“We are rapidly reaching the point of no return for the planet. We face a triple environmental emergency – biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution. (…) Science tells us these next ten years are our final chance to avert a climate catastrophe, turn back the deadly tide of pollution and end species loss.”~ Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, speaking to the world on 5 June 2021, World Environment Day

The Sustainable Hour no 366

We have three guests representing #GenerationRestoration in #TheTunnel on 9 June 2021:

Isabella Morand facilitates the very popular ChangeMaker online course. This takes people who want to work for a better world through a course on how to be good community organisers and become an effective changemaker. Our system is not working the way that it is meant to, so in order to respond to what we are facing, local groups can make big change as they transform Australia’s hyper-individualism to grassroots relationship-building, while ‘Doing the thing’ and being the solution.

Natalia Shafa and her partner Edmund Weir are developing an online create-a-better-world competitive game, ‘Descendants of Earth’, and will launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter on 12 June 2021 to raise capital for improvements to the game in the lead-up to a full launch in November 2021. Crowdfunders can pay to reserve their profile name, access the alpha version, join our chatrooms and get limited edition merchandise. The two game-developers are currently busy adding new challenges for players to face, and an in-game map where players can post potential environmental actions in their local area and find local green businesses. “Climate action is a multi-player game,” they say.

We also hear Geelong resident Alan Barlee give his sharp and highly critical comments to the annual budget proposal which Geelong Council has had open for submissions from the public. How did the Councillors respond? That’s what we focus on after listening to Alan’s contribution.

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook begins in Paris with a quote from the head of the OECD urging rich nations to take the sustainable path to Covid recovery. The surprise was the speaker’s name.Then in quick succession to New York, where the United Nations on World Environment Day  called on countries to meet commitments to restore one billion hectares of land inside the next decade. That’s an area the size of China.Then Colin zooms us to South East Asia where a cargo ship laden with chemicals sank last weekend after 10 days ablaze, spewing chemicals plastics and fuel in a new environmental disaster.In California, Tesla’s chair, Australian-born Robyn Denholm noted that Australia provided her company with the lithium, nickel and other metals needed to make its batteries and vehicles – but it should be much more if we were to process the ore rather than simply export it.This is followed by the news that six world banks now are combining to pressure the steel industry to decarbonise.The town of Longyearbyen on the island Svalbard in Norway’s far-north was named the fastest-warming ...