The Sustainable Hour no 342In The Tunnel on 25 November 2020, we have three guests, all doing very much different things, but all with the same aim: The aim of being active participants in solutions to the chaotic place where business-as-usual will take us.

Anisa Rogers has been very active over the last few weeks organising an outstanding online forum that is running counter to the International Mining & Resources Conference, IMARC. The conference runs in Melbourne each year at this time. This year, while in their hiatus, Anisa and others from Front Line Action on Coal (FLAC) decided to run ‘Blockade IMARC’ via Zoom. The incredible fruits of their efforts will be rolled out till this coming Sunday 29 November. To see their program, go to www.blockadeimarc.org.au.

Carina Mammone from Tomorrow Movement co-founded this group with the aim of creating an unstoppable movement of young people fighting for a society with good healthy jobs, great public services with safety nets and a safe climate for all.

Saimon Boyle from Urban Farm and House tells us of the risk he took in leaving his stable, but unfulfilling job a couple of years ago and starting his own business. A risk he has no regrets about as his business grows.

We start the hour with a recording from the Japanese Parliament on 19 November, where the Japanese minister for the environment, Koizumi, said: “The world is facing a climate emergency”, and had the entire hall of parliamentarians stand up up in acknowledgement of his proposal that Japan – the world’s third largest economy – declares a climate emergency and now will “radically strengthen its efforts toward the realisation of a carbon-free society – as soon as possible.”

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook has a number of examples of extreme weather events that haven’t been mentioned on our mainstream media: Out of control fires since July in South America, a cyclone in Honduras with multiple deaths, extreme record breaking heat in our country and extreme fossil fuel driven air pollution in India.To counterbalance these negatives he tells us of energy requirement laws brought in by San Francisco’s local government authority as well as England’s conservative leader Boris Johnson’s exciting 10 point plan to counter the climate crisis we all face. The big question he leaves us with is: When will our LNP government come up with a similar plan?

Till we return next Wednesday: Live the difference!

“By 2050 Australia will experience economic losses on par with COVID every single year if we don’t address climate change. That would compromise the economic future of all future generations of Australians.”~ Pradeep Philip, Deloitte’s principal report author

The Sustainable Hour no 342In The Tunnel on 25 November 2020, we have three guests, all doing very much different things, but all with the same aim: The aim of being active participants in solutions to the chaotic place where business-as-usual will take us.

Anisa Rogers has been very active over the last few weeks organising an outstanding online forum that is running counter to the International Mining & Resources Conference, IMARC. The conference runs in Melbourne each year at this time. This year, while in their hiatus, Anisa and others from Front Line Action on Coal (FLAC) decided to run ‘Blockade IMARC’ via Zoom. The incredible fruits of their efforts will be rolled out till this coming Sunday 29 November. To see their program, go to www.blockadeimarc.org.au.

Carina Mammone from Tomorrow Movement co-founded this group with the aim of creating an unstoppable movement of young people fighting for a society with good healthy jobs, great public services with safety nets and a safe climate for all.

Saimon Boyle from Urban Farm and House tells us of the risk he took in leaving his stable, but unfulfilling job a couple of years ago and starting his own business. A risk he has no regrets about as his business grows.

We start the hour with a recording from the Japanese Parliament on 19 November, where the Japanese minister for the environment, Koizumi, said: “The world is facing a climate emergency”, and had the entire hall of parliamentarians stand up up in acknowledgement of his proposal that Japan – the world’s third largest economy – declares a climate emergency and now will “radically strengthen its efforts toward the realisation of a carbon-free society – as soon as possible.”

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook has a number of examples of extreme weather events that haven’t been mentioned on our mainstream media: Out of control fires since July in South America, a cyclone in Honduras with multiple deaths, extreme record breaking heat in our country and extreme fossil fuel driven air pollution in India.To counterbalance these negatives he tells us of energy requirement laws brought in by San Francisco’s local government authority as well as England’s conservative leader Boris Johnson’s exciting 10 point plan to counter the climate crisis we all face. The big question he leaves us with is: When will our LNP government come up with a similar plan?

Till we return next Wednesday: Live the difference!

