Tues 5th April, early evening, I’m trying to decide if I can write a post about the latest IPCC report on climate change and its warning to humanity. I google some basics. It’s overwhelming.
Instead I’m thinking of stories of acquiescence. There’s a scene in Dances With Wolves (a film about white people and their longing for the earth). Soldier John Dunbar does a heroic act in war and is rewarded with the military posting of his choice. He chooses the frontier, because he wants to see it, “before it’s gone”. We know what happened after that and just how far gone it really is.
I’m also thinking of the British in New Zealand in the 1800s, who knew that bird species were going extinct. They stuffed them, sent them back home and put them in museums so they had some once the birds were all gone.
The late, great Douglas Adams produced a radio documentary and book on animal species on the brink of extinction (including the awesome kākāpō), called Last Chance To See. Although I’m tempted to say our situation is more a hybrid dark comedy: Mr Creosote is sitting in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Then social media delivered to me one of the stupidest things I could read on the same day as the IPCC report comes out: the people who want to build an international airport on the banks of the Clutha River between Cromwell, Wanaka and Tarras, have started installing weather stations on the proposed site, to help determine runway alignment. Because weather matters, and climate doesn’t I guess.
The developers are Christchurch Airport, which is owned by the Christchurch City Council (75%) and the NZ Government (25%). I could write something about how that’s forty years of neoliberalism right there (the separate of governance and business powers), or how they know about the climate emergency but what’s it going to be like when their grandchildren hate them. Or that the proposal follows both Queenstown and Wanaka communities rejecting airport expansions in their towns.
The collapse of QLDC support for expansion of the Wanaka Airport is of particular note – locals took QLDC to the High Court and won, on the basis that the council hadn’t consulted the community. Tarras and surrounds is a low population, rural area without the clout and money of Queenstown Lakes (and few are listening to the mighty river). Capitalism feeds where it’s least resisted. But resistance works and it’s easier now to say no if we organise.
I could write about how flying contributes to killing the planet all of life, but then we would have to look at whole systems and their relationship to life, rather than reductionist debate of how many tonnes of CO2 are emitted per seat and how many trees we can pretend to plant to make up for that. Airports beget flying, flying begets more airports, and require expansion to remain viable commercially. We simply cannot afford the cost, there is no way to externalise the cost anymore.
That’s from the Guardian yesterday, and it’s typical of many of the headlines.
There are of course serious risks in saying it’s now or never. If we don’t act, then in a few years people will be saying there’s nothing we can do, it’s too late now. On the other hand, there’s something almost intoxicating reading “greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025”. It’s a relief, no more dicking around, there’s a simple timeframe and a simple choice.
Late evening I think fuck it, the post must be written. I look up some of the people who are on the cutting edge of what to do. Transition Town pioneer Rob Hopkins‘ retweets had me cheering us all on,
There’s plenty out there that’s saying we know what to do,
The potency of people of power (finally) telling the truth,
It’s basically time to take to the streets, again. Not solely that, but we need that mobilisation to shift society to create those healthy, just, resilient low carbon communities.
Whatever we can do to wake people up, keep them awake, demand action from central and local government, business, farmers, communities, ourselves. The Freedom Protests in Wellington last month showed us the shadow side of the power we hold as activists and as people that care enough to step up. Whatever we think about their motives, values, politics and actions, they occupied parliament grounds and held the attention of government, mainstream media and the public for three whole weeks. In the end they shifted government policy and the culture of our pandemic response.
The left hasn’t managed protest action like that in quite some time, and it still blows my mind that that anarchic, batshit crazy event happened while the left was sitting on its hands worrying about the pandemic as if the climate and eco crises could wait. But maybe we should just take it has a symbolic expurgation from the national psyche, and stand up and show how it can be done well. I doubt there’s appetite or potential for occupying parliament grounds, but the antithesis showed us the door to our own creative action. The Freedom protestors demonstrated what can be done when we feel that what we cherish most is at risk.
The thing that scares me isn’t the end of fossil fuel driven civ. It’s that we won’t change and that will be far, far worse. But then I’ve spent most of my adult life in the counter cultures that know how to live well without over-reliance on consumerist society and I’ve seen what can be done.
Just Transition, the Powerdown, The Great Turning, they’re all things that give us a chance at both averting disaster and ensuring we get to have relatively good lives. There are people all over New Zealand, and all over the world, who have been doing the mahi on transition, sometimes for decades, we have the tools and skills and experience. If you’re not already part of this, go find those people and organisations where you live, offer them support, find out how to get involved. Being part of communities who are already acting makes it easier. Find the stuff that inspires you, because that’s where we will sustain the energy.
Phone or email your MP or local council. Join your local climate activist group. Even small actions matter at this point. We need people on the streets, but we also need people in the gardens, community centres, schools, workplaces, everywhere now is where climate action happens. Do it today.
If it’s overwhelming, find the things that support you – beauty, nature, community, children, people you love, the things you care about. We’re in this for the long haul, let’s pace ourselves and take care along the way.
Stories of proactive hope:
The Powerdown
Regenag
How change happens
What could possibly go right?
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