Climactic Features

The Women's Climate Justice Collective and One Woman Project warmly welcome you to come along to our poetry night celebrating intersectional feminism and climate justice.

WCJC is a national collective aiming to mainstream intersectional feminist climate justice.

WCJC strives to be feminist, intersectional, inclusive, diverse, child-friendly, and safe. Our mission is to: 1) mainstream intersectional feminist climate justice;

2) support women and nb folks in the feminist and climate justice movements;

and 3) demand that intersectional feminism is incorporated into the climate justice movement, and climate justice is incorporated into the feminist movement.

We aim to bring more feminists and feminist perspectives into the climate movement to build capacity and consciousness. We also aim to illuminate in feminist spaces and groups, how the climate crisis especially affects women, and the need for gender-just climate solutions. Our main objectives are to grow as a collective, and develop resources, workshops and events to increase understanding of intersectional feminist climate justice.

The Magnitude of All Things is a cinematic exploration of the emotional and psychological dimensions of climate change.

When Jennifer Abbott lost her sister to cancer, her sorrow opened her up to the profound gravity of climate breakdown, drawing intimate parallels between the experiences of grief—both personal and planetary. Stories from the frontlines of climate change merge with recollections from the filmmaker’s childhood on Ontario’s Georgian Bay. What do these stories have in common? The answer, surprisingly, is everything.

This is a conversation about making beautiful, compelling climate-engaged media with Sundance award-winning documentary maker Jennifer Abbott, and composer Rob Law.

Special guest host Amruta Nargundkar from Heckin' Concerned (www.heckinconcerned.com). 

Inconceivable is a film that recently ran on ABC Compass. Amruta and I speak to the director Jayde Harding about the making of and response to the film, her engagement with the climate crisis, and the broader topic of 'birthstrike'.

In the age of the global climate crisis many young Australians are struggling with the part of them that has always wanted and imagined having kids and the part of them that is terrified for the kind of future those children might have. Inconceivable explores these anxieties and how they are playing out in the lives of 5 Australians at different stages of building a family.

Many of the subjects of this documentary have previously appeared on Climactic, and you can fine those appearances below. 

This special 2-part miniseries is from a panel held as part of ARTS1241, Environmental Advocacy and Activism, from the University of New South Wales.

Mark Rudd is a political organizer and an anti-war activist. He first burst onto the political landscape in the United States as a member, and ultimately the leader of the Columbia University chapter of Students for Democratic Society (known as SDS). SDS was the leading student anti-war social movement in the United States in the 1960s.

Mark Rudd's expertise, namely the limits of violent, direct action, are particularly relevant to what's going on right now. For more on SDS, Mark's contemporary Tom Hayden and that time period, check out the film The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix. 

Join the students of 1241 for this discussion with Mark about the dangers of violence in activism, his theory of change, and what we can learn from successful social movements of the past. 

To join us in adapting future events, and providing a platform for learning and collaboration across the climate community, get in touch with Climactic at [email protected] for any feedback, suggestions or questions. 

Resources:
Why Did Columbia University Students Protest in 1968? | History (YouTube)

Mark's book - Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (Goodreads)

Mark's film recommendation - The Glorias (Wikipedia)

This special 2-part miniseries is from a panel held as part of ARTS1241, Environmental Advocacy and Activism, from the University of New South Wales.

Mark Rudd is a political organizer and an anti-war activist. He first burst onto the political landscape in the United States as a member, and ultimately the leader of the Columbia University chapter of Students for Democratic Society (known as SDS). SDS was the leading student anti-war social movement in the United States in the 1960s.

Mark Rudd's expertise, namely the limits of violent, direct action, are particularly relevant to what's going on right now. For more on SDS, Mark's contemporary Tom Hayden and that time period, check out the film The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix. 

Join the students of 1241 for this discussion with Mark about the dangers of violence in activism, his theory of change, and what we can learn from successful social movements of the past. 

To join us in adapting future events, and providing a platform for learning and collaboration across the climate community, get in touch with Climactic at [email protected] for any feedback, suggestions or questions. 

Resources:
Why Did Columbia University Students Protest in 1968? | History (YouTube)

Mark's book - Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (Goodreads)

Mark's film recommendation - The Glorias (Wikipedia)

This is a special audio documentary from Ruby Marshall. 

Join us in this podcast to hear from local residents and workers from the Latrobe Valley about the just transition away from the fossil fuel industry that is happening there right now. What is currently happening in the Latrobe Valley with their transition away from the fossil fuel industry? How is the community preparing for the closing of the coal mines, and creating new industries with jobs to replace the mines? How is the Latrobe Valley experiencing the impacts of climate change and how are they dealing with it? Listen to find out.

Earth Worker Cooperative

Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation

Voices of the Valley

Latrobe Valley Community Power Hub

Environment Victoria

Coal Hole

Author Katerina Cosgrove reads aloud a recent piece of writing, published by SBS Voices. 

This feature vignette was produced and sound designed by Lloyd Richards featuring music by Omer Haber. 

The coverart is by @leio on Unsplash. 

To get in touch with us, to contribute your own creativity to engaging with the climate crisis, drop us a line at [email protected]. Or a voicemail from climactic.com.au.

This is the Climactic adaptation of Everybody Now, a "podmarch". "A Podcast Climate Protest March, or Climate Podmarch, if you will."

First we feature some audio from the excellent new Climate Ads project, then an introduction/explanation by Climactic founder Mark Spencer, a recording from Mark ahead of the September 20th, 2019 School Strike, before the Everybody Now podmarch. 

Please find below the shownotes and credits of Everybody Now. 

Everybody Now

Climate Emergency and Sacred Duty

We’ve caused a turning point in the Earth’s natural history. Everybody Now is a podcast about what it means to be human on the threshold of a global climate emergency, in a time of systemic injustice and runaway pandemics. Scientists, activists, farmers, poets, and theologians talk bravely and frankly about how our biosphere is changing, about grief and hope in an age of social collapse and mass extinction, and about taking action against all the odds.

On 19th October 2020, Everybody Now is being released by podcasters all over the world as a collective call for awareness, grief and loving action.

With contributions from:

Dr. Gail Bradbrook - scientist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion

Prof. Kevin Anderson - Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester

Dámaris Albuquerque - works with agricultural communities in Nicaragua

Dr. Rowan Williams - theologian and poet, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury

Pádraig Ó Tuama - poet, theologian and conflict mediator

Rachel Mander - environmental activist with Hope for the Future

John Swales - priest and activist, and part of a community for marginalised people

Zena Kazeme - Persian-Iraqi poet who draws on her experiences as a former refugee to create poetry that explores themes of exile, home, war and heritage

Flo Brady - singer and theatre maker

Hannah Malcolm - Anglican ordinand, climate writer and organiser

Alastair McIntosh - writer, academic and land rights activist

David Benjamin Blower - musician, poet and podcaster

Funding and Production:

This podcast was crowdfunded by a handful of good souls, and produced by Tim Nash and David Benjamin Blower

Permissions:

The song Happily by Flo Brady is used with permission.

The song The Soil, from We Really Existed and We Really Did This by David Benjamin Blower, used with permission.

The Poem The Tree of Knowledge by Pádraig Ó Tuama used with permission.

The Poem Atlas by Zena Kazeme used with permission.

The Poem What is Man? by Rowan Williams from the book The Other Mountain, used with permission from Carcanet Press.

The Climactic Collective is thrilled to be able to bring you this special feature, an audio documentary from Jess Fairfax - https://www.jessfairfax.com/

TO FEED TWO BIRDS WITH ONE SCONE

An audio documentary by Jess Fairfax

Over the past year or so, I have found inspiration in the work of Michel Foucault, who believes in the power of discourse as both “an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy” (Foucault 1998). The dominant discourse our government upholds, preserves an economy powered by fossil fuels, despite the known impacts of global warming. With business as usual brought to a standstill due to COVID-19, and the government looking for ways to stimulate the economy, I felt an urgent need to amplify alternative discourses that point towards a new low carbon economy. Within this documentary you will hear from researchers, farmers and representatives from unions, investor groups and worker cooperatives about the environmental, social and economic impact of climate change and the solutions at hand.

The piece also considers how we might shift the way we think of ourselves from consumers to citizens, part of, not separate from, the environment.  Orr (1994) states that we must shift our current paradigm to one that “places us in the web of life as citizens of the biotic community”. Within the piece, I addressed this through using field recordings from various Australian ecosystems as background to the dialogue. I also believe music is an incredibly powerful medium and I composed the soundtrack as a way to bring beauty to conversations around the economy and energy systems. I wove stories my friends told me about their time outdoors during lockdown into the piece. I believe that isolation has instilled a great appreciation in many people of the value of green space for our mental and physical health. I hope this translates into citizen action around the need to preserve and care for the environment.

This piece is just the beginning and I encourage feedback, comments, communication, ideas, criticisms and importantly conversations. It is here that the power should be.

Here are the links to the interviewee’s organisations and publications, along with other references:

LUKE SKINNER – Climate Justice Union of WA

PETER HOLDING – Farmers for Climate Action

EMMA HERD – Investors Group on Climate Change

PETRA STOCK- Climate Works Australia

DAN MUSIL – Earthworker Cooperative

Other References:

The Guardian: Business, unions and green groups call for sustainable Covid-19 recovery with clean energy transition

The Sydney Morning Herald: Breakthrough moment: Woodside investors revolt on climate change

The Australian Financial Review: Coronavirus complicated Woodside’s task on LNG

The Guardian: COVID Commission boss Nev Power steps back at gas company amid conflict of interest concerns

ReNew Economy: Solar, batteries, micro-grids and ISP should be added to Covid-19 response 

The Clean Energy Council: Renewables clean energy has the potential to drive covid-19 economic rebuild 

The IEA: Put clean energy at the heart of stimulus plans to counter the coronavirus crisis 

The Age: ‘Ambitious climate action a double win for economy in Coronavirus recovery’

The Conversation: Why it doesn’t make sense to ignore climate in our recovery from the pandemic

Bibliography:

Foucault, Michel (1998) The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, London, Penguin.