EMBERS - Enviro supplement with Honi Soit: Week 11, Semester 1, 2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ENVIRONMENT COLLECTIVE presents

WEEK 11, SEM 1, 2021

The History and Future of School Strike 4 Climate | p. 4

Anti-Capitalism in the Environmental Movement | p. 6

Why We Are Building for the May 21 Climate Strike | p. 15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY

The University of Sydney Environment Collective meets and organises on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. This edition of Embers was produced by editors, writers and artists living and working on stolen land where sovereignty of so-called Australia was never ceded. The environment that we aim to protect and conserve is sacred country, and the destruction of such country is an ongoing act of colonial violence. We pay our respects to Elders, past, present and emerging. We recognise the ongoing fight First Nations peoples face for the survival of their land, communities and knowledge and stand in solidarity as environmental activists with First Nations peoples across the country and worldwide. There is no environmental justice without Indigenous justice. We centre the voices and perspectives and knowledge of First Nations peoples in all our organising and activism. The land always has and always will be Aborignal land.

EDITORIAL

Hello there! Welcome to Embers 2021, an Honi pull-out written, designed, edited and laid-up by members of the USYD Environment Collective. Embers serves as a way for the Collective to reach those who we can’t reach through our regular meetings and activism, we hope to educate and inspire the student body on the topic of radical environmentalism. We believe that this goal is reflected in our feature piece: ‘The Necessity of Anti-Capitalism in the Climate Movement’ by Tiger Perkins who reflects on the politics of radical environmentalism and demonstrates the power of student environmental activism respectively.

We chose to release Embers at this time to give students a greater understanding of the climate movement as it stands in the lead up to the May 21 Climate Strike; its politics, demands and interactions with society more broadly. We hope that in our articles, our art and our poetry we can facilitate not only a greater understanding of environmentalism, but also nurture the wider development of radical student environmental activism. We hope you enjoy and find this as inspiring as we do!

In love and solidarity, The Editors

CONTENTS PAGE 3

The Gateways Between One World and the Next by Alana Ramshaw

PAGE 4

Then and Now: A Brief History of Student General Meetings by Lauren Lancaster

PAGE 12

Second-Hand Fashion is Not the Sustainable Solution We Need by Zara Zadro

PAGE 13

PAGE 6

The End Times by Will Stano Wandiyali Environa Wildlife Sanctuary: The Resilience of Restoration Efforts by Noah Hallander

PAGE 7

No Parliamentary Road to Climate Justice by James Sheriff

Taxonomy by Ellie Stephenson There is a Softness by Sophia Chakma Hill Slamming the Brakes on History: How We Can Stop the Climate Crisis by Cooper Forsyth

PAGE 8

The Necessity of Anti-Capitalism in the Climate Movement by Tiger Perkins

PAGE 10

Deep Breath In by Isabella D’Silva Childhood by Benson Lilo Oto

PAGE 11

When the Dust Settles - Regional Perspectives On Our Climate Future by Bart Shteinman

PAGE 14 PAGE 15

Do We Know the Enemy? by Drew Beacom

PAGE 16

The Ripple Not Broken by Tiger Perkins I’m Leaving by Ellie Stephenson

PAGE 17

Reflections from Eastern Avenue: How the Propaganda War Was Won by Angus Dermody

Editors: Drew Beacom, Isabella D’Silva, Angus Dermody, Lauren Lancaster, Tiger Perkins, Alana Ramshaw, Annalise Schwarz, Bart Shteinman, Will Stano, Ellie Stephenson, Zara Paleologos, Zara Zadro Contributors: Drew Beacom, Sophia Chakma Hill, Isabella D’Silva, Angus Dermody, Cooper Forsyth, Noah Hallander, Aman Kapoor, Lauren Lancaster, Benson Lilo Oto, Oli Mcauslan, Talia Meli, Isla Mowbray, Tiger Perkins, Alana Ramshaw, Anusha Rana, James Sheriff, Bart Shteinman, Will Stano, Ellie Stephenson, Zara Zadro

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Front and Inside Cover: Isabella D’Silva

The Gateways Between One World and the Next Alana Ramshaw explores the history and future of School Strike 4 Climate Over a year on, the 2019 September 20th School Strike 4 Climate is regarded as something of an apotheosis of climate mass mobilisation in contemporary Australia.

80,000 students, workers, and families poured into Djarrbarrgalli, also known as the Domain, armed with placards, forming a puissant display of democratic power, and I somehow found myself in the press pen, not knowing how to act next to Craig Reucassel.

Since that day in 2019, the School Strike 4 Climate movement has undergone a process of evolution - partly organic, and partly catalysed by the disruption of COVID-19. Many organisers have aged out of the movement and newer faces, no less earnest in their activism, have taken up the mantle, bringing with them new visions, new strategies, and new theories of change. I sat down with three former and current SS4C organisers to gain some perspective on the evolution of the movement and their approach to the upcoming May 21st climate strike.

Varsha Yajman, a graduated striker, was one of the key organisers behind September 20, and a dear friend of mine before she became a law student.

She described the strike as one of the best experiences she ever had, and as a “time of learning and growing by speaking to unions, Indigenous peoples, and climate deniers”. I make the assumption that one of those demographics was less edifying to engage with than the others. Varsha noted that there was a definite loss of engagement throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but pointed to SS4C’s online strikes as evidence that “there are still avenues to advocate for justice”.

“I think SS4C has come back stronger than ever with a much more diverse group of people being given the opportunity to share their story, to work towards changing the narrative that this isn’t just climate change but a climate emergency”, Varsha opined.

Although she has aged out of School Strike 4 Climate, she still holds high hopes for the movement’s future, “I would love to see SS4C highlight the intersectionality of the climate movement even more”. She pointed

Art by Anusha Rana

to the action SS4C co-led to stop the State Bank of India’s proposed $1bn loan to Adani, identifying it as an amazing step.

Kayla Hill, a sixteen year old organiser, joined SS4C’s ranks mid-2019.

Kayla spoke to the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted School Strike’s organising, but also offered an opportunity for reflection - “Before COVID-19 we had so much momentum with the bushfire crisis and September 20, but we were able to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and see how we can make realistic and effective change”. She identified the pandemic as a “crucial intergenerational opportunity to make change. We would otherwise never have this opportunity to rebuild our economy and shift the way it’s going”.

In our conversation, her determination to make the climate movement more accessible shone through. She spoke to her experience navigating the climate movement as a person of colour, and the growth she has undergone through that experience - “I think it’s necessary to keep addressing the issues that people of colour face within the climate movement. I’ve definitely brought out my voice more, I’ve been able to call people out and make sure they are held accountable.” Kayla emphasised the importance of centring the First Nations peoples on the front lines of the government’s expansion of gas projects. Intersectional activism is something which seems to be in Kayla’s blood. She spoke fondly of her maternal grandfather who was involved in climate and land rights movements in Indonesia, citing him as an inspiration for her activism and “following in his footsteps and following his legacy”.

Seventeen year old striker Nabilah Chowdhury will be taking to the stage on May 21st as an MC. Her nervous excitement was evident as she spoke about the prospect of chairing her first rally, but there is no doubt to be had that Nabilah, along with her co-MC, will exceed the expectations left through SS4C’s notably strong crop of orators.

Nabilah addressed the logistical challenges of putting together a mass strike, pointing to the fact that many

organisers are currently in year 11 and 12, and the task of promoting and organising a rally is something they juggle on top of school work and other extracurriculars. Nabilah herself is a fencer and volunteers at Taronga Zoo. Her plans to work in wildlife conservation after high school are undoubtedly borne of the same environmental conscience which led her to getting involved in SS4C in June 2019.

Nabilah talked me through her process of getting involved in climate activism, “I went to the strikes before I joined the team, and I always thought ‘I should do that, I want to do something’. I saw joining as a way to do something about the climate crisis because I felt like, for me, just standing there wasn’t enough”.

Nabilah also spoke of the adaptations SS4C had to undergo through COVID, “We had a planning day for the May 15th (2020) rally, we’d planned most of it. We didn’t buy anything thank goodness, but we planned a whole bunch of things and a whole bunch of speakers for an in-person rally in Sydney’’. While hopes of holding an inperson rally had declined slowly over a longer period, the definitive call by the Sydney team to move the rally online was only made a week beforehand.