“By 2050 Australia will experience economic losses on par with COVID every single year if we don’t address climate change. That would compromise the economic future of all future generations of Australians.”~ Pradeep Philip, Deloitte’s principal report author

Two inspirational women are paving the way: Belinda Moloney and Emma Pocock

Our guests in the Tunnel on 18 November 2020 are two extraordinary climate leaders who are paving the way out of that corner which our federal government has painted itself and everyone else in this country into – by its unwillingness to take the climate emergency seriously and set appropriate targets.We find out what motivated successful ‘Put Climate First’ candidate Belinda Moloney to stand in the recent City of Greater Geelong elections, and what her plans are now that she is Councillor Moloney, one of three representatives for Kardinia Ward. We hear of her gratitude to the people who voted for her, the responsibility she feels for their faith in her, who she intends to stay connected with them, as well as what she hopes to be able to achieve while on council.

And we talk with Emma Pocock, the founder of FrontRunners. Emma is the next in our series of interviews on the influence that climate-concerned elite sportspeople can have in our sports-crazy country. Emma’s climate-concern is such that she founded the organisation to educate and inspire both athletes and sporting bodies alike about the impact that climate disruption will have on that industry, how we can all become ‘front runners’ creating climate solutions, as well as the wisdom for them in making allowances for all of this in their planning.

Colin Mockett starts his Global Outlook with a quiz with an unexpected answer. This leads into a chat about our country’s lack of willingness to take climate change seriously. He takes a look at the emission reduction targets by 2050-2060 that all five of our main trading countries have set and how Australia’s unwillingness to set our own targets will isolate us both economically and morally.

Finally we zoom back to Australia and hear what two major companies are doing to accept responsibility for their contribution to the climate crisis we face. Yet another stark contrast to our Federal Government.

That’s it for another episode of The Sustainable Hour – we look forward to being back with you all next Wednesday, and until then we’ll be doing our best to ‘live the change’ – and we encourage you to do the same. Live the difference!

“The thing that I keep thinking about is that professional sport will probably be able to stomach the costs in adapting to the kind of scenarios we are looking at in the future, but for community sport, for school sport, for kids playing on the weekend, these changes will be harder and harder to adapt to. As an industry, how do we mobilise to do our bit to make sure that sport continues?”~ Emma Pocock, founder of FrontRunners

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via iTunes or Stitcher

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Two inspirational women are paving the way: Belinda Moloney and Emma Pocock

Our guests in the Tunnel on 18 November 2020 are two extraordinary climate leaders who are paving the way out of that corner which our federal government has painted itself and everyone else in this country into – by its unwillingness to take the climate emergency seriously and set appropriate targets.We find out what motivated successful ‘Put Climate First’ candidate Belinda Moloney to stand in the recent City of Greater Geelong elections, and what her plans are now that she is Councillor Moloney, one of three representatives for Kardinia Ward. We hear of her gratitude to the people who voted for her, the responsibility she feels for their faith in her, who she intends to stay connected with them, as well as what she hopes to be able to achieve while on council.

And we talk with Emma Pocock, the founder of FrontRunners. Emma is the next in our series of interviews on the influence that climate-concerned elite sportspeople can have in our sports-crazy country. Emma’s climate-concern is such that she founded the organisation to educate and inspire both athletes and sporting bodies alike about the impact that climate disruption will have on that industry, how we can all become ‘front runners’ creating climate solutions, as well as the wisdom for them in making allowances for all of this in their planning.

Colin Mockett starts his Global Outlook with a quiz with an unexpected answer. This leads into a chat about our country’s lack of willingness to take climate change seriously. He takes a look at the emission reduction targets by 2050-2060 that all five of our main trading countries have set and how Australia’s unwillingness to set our own targets will isolate us both economically and morally.

Finally we zoom back to Australia and hear what two major companies are doing to accept responsibility for their contribution to the climate crisis we face. Yet another stark contrast to our Federal Government.

That’s it for another episode of The Sustainable Hour – we look forward to being back with you all next Wednesday, and until then we’ll be doing our best to ‘live the change’ – and we encourage you to do the same. Live the difference!

“The thing that I keep thinking about is that professional sport will probably be able to stomach the costs in adapting to the kind of scenarios we are looking at in the future, but for community sport, for school sport, for kids playing on the weekend, these changes will be harder and harder to adapt to. As an industry, how do we mobilise to do our bit to make sure that sport continues?”~ Emma Pocock, founder of FrontRunners

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via iTunes or Stitcher

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The Sustainable Hour no 340 on 11 November 2020 prepares us for the National Day of Action against new fossil fuels which will be held on Saturday 28 November 2020.

We have the women from Friday’s For Future Online who are part of the organising committee for this important day. As well as being a day of protest, it is also a day to acknowledge and celebrate all the “ordinary” Aussies who day in day out are fighting for the fossil fuel age to end.

