BUSHFIRES 2019/2020

Podcast:Andy Britt.    Interviews and production :Vivien Langford

Elise Papineau - Anthropologist and XR Brisbane

Jamie Hanson - Campaign Manager-Greenpeace Asia pacific

Mark Ogge - The Australia Institute. author of  National Climate Disaster Fund

Music - Rachel Collis "Wired and Awake" and Kavisha Mazzella -Italian songs

NSW Parliament Item:

Simon Clough- Lock the gate alliance

Aaron and Fiona - Bushfire victims 2019

David Shoebridge - NSW MP and climate activist

2020 was the year we should have seen emission plummet. Instead the New Year bushfires from Qld all the way down the great dividing range and also in S.A have changed everything. A mortal blow for some families,for wildlife and livestock, for whole forests and many species.... In sorrow we will not forget you.

The villains in the media and government have tried to deflect attention from the coal,oil and gas industries who have dried out the country and changed the weather patterns. The headline was "The blame game begins" but the question was not asked who is still profitting as koalas burn to death or die of dehydration caused by the climate emergency.

We talk to Anthropologist Elise Papineau about the toxic behaviours that keep business as usual in place. Then we talk about who funds the recovery. Jamie Hanson says the Governments $2 billion recovery fund is a drop in the ocean and that citizens must NOT pay while profitable fossil fuel companies escape without paying tax. He sees much of the media as divisive when really we know what to do.

Mark Ogge wants to shift the burden from citizens to global companies. With a $1 per tonne levy on coal and gas profits he wants A National Climate Disaster Fund to help as we face increasingly intense climate disasters. The real cost per tonne is more like $400.-

We hear also from the November fire victims,Aaron and Fiona who had lost their home a few nights before, as they dumped a symbolic can of ashes in front of NSW Parliament house. 

Simon Clough spoke to the crowd who had come from far away to beg the government not to amend the law so that judges would not be required to consider climate change impacts in their decisions to apaprove new coal or gas projects. The outrage was palpable and the amendment has still not passed. We are proud of two legal decisions to stop a coal mine at Rocky Hill and Bylong Valley so public pressure on NSW MPs is recommended.

David Shoebridge explains why the amendment is popular.  He was outside the Downing Centre court. He thinks  bringing in the riot squad was excessive as children protested the PMs holiday in Hawii as Australia burned. He talks about protecting the right to protest and the dangers of police over reach.