Emma and Chloe discuss the recent election result in Australia and what it means for the environment. What should people worried about climate change do now? To explore that question, they go back and look at former PM Bob Hawke’s environmental legacy and the role he played in saving Antarctica from mining. They discuss how environmental wins come about and how the landscape has changed since Hawke. How do we talk about climate change today and why isn’t that translating into action? What kind of communication works, and why? Why are we so obsessed with market solutions and tech billionaires? Chloe goes deeper into a discussion of the role of social movements, and what the long historical threads of nonviolent action might tell us about the way forward.
Reading List
On environmentalism and climate change:
Micha Frazer-Carroll, “On environmentalism, whiteness and activist superstars,” gal-dem, 25 September 2019
http://gal-dem.com/on-individualism-whiteness-and-activist-superstars/?fbclid=IwAR2nZWGp9zqK04FGukcFIddz1HTLoQEWG5bDUPStAxwTIwMFG_18yl6TTRQ
Martin Gelin, “The Misogyny of Climate Deniers,” The New Republic, 29 August 2019.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154879/misogyny-climate-deniers
Christopher Jones, “The Delusion and Danger of Infinite Economic Growth,” The New Republic, 2 October 2019.
https://newrepublic.com/article/155214/delusion-danger-infinite-economic-growth
Bill McKibben, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (2019)
Noami Klein, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014) and On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal (2019)
David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (2019)
Maia Wikler and Thanu Yakupitiyage, “11 Young Climate Justice Activists You Need to Pay Attention to,” Vice, 1 October 2019
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/8xwvq3/11-young-climate-justice-activists-you-need-to-pay-attention-to-beyond-greta-thunberg
On tech billionaires:
Luke Darby, “Private jets, parties and eugenics: Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre world of scientists,” The Guardian, 19 August 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/private-jets-parties-and-eugenics-jeffrey-epsteins-bizarre-world-of-scientists
Justine Musk, "I Was a Starter Wife": Inside America's Messiest Divorce, Marie Claire, 10 September 2010
https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
Adam Rogers, “How Rich Donors Like Epstein (and Others) Undermine Science,” Wired, 15 September 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/the-problem-with-rich-people-funding-science/
James B. Stewart, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA,” New York Times, 31 Juy 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html
On Antarctica:
Emma Shortis, “Lessons from the Last Continent: Science, Emotion, and the Relevance of History,” in Communicating the Climate: From Knowing Change to Changing Knowledge, Perspectives, Issue 2019/4, Rachel Carson Centre.
http://www.environmentandsociety.org/perspectives/2019/4/communicating-climate-knowing-change-changing-knowledge
Emma Shortis,“History repeating as Greenpeace returns to the Antarctic,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific, 18 April 2018.
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/news/historyrepeatingasgreenpeacereturnsto-the-antarctic/
Emma Shortis,“Saving Antarctica, the last continent,” Daily Review, 17 December 2016.
https://dailyreview.com.au/saving-antarctica/53885/