2020-05-04
Reflections of a climate activist: into hiatus but with optimism about converting action on a pandemic into effective action on climate change
By Les Harrison, founder of Extinction Rebellion WA's Grandparent Affinity Group
On 20th March 2020, with fellow grandparent climate activists, I helped to pack up our camp where over the previous two weeks we had held a vigil, 24 hours, seven days per week, opposite the West Australian Parliament. It now seems months away when I reluctantly realised we could not continue with the vigil. The dark clouds of Coronavirus were developing above us. Our voices soon would be lost in the impending storm. Our inadequate attempts at physical distancing and hand sanitisation were insufficient; we grandparents, the most vulnerable, would be putting ourselves, our families, and the public at risk.
We had been protesting for the future of our children’s children, and their children, who in the not so distant future will, according to IPCC scientific opinion, be facing “untold suffering” should urgent action on climate emergency be delayed. I was tired and disheartened as I packed the tents into my trailer. We had gained no commitments from the government. It seemed determined to support, in any way it could, the Western Australian gas extraction industries which account for our nation’s rising carbon emissions. Proposed new developments would produce carbon emissions four times that of the Adani coalmine. Discouraged, my black dog and I announced to my fellow activists that I needed a two-week break, after which I would be back full of renewed energy.
The two weeks are up and it is now time for me to refocus. But what can I do? As a 73-year-old I am doing as I am told – self-isolate and don’t leave home. Even if I were to escape my confinement, public gatherings and thus protests are prohibited in numbers greater than two. During these past two weeks climate change has gone into recess within the public consciousness, and I am powerless to do anything about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining – for the sake of those affected by the virus, the health emergency and its economic fallout need all the focus we can muster right now. Nevertheless, would it not be reassuring for those so recently traumatised by unprecedented bushfires, to hear the Prime Minister acknowledge that we are facing not two emergencies, but three:
- health;
- economic; and
- climate.
Indeed, I will settle, with one caveat, for priority to be assigned in the above order – even though I believe that the third one, climate, will be the most devastating. The caveat is that once the health crisis is passed, climate action must be integral to any economic recovery or reform.
Devastating as COVID-19 is, the time immediately following its passing will be the most favorable we will have had for achieving action on climate. I have no doubt it will be a time of searching for something positive, something to be salvaged from all the devastation. Is it not in our nature to hope that suffering we endure is not all for nothing? Will we not want to make our world a better and safer place than it was before the disaster?
It is a sad irony that the very cause of the first two emergencies has provided a platform upon which far reaching, effective action can be taken to resolve the third. Not only has there been major reductions in carbon emissions, but also the emergency has provided a context for the wider public to demand change. If only this could have been achieved without all the suffering this deadly virus has and will continue to perpetrate.
We, the people, cannot allow “business as usual” to continue once the health disaster has resolved. Do we want aircraft to take to the sky in the same numbers to re-pollute the atmosphere? Do we want fossil fuel industries to continue their climate warming pollution? Do we want government to protect us from future pandemics and climate disaster?
Polls tell us that over 80 percent of our population want the Government to take greater action on climate change. But what must be maintained at all costs is the Government’s apparent discarding of its neoliberal underpinnings, and its placing of the people’s safety and wellbeing above that of the economy. COVID-19 has forced this change. Who, just a few weeks ago, would have thought the Attorney General, Christian Porter, and the ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, could work harmoniously on the welfare of both business and workers? Gone must be the dogfights in which the interests of the ordinary person, and those of the disadvantaged are secondary to profits. If this change is maintained, action on climate will follow as a matter of course. We will witness developments such as the following:
- The Government no longer insisting that the welfare of the people is reliant on economic growth (read: ‘wealth of the big end of town will “trickle down” to the less privileged’).
- The Government and the Unions working cooperatively to tap into the vast potential for jobs within fossil free industries.
- The Government embracing expert scientific advice on climate with the same humility it has with medical advice.
- Woodside's delay of the Burrup Hub LNG developments becoming permanent, preventing billions of tonnes of greenhouse pollution.
- Adani no longer supported.
- The Great Barrier Reef given some hope of survival.
- Mega bushfires and extreme weather events stop becoming more frequent. (Last year seems such a long time ago! For those of us less affected by bushfires and floods, Let us not Forget.)
- XR Grandparents we will be able to sleep better at night, knowing that our grandchildren can hope to live in a world that approximates the one we have been so privileged to enjoy.
The benefits are almost endless – too many to list in a short opinion piece such as this. But there is no room for complacency. We have ended up in the mess we are now in because we let our democracy degrade. We allowed capitalism to set our Government’s agenda. It was us who let the will of the people become secondary to the greed of big business. It is us who watched over the demise of the free press, a cornerstone of democracy.
After all the pain of COVID-19 and the resulting economic disintegration, there will remain a real and tangible opportunity for change. My mood has lifted after my two-week break. I am again optimistic but it is a bittersweet optimism. A rogue microscopic organism has achieved more for the climate than we activists ever dared to dream of, but it has been at the cost of dreadful suffering that can never be sanctioned. There is no joy in this for me. Is there such a condition as a sad optimism? Maybe a more uplifting optimism will follow when I see progress which will contribute to the future happiness of my grandchildren and future generations.
Optimism, yes, but there are still many battles to be fought. We have to regain the power of the ballot box. We have to take the money out of politics. We have to take control of what is promoted as truth – demand a free and fearless media. We have to take up these challenges, and more, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. These are all battles that we should have fought and won decades ago.
There is so much to do, but for me it no longer seems so unattainable if we build upon what we can salvage from the health and economic crises. And we have to remember there will be no second chances with climate. We all have to embrace and succour the change that has been forced upon us. ‘We are all in this together’ has become a cliché, but for once it is not a platitude served up by the Government to jolly the public along.
The war analogy championed by the Government is apt. We can win the war against climate change. We grandparents are desperate to keep the battle raging, but we need the broader community and particularly young adults to enlist for the future of humanity. Let’s start planning now for our post coronavirus future! We have witnessed how quickly society and government can change to fight catastrophic threats. Let’s make it happen again!
Header photo: The author, along with GI Co-editor Rob Delves, being arrested at a sit-down demo on climate change in Perth on 11th October, 2019.
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]