LIGHTHOUSES AND CLIMATE STRIKERS SHINE ON OUR FUTURE

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The Sustainable Hour no. 482?| Podcast notes

Our guests in The Sustainable Hour on 8 November 2023 are Shaun Deverson from Lighthouse Futures and climate school strikers Joey Thompson and Myles Wilkinson.

We also listen to calls from climate hunger striker Gregory Andrews sitting at the Parliament front lawn in Canberra, and American climate scientist Peter Kalmus.

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Shaun Deverson is founder and Principal Consultant of Lighthouse Futures. He helps corporations and organisations with making Ecological, Social and Governance (ESG) aspects of their business to be at the forefront of strategy and tactics, not a backstory.?

Shaun talks about how climate change, artificial intelligence, interconnectedness and social and political upheaval combined could forge a future of constant crisis and disruption. This will affect the way we work, live and travel.?

A world where businesses could be sunk with a simple social media post. Disaffected communities could rise against organisations and governments in hours instead of months. War, pandemics and natural disasters in other parts of the globe could have devastating effects for businesses in Australia.

However this is not only a threat, Shaun explains – it also presents opportunities. Using sensitivity and collaboration win-win outcomes can be enabled and lead us towards a just, smart and ecological transition. Shaun formed Lighthouse Futures to guide businesses through this transition.?

→ More info on their website, www.lighthousefutures.com.au

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Joey Thompson and Myles Wilkinson from School Strike for Climate talk about the “why”, “what” and “how” of the next school strike for climate which will be happening on Friday 17 November 2023.?

If you want to learn more or get actively involved with School Strike for Climate, then check out their national Instagram page – @schoolstrikeforclimate, or their website www.schoolstrike4climate.com

→ To find your nearest strike or register to organise your own, go to ss4c.info/nov17

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British doctor Patrick Hart talks on TalkTV about the health emergency we face, emphasising the need to understand the horrible implications for our wellbeing as we face up to the climate emergency and the amount of support there is for non-violent direct action.

Climate hunger striker Gregory Andrews is now seven days into his strike outside Parliament House in Canberra. He explains why he is doing this as well as his demands.?You can sign his petition here.

We also hear Gregory’s big brother Uncle Johnny Huckle talk about the need to embrace the truth and work together, share this world together and build a fair world.

On the American channel Democracy Now we hear NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus explains about state capture as seen from the American perspective.

We listen to Julia Stone‘s interpretation of Midnight Oil’s ‘Beds Are Burning’.

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Colin Mockett OAM‘s Global Outlook for this week begins in Europe where storm Ciaran swept in causing widespread flooding in parts of the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France then picked up speed to cause rivers to burst their banks in Italy. The deaths have yet to be finalised but it’s at least 14 in France. Hundreds of people have been evacuated in Italy and damage was estimated in hundreds of millions of Euros. Scientists all agreed that man-made climate change from burning fossil fuels was behind the unusual build-up of storm conditions in the Atlantic.

Elsewhere in Europe, at the Vatican, Pope Francis announced that he plans to attend the COP28 Climate Talks due to start 28 November 2023 in Dubai. He told Italian Television that he intends to spend three days at the summit, presumably lobbying. Now 86, the Pontiff now spends much of his time lobbying on behalf of climate change, and he said that the COP28 talks could signify a change of direction, if participants could be persuaded to make binding agreements.

Next to the United States where president Joe Biden faces a dilemma after a new analysis has found that liquefied-natural-gas exports may be worse for the environment than burning coal. This is likely to impact the Biden Administration’s climate decisions, according to Bill McKibben writing in the New Yorker. Bill said the President now faces one of his most difficult climate choices: whether his Administration should continue to allow the expansion of liquefied natural gas exports, which his Inflation Reduction Act has seen as a bridging fuel between burning coal and clean energy generation. “The stakes,” McKibben wrote “are enormous.”

Now to Paris where a new IEA report forecast that demand for climate-warming fossil fuels is likely to peak before 2030, signalling an accelerating global shift to clean energy. But the transition still needs to accelerate to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the temperature that scientists say will avoid the worst impacts of climate change.?

The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it’s unstoppable. It’s not a question of ‘if’, it’s just a matter of ‘how soon’ – and the sooner the better for all of us,” said Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, in a statement. The agency represents countries that make up more than 80% of global energy consumption.

The annual IEA report estimates that in 2030 there will be 10 times as many electric vehicles on the road worldwide and 50 per cent of the cars sold in the United States will be electric. The agency says solar panels installed across the globe will generate more electricity at the end of the decade than the U.S. power system produces now. And the report projects that renewable energy will supply 50 per cent of the world’s electricity needs, up from about 30 per cent now.

Back home here in Australia, Treasurer Jin Chalmers, in a speech to the 2023 Economic and Social Outlook Conference acknowledged that Labor’s policies would see Australia fail its climate policy promises, but forecast a change of direction in six months. He said that “without more decisive action … the energy transition could fall short of what the country needs. He cast doubt on Australia’s pledge of an 82% renewable target by 2030, arguing it’s likely to be closer to just 60% and he unveiled plans to provide the Productivity Commission with its first-ever “Statement of Expectations” that will make the energy transition central to its agenda. He said the statement would make clear that guiding our country towards a successful net-zero transformation will be one of the key focus areas for a revamped and renewed Productivity Commission.?

Chalmers added that “the availability of public and private capital is a really important issue, but it’s not the only one. That means incentives like the type we’ve seen in the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States can be part of an answer, but they’re not the whole answer.”?

The?Treasurer’s office certainly has not yet been given the news about LNG’s rejection as a transition fuel. You can bet there are many discussions about this in Canberra right now.

And finally our carbon-neutral sporting club, Forest Green Rovers, in the United Kingdom, which played Scarborough Athletic in the FA Cup last weekend, and drew 1-1 There will now be a replay, which I’ll watch out for you – because that’s our Global Roundup for the week.

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We hope that you have all gained something from our 482nd episode.?

How impressive were our teen activists Joey and Myles. Any politician who takes them lightly will be making a huge mistake. They are seriously concerned about the world in which they will live, work and perhaps raise families. Yes, they have a full understanding of what’s at stake and are not prepared to accept anything but full attention being paid to protect that very future.

Shaun is motivated by similar concerns and has created a business to help protect that same future by helping current businesses reduce their emissions and commit to a circular economy. We’ll be back next week with more active hope beacons.

“What we face is systematic lying from the fossil fuel industry, from the polluters, from the billionaire oil barons, and from our politicians who are paid by them. We’ve had decades of lie after lie after lie, and it is a tactic to confuse people like you and me – to confuse the voting public – so we don’t know what to believe anymore.” ~ Dr Patrick Hart, on TalkTV in United Kingdom

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