“There were technical issues but I think we did alright,” Nabilah chuckled.

On May 21st, people will pour into Town Hall, the memories of September 20 still in their mind. School kids will show up, a little taller than they were then, bringing with them chants, witty placards, and an empowered belief in their ability to affect change.

In the months since my cursory involvement in School Strike 4 Climate, the movement has been an instrumental catalyst in the development and growth of my own personal politics and advocacy. With an acknowledgement that their political standing can be a topic of contention within the wider environmental movement, I believe there is something to be said about the power these young people hold within the acolytic hope they possess in a better world.

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By Lauren Lancaster

*this article is an amended version of the Honi Soit article by the same name, published in April 2021

On 28 April 2021, at 4pm, USyd Enviro Collective members and President Swapnik Sanagavarapu convened the third Student General Meeting in USyd’s history and the first to focus on environmental demands.

The notion of a Student General Meeting (SGM) goes to the core of student democracy and unionism, and in this instance it presented a powerful opportunity to fight back against the University’s complacency in climate destruction.

It marries the sometimes staid bureaucracy of student unions with the very pressing climate catastrophe. With students mobilised by the announcement of the upcoming global action, a petition from the Enviro Collective amassed more than 1000 signatures supporting a campus-wide walk-off from classes and a staff strike, which triggered an SRC constitutional provision mandating a meeting of the student body to discuss the climate crisis. A formal motion was passed at this meeting, demanding the University’s support of an unconditional student and staff strike on 21 May 2021 for School Strike 4 Climate’s Global Climate Strike.

Student activism must occur through many channels - we are protestors and organisers but we are also operating within universities, meaning power can be found through formal process and events. To grasp the importance of our climate SGM, we must understand from where contemporary student unionism and activism emerged in Australia.

The anti-Vietnam War student protests and the Freedom Rides for Indigenous rights of the late 1960s spearheaded the left radicalisation of university campuses across the country, and proved the potential for students to lead significant political campaigns against the government and in support of radical socio-political causes.

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The first SGM at USyd was called in 1971 in response to the Australian tour by the national rugby team of then-apartheid South Africa, the Springboks (from which Black South African players were explicitly excluded). The tour was heavily protested across Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne — led largely by university activists. Ahead of the Queensland leg of the Springboks tour, conservative Premier Joh BjelkePetersen announced a month-long state of emergency in response to the fervour of anti-apartheid student organising.

A 3000-strong SGM at the University of Queensland (UQ) voted to strike for the duration of the Queensland tour and UQ activists staged a 4500-strong sit-in in their Union building. In Victoria, 5000 protestors, many students among them, gathered on the streets of Melbourne to march on the game’s venue at Olympic Park. Then-USyd SRC VicePresident Bernard Coles wrote in Honi in 1971 that “we should show our strongest political opposition to countries whose corrupt political system injects a perverted and blatant form of racism even into their sporting activities.”

The SGM condemned the Springboks and advocated for a student strike and ongoing protests at USyd in opposition to the racist regime they represented. It was a great success, with the Springboks chased out of Australia by student activists, not to return until after the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.

Student unions on the campus level (like the SRC) played a crucial role in cohering and supporting these political campaigns, and many others, throughout the latter half of the 20th century to now. This meant, of course, that they drew the ire of the governments they criticised and held to account, triggering an ongoing legislative campaign of austerity to repress student activism on Australian campuses.

Student unions have been the target of both state and federal laws aiming to restrict their political functions, usually by choking them of funding. Prior to 2005, students were made compulsory members of their university union upon enrolment and paid small annual fees directly to the union, allowing them to flourish and bolster student life through well-funded activist collectives, leadership opportunities and publications like Honi Soit.

However, the compulsory contributions lifeline was cut during the Howard Government’s ‘war against unions’with the passage the Higher Education Amendment Onof 28 April 2021, at Support 4pm, USyd Enviro (Abolition Collectiveof Compulsory Union Fees) Bill 2005, which members and Up-front PresidentStudent Swapnik Sanagavarapu convened compelling studentshistory to pay. thebanned third university Student unions Generalfrom Meeting in USyd’s Thisthetriggered nextonSGM at USyd demands. in 2006. and first to thefocus environmental Now-UTS Gibson, known for his The notion ofacademic a StudentPaddy General Meeting (SGM) goesroles to an organiser of democracy the Stop Indigenous Deathsand in Custody theascore of student and unionism, in this and Workers for Climate Actionopportunity campaigns,towas involved instance it presented a powerful fight back in the USyd Education Actionin climate Group’sdestruction. grassroots against the University’s complacency against voluntary student ofunionism (VSU) It campaigning marries the sometimes staid bureaucracy student unions from as anclimate undergraduate arts student.

Gibson with the2003-2007 very pressing catastrophe.

With students and the by EAG a public SGM that was held mobilised the organised announcement of the upcoming global to pass changes to the the Enviro SRC’s Collective constitution in response action, a petition from amassed more to 1000 the austerity by the Howard government. than signaturesimposed supporting a campus-wide walk-off from classes and a staff strike, which triggered an SRC In the wake provision of the lostmandating fight against the passage of the VSU constitutional a meeting of the student bill, toGibson saidthethat the SGM wasA the moment in which body discuss climate crisis. formal motion was activists turned to “focus on how [VSU] was going tosupport roll out passed at this meeting, demanding the University’s campus.” It represented “a staff commitment to mobilising ofonanour unconditional student and strike on 21 May largefornumbers students, encouraging discussion the 2021 School ofStrike 4 Climate’s Global Climateabout Strike. huge attack on student organising that had come from the Howard government” and encouraged a “sharpened Student activism must occur through many channelsfocus - weon own administration… [to further the operating movement areourprotestors and organisers but wecohere] are also at theuniversities, University.” meaning Gibson emphasised power within power canthe be principled found through of theprocess SGM across the years “the highest decision of making formal and events.

Toasgrasp the importance our mechanism available to students, showing real collective climate SGM, we must understand from where contemporary power and having the benefit of… binding the SRC.” student unionism andpractical activism emerged in Australia.

The parallels with climate strike SGM are clear; both The anti-Vietnam War student protests and the Freedom Rides for Indigenous rights of the late 1960s spearheaded the left radicalisation of university campuses across the country, and proved the potential for students to lead significant political campaigns against the government and in support of radical socio-political causes.

are a fightback against political leaders pursuing specific agendas that would have extreme material effects on the lives of students into the future, and a university latent and uninterested in supporting radical protest action.

The Coalition continues to push their ‘gas-led recovery’, a collection of commercially unviable projects to expand gas exploration in the Hunter, North-West NSW and Queensland. These projects will desecrate the unceded lands of First Nations peoples, including that of the Gamilaraay Next Generation activists in the Pilliga, and,firstifSGM allowed to was continue, emit greenhouse The at USyd called in will 1971 in response to the gases equivalent to national 30 newrugby coal-fired stations.

Australian tour by the team ofpower then-apartheid South Africa, the Springboks (from which Black South African The University of Sydneyexcluded). remains complicit in environmental players were explicitly The tour was heavily degradation, continuing capital investments in coal protested acrosswith Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne and an unambitious —and led gas-fired largely by power, university activists.

Ahead of theSustainability Queensland Strategy failing totour, prioritise a just and Joh immediate leg of the Springboks conservative Premier Bjelketransitionannounced to public arenewable power off campus.

Petersen month-long stateonofandemergency in response to the fervour of anti-apartheid student organising.

Gibson sees the Enviro SGM as a singular opportunity to large-scale from class [on 21 May]…

A“organise 3000-strong SGM atwalkouts the University of Queensland (UQ) pointing us in right direction of mass disruptive voted to strike for the the duration of the Queensland tour and collective action” be takensit-in to force our leaders UQ activists stagedthat a must 4500-strong in their Union to listen.In“Student shouldn’tmany be a spectator sport,” building.

Victoria,activism 5000 protestors, students among he reflected, going ofto Melbourne win we need them, gathered“ifonwethearestreets to everyone’s march on brain turned on, everyone thinking about the best the game’s venue at Olympic Park. Then-USyd SRCstrategy Vicegoing forward taking responsibility ourthat future.”

