We take an encouraging step on the Stairway to Hiatus in The Tunnel this week. Together with our three guests we discover how to live – and live well – in the climate emergency. Welcome to our first ‘Sustainable Disaster Hour’!

We start with long time music lover and climate activist Jane Coker. We learn how she has managed to combine her two great loves to sustain her as she navigates the climate emergency. She introduces us to the music of one of the choirs she organises, the Meeniyan Climate Calamity Choir.

Our second guest is psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon, author of ‘Facing the Climate Emergency – How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth’ and founder and Executive Director of the Climate Mobilization Project in the United States. She describes her experience of how rewarding it can be to make the decision to take responsibility and “go all in for all life”, as she puts it, “and begin to do drastic things” to protect all life.

Our third guest is Chris O’Neill who is engaged in a fight between the Sunbury community and the Victorian state government who want to dump many tonnes of contaminated soil from the Westgate tunnel into an operational quarry on the edge of his community. We hear how ordinary citizens have had to become citizen scientists and become very organised to mount their case. You can learn more about this at their website www.sunburysaysno.com.

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook takes us in a number of issues today: Firstly he quantifies the damage caused by the out of control wild fires in the western states of the USA. These have been burning for months. The word that he uses to describe them is unprecedented. He then gives some hard to believe figures about the percentage of all the plastic that has ever been produced that has ended up being recycled. Thirdly we hear about the scant regard that Donald Trump gave to climate change in the most recent presidential debate. Colin ends up on a positive note with news from South Australia of a world first in energy produced from the sun: All of the state’s power came from solar for one hour on 11 October 2020, close to 80 per cent of it generated from the citizens’ own roof top solar – a community energy revolution in the making!

We hope you find something that engages you in today’s...