Align in the Sound - New Economy Network / Radio BTL / CoCanberra

Imagineering, or Envisioning, is a technique which enables a community to imagine the best possible future for itself. Once a vision for the community is established, they can then set about figuring out how to get there.

Transition Canberra and the New Economy Network of Australia's Canberra Regional Hub independently wound up hosting envisioning type events within a fortnight of one another.

We had them both in for a yarn about what they were up to.

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Extinction Rebellion has grown from a small outfit in the UK to an international movement in a matter of months.

Alongside the powerful School Strike 4 Climate they have been credited with the UKs recent announcement of a Climate Emergency.

Australia has a number of XR chapters opening up across the country.

Behind the Lines spoke with the organiser of one of these recently formed chapters.

The Bob Brown Foundation launhced a convoy which went from Hobart up to the depths of coal mining country in outback Queensland, holding rallies along the way.

They returned to Canberra for a big rally at Parliament House which drew about 5000 people.

Behind the Lines caught up with a few of the folks who had been on the convoy just after the Canberra rally, to have a yarn about how it had gone.

The Builders Laborers Federation was a union in Australia, representing those workers without a trade who did all the hard yards on the building site.

Through their strong community links, they heard lots about the effects of inappropriate development on normal folks, and came up with the "Green Ban" as a response.

They simply refused to work on projects that were socially or environmentally damaging. The effects of the Green Bans are still around today - the historic district of the rocks in Sydney is only there due to BLF action.

The BLF was deregistered by the government of the day, and smashed.

One of the things to come out of the rubble was the Earthworker Co-operative, which is designed to transef the ownership and control of work itself into the hands of the workers.

We hope you enjoy this interview.

The School Strike 4 Climate is an international movement run by school students.

Today we have Maeve and Indy, who are part of the Canberra contingent, to have a yarn about what is going on, and why.

Inspired by the bold, lone strike action of Greta Thunberg on the steps of parliament in Sweden, the idea has spread to all continents.

Find the strike map here: https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/events/map

Many groups are going out every Friday, with periodic global events, such as the one on March 15th, 2019 discussed here.

Australia is still bent on developing massive fossil fuel sources, which should definitely be left in the ground, such as the Adani mine opening up the way for many coal projects planned for the Galilee Basin

https://www.stopadani.com/

and the new front rapidly opening in the Canning Basin in the Kimberly, Western Australia.

https://www.environskimberley.org.au/fracking

http://www.frackfreekimberley.org.au/

Hopefully our intrepid leaders will take this strong hint from our kids, and prioritse our actual means for life over our imaginary need for incessant growth of money.

Music for today is from the Earth Guardians, a group of kids who have been on this path for over a decade now, and Xiuhtezcatl, who is also heavily involved with Earth Guardians. Please support them by buying their albums, and check out these links:

https://xiuhtezcatl.com/

https://www.earthguardians.org/

and the absolute classic "Live as if our Future Matters"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANrxvmHUuV0

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The locals in mainly Kurdish Northern Syria, or Rojava (western Kurdistan) have managed, since the Assad regime lost control of the area, to implement a bottom-up "Democratic Confederal" structure - designed largely by Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the kurdish marxist rebel group PKK, who has been imprisoned in a Turkish prison for decades. The system was inspired in part by the writings of Murray Bookchin, founder of the Social Ecology movement.

Democratically run militias from the area have cleared Islamic State forces from the region, with USA air support.

Strong emphasis is placed on the equality of women, and many ethnic groups are now involved in highly localised decision making bodies.

This equality is designed into the democratic confederal system, with co-rule by male and female delegates, and deputy positions reserved for ehtnic groups not holding the top position in an organisation.

A unique feature of this system is that it does NOT seek to form its own state, or accept the rule of any state. The bottom up democracy takes care of things without the need for a structure which only results in centralisation and monopoly of power and the troubles which accompany such centralisation.

Fionn Skiatis from Australians for Kurdistan has been studying the movement for years, and joined Behind the Lines for a yarn about it. We only covered a part of the story and hope to return to it soon.

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The bHive Cooperative is a community owned person-to-person sharing economy platform being developed for Bendigo.

Behind the Lines dropped in and talked with Ian McBurney and Clare Fountain.

The system builds on a personalised "Village", providing each member with an assortment of Commons which they can use to develop their community and reduce their cost of living.

On top of that bHive will build a network of co-operative enterprises, providing work and keeping wealth circulating i the local economy.

Find out more at http://bhive.coop/about/

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Logging continues throughout NSW, comissioned by the state government. The Regional Forest Agreement signed 20 years ago that has been feeding the Eden woodchip mill with our forests ever since is up for renewal.

Hear from 2 south coast communities who have recently encountered logging of their home turf, at Corruna and Mogo.

Citizens Own Renewable Energy Network Australia, or CORENA provides a practical and effective way for ‘the people’ to collectively fund new renewable energy installations NOW instead of just waiting on government action.

Our solar funding model (revolving loan fund) enables all of us who want a rapid transition to renewable energy to chip in and collectively help pay for practical renewable energy projects. Small amounts of money from LOTS of people can reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and, in conjunction with divestment, help eliminate the adverse health and environmental effects of coal and gas.

Bill Gresham from CORENA gave a talk for SEE-Change in Canberra on the 28th August 2018. Behind the lines was there and captured it.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

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Citizens Own Renewable Energy Network Australia, or CORENA provides a practical and effective way for ‘the people’ to collectively fund new renewable energy installations NOW instead of just waiting on government action.

Our solar funding model (revolving loan fund) enables all of us who want a rapid transition to renewable energy to chip in and collectively help pay for practical renewable energy projects. Small amounts of money from LOTS of people can reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and, in conjunction with divestment, help eliminate the adverse health and environmental effects of coal and gas.

Bill Gresham from CORENA joined us in the 2XX studios for a yarn on 7th September 2018.

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