All articles
-
How tiny plastic people protested around the world
The news of LEGO’s cosy relationship with Shell has led to tiny protests erupting around the country – nay, the world. Famous national and international landmarks have been festooned with banners as the streets resounded the stamp of little plastic feet. In Sydney, a protest took place in front of the iconic Sydney Harbour…
-
It’s time for LEGO to block Shell
Imagine you’re eight years old and picture the Arctic. There are no oil rigs, no industrial shipping and no politicians fighting over it. It’s just an endless sparkling expanse of sea and ice, populated by brave scientific explorers, magical animals and Indigenous Peoples who have called the far north home for millennia. An enchanted place…
-
An Inconvenient Strewth? 4 things you should know about the Palmer-Gore climate speech
Watching last night’s press conference with Clive Palmer and Al Gore on climate change was one of the more bizarre moments I’ve witnessed in Australian politics. Image: twitter.com/SBSNews We won’t know exactly what Clive’s announcements mean for a little while yet. Based on past experience, what he said last night might not be his view tomorrow –…
-
Dawn of the Dead: Whitehaven Coal, the zombie mining company
Whitehaven Coal Company is kinda like a zombie extra from Dawn of the Dead. Every time we think it’s finally gone, it staggers to its feet – minus an arm – and comes lurching back into frame. On the 12th of June, when the Land & Environment Court was just about to hand down its decision on whether…
-
Do energy company executives really hate solar panels this much?
This wasn’t what people on Sydney’s George Street were expecting to see on their morning commute. Three men, dressed as the CEOs of Origin Energy, AGL Energy, and EnergyAustralia, were surrounded by a crowd and TV cameras as they hauled a dozen solar panels into a dumpster while spectators booed them on. Seriously! Activists bring…
-
What these soccer-loving environmental activists created is genius
When soccer fans in the town of Drenovci, Croatia lost access to electricity due to severe flooding, they faced a whole raft of problems. Not least of which was this: how to join the rest of the world in the 2014 World Cup festivities. Thankfully, a group of Greenpeace activists came up a bright solution…
-
Don’t be a fossil fool: join the solar energy revolution!
Low emissions, low water consumption, no waste, 100% renewable and increasingly affordable… Interested? Here’s what you need to know to go solar. In the last decade, solar technology has gone from fringe to mainstream. According to the Clean Energy Council, over two million Australians have switched to solar – and are saving about half…
-
Sydney rallies parliamentarians to save Leard Forest from Whitehaven Coal’s bulldozers
It was an inspiring, empowering example of what our movement stands for. Today, hundreds of Sydney-siders joined a snap rally outside of the offices of NSW Planning Minister Pru Goward and NSW Environment Minister Rob Stokes asking them to immediately halt bulldozers tearing down Leard Forest. We were there to deliver a 30,000-strong emergency petition…
-
Hockey exposes us as fair weather friends
With this Budget, Joe Hockey has signaled to the rest of the planet that Australia expects to free ride on the efforts of others. He has abandoned the core Australian value of being true blue, