Election 2020: Time to change focus.
This Tuesday, 13th October will be the 100th day of constant vigils at the base of the Richard Seddon statue. Since Ollie began, 17 months ago, there have been strikers at parliament for one day in every two. That’s hundreds, perhaps thousands of conversations with the public about climate change, covering every opinion and point of view you can imagine.
The E Tu vigil will have its last day on Friday the 16th, the day before the election.
Of course, that is not the end of our little team. The weekly (12:30 to 13:30) gathering will continue and we’ll have some conversations about the next steps to take.
With that in mind, here are some to check out and get involved in:
Stop the Minerals Forum (13-14 October)
People are gathering in Hamilton this Monday to participate in this action. They plan to disrupt the Minerals Conference.
This is a coalition of climate justice and environmental groups around the Aotearoa dedicated to disrupting the conference.
“The main sponsor of this conference is Bathurst Resources, which is in the process of applying for consent to vastly increase a coal mine in Canterbury, despite having already breached a number of consents for its current mine. Fonterra and the dairy industry will be burning this coal, while they continue to claim their industry is sustainable, largely ignoring the obvious renewable alternatives. It’s time to stop digging up fossil fuels and make the switch,”
Tim Jones, Coal Action Network Aotearoa
https://www.facebook.com/StopTheMineralsForum
Here’s the petition.
Ocean Biodiversity: #TellOnTalleys
Talley’s deepwater fishing division bottom trawls the ocean, a practive that destroys thousands of tonnes of coral every year. These take centuries to grow and are vital habitats for marine life.
You can sign the petition here
https://act.greenpeace.org/page/41359/petition/1
And ask around on Friday for the fliers. Activists have been helpfully adding this information to Talleys products.
Other ideas:
Between the Flags
Ice is melting faster than expect in Greenland and Antarctica. It’s pretty surreal to think that a fair amount of sea level rise is already locked in and that decisions made today can affect the timeframes and extent of that rise.
If there’s one thing weirder than the fact that this is happening, its that we’re not talking about it.
So lets try and share this surreal moment with the city. Between The Flags is the staging of Existential Life Guards, turning affected foot crossings into beaches.
Come to Parliament on Fridays or keep in touch with us to hear more about this action.
Dirty Laundry
People might imagine we’re making decent progress on climate change. We’re planting all those trees, we have a Zero Carbon Act and there was that Exploration Ban. But what if there’s some dirty laundry we haven’t seen?
Dirty Laundry exposes those stories using familiar items, letting people know that there are stains that can’t be removed with GreenWashing.
- Polluting industries have us locked in fossil fuels in complex ways:
- Legislation also forces the Minister for Energy to promote petroleum products.
- It also prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from treating them as polluters.
- Last year, our government opened massive areas inTaranaki up for exploration
Come and see us at parliament on Fridays to talk about the things you’d like to do about climate change,
See you there.