In The Sustainable Hour on 18 September 2019, Michael Martinez, head of the community and immigrant education organisation Diversitat and its radio station 94.7 The Pulse, officially declares that “we are in a climate and biodiversity emergency, and therefore we need to act accordingly.”In the context of a Geelong City Council, as we understand it, currently busy figuring out behind the scenes how they can denounce, reject or water down Councillor Sarah Manfield’s motion for the municipality to declare a climate emergency – a motion which she has scheduled to table at the Council’s ordinary meeting on 24 September – Diversitat CEO Michael Martinez‘s announcement today in The Sustainable Hour stands out as an example of what leadership looks like.

The call from climate-concerned school children and parents generally hasn’t resonated among local leaders in the board rooms of businesses, organisation, schools and universities in Geelong. Deakin University’s new Vice Chancellor, for example, has outright rejected the idea of declaring a climate emergency, as has the chair of Geelong’s Chamber of Commerce.

Therefore, in a local context, the Geelong’s Ethnic Community Council and Diversitat’s decision to declare a climate emergency becomes the kind of call to mobilise and prepare for action which makes a real difference. Similar to how Darebin City Council’s declaration in December 2016 has been followed by more than 1,000 other councils since, the idea of a community radio declaring a climate emergency is an idea that can be replicated.

In The Sustainable Hour team, we feel confident that this move from the management of our station will inspire and empower many others to take new and bolder steps to reduce emissions, first of all among organisations, businesses and families in our local community, but potentially also, just like we’ve seen it happen with Darebin City Council’s historic motion, here’s a tiny snowball rolling and it could go round the world.

We talk with professor John Hewson, former leader of the Liberal Party, about why he supports Senator Mehreen Faruqi​‘s call for the Australian Parliament to declare a climate emergency. “Look, it is just like when a Parliament declares a war or participates in a war. In itself it doesn’t do anything. It is the base on which they mobilise and prepare for that. And that is really what we need to do,” he explains.

We also play short excerpts of Greta Thunberg‘s interview in The Daily Show in the US, where she talks about the importance of that everyone spends some time on educating themselves around the issues with the climate and ecological breakdown, of a speech by climate scientist Dr Heather Price, expert in atmospheric chemistry, who tells the school-striking kids that “You are already living with the failure of your parents’ and your grandparents’ generations. We have failed you because we have ignored the scientist warnings,” an outcry by a