The idea for this National Day of Action #ProtectOurFutureNotFossilFuels arose when fracking permits were approved around Narrabri in New South Wales. This was in-spite of thousands of objections against it.

A local farmer, Margaret Fleck, was particularly incensed at this decision and, in true Aussie spirit reached out to her networks, to see what could be done about this injustice. Law student Sonya McKay from Newcastle and Hunter Valley knitting nanna loop Lynn Benn soon joined her. This built onto the momentum which started at an online rally on 5 October 2020 and has grown to such an extent that now there are at least 60 groups, which include thousands of determined Australians from all over the country wanting to be involved in actions during the day as well as the online forum that night.

In listening to these women, there is no underestimating the extent of their resolve to stop new fossil fuel projects no matter where they are.

Our other guest in The Tunnel today is ex-A League player and Perth resident Chris Harold. Chris continues our focus on the important role that climate concerned elite athletes have in using their position of privilege and influence to speak publicly about their concerns.

Chris, like our other guests today has well and truly answered the call to speak out and will no doubt continue to do so as he interacts with the A-League Players Association.

Colin Mockett has us zooming all over the planet as usual in his Global Outlook. The main focus is on the results of the US elections and what that means for the world. He also beams about the increased number of Greens candidates who were elected in the recent Victorian local government elections. Finally we hear some bad news for penguins and seals and their breeding grounds at South Georgia Island.

That’s it from The Tunnel as our Covid-hiatus gets ever closer to ending. Till next week – Live the difference!

“Just within a matter of days, we were able to have such a large amount of response to people not wanting a gas-led recovery, not wanting the Narrabri conditional approval and being really unhappy and angry about it.”~ Sonya McKay, Fridays For Future Online

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via iTunes or Stitcher

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Acknowledgement

We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect ...

The Sustainable Hour no 340 on 11 November 2020 prepares us for the National Day of Action against new fossil fuels which will be held on Saturday 28 November 2020.

We have the women from Friday’s For Future Online who are part of the organising committee for this important day. As well as being a day of protest, it is also a day to acknowledge and celebrate all the “ordinary” Aussies who day in day out are fighting for the fossil fuel age to end.

The idea for this National Day of Action #ProtectOurFutureNotFossilFuels arose when fracking permits were approved around Narrabri in New South Wales. This was in-spite of thousands of objections against it.

A local farmer, Margaret Fleck, was particularly incensed at this decision and, in true Aussie spirit reached out to her networks, to see what could be done about this injustice. Law student Sonya McKay from Newcastle and Hunter Valley knitting nanna loop Lynn Benn soon joined her. This built onto the momentum which started at an online rally on 5 October 2020 and has grown to such an extent that now there are at least 60 groups, which include thousands of determined Australians from all over the country wanting to be involved in actions during the day as well as the online forum that night.

In listening to these women, there is no underestimating the extent of their resolve to stop new fossil fuel projects no matter where they are.

Our other guest in The Tunnel today is ex-A League player and Perth resident Chris Harold. Chris continues our focus on the important role that climate concerned elite athletes have in using their position of privilege and influence to speak publicly about their concerns.

Chris, like our other guests today has well and truly answered the call to speak out and will no doubt continue to do so as he interacts with the A-League Players Association.

Colin Mockett has us zooming all over the planet as usual in his Global Outlook. The main focus is on the results of the US elections and what that means for the world. He also beams about the increased number of Greens candidates who were elected in the recent Victorian local government elections. Finally we hear some bad news for penguins and seals and their breeding grounds at South Georgia Island.

That’s it from The Tunnel as our Covid-hiatus gets ever closer to ending. Till next week – Live the difference!

“Just within a matter of days, we were able to have such a large amount of response to people not wanting a gas-led recovery, not wanting the Narrabri conditional approval and being really unhappy and angry about it.”~ Sonya McKay, Fridays For Future Online

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via iTunes or Stitcher

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Acknowledgement

We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect ...

On 4 November 2020, we open The Sustainable Hour no 339 with a clip from BBC filmmaker David Attenborough‘s powerful witness statement ‘A Life on Our Planet‘ – his outstanding first-hand account of humanity’s impact on nature.

Our three guests, as we leave our Hiatus in The Tunnel to explore the wild spaces of nature, are firstly Janine Duffy, president of the Koala Clancy Foundation, with lots of good news and good spirit to share around about increasing koala habitat in the Geelong region.

Our second guest is local longboard rider and founder of ‘Surfers for Climate’ Belinda Baggs. The Fight for the Bight campaign last year against a Norwegian oil company’s plans to drill for oil in the Bight saw 10,000s of surfers rocking up on the beaches around the country, and Belinda wants to keep up that momentum. We hear why she founded the organisation, what they are doing to engage Australia’s two-three million surfers, as well as what their future plans are.