President Bernardand Coles wrote in Honi in for 1971 “we should show our strongest political opposition to countries We should see political the SGMsystem as symbolic zeitgeistand of whose corrupt injects ofa the perverted studentform climate activism. has their provided an opportunity blatant of racism evenIt into sporting activities.” for us to come together and acknowledge that we are fastSGM running out of time make a tangible difference The condemned the toSpringboks and advocated forfor a our future. student quorum that was met in April student strikeThe and227 ongoing protests at USyd in opposition to offers one smallthey insight into the energy climate the racist regime represented.

It was asurrounding great success, with activism on campus, and ofit Australia is with hope that we march the Springboks chased out by student activists, towards May 21st to achieve climate not to return until afterand thebeyond end of apartheid in the early justice.

1990s.

To sit and let this groundswell die off would be not just disappointing, butthe irresponsible.

One struggle, oneplayed fight.

Student unions on campus level (like the SRC) a crucial role in cohering and supporting these political campaigns, and many others, throughout the latter half of the 20th century to now. This meant, of course, that they drew the ire of the governments they criticised and held to account, triggering an ongoing legislative campaign of austerity to repress student activism on Australian campuses.

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Taxonomy

By Ellie Stephenson The names of local flora are long-term tenants in my mind — They signed their lease when I was four or so, on the shoulders Of my uncle, with my hair tangling in the understory.

Banksia integrifolia, coastal banksia, roots embedded in the South Coast sand.

Smooth, leathery leaves like sun-tanned skin, but green.

Stoic, salt-tolerant, laconic shrubbery.

Banksia serrata, old man banksia, his weathered face staring out to sea.

A prickly old man, gruff and bearded, keeping an eye on the big ships.

Old man stares into the fire, dozes, wakes up.

Banksia spinulosa, birthday candles, lighting up the bush and Punctuating my childhood. Spindly leaves and the bright columnal Flowers, golden, glowing pillars.

Gymea lilies shake their spears at the eucalypts, Sprout their shaggy ruby flowers, like auburn bed hair, Long strappy leaves reach and flop, the limbs of lanky kids.

Flannel flowers, soft and comforting like the White, flannelette bed sheets of the cot. Gentle starlight Of the heath, silvery foliage twinkling.

Isopogons sound dinosaurian and are. Primeval spiny leaves, Alien flowers, reptilian cones with their woody scales.

Lurk, low to the ground, friends to the leaf litter.

There is a softness

By Sophia Chakma Hill

There is a softness in the way the way you tell them to care about the environment, its enough to be Indigenous your soft words hide the sharp edges your love for my mother brought you back to me asking for my words, my blood as my mothers was too red and sliked through your fingers In a way I respect you the way you weave your soft words into a beautiful Indigenous that anyone can wear do you think that just because they can put it on they will protect us? that they can wear it and the pain beneath our skin will disappear for the pain they caused we will gift them our identity, so when their blades cut into our stomachs, they can look soft too you asked me to write you a letter so you could use it and take it as your own to show a history of what was to prove that you have changed perhaps I will tell you a secret my blood is sharp and as it drips through your fingers you will bleed as mine does if I gave my blood to the coloniser they could drink it down and become more thirsty you with your burkley education and your masculinity, you may be closer to them than my mother every could be but you are Indigenous. Don’t give that away to anyone. It won’t protect you or her, or us.

The trees are red: angophora with its strawberry blonde trunk, and Illawarra flame tree making lipstick polka dots in the bush, Masses of tiny buds, all furiously blushing.

The smell of home is rotting leaves and salted air.

Honeyed wattle pollen making me sneeze. Bracken brushing my knees With their unfurling green tendrils.

The sound — a precocious four-year-old, reciting botanical names, Terribly pleased with herself.

The crunch of walking boots responds To her babbling monologue.

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Art by Oli Mcauslan

Slamming the Brakes on History: How We Can Stop the Climate Crisis.

Cooper Forsyth explores how we can do our part in stopping the climate crisis In the midst of an unprecedented ecological crisis, Australia is feeling the heat.

The Great Barrier Reef has been destroyed and with the expected 1.5 degree increase in global temperature it will not be the only victim. Frequent extreme weather, deadly heat waves, mass biodiversity loss, and extinction are on the horizon and it will only get worse.

By the end of the century, we will see a further increase between 3.5 to 5 degrees, an increase that will facilitate mass carnage.

To rub salt in the wound, this will skyrocket the already present inequality, economic crisis, racism, and austerity — a deadly combination which will spiral us even further towards complete social, economic, and ecological collapse.

The perpetrators? A tiny number of giant companies: 71% of global emissions since 1988 have been caused by just 100 companies.

Criminals who have trillions of dollars worth of investment sunk in fossil fuels. Without interference, these companies will continue down this path of destruction.

The recent election of Joe Biden as the President of the United States brings hope for genuine action. With a pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by half in less than a decade, it’s understandable. However, this isn’t enough. We not only need to zero out all emissions by the middle of the century, we need to withdraw them from the atmosphere altogether. Biden’s plan would still see the U.S. remain the second biggest emitter in the world by the end of the decade.

Even with this glimmer of hope, there is a strong reason to be sceptical whether the targets will even be achieved.The plan itself relies on the use of ‘carbon capture technology’ which does not actually exist, and is yet another non-binding pledge. As the New York Times put it “If such non-binding pledges were a reliable currency, U.S. CO2 emissions would have peaked in the late 1990s.”With rising emissions and a heavy reliance on gas, Biden’s approach fails to match the scale and urgency required.

In comparison, Morrison can’t even pretend to be anywhere near reducing emissions.

Following last year’s slump, his key economic policy brings support for a whole new series of catastrophic gas projects.

Photo by Aman Kapoor

Morrison’s reliance on fossil fuels as a solution to the real issues of joblessness, skyrocketing electricity prices, and economic uncertainty in the form of the Liberals so-called ‘Gasled recovery’ will not deliver. The lack of competitiveness of Australian gas both locally and in international markets means that unless the climate movement poses its own solutions to these issues we will once again play into Morrisons hands.

The vast majority of emissions ever released have been since the first international climate summit in 1991. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, emissions have increased under a carbon tax. Other mechanisms such as the EU emissions trading scheme also failed to have any meaningful impact on emissions, and in some EU countries emissions also went up due to manipulation of the ‘carbon credits’ system.

Market mechanisms like these have been implemented and embraced across the world as the solution to the climate crisis yet they categorically fail to dent global emissions.

Through higher fuel prices, electricity bills and a race to the bottom in wages and conditions for workers, they make the world’s poor pay for the ecological destruction of the rich.

Despite this, governments globally have sought to embrace these policies.

A recent study of the 2019 election produced by the Australian National University found that while 80% of voters thought more action was required to tackle climate change, voters were more concerned with issues of economic security. The Liberals won ‘the climate election’ by relentlessly posing climate action as a threat to jobs — and the climate movement had no serious response.

Genuine climate action would require a rapid rollout of renewable energy, public transport and more — something that only the government could do. A transition to renewables directly built and run by the government would generate hundreds of thousands of good paying, secure jobs.

This is why we must insist that the climate movement must put public renewables and climate jobs front and centre. We need to mobilise the power to force genuine change, and we need to do this through the workers who have the power to bring this fossil fuel addicted system to a halt.

We saw a small glimpse of this when Wharfies at Port Botany walked off the job to join the 2019 September 20 climate strike. To see this kind of action on a wide enough scale to even begin to force change, we will need to show workers across the country that climate action means addressing the unemployment crisis, lowering electricity prices, and a more secure future economically.

So what can we do as students? We can shut down our university with a mass strike, showing in practice that mass strikes are possible, and that we can achieve them with demands that put workers first. This could provide the inspiration needed to spark strikes by workers, and build real strength on our side.

This begins with mass organising in the here and now; Activists brought nearly 300 people to the recent Student General Meeting - by meeting students, doing announcements in our lectures, convincing every student to become an activist for the campaign.

We need this again on a much larger scale for the climate strike on the 21st of May. A serious strike of university students behind the banner of public renewables and climate jobs could pierce through the divisions between environmentalists and workers that the Liberals have exploited, and promote a credible alternative to this escalating catastrophe.

But ultimately, strikes alone will not be enough to force the most powerful corporations in the world to simply abandon trillions of dollars of investment. The existing system subordinates our very existence on this planet to their profits — and the whole of industry is tied to this setup by thousands of strings. Mass strikes can pose the question of who makes society run. But to answer it, we need the majority to not just refuse to work, but to choose on what basis they will go back to work — taking production into their own hands to run it themselves on a democratic basis.

