A podcast hour about what happens when we adults – as the school-striking climate campaign oracle Greta Thunberg requests in Sweden – begin to talk about the climate crisis as the global emergency it really is. In this hour, we learn about being aware and about how to keep our emergency messaging simple and sweet rather than sour.

Guest in The Sustainable Hour on 12 September 2018 is Jackie Matthews from Suburban Scrap Solutions, mother of five kids, and a sustainability leader who gives educational talks in the community about recycling and the circular economy – now also in The Sustainable Hour.

Tony Gleeson calls in from Northcote Town Hall in Melbourne where 350 people are gathered for Australia’s first local government Climate Emergency Conference, and where Climate Emergency Darebin Executive Officer Tiffany Harrison and campaigner Adrian Whitehead from Community Action in the Climate Emergency tell us about an extraordinary breakthrough at local government level for the climate emergency-framing.

Lou Baker, member of Geelong Inter-Church Social Justice Network which is organising a climate change forum on 11 October in Geelong West Town Hall – talks about “the sin of apathy”, and we follow up on Swedish Greta Thunberg’s “the-grown-ups-have-failed-us” school strike for the climate:

After three weeks, Greta’s strike was supposed to have ended last Friday, as she had hundreds of young people joining her in her strike in front of the Swedish Parliament… but then, on the following day, she announced in front of an even bigger crowd that she is going to continue her strike on Fridays, and she encourages school kids from around the planet to join her on this mission.

Fridays for future. The school strike continues! #climatestrike #klimatstrejk #FridaysForFuture pic.twitter.com/5jej011Qtp

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) September 16, 2018

On Monday evening, 10 September 2018, the ABC’s Q&A Youth Special highlighted that Australian secondary school students, regardless of political viewpoints, certainly are fully updated on the climate crisis and the federal government’s failure to address it.

Dr Heidi Edmonds – environmental scientist, musician, founder of and blogger at Climate KISS, Australian coordinator of the International Eco-Challenge, and mother of two little girls aged two and four years – believes that children and young people need more adults talking to them about climate change. So she has written an