We started our first session in October with reports from people who had attended 'School Strike 4 Climate' rallies in Shepparton and Wangaratta. The general feeling was that the rallies were worth attending.
We then spent some time discussing the "Greta Thunberg phenomenon" and watched a video of her address to the UN summit on climate change - which our Prime Minister did not attend!
We also watched the recent Foreign Correspondent program about three young women leaders of climate action in Germany, USA and Australia. These young women, teenagers or early 20's, were most impressive with what they had done to organise large climate movements in their home countries.
One of the articles discussed was by Tim Flannery, Climate Councillor and well known climate activist, who said that climate deniers are a threat to our children, and that the lack of climate action by our government leads him to believe that his 20 years of climate activism has been a colossal failure.
In the week leading up to our second session in October there had been lots of climate protests by the Extinction Rebellion groups causing quite a lot of disruption to people in our capital cities. There was much discussion about how annoying these protest were and if they would achieve their goal of more action on climate change.
This lead to discussion about how civil disobedience, or non-violent resistance, had resulted in significant achievements in the past such as the civil rights movement in the USA and Gandhi in India, and even our own 'anti-Vietnam War' marches.
One of the articles we read summed up the situation as follows. "Whatever your views on civil disobedience, the climate emergency would be far less serious if governments had taken action decades ago. Further inaction will only lead to more numerous and active social movements, driven by the same mixture of love and rage that provoked Extinction'.
John Lloyd
We then spent some time discussing the "Greta Thunberg phenomenon" and watched a video of her address to the UN summit on climate change - which our Prime Minister did not attend!
We also watched the recent Foreign Correspondent program about three young women leaders of climate action in Germany, USA and Australia. These young women, teenagers or early 20's, were most impressive with what they had done to organise large climate movements in their home countries.
One of the articles discussed was by Tim Flannery, Climate Councillor and well known climate activist, who said that climate deniers are a threat to our children, and that the lack of climate action by our government leads him to believe that his 20 years of climate activism has been a colossal failure.
In the week leading up to our second session in October there had been lots of climate protests by the Extinction Rebellion groups causing quite a lot of disruption to people in our capital cities. There was much discussion about how annoying these protest were and if they would achieve their goal of more action on climate change.
This lead to discussion about how civil disobedience, or non-violent resistance, had resulted in significant achievements in the past such as the civil rights movement in the USA and Gandhi in India, and even our own 'anti-Vietnam War' marches.
One of the articles we read summed up the situation as follows. "Whatever your views on civil disobedience, the climate emergency would be far less serious if governments had taken action decades ago. Further inaction will only lead to more numerous and active social movements, driven by the same mixture of love and rage that provoked Extinction'.
John Lloyd