Only then can we have a society that puts people, and the planet, first — and bring runaway climate change to a halt.

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The Necessity of AntiCapitalism in the Climate Movement Tiger Perkins on why the climate movement needs anti-capitalism Broadly, capitalism refers to an economic and political system in which industry - the means of production - is controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state, or the people.

What the dictionary doesn’t note, however, is that at the rotten core of capitalism lies exploitation and inequality. Anti-capitalism is essential not just for arresting the destruction of our planet but also in terms of addressing the systemic inequalities and exploitations that plague our society. Anti-capitalism must, therefore, be one of the pillars of the climate movement and anti-capitalist behaviour must form the basis of any approach to climate justice.

The Nature of Capitalism and How it Got Us into this Mess The nature of capitalism is to accumulate capital and generate profit at all costs, even if this has devastating impacts on the environment. First Nations people lived sustainably with the land in Australia for at least 60,000 years before the introduction of capitalism through British invasion. Since then, the natural landscapes and environments of Australia have been degraded to mere ‘inputs’ for production as we see deforestation, mining, fracking and other equally damaging processes take place for the extraction of singular resources. Over the last 20 years in Malaysia and Indonesia, over 3.5 million hectares of forest have been destroyed in the name of palm oil, reducing viable Orangutan habitat by up to 80%. Agriculture and industry are polluting our natural bodies of water with manure, chemicals and pesticides, and more than 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Mining and fossil fuel giants such as Rio Tinto and BP continue to plunder fossil fuels from the ground, desecrating sacred, unceded, Indigenous land, polluting the air and water, acidifying oceans, and producing astronomical carbon emissions. In its search for resources to generate profit, capitalism allows for nature to fall by the wayside.

Capitalism does not think big picture and so despite the general consensus of climate experts who say fossil fuels will eventually drive the planet, and thereby humanity, to extinction, we quite unbelievably continue to allow for them to be used. Scott Morrison refused as recently as April to commit to net zero emissions targets by 2050 when the experts say we need to do so by 2030. Labor has recently announced that they too will continue to support coal mining in a bid to win over voters in contested seats like the Upper Hunter, further entrenching the contrived wedge between jobs and climate justice.

There is no profit to be made on a dead planet but the nature of capitalism demands competition between companies, and so without massive government subsidies, companies that have the desire to reduce emissions remain massively handicapped.

A freighting company that tried to reduce emissions by running electric vehicles with a high start-up cost, rather than those fuelled by fossil fuels, would quickly go out of business as they would have to compete with the already established fossil fuel powered companies. This market competition means it is supremely difficult to produce quality, sustainable goods without marking up consumer prices drastically, meaning in turn that sustainable living can become a way of life that is out of reach for many of those living paycheck to paycheck.

This kind of sustainability gatekeeping alienates large sections

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of the working class, at a time when we desperately need to unite and strike against the climate criminals at the top of the economic food chain. It also destroys working class solidarity for the climate movement when initiatives such as the 2012 Gillard government’s carbon tax, which was also supported

by The Greens and much of the climate movement, result in ordinary people bearing the brunt of the cost of increasing electricity prices, etc. In an indictment on reformism and corporate greenwashing, Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut admitted: “Every dollar of revenue from carbon pricing is collected from people, in the end mostly households, ordinary Australians. Most of the costs will eventually be passed on to ordinary Australians.” This allowed Tony Abbott and the Liberals to campaign around scrapping the tax, ostensibly defending workers’ rights in the process. Workers’ rights need to be at the centre of the climate movement both because we need their power and because an anti-capitalist revolution is about recentering the working class, not the 1%, as the basis of society.

Capitalism is not Equipped to Deal with the Scale and the Immediacy of the Issue Restructuring society and dismantling the fossil fuel industry means massive economic losses for fossil fuel companies who have vast sunk costs in their industries. It means that gas and coal plants, that were invested in on the basis that they would remain profitable and that otherwise would in fact remain profitable for decades to come, are retired, thus becoming stranded assets.

It means massive investment in long-term, renewable energy options, likely with no profits for many decades — a notion antithetical to capitalism. It means nationalising things like our electricity system and placing the quilt of privatisation that it has become back into public hands. We cannot rely on private investors who are motivated by profit and restricted in their ability to engage in sustainable practices by market competition.

Besides, it is only if these new renewable energy power stations are publicly owned that we can ensure a just transition for the workers impacted by the dismantling of the fossil fuel system, guaranteeing them the new, green jobs.

Moreover, the fossil fuel industry has proven over the last few centuries that it does not care even one iota for the environment, in fact it continues to actively accelerate its destruction. It has been almost 200 years since 1856, when American scientist Eunice Foote discovered that carbon dioxide can absorb warmth and suggested the environmental implications of this. For almost 200 years the government has done nothing with this climate science and the fossil fuel industry has grown exponentially — listed among the world’s ten biggest companies in 2018 according to Fortune magazine were 5 oil companies and a power company. Between 1998 and 2015, just 100 companies were responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions, these being companies that either traded in fossil fuels or that were indelibly tied to them through their reliance on their power. In Australia, we are still hugely reliant on fossil fuels - coal providing 60% of our power and gas a further 20%.

Scott Morrison’s Covid-19 economic recovery plan is known as the ‘gas-fired recovery plan.’ Recently greenlighting $56 billion of new gas pipelines in the Narrabri, ‘ScoMo’ has proven once again his apathy for all things environmental and for what the people demand. Covid has provided us with a golden

opportunity to redesign the economy around renewables after it briefly grinded to a halt, but his solution was instead to further invest in that which threatens our very existence.

If we want real climate justice in the immediate future we need to organise the power of the working class around these climate injustices. This power comes from the fact that it is the working class, not the capitalists, that keep the economy running. Despite low union density at the moment, organised sections of the working class have shown that they can exercise real power. Recent May Day demonstrations continued the proud history of Green Bans in NSW that started with the Builders Labourers Federation in the 1970s.

The ‘Save Willow Grove’ campaign saw strong student contingents alongside CFMEU walk offs and other trade union contingents. Taking a stand against the destruction of heritage buildings and green areas, Green Bans show the power that the organised working class has to strike against government and industry dictates. Governments and their capitalist cronies may not care about the environment, but they sure as anything care about profits. It is only through continued mass demonstrations and worker strikes that threaten to cripple production and economic function, that change will be realised. The workers, united, will never be defeated.

models such as cost/price integration and equipment service-leasing — both of which are fascinating steps in a positive direction. The issue however is not with the ‘green’ of ‘green capitalism,’ but with the ‘capitalism.’ Green capitalism does seek, albeit without real conviction and far too slowly, to account for the environmental issues caused by capitalism, but it ignores every other social issue that is rooted in capitalism. The evils of capitalism do not start, and nor do they end, with the environment and so a progression of capitalism that only counters environmental issues will not combat things like wealth inequality, exploitation of workers, racism, imperialism, sexism, etc.

An Oxfam Australia report in 2014 detailed how the richest 1% of Australians own the equivalent wealth of the poorest 60%, with economic inequality only skyrocketing further during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post reported that Jeff Bezos made $70 billion dollars over the last year, taking his estimated net worth to $186 billion and that Elon Musk grew his wealth by a mind boggling 500%, vaulting him to second among the world’s richest. Such brutal inequality cannot be justified in the name of an innovation incentive, free-market rational decision making, “hard work” or any other procapitalist nonsense. The nature of capitalism means that all the profits go straight to the bosses, either to be pocketed or reinvested in the business — workers never see the profits of their labour. Green capitalism is not pro-worker, it is, as its name suggests, geared in favour of the capitalists and so while some environmental damage may be mitigated it provides a solution - not even a good one — to just one of the problems caused by capitalism.

The Covid-19 crisis has provided us with many irrefutable examples of the deadly nature of capitalism and the necessity of anti-capitalism. Covid is currently raging through India with up to 400,000 new cases every day and yet the West continues to gatekeep vaccines in the name of intellectual property and patent law. Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel wrote: “The covid catastrophe that’s engulfing India and other Global South countries could have been significantly mitigated had the US, UK and Europe not repeatedly refused to suspend vaccine-related patents. People are being sacrificed on the altar of intellectual property.” Other tweets described the situation as a “vaccine apartheid” and one user tweeted: “The idea that a working vaccine is anyone’s exclusive intellectual property is so utterly anti-life in the name of capitalism.”

