Category: protest

Human rights for the climate ‘apocalypse’

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If you live on the east coast of Australia then you, like me, have probably been choking on smoke haze for weeks now. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling as though this eerie, apocalyptic atmosphere is a grim reminder of the future we’re heading into.

If you’re even less lucky, you might be living in one of the many regional towns across NSW that are rapidly running out of water. In some places, there’s even talk of evacuation. Tuesday was also the hottest day ever recorded in Australia. Ever. And the rest of this week is a heatwave that’s unprecedented for this time of year — with some areas set to hit 50C.

Read the rest over at Eureka Street.

Vegan protesters reject righteous domination

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On Monday, a coordinated series of animal rights protests took place across the country. Vegan protestors occupied abattoirs in Queensland, NSW and Victoria, and blockaded one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections. To say these protests were controversial would be an understatement.

Social media was flooded with angry meat-eaters posting photos of their meat-based meals, which they claimed were inspired by the ‘vegan terrorists’ or ‘vigilante vegans’. The Prime Minister called the protestors ‘unAustralian’, arguing: ‘This is just another form of activism that I think runs against the national interest, and the national interest is [farmers] being able to farm their own land.’

More intriguing, to me, was the reaction of many progressive people, who expressed responses ranging from discomfort to outright rage. The protestors were accused of using coercive tactics to force their personal views on other people, and of choosing tactics that didn’t help their cause because they were either disruptive to traffic, trespassed on private property, or harassed farmers. Others accused vegans more broadly of being racist, classist, ableist and blind to their privilege.

— Read the rest of the article over at Eureka Street —

Children speak truth to climate inaction

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When I was a young child, I had nightmares about Ronald Reagan. I was terrified he was going to start a nuclear war and destroy us all.

People often laugh when I recount this tale. To many it seems funny, almost cute. Others have described my fears as the product of a childish imagination or parental brainwashing. But the fact is that nuclear war was a genuine possibility. The world was not in safe hands.

Although I was lucky enough to have parents who took my agency seriously, the most overwhelming and depressing aspect of that experience was how little my fears counted. As a child, I had no power and very little voice, despite the fact that the adults in charge were risking our very survival.

Fast forward 35 years, and my own children are faced with a similar predicament in relation to climate change, but now there is a crucial difference: it’s not a genuine possibility, it is a reality. We are already changing the climate and creating devastating changes to the planet. The only question that remains is how devastating will these changes become? How many ecosystems will collapse? How many rivers will run dry, species die out, diseases spread, famines ravage, wars rage?

— Read the rest of the article over at Eureka Street —