renewable energy transition and of course the Dutton coalition government would massively disrupt this renewable energy transition and once he does that, you know, we lose momentum, we lose social license, supply chains are broken, you can’t just pick up the pieces quickly and easily after Dutton has destroyed this renewable energy transition.
Tony:
I often hear that if a nuclear project is approved, it’s 10 years before it’s generating electricity. Why does it take so long?
Jim:
Well, I mean, typically it takes 10 years for planning and 10 years for construction. And there are plenty of examples of that being much longer. For example, in France, which has got a huge experience with the nuclear industry, it took them 17 years just for construction. In addition to all the years it took to plan the project and the costs increased sevenfold and now stand at $39 billion Australian dollars just for one reactor.
But to answer your question directly: Well, they’re just huge projects. I mean, there’s multiple layers of approvals processes and licensing and all those sorts of issues. And, you know, you’re doing well if you can do that in 10 years, especially if you’re starting from scratch like Australia would be. And construction, well, they’re just gigantic pieces of infrastructure, so 10 years is about the going right.
Mik:
I was in UK a couple of months ago and saw the construction of a nuclear power plant there, and what surprised me was that there were 1,500 people working there every day, trucks coming in and out, a lot of activity going on. Imagine a building site with 1,500 people working.
Jim:
Yeah, absolutely and I’m sure there are other projects where they’ve got even more than that working on the project. Of course the industry has got a solution to this problem, it’s very slick and it sounds great and that is these modular reactors… where instead of building every nuclear power plant as a standalone bespoke facility, just cranking out reactor components on a factory production line at great rate, and with a with economies of mass production, but that hasn’t worked out at all. I mean basically the problem is these economies of scale. If you’re going to scale down from say 1,000 megawatts to 200 megawatts where you’re getting one fifth of the power but your construction costs, licensing costs, operating and maintenance costs, decommissioning costs, none of that is going to scale down by a factor of five.
That goes a long way to explaining why these so-called small modular reactors have no meaningful existence.
Colin:
I’m personally constantly surprised by the lack of anybody arguing about the dangers of having nuclear power plants, bearing in mind that we all remember 9/11 which destroyed the World Trade Center by terrorists using Stanley knives to hold up planes and get them to crash.
Just imagine if a plane were to crash into a nuclear power plant. Even the nuclear plants that have been subject to accidents, not even terrorism, they’ve thousands of people and polluted, well, nation-sized areas of land that still is unusable. And yet the liberals are saying, yeah, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have one of them.
Jim:
It’s ridiculous. Yeah, we’ve been working on those issues recently. We did a project about the radiation plume maps that would arise if the Fukushima disaster happened at these seven sites in Australia, but it got almost zero mainstream media coverage, which we were very disappointed about. But the security issues are actually getting some attention, which I’m super pleased about.
I mean, obviously this has been played out in real time in Ukraine with the seizure of operating nuclear plants and the Zaporizhzhia plant losing mains power supply at least eight times over the past three years. And in the Australian context, Chris Barry is a former chief of the Australian Defence Force and he’s now a member of a group called Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.
And he’s put this on the public agenda. I’ll just read a quote from him. says, every nuclear power facility is a potential dirty bomb because rupture of containment facilities can cause devastating damage. Modern warfare is increasingly focused on missiles and uncrewed aerial systems. And with the proposed nuclear power stations all located within a hundred kilometres of the coast, they are a clear and accessible target.
So I’m delighted to have that sort of commentary coming from the former chief of the Australian Defence Force. It’s an issue that I’ve been banging on about for decades and I’m sure some of you will remember some of this history in the Middle East in particular of Israel’s destruction of reactors in Iraq to prevent their use for weapons proliferation and there’s quite a few of those historical examples of conventional military strikes on nuclear plants.
Tony:
Jim, like, as someone who’s been working on this for probably decades now, are you seeing progress? Less difficulty in your campaigning and more support for what you’re saying?
Jim:
Yeah, we certainly are – from a low base. But because of Dutton’s plan for nuclear power stations in five states, there has been a huge increase in the number of people and the number of organisations who are actively working on these issues. So we’re pleased about that. Climate groups, trade unions, obviously the Labor Party is actively opposing this.
But yeah, it’s quite an unusual situation where we’ve got lots of allies, including some allies that are well-funded. Most of the time it’s much more modest, and we do our best. And we have had quite a lot of success, I’d say. We’ve helped Aboriginal communities stop four or five proposed nuclear waste dumps. Uranium mining is a pitiful industry and no one would miss it if it was to disappear. So we’ve had a lot of success, but it’s hard graphed from a relatively small number of people for the most part.
Tony:
And “we” as in Friends of the Earth?
Jim:
Yeah, Friends of the Earth, Australian Conservation Foundation, they’ve been at it consistently for decades. And of course, the Aboriginal communities that are targeted for these nuclear waste pumps, they’ve been incredibly strong and have also played a really important role in trying to get Australia to sign up to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. So, all of that.
Tony:
Yep. And that seems to be gaining more traction to that treaty, getting more countries to sign on to it?
Jim:
Yeah, it’s great. I’m not sure what the latest number is, but I’m guessing we might be up to about 80 or 90 countries, so half of the world’s countries, more than enough for the treaty to have entered into force. They had a meeting of the state parties just recently. So there’s a lot of momentum and in opposition under Albanese, the Labor Party agreed that Australia should sign and ratify this treaty.
But they haven’t done so during their first term of government and there’s some serious opposition from within the Labor Party. So we just have to hope that there is a little window of opportunity after the election.
Tony:
Well, leading up to the election, might be a good question to ask the candidates!