Art by Isla Mowbray The Mirage of Green Capitalism Recently, a trend of companies that actively support renewable energies and net zero policies has emerged and inspired hope in green capitalism — a progression of capitalism that aims to solve the climate crisis largely without disrupting existing political and economic systems. One such company is Atlassian, an Australian software company that committed to running on 100% renewable energy by 2025 and instead reached this goal last year, 5 years ahead of schedule. They’ve also committed to moving themselves, as well as companies they work with. towards net zero emissions. Other companies engage in greener business

Nor does green capitalism provide any solution to the massive exploitation of workers that would hypothetically worsen if businesses made workers bear the cost of the more expensive ‘green’ technologies in an effort to mitigate higher production costs. The defining feature of capitalism is the ‘profit motive’ and so of course businesses aim to maximise profit through a multitude of anti-worker strategies. Capitalists minimise production costs by cutting wages or allowing them to stagnate behind inflation. They move labour offshore where less well-regulated countries of the Global South allow for easier exploitation of workers and cheaper labour. They attempt to boost the productivity of labour by intensifying work, lengthening the work day etc.

Capitalism is therefore antithetical to a pro-worker state and so whilst green capitalism may attempt (an unfortunately accurate word) to minimise environmental damages, it will never account for the inequality, exploitation and host of other evils engendered by any and every form of capitalism.

For our climate and for our people, for our survival and for our liberation, capitalism must be dismantled.

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by Isabella D’Silva

Taking in a deep breath, I see loss in my Motherland, the gut feeling of helplessness for my people and family engulfs me, as a corrupt government eats away at the people like a deep growing darkness.

Air once flowed in all our bodies, it danced through us like it does with the leaves now people cry out for a sliver of oxygen as they draw their last breath they are fighting for a bed to see the glow of a new day, those in poverty sit in the streets, have nowhere to go, their jobs are gone.

Hunger takes them before sickness does.

Prisoned in their homes. In the country.

My soul weeps for those who left us too soon, For family who could not see each other in final moments, and for those who had no one to hold as they took in that final breath.

We must not sit and hope for recovery. We must stand against the racist criminal treatment to those returning home here. We must, stand in solidarity with India.

Some reliable community-based organisations you can donate to (it is not reliable to donate directly to Indian charities due to corruption): Check out southasiantoday.com.au and search ‘Help India: Verified Donation Campaigns’ for a whole list of resources to directly donate to, some include: Help Sex Workers on G.B. Road in Delhi - Donations go to rations, hygiene kits, medication and fuel for cooking.

Sex workers in India are heavily marginalised and neglected by healthcare.

Help Needy Rural Trans Folks in Tamil Nadu - Donations go to emergency rent, medical and food support Nazareth Foundation’s Food Aid Project - Donations go to supporting Adivasi (Indigenous) peoples and migrant workers across India

Resources from @_makeearthgreatagain on Instagram: Hemkunt Foundation - Oxygen Delivery #O2ForYou in Delhi/Gurgaon, due to government regulations you can only donate through an Indian citizen (send money to your family who can directly donate), Instagram: @hemhunt_foundation HelpNow - Providing Ambulance Services, a service started by students to provide free ambulance service for those in poverty, Instagram: @helpnow24x7 Khaana Chahiye - Tackling Lockdown Hunger in Mumbai, Instagram: @khaanachahiye

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Childhood

by Benson Lilo Oto Stories of my Dad’s childhood with Papa.

They would take their va’a at night and fish, At the village beach with coral reefs nearby, At night fish were slower, easier to catch The night-winds were lukewarm like the water, Fish were always plentiful, Papa would surface with many for dinner.

Years go by and Dad eventually moved To Aotearoa and to so-called Australia.

To the time he told me about these stories To when we both return to the Motherland.

We went to the same village beach like stories told, We dove into cool water, Dad mentioned a difference, Around the corals we searched for the same storied fish We searched and searched…

The wind picks up, reminds me of my second home – cold We ended up eating something else that night.

All those stories of his childhood, Warm water, plenty of fish, was it all true?

If I pass down these stories and tell my own, Return with my children … what will they think?

Art by Isabella D’Silva

Deep Breath In

When the Dust Settles - Regional Perspectives On Our Climate Future Bart Shteinman on the future of the climate in relation to fossil fuels

There’s a narrative by this stage familiar to anyone who has followed the climate wars. The media rolls footage of the dusty mining regions of Australia its hard-scrabble men and women, usually to camouflage visiting politicians in a hi-vis cosplay of populist virtue. Counterposed to them are the ‘woke capital-city greenies’, fighting tooth and nail to destroy regional mining communities, blinded by their privileges. Recently, this dichotomy has been challenged through the mainstream promotion and appeal of ‘Green New Deal’ policies that seek to unite environmentalism and working-class politics once again. Though, in the Australian context, policymakers are seeking to transition back towards fossil fuels, not away from them. Recently the Hunter Valley has increased its coal production by 25% in 10 years while Australia has quintupled its liquified natural gas exports.

We know well enough the impact on the planet of all this.

However, in my own trips to the Hunter Valley and Narrabri Shire, what struck me most was how such an expansion of extraction is directly impacting the very communities held up as the defenders of fossil fuels. It’s not hard to find people who want a different future for their regions.

Dr Merran Auland and her partner Phil Kennedy are farmers in the strikingly beautiful Bylong Valley. They have been fighting the Korea Electric Power Corporation’s plans for an open cut and underground thermal coal mine for three years, but they note those who have been fighting it for a decade.

KEPCO has suffered far greater resistance than most mining projects, being knocked back at the Gateway Certificate Process, the Independent Planning Commission, and the Land & Environment Court. More than anything it has been the land itself that has protected Bylong. “It’s valleys like this that feed people in the city” says Merran “this valley is in the top 3% of agricultural land in NSW, why would we ever let a mine happen here?”.

Yet without a single tonne of coal dug it is striking the social impact Kepco has already had. Family farms have had their names torn off and replaced with signs listing BV01, BV02.

“They bought about 30,000 acres of property” says a crossarmed Phil “virtually emptied the valleys, there’s half a dozen landholders left and they’re the only thing standing in their way”.

Phil bemoans how Australians have “sat on our arse and let somebody manage it and rape and pillage us to our eyeballs, and all we get is a job. Whoop-de-bloody-do!”. Merran talks about how she dreams of bringing the community back to Bylong, with new farming families “to see this valley come back to what it was 10, 15 years ago”. But so long as KEPCO carries on its legal campaign, so too will the shadow that prevents a new harvest growing in the valley.

Three hundred kilometres north of Bylong is the Narrabri shire. Sally Hunter is a farmer in the area with her husband Geoff and three sons. Coal isn’t what terrifies Sally. She hails originally from Roma in South West Queensland, a region where coal seam gas mining (CSG) has expanded without restraint. “It takes no prisoners, it just moves across the land

no matter what’s in its path”.

Sally is particularly concerned with what will happen to the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), through which the Narrabri Gas Project (NGP) will drill. The GAB is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, its bores being the sole source of water for 22% of Australia. Drilling will draw 4 megalitres of water a day from the basin as well as reducing the pressure needed for water to rise in bores across the region. Secondly, drilling brings chemicals and toxic salts from deep in the earth upwards, and risks contaminating the GAB. The threat to the GAB is not just a scientific problem for Sally, but an emotional one. “It’s quite hard to explain the disempowerment if you don’t have access to that water and you start to see your bores going dry. It’s not a good feeling”.

She isn’t alone. 98% of submissions to the IPC hearings were in opposition to the project, including two thirds of locals. Yet the NGP was approved by the IPC in 2020 and is a key component of the Federal Government’s plans for a ‘Gas-Fired Recovery’. “You just sort of wonder is this really a democracy?” Geoff laments “when that incredible level of opposition was shown and then given complete disregard”.

