MACQUARIE UNI STUDENTS FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE | NEWS
The pandemic has taken up all news for the last 12 months, however we should not forget how the dreadful year that was 2020 started.
A suffocating blanket of smoke enveloped towns, cities, and bushland all across the east coast. Fuelled by devastating bushfires, we all saw the confronting images and videos of people fleeing into the sea as flames hundreds of metres high engulfed the earth around them. Despite years of scientific research pointing to the increasingly dangerous fire conditions, as well as the multiple attempts by firefighting authorities to meet with the government and plan for the summer, Scott Morrison refused to prepare for it. His government (and previous governments) were given all the time in the world, however they deliberately chose to forgo all warnings. Instead, they ramped up subsidies for the fossil fuel industry and continued profiting off of the planet.
The effects of climate change are already upon us and it is the poor and working class of the world that are suffering the most. Yet, our political leaders and media castigated us for daring to point this out, as they conveniently took trips to Hawaii and spoke from their air-conditioned offices. Just months beforehand, Prime Minister Scott Morrision angrily attacked school kids for daring to protest against climate change.
We cannot expect the political establishment to solve the climate crisis.
Both the Labor and Liberal Party are intent on burning fossil fuels well past 2050, and no amount of lobbying and asking nicely will shift their commitment to the coal and gas industry.
We need climate action, and we need it fast.
But as Greta Thunberg has rightly repeated, empty promises and commitments by politicians at climate summit after climate summit are not enough. Clearly, the only people coming to save us from this disaster is us.
From late 2018, the environment movement has taken the world by storm, mobilising millions in massive demonstrations; walking out from classes and jobs to protest inaction on climate change. The school strikes were a great step forward in the environment movement, as it is precisely mass rallies and demonstrations that involve as many people as possible that will push the movement forward and win us victories. It rightfully shifted the blame and responsibility for this crisis on the inaction of governments and corporations, rather than focusing on individual lifestyle and consumption habits.
It also pointed to a strategy for addressing the crisis; the only way we have ever won anything – from civil rights to stopping the Franklin Dam development – has been through mass action in the streets and workplace.
This upcoming Friday May 21st, another Climate Strike has been called by School Strike For Climate; a great step to restart the winning strategy of mass actions, protests and strikes. Macquarie Uni Students For Climate Justice has taken up the call to organise students here at university to get to the demonstration. We encourage all Macquarie students to join the fight to end fossil fuels and for real action on climate change by coming to the demonstration and getting involved in climate activism on campus.
As was shown last year, it was ordinary students and workers that took to the streets multiple times in their tens of thousands as politicians asked us to keep quiet. We will not forget the Black Summer bushfires, and we won’t let those in power forget it either.
Join Macquarie Uni Students For Climate Justice on Friday May 21st here: https://fb.me/e/RTsAAb1w
Follow MQ Uni Students For Climate Justice on FB: https://www.facebook.com/MQus4cj
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