Find out more about Surfers for Climate below on this page, and at www.surfersforclimate.org.au – where you during the next seven days can support their fundraiser premiering a music video with Paul McCartney’s song ‘Wine Dark Open Sea’.

Our third guest is Craig Foster, a former Australian international soccer player, the face of soccer for many years on SBS News, and also long time advocate for refugee rights and now university lecturer in the role sport can play in helping to create a more just, inclusive and healthy world with a safe climate.

Just like the surfers are now jumping up on the climate activism wave, there are a number of sports groups who are backing up Craig Foster’s call for sports people to use their position of influence to stand up for a safe climate. We will continue to cover the rapidly increasing number of elite sports groups advocating for real action on climate over the next few weeks, so watch this space.

In acknowledging country today during this year’s National Aborigines & Islanders Day Observance Committee Week, we need to speak out against the atrocity that occurred on Djab Wurrung country near Ararat last Tuesday. Against the expressed wishes of the traditional custodians of that land, VicRoad contractors, aided by over 50 police and security guards, undertook the destruction of the Djab Wurrung’s Direction Tree, all to save a couple of minutes of driving as the highway is upgraded. Their embassy which had been there for three years was torn down, and the protectors, both First Peoples and Allies, were arrested and moved on. The following day a temporary Supreme Court injunction was granted to protect the other sacred trees in the area, expiring on Tuesday 17 November. This was yet another example of our First People feeling the wrath of the colonisers and having their wishes ignored. How can the Andrews Government be serious about negotiating a treaty when they do something like this? This treatment just has to stop. #TellTheTruth

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook is once again very busy. Yes the fires are still burning in the western side of the United States – this week Colorado joined in when one off its iconic National Parks was shut down because the fires there were so intense and uncontrollable. We zoom to the Arctic where the sea isn’t freezing as it would normally do at this time of the year.

On 4 November 2020, we open The Sustainable Hour no 339 with a clip from BBC filmmaker David Attenborough‘s powerful witness statement ‘A Life on Our Planet‘ – his outstanding first-hand account of humanity’s impact on nature.

Our three guests, as we leave our Hiatus in The Tunnel to explore the wild spaces of nature, are firstly Janine Duffy, president of the Koala Clancy Foundation, with lots of good news and good spirit to share around about increasing koala habitat in the Geelong region.

Our second guest is local longboard rider and founder of ‘Surfers for Climate’ Belinda Baggs. The Fight for the Bight campaign last year against a Norwegian oil company’s plans to drill for oil in the Bight saw 10,000s of surfers rocking up on the beaches around the country, and Belinda wants to keep up that momentum. We hear why she founded the organisation, what they are doing to engage Australia’s two-three million surfers, as well as what their future plans are.

Find out more about Surfers for Climate below on this page, and at www.surfersforclimate.org.au – where you during the next seven days can support their fundraiser premiering a music video with Paul McCartney’s song ‘Wine Dark Open Sea’.

Our third guest is Craig Foster, a former Australian international soccer player, the face of soccer for many years on SBS News, and also long time advocate for refugee rights and now university lecturer in the role sport can play in helping to create a more just, inclusive and healthy world with a safe climate.

Just like the surfers are now jumping up on the climate activism wave, there are a number of sports groups who are backing up Craig Foster’s call for sports people to use their position of influence to stand up for a safe climate. We will continue to cover the rapidly increasing number of elite sports groups advocating for real action on climate over the next few weeks, so watch this space.

In acknowledging country today during this year’s National Aborigines & Islanders Day Observance Committee Week, we need to speak out against the atrocity that occurred on Djab Wurrung country near Ararat last Tuesday. Against the expressed wishes of the traditional custodians of that land, VicRoad contractors, aided by over 50 police and security guards, undertook the destruction of the Djab Wurrung’s Direction Tree, all to save a couple of minutes of driving as the highway is upgraded. Their embassy which had been there for three years was torn down, and the protectors, both First Peoples and Allies, were arrested and moved on. The following day a temporary Supreme Court injunction was granted to protect the other sacred trees in the area, expiring on Tuesday 17 November. This was yet another example of our First People feeling the wrath of the colonisers and having their wishes ignored. How can the Andrews Government be serious about negotiating a treaty when they do something like this? This treatment just has to stop. #TellTheTruth

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook is once again very busy. Yes the fires are still burning in the western side of the United States – this week Colorado joined in when one off its iconic National Parks was shut down because the fires there were so intense and uncontrollable. We zoom to the Arctic where the sea isn’t freezing as it would normally do at this time of the year.