Little about the NGP surprises Tameeka Tighe, a Gomeroi woman and local activist against the NGP. She had a telling answer for how it felt when the project was approved. “It’s the life of a Black person in this country that your voice is never heard” Tameeka said “that’s nothing new, our country has been destroyed for 250 years, its only now that it’s affecting white people that it’s an ‘issue’” Yet the impact of the NGP and the climate crisis is a trauma like little else on Tameeka and her mob. “As a Gomeroi person and a Gomeroi woman, the destruction of my country is heart-breaking because it’s literally who we are. So as the country is destroyed, as the animals are destroyed, our spirituality, our livelihood, our laws and our practices are being destroyed with it”.

‘Green jobs’ in renewable energy and new industries are no doubt key to winning a coalition for climate action. Yet in our focus on the future, we cannot ignore the ruination of our regions unfolding in the present. New regional industries in renewables and sustainable agriculture are threatened if we despoil our land for fossil fuels, and pollute the water and air where future workforces are expected to live. Worst of all, we will continue to destroy the greatest heritage the land holds, that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders cultural and spiritual heritage. It’s not about pleasing the ‘climate concerned’ in the cities. It’s not even strictly about climate change. It’s about protecting the existing wealth and health of regional Australia.

That means keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

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In recent years, the conversation around waste-free fashion consumption has pivoted around the second hand market. Platforms like Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube have remarketed charity shops like Vinnies, Red Cross and Goodwill as trendy for a younger market, fueled by ‘thrift-hauls’ and ‘come thrift with me’ videos. In 2019, around 40% of Gen Z-ers were buying secondhand, compared to less than 30% in 2016 (according to a report by resale service ThredUp). In the next ten years, the secondhand industry is predicted to almost double, according to the same ThredUp report.

It comes at a time when fast fashion companies are scrambling to respond to greater environmental concerns around consumption behaviours in younger buyers; Mckinsey’s “The State of Fashion 2019” report states “Nine in ten Generation Z consumers believe companies have a responsibility to address environmental and social issues.” But the rise of ‘thrifting’ is not the solution to our fast fashion problem. In fact, the second-hand trend often falsely reframes mass-consumption of resale items as a sustainable, guilt-free fantasy separate from the fast fashion world.

The fast fashion industry is wellknown as a nefarious pollutant. In the production stages, the textile industry is responsible for 10 percent of annual global carbon emissions, producing more than the airline and maritime industries combined. It also uses 93 billion cubic meters of water – enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people.

On the consumption end, mounds of clothing at landfill stations create a grim backdrop to catwalks and brightly-lit H&M and Zara signs, where greenwashing abounds in the form of ‘waste free’ tote bags, and garments made of so-called ‘organic cotton’. In Australia, people dump 15 tonnes of clothing and fabric waste every 10 minutes, according to Clean Up.

12 Art by Ellie Stephenson

Australians also buy an average of 27kg of textiles each year (including leather and homewares) and then discard 23kg into landfill, despite the fact they are mostly non-biodegradable.

T-shirts are priced upwards of $40— though even charity stores have upped their prices in response to the influx of potential customers.

It’s not surprising then that thrifting’s ‘circular’ consumption model has been lauded.

The same goes for online stores like Depop, where thrift store items are often resold for far higher prices, and new fast fashion is rebranded and upsold as ‘90s’ or ‘y2k’ vintage stock. (Exacerbated by the fact that brands like Brandy Melville emulate the ‘y2k’ style with their new fast fashion products).

This generates an elitist culture of shaming those who cannot afford to shop secondhand. The bottom line is that sustainability with a price tag is no longer sustainable.

Yet second-hand fashion is not totally separate from fast fashion. Today, secondhand store owners must work harder to retrieve items appropriate to resell in second hand stores due to the poor quality of donated fast fashion items. Australian Red Cross Head of Retail Richard Wood says the rise of fast fashion has led to a recent rise in donations, but a drop in quality. Only about 10 – 15% of donated items get sold in the stores, the rest transferred to landfill or exported to low-income countries, where their low prices undercut new clothes produced locally in those countries.

For some Australian Lifeline stores, ‘A-grade’ section items, or the best quality, dropped to 20% of all donations in 2020, from 50% years ago, according to a paid clothing sorter. In 2018, the Salvation Army charity op shop spent $6 million dollars in landfill fees for rubbish dumped on its site. Moreover, many clothing swaps ban fast fashion for this reason, only contributing to the problem.

Thrifting also “feeds off the instability and unsustainability of the fast-fashion industry,” according to Anna Fitzpatrick, a Ph.D. student and project coordinator at the London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion. “Without that, there wouldn’t be such a massive second-hand market,” she says; second-hand fashion, like any business, still operates within a capitalist economy. This is supported by the fact that many resale stores, particularly on Depop, encourage the on-selling of unwanted brand- new fast fashion items, thus fuelling the careless mass-consumption that drives the fast fashion industry.

In addition, the so-called sustainability of second-hand clothing excludes many. The gentrification of thrift-stores and Depop has made fast fashion the main affordable clothing source for many less socioeconomically privileged individuals. This is evidenced by escalating prices, with the “resale market” becoming a $20 billion dollar industry in its own right. Walking down King Street in Newtown, it’s almost impossible to not pass a resale store. The majority are boutique— curated collections where old

In such a fashion market, does a sustainable and affordable model of fashion consumption exist?

‘Sustainably made’ clothing is nearly impossible to produce, particularly at an accessible price for the average consumer.

More than 60% of fabrics are now synthetic blends, meaning they are non-biodegradable and harder to recycle, since different fibres need to be sorted through by hand, and their dyes must also be stripped. Resultantly, less than 1% of materials used to make clothing are currently recycled to make new clothing. Pioneering textiles company Bold Thread’s Microsilk™ is one sustainable yet unaffordable material option; an artificiallyproduced, biodegradable spider silk.

One Microsilk neck tie costs $314 AUD. Perhaps a shift in mindset is needed to break the cycle of obsolescence in fashion. According to Fashion Revolution’s coordinator, Melinda Tually: “Older generations grew up considering what value is – which is longevity and high-quality materials and something you could keep season after season,” she says. “Now for millennials growing up, cheap fashion to them is the definition of value. If you can get a T-shirt for under $10, that’s value.”

With the resale market set to outpace the fast fashion industry by 2024, it is time we considered whether our thrifting consumption habits are really just a redirection of the mass-consumerism instilled in us by fast fashion. The next time we donate our clothes to a charity store, we should consider if we are just offloading our rubbish for someone else to deal with, and whether that shirt or pair of jeans is going to end up in landfill in a few months’ time.

The End Times My fellow contributors to the Embers publication have rightfully articulated the inadequacies of post-Cold-War capitalism in the fight to mitigate climate change. I understand the fear of moving away from what has largely been a stable economic ideology, however, we are now confronted by a terror that is so completely outside of the collective knowledge. Without quantitative change to the four major contributing factors of; population growth, consumption of resources, carbon emissions and the mass extinction of species, we will reach the point of the end times. And as Holmes Rolston aptly points out to us: “a general pattern of behaviour among threatened human societies is, to become more blinkered rather than more focused on the crisis, and fail”.

We are bombarded with information about this looming and irreversible catastrophe and yet we do nothing the time to act is quickly running out.

Capitalism is still moving in completely the wrong direction, as big businesses seize on new opportunities for economic growth, not seeming to comprehend that a world ‘post climate change’ will not exist. This includes things such as using the ‘opportunity’ of the melting ice caps in the Arctic

will stano discusses our ecological crisis

to reduce fuel consumption, creating a new northern route. This is capitalism at its core, using every change in the world to create economic growth without a care for the consequences.

This inequality is no more evident than in Adani hiding the oil spill of 2017, amassing 4.7 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, which not only broke Queensland government pollution laws but also devastated

Art by Talia Meli

the world heritage site of the Great Barrier Reef. Adani shows the true nature of capitalism: it seizes on opportunities, not only contributing to climate change but planning to profit from it. Naomi Klein explains in The

Shock Doctrine that these forthcoming ecological crises, far from undermine capitalism, but further its cause.

Profit is being weighed against human life, and human life is coming out the loser. The end times are finally here.