Mik:
Hm… We have a local candidate forum tomorrow here in Geelong out at Club Italia. And I know that energy will be a topic there to be discussed. So, we’ll have to hear what Darcy Dunstan, who is our liberal candidate in Corangamite, has to say about nuclear power.
Jim:
Yeah, there’s a parliamentary friends group for this treaty, and I think most Labor MPs have endorsed the Australian government signing on, but there used to be just one Liberal Party supporter and that was Russell Broadbent and I think he’s leaving Parliament, so there will then be zero supporters of Australia signing this treaty within the Coalition.
Tony:
Hm… And is there any sense of the reasons why, why they don’t want to sign it? – or why it’s the official position from Labor?
Jim:
Well, the roadblock is the US alliance, and it’s as simple as that really. When this treaty was being negotiated within the UN, it was under Coalition conservative governments and Australia was known in these negotiating fora as ‘The Weasels’ because Australia would undermine everything that was going on and try to delay everything that was going on and doing so alongside the US government as well. So, you know, that’s really the roadblock.
And the argument from ICANN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, who are leading this work, is that you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have the US alliance, albeit with modifications, and you can have Australia signing onto the treaty. But it’s a hard sell, obviously.
Mik:
Jim, thank you very much for providing, I think, some very good information here. We will do our bit to spread it. We will put your interview out separately, so it can be shared in social media. And if you were to give me some advice, personally, I would like to talk with my neighbors about this topic. Which kind of authority can I refer them to? Where do they find more information if they don’t believe what I’m saying?
Jim:
Well, there’s so much great information out there now, but you could start them with the climate organisations, the Climate Change Authority, now under the leadership of Matt Keane, the Clean Energy Council, the Smart Energy Council, and then there are groups like Friends of the Earth who have been working on these issues for decades and have that backlog of knowledge and our website is nuclear.foe.org.au.
. . .
SONG
“Nuclear Power Play”
Verse 1
He’s got a plan for power
But it’s really a scam
Billions on a gamble
That won’t light up a single house
Bridge
He says it’s clean, but where’s the plan?
It’s honestly looking a lot more like a scam
Radiant and risky, letting taxpayers pay
While the only thing it will power … is delay.
Chorus
We didn’t want it before, we don’t want it now
No nukes on Country! Enough with the lies!
No more digging and mining down under
In Australia, we make our power from the skies
Verse 2
No water for the rivers
No answer for the waste
Hiding that really its a plan
to stop the solar and wind
He say’s it’s the modern way
But it smells more like dirty gas
We’ve moved on – the sun is free
Wind in our sails – green energy!
Bridge
He says it’s clean, but where’s the plan?
It’s honestly looking more like a scam
Radiant and risky, letting taxpayers pay
The only thing it will power … is delay.
Chorus
We didn’t want it before, we don’t want it now
No nukes on Country! Enough with the lies!
No more digging and mining down under
In Australia, we make our power from the skies
Final Chorus (amped-up, group vocals)
Too late, too risky (It’s stupid and thuggish)
Too slow, too strange (We’re being taken for fools)
A billion-dollar ticking bomb
With no plan for change
We’ve got wind, we’ve got sun
The future’s already begun
So pack up your folly and go
We’re not buying your nuclear show
No nukes on this land
We can see through your tricks
Too late, too risky
We got a climate to fix
Audio clips heard in the song:
Peter Dutton: “This is about modernising our energy system. It’s about making sure we have cheaper electricity.”
Chris O’Keefe, Climate Energy Council:
“Nuclear is not realistic”
Dr Jim Green:
“It’s stupid and thuggish”
Antonio Guterres:
“It’s time for transformation”
Peter Dutton: “This is about modernising our energy system. It’s about making sure we have cheap electricity. It’s about making sure that we underpin economic growth.”
Antonio Guterres:
“We are insinerating our only hope. Time is running out.”
. . .
Mik Aidt (at 54:23)
That will be all we could fit into one, we could squeeze into one tourism degrowth anti-nuclear Sustainable Hour. But we have another one coming in a week and it will be a special one because Earth Day is on its way coming up on the 22nd of April. And that means we’ll make a very special Earth Day event on Monday, Monday the 14th of April, where we’ll be recording that special Earth Day hour and we have some special guests that we have invited.
But we would also like to invite you, our listeners, to come. We’ll be meeting in Eastern Park near the Botanical Garden. There’s a rotunda to the right of the Botanical Garden and that’s where we’ll be meeting. That’s just a bit of grass there. If it’s raining, we can be in that rotunda there. And if it’s not raining, we can be out on the grass. That’s the idea. So we’re close to nature on this Earth Day special. And I’m hoping you can come as well.
Colin:
Yeah, I’ll be dishing the dirt for Earth Day.
Mik:
And we will also, I think, bring our green Earth flag. You remember last year how we were raising the flag, the Earth flag – the blue dot flag, it’s actually called. We just have to bring a long stick as well that we can put it up on. That’s happening next week, Monday the 14th of April at 11 o’clock in Eastern Park [in Geelong]. Now to the ending ritual of this hour, which is that we look for something to ‘be’.
Colin:
Yeah, be aware of nuclear diversions. Yeah. And be aware of just how you’re being taken advantage of. comes back to being informed, being aware, being informed about what’s going on and rely on trusted sources. Don’t rely on mainstream media.
Mik:
And Jim, what would be your ‘Be’ for today?
Jim:
I think we should be degrowth.
Colin:
That’s a nice twist there Jim. Be anti-nuclear.
. . .
SONG:
“I Heard It on The Sustainable Hour”
[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!
Audio clips in the song:
Goodall: “Every single one of us matters.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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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