Sapoty Brook, Mullumbimby
Many of us choose our work to save our common future. We ask ourselves, ‘Are we part of the solution, or part of the problem?’ Many of us are in transition and compromise.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued a stark warning to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 or risk a runaway climate and eventual heat death. But the ten-trillion-dollar-a-year fossil fuel industry (FFI) won’t let go.
They use their enormous wealth (one trillion dollars annual profit) to influence politicians and media globally, and emissions continue to grow at about two per cent a year.
We are stuck with politicians who don’t do what we want, and media that hide the truth and sow seeds of uncertainty. An increasing price/tax on carbon is the best solution, provided the money is used to enable low-emission investments.
We the people must speak louder than the fossil money, and that’s what the global Extinction Rebellion and its peaceful civil disobedience strategy can do.
Join Extinction Rebellion Australia. If you have the courage volunteer to be an ‘arrestable’ in peaceful actions. It’s essential there are many many ‘arrestables’, otherwise we have no chance against the FFI. This is probably our last chance to stop emissions in time, so let that fuel your courage.
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Too late, Sapoty!
The FFI has recruited foot-soldiers already and they are prepared for direct and vigorous action, unlike the peaceful civil disobedience strategy of you and your fellow courageous volunteers.
Like the kiddies who wagged school last Friday, you may not be aware of what is happening because these activists are in France and the news may be taking a long time to travel to Mullumbimby.
They are the eponymous gilets jaunes, and they appear to be well prepared to be arrested. In fact, their courage is such that they persist in the face of not only arrest but also injuries and fatalities among their number.
I think that, through their actions, they are speaking far more loudly than the poseurs and virtue signallers of Extinction Rebellion Australia can ever hope to.
Maybe the tide is turning, after all.