26TH EPISODE OF THE REGENERATIVE HOUR: Can we turn the 2020s into ‘The Regenerative Decade’? In this series of interviews about what that would imply, we talk ecology, deep adaptation, grief, compassion and passion, connecting with nature, resilience, revitalisation, restoration, revolution… – the bigger picture, in other words.

“We need conversion. We need a deep change of heart – to know ourselves as part of the whole and connected to the whole. If we love the Earth, we need to safeguard the Earth.”~ Jan Morgan, author and lecturer, in The Regenerative Hour no 26

What the sea is saying to us

Jan Morgan and Graeme Garrett, authors of ‘On the Edge – A-way With the Ocean’, teach a practice of attention, responding to the call of the world with an open heart. “The energy for change and new ways of being in the world then comes to birth,” they say.

Zoom screenshot: Graeme Garrett and Jane Morgan

“If we let ourselves trust the love that we in some part of us still have for the natural world and let it grow, not pushing it aside as something that “belongs to the children, or “is just not hardheaded enough for our world” – all that – the energy for change then comes to birth.”~ Jan Morgan, author and lecturer, in The Regenerative Hour no 26

Mik’s introduction notes to the hour

“The next few decades are going to feel like falling in love, setting aside everything you thought you knew and trusting that you’ll end up in a radically different place you never could have achieved on your own,” says the American meteorologist Eric Holthaus.

The Catholics talk about holding a ‘Sabbath for the Earth’:

“A Sabbath to liberate ourselves from vicious consumption; a time to allow the land and all creatures to rest from the burden of production. These days our living pushes the planet beyond its limits. Our demands for growth, and our never-ending cycle of production and consumption are exhausting our world. The forests are leached, the topsoil erodes, the fields fail, the deserts advance, the seas acidify, the storms intensify. We have not allowed the land to observe her Sabbath, and the Earth is struggling to be renewed.”~ Excerpt from Season of Creation 2020 Prayer (PDF, p.24)During what Pope Francis calls the Season of Creation, which runs through the month of September every year, the People and his Bishops asked us all to observe a ‘Sabbath for our planet’.

In the Sustainable Hour, we’ve started a series of interviews about the

26TH EPISODE OF THE REGENERATIVE HOUR: Can we turn the 2020s into ‘The Regenerative Decade’? In this series of interviews about what that would imply, we talk ecology, deep adaptation, grief, compassion and passion, connecting with nature, resilience, revitalisation, restoration, revolution… – the bigger picture, in other words.

“We need conversion. We need a deep change of heart – to know ourselves as part of the whole and connected to the whole. If we love the Earth, we need to safeguard the Earth.”~ Jan Morgan, author and lecturer, in The Regenerative Hour no 26

What the sea is saying to us

Jan Morgan and Graeme Garrett, authors of ‘On the Edge – A-way With the Ocean’, teach a practice of attention, responding to the call of the world with an open heart. “The energy for change and new ways of being in the world then comes to birth,” they say.

Zoom screenshot: Graeme Garrett and Jane Morgan

“If we let ourselves trust the love that we in some part of us still have for the natural world and let it grow, not pushing it aside as something that “belongs to the children, or “is just not hardheaded enough for our world” – all that – the energy for change then comes to birth.”~ Jan Morgan, author and lecturer, in The Regenerative Hour no 26

Mik’s introduction notes to the hour

“The next few decades are going to feel like falling in love, setting aside everything you thought you knew and trusting that you’ll end up in a radically different place you never could have achieved on your own,” says the American meteorologist Eric Holthaus.

The Catholics talk about holding a ‘Sabbath for the Earth’:

“A Sabbath to liberate ourselves from vicious consumption; a time to allow the land and all creatures to rest from the burden of production. These days our living pushes the planet beyond its limits. Our demands for growth, and our never-ending cycle of production and consumption are exhausting our world. The forests are leached, the topsoil erodes, the fields fail, the deserts advance, the seas acidify, the storms intensify. We have not allowed the land to observe her Sabbath, and the Earth is struggling to be renewed.”~ Excerpt from Season of Creation 2020 Prayer (PDF, p.24)During what Pope Francis calls the Season of Creation, which runs through the month of September every year, the People and his Bishops asked us all to observe a ‘Sabbath for our planet’.

In the Sustainable Hour, we’ve started a series of interviews about the