Climate change isn’t like anything we have seen before, it is a disaster that is born from the unintended consequences of human action. This threat encompasses all of humanity; it is against our very existence and yet most of us are still more interested in the latest graphic tee from General Pants. The most significant issue in my eyes is the shrug of normalisation, like in 2008 when a CNN reporter explained the new economic opportunity brought about by the “greening of Greenland”, what an absurd reaction to a very serious ecological disaster. To pretend that this minor benefit of a major catastrophe is somehow a win for humanity because we can plant more vegetables is ridiculous but plainly shows the problem of normalisation. We are constantly surrounded by the effects of global warming and the fact that we look for opportunity in calamity, isn’t indicative of human resourcefulness, but rather, the power of ideology.

Wandiyali Environa Wildlife Sanctuary: The Resilience of Restoration Efforts Noah Hallander reflects on his environmental exploration I alongside several of my classmates

recently had the privilege of visiting the Wandiyali Environa Wildlife Sanctuary in Queanbeyan, on the doorstep of Canberra. Our expedition to this privately owned, 400 hectare sanctuary provided our company with unexpected insights into the process of land restoration, and demonstrated how the efforts of just a single family, has made incredible progress in healing the deep scars of colonialism on a natural ecosystem.

Upon arriving at the sanctuary, our band of nine was soon herded to the crest of a hill, where we had a spectacular view of the surrounding lands, including an ephemeral wetland that had been created following the heavy rains earlier this year. At this point, we fragmented into smaller clusters, and soon were all immersed in deep conversation with different

members of the proprietary family, myself included. It was at this moment that I was acutely made aware of the indigenous legacy of the land.

“Right over there is a ring tree.

That’s when the First Nations peoples would bind young saplings, and let them fuse together over time. We really don’t know why this particular ring tree was created, but it still survives after 400 years.”

inspired them. And yet, the tragedy did not seem to cause either of us pain. Because, we could see, for the first time in 200 years, this area of land once again provided habitats for Bettongs, and havens for wallabies. Great logs, and branches had been hauled in from highway developments, providing new homes for these once-prolific marsupials. The by-products of colonial expansion had been re-purposed to slowly heal this fractured ecosystem. And it was These words, whilst uttered this resilient spirit of restoration casually, drove home the tragic loss that gave me hope that we still of heritage, which had remained have a chance to heal this world. unbroken for 60,000 years. Our guide, David, continued on about the loss of native culture, and destruction of vegetation, that had transpired during the colonisation of the area. First Nations stories were lost alongside the undergrowth that housed Bettongs. Age-old legends disappeared with the creatures that Art by Ellie Stephenson 13

Art by Oli Mcauslan

DISCUSSES THE LEGISLATIVE PERILS OF CLIMATE JUSTICE This May is a big month for the climate movement. Not only will thousands of students go on strike on the 21st demanding climate action, May Day also saw an historic action in support of the ‘green ban’ on the Willow Grove site in Parramatta. But where should the climate movement go after May? How are we going to win our radical demands for climate justice and a just transition for workers?

As international concern for climate change continues to increase and the scales of the market tip further towards renewable energy, it’s clear that the question is not if we shift to renewable energy, but when, how fast, and in whose interests this shift will be. Coal and gas are dying industries, and renewable energy will soon replace it, but preventing a climate crisis won’t simply involve moving to renewable energy; it demands the fundamental restructuring of our economic, political, and social systems that currently abuse our environment as a source of profit.

Renewable energy will mean little if our forests and wildlife disappear in the process, or if we continue to ignore the land rights of Indigenous peoples, on whose land this infrastructure will be built. Uncontrolled climate change will also wreak untold havoc on our environment and workers alike: cleaners, teachers, builders, nurses, firefighters and other workers will all be forced onto the frontlines of a growing environmental crisis, with their wages and conditions cut to pay for the damage while the rich shelter in climate controlled homes and offices. That is why we call for climate justice, not simply climate action, and why the ruling class has worked for decades to try and cleave the climate and worker’s movements apart. Without the united strength and revolutionary vision of organised, radical, democratic workers’ unions, simply shifting to renewable energy will not create a sustainable future for anyone.

How do we, as workers, students, and communities, make sure that these imminent changes to the energy system are in our interests, and not just the interests of bosses and businesses? For decades people have placed their hope in a legislative path to climate justice

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by voting for or lobbying sympathetic MPs, but this strategy fails to see that the interests of those in parliament are inherently different to those of the working class. The parliamentary system exists specifically to suppress and mediate conflict between workers and capitalists to the benefit of the capitalist class. Both Labor and Liberal are bound to the interests of the fossil fuel bosses and the capitalist class as a whole, not only as most are of this class themselves, but because capitalists use their wealth and influence within and without the parties to prevent changes against their interests. This is why even the Labor party’s policy platform includes only meagre references to renewables, and backed the subsidisation and expansion of the dying coal industry beyond 2050.

Many activists believe that fighting in parliament is simply the most ‘realistic’ way to achieve political power, yet it is entirely unrealistic to hope that either of the major political parties will suddenly abandon their long-held commitment to neoliberalism and work against the rich and powerful people that allow them to stay in power. Even social democratic forces like the Greens, who certainly offer a supportable alternative, must be supported critically.

The class character of the Greens is indeed quite different to Labor or the Liberals, but simply supporting their parliamentary push will eventually reach a dead end. To achieve change through purely legislative means would mean that the Greens would need to form an opportunistic alliance with Labor (and thereby sacrifice their principles and credibility as a party of resistance) or they would need to capitulate to the interests of the capitalist class, who already work to suppress even the most meagre of their reforms.

Fundamentally though, legislative strategies fail because the parliament does not respond to the threat of votes, it responds to the threat of revolt: protest in the street and strikes in our workplaces.

This is why we need direct action to realise our goal of climate justice, by demanding, striking, and organising ourselves, rather than waiting for the

go-ahead from parliament or our union bureaucrats. This principle of direct action is a response and an alternative to the inherent inadequacies of parliamentary change. It is based on the idea that the kinds of political action you dedicate your time to inherently shape the outcomes of this political action; in other words, the means that we use to achieve change determine the end result of this change.

This is why our strategic choices must also consider the kinds of transformations that we wish to create in ourselves as revolutionaries. When we adopt strategies and tactics that reflect the goals of our revolutionary vision, we undergo a fundamental transformation: we take power from capital, and from the state, and can affect significant change in society beyond just the demand for better conditions. The act of organising together to directly challenge oppression and exploitation teaches us crucial lessons that no electoral campaign ever could.

This is why direct action is a particularly important principle to bring to the climate movement. We cannot afford to sit and wait while the ruling class flip to a renewable energy system at the last minute, pillaging the land, closing down fossil fuel energy production without a just transition for workers, and creating a renewable energy system that will merely give more power and influence to the rich.

The strike is the ultimate form of direct action and the most powerful tool of the working class, and it is the only tool that will successfully win and defend the goals of the climate justice movement.

The May 21 Climate Strike is a start, but now is the time to begin organising ourselves as workers and not just students, individuals, or party members, so that we can begin agitating for a general strike for climate in the May Days to come.

There is much work to be done to organise and strengthen our capacity to act together as workers, to bring us to a position where we might go on strike for climate justice. We cannot be distracted by politicians who would seek to dictate our own interests to us, we must begin immediately the hard work of organising and agitating amongst our fellow workers!

Keep cups, carbon offsets and emissions trading schemes, they all sound great but do they actually do anything to further climate justice? The short answer is no. Yet, as a society we seem all too keen to embrace the ideas of green capitalism without any suspicion or critique. We often blindly believe that the system that profits off our demise and has found a way to commodify everything will carry us in its arms and save us from the burning wreckage that our Earth is becoming. While there are many actors to blame for our blind faith and obedience in gimmicks and green surcharges, from NGOs, to advertising firms, it is up to the environmental movement to define itself and its politics.

Too often the general public have become beholden to the ideas of sustainability and green consumerism presented in the mainstream media and politics. It is only within the past five years that we have seen a genuine challenge to these ideas and the ‘mainstream’ promotion of systemic alternatives that could lay the basis for changes that will divert humanity’s course away from catastrophe. While the some of the policies presented within the ‘Green New Deal’ policy platform, championed in the US by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, are contestable, the idea of reframing climate action away from shutting the doors of industries that employ working class people is fairly new to mainstream discourses.

Working Class Solidarity Fighting for a just transition away from the fossil fuel industry should not be taken for granted, but much rather should be a demand of the environmental movement that is constantly reiterated and championed. Too often, we have seen the movement allow for the discourse of jobs vs. climate, that you cannot possibly support working people and the planet. Dangerous rhetoric around the immediate abolition of the fossil fuel industry, stokes the fears of years past whereby middle-class, liberal environmentalists pit themselves against the working class and unionised. Glimpses of this past hit the spotlight during the 2019 Federal Election Campaign, whereby Bob Brown and his ‘Stop Adani Convoy’ did nothing but alienate the working class mining communities of Queensland and consolidate public support for the LNP. Given the tumultuous relationship between mainstream environmentalism and the working class, it is pivotal that those who do engage in modern climate politics do so in solidarity with workers. Workers have a unique power, they have the ability to withhold their labour through strike action,

which is important in driving disruptive activism that will force governments and corporations to adopt our demands. It is up to us as environmentalists to form strong relationships with the unions and working class communities. It is a non-negotiable that we have to demand a just transition away from fossil fuels that can accommodate the livelihoods of those working in industries attached to fossil fuels. It is no longer good enough to be able to mobilise the Inner West of Sydney; in order to build a movement that can sustain itself, we must form connections across Sydney, building bridges with communities that are often neglected by mainstream politics. Our key alliances can’t be with politicians but with organised communities that represent the makeup of Greater Sydney. When we move away from this, the movement can be easily divided.

First Nations Justice Our alliances must also extend to First Nations People. Globally, BIPOC are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and pollution.

It is often in communities of colour that heavily polluting infrastructure is erected and operated, it is Pacific Islanders that will be the first to bear the brunt of rising sea levels and catastrophic weather events, and in the Australian context, it is First Nations Peoples that have had their traditional lands pillaged and degraded. It is imperative that environmentalists recognise the injustices inherent to the current colonialist system and work with First Nations Peoples to achieve Indigenous sovereignty and autonomy. Indigenous Australians have lived in harmony with this land for 10,000s of years, attaining knowledge that is pivotal to maintaining the Australian environment, and thus as environmental activists we have much to learn. This is why we must always fight for Indigenous Justice within our movement, platform First Nations Peoples and listen.

Corporations and NGOs While we must champion our alliances with the working class and First Nations Peoples, we must also end some of the relationships of convenience that have formed over the duration of the movement thus far.

The first place to look is corporations and NGOs. For corporations and NGOs politics are negotiable and morals are nonexistent. Greenwashing won’t solve climate change and neither will ‘corporate social responsibility’ (if such a thing actually exists). Our first point of reference should be the fact that since 1988 the top 100 global polluters have accounted for 71% of carbon emissions. Corporations, specifically those attached to heavy-polluting industries have done nothing more than individualise

what is a systematic crisis. It was British Petroleum that popularised the concept of the carbon footprint, it was the NGO Keep America Beautiful, funded by beverage and packaging conglomerates (i.e. the likes of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola), that launched the award-winning advertising campaign with the slogan “People start pollution.

People can stop it.” Entwined within this notion of the corporate enemy we must include the supposed ‘climate saviours’, the billionaire CEOs with good PR teams. They have neither the incentives or skill sets to actually solve change, and have often funded and patented alternative solutions that they can then implement to further their net wealth. Bill Gates has long advocated for a simple solution, controlling ‘overpopulation’ (which neglects the fact that the rich pollute significantly more than the poor), while Elon Musk has openly supported a coup against the democratically elected Bolivian government.

For as long as there has been significant evidence to suggest that climate change was a man made issue caused by the burning of fossil fuels, corporations have been passing the buck on to individuals, often given cover by environmental NGOs. NGOs have often been quick to endorse unfounded gimmicks and propaganda and even big polluters.

Conservation groups specifically have had a troublingly close relationship with the fossil fuel industry in the past, with some accepting millions in donations from big polluters (The Nature Conservancy group even took it upon themselves to undertake gas extraction and exploration). Many have advocated for the “easy” solutions to climate change, fighting for ‘clean fossil fuels’ and ‘market-based’ solutions. NGOs have also involved themselves in extremely problematic carbon offset schemes, choosing to give cover to polluting corporations through the schemes themselves, but also engaging in practices like the forced displacement of local Indigenous peoples in order to protect newly classified ‘carbon sinks’ from human activity.

As environmentalism and climate action reach mainstream politics once again it is pivotal that not only we keep in mind our allies and stay true to our politics, but also identify the enemy. We must point out at every turn that corporations and NGOs will not deliver us from climate catastrophe, but strong unified partnerships with the working class and First Nations Peoples will. Recognising this and then developing these relationships is the key next step for mainstream environmentalism, which will allow for the development and implementation of Climate Justice and a better future.

15

The Ripple Not Broken

Beautiful sweeping undulations, Crisp deep green ridges corrupted as bubbles catch up to the flow of the boat.

Leaves litter the water and a stick floats rigidly past.

Ripples pushed in bunches from under the bow forming a soft arrowhead in our wake.

Gables tucked in behind like the confident curl of the hair behind an ear.

The boat starts to rise and fall stuttering irregularly over the growing swells.

Whose white rooves guard the subdued plane in the middle where a ferry ambles smoothly past.

Finding pleasure in the liminal waiting spaces of nature,

By Tiger Perkins

Wrapped up in a jacket on a boat, Walking back from work through a breeze, Sitting on the ground at a bus stop on a cold morning, Searching for the sky through the crowd of passing faces.

I’m Leaving

By Ellie Stephenson

This artwork represents the space birth of Venus and takes inspiration from Rina Sawayama’s song ‘Fuck This World’.

The title ‘I’m Leaving’ aludes to the lyrics of the song.

16

For

the past month I have Reflections spent most of my time building for from the Student General Meeting, and for the next week I shall spend most of my time building for the Eastern climate strike. But why?

Avenue: The odds may seem, at times, stacked against us, with the capitalist destruction of this entire planet looming larger each day. I’m How the sure many of us feel disheartened hearing about Scomo’s government forcing through appalling plans to expand Australia’s gas industry. The Propaganda only way to confront these climate crimes is by building a mass movement of the working class, and for us that starts here on campus. The SGM and the War large-scale building efforts are simply the first steps in creating the opposition necessary to bring about a much needed green revolution. was won As we would all know by now the SGM was an incredible success, largely thanks to the relentless efforts of our members on campus over the past Angus Dermody reflects on month. We stalled and postered every single day, and waged a strong why we are building for the May propaganda war against the university in the final days before the meeting.

We also called every single name that signed the petition 21 climate strike for the SGM, and although not everybody that confirmed over the phone ended up attending, it was still important to create a solid base of support. The sheer scale of building required proved draining for many of us, but it The was all worth it when it was announced that vote ended up passing we had made the quorum of 200 unanimously with 227 students voting people. in favour (with supporters in the room taking us to over 250). At the time the SGM was meant to start, I was worried that we weren’t going to pull this off. We started with what seemed to be less than 50 people, and I was still yelling on the megaphone desperately trying to get more people to join us. When the march began, I still wasn’t confident, but all that changed when I looked back and saw over 100 people behind me. At that moment, I knew that the building had been worth it. As I’ve been reflecting over the past week or so, one question has stuck in my mind: what if it didn’t work? Would the building have been worth it?

I’ve reached the conclusion that yes, it still would have been worth it. Building isn’t just about getting numbers to one event, it’s about politicising society (or in this case the campus) and laying the foundations for a mass movement. On that last day before the SGM, you couldn’t walk ten metres without seeing a poster for the meeting, or an announcement scribbled in huge chalk writing.

The We won the propaganda war. The university couldn’t keep struggle obviously up with how fast we were spreading the word. That, for doesn’t stop with the SGM. It also me personally, is the real win; that we started with won’t stop with the climate strike on May a few of us on sparse stalls, and ended with 21. It’s time to use the collective power that we a movement that had more willpower have built to generate even more collective power; than the university had to exponentially grow this movement. I believe that onresources. campus building will be the most important part. We will be in every lecture, poster every surface, chalk every flower pot.

We will be out there every day until May 21 and every day after, until our movement becomes strong enough to overthrow this capitalist system.

Art by Ellie Stephenson

It may seem foolish to think that we can change the course of history with a stack of leaflets, some posters, and a handful of chalk, however, I strongly believe that this is where real change starts. So I’d encourage you all to give it a shot, to take some power back in a very real way, and to make a change. It was the Lorax who put it best when he said “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s 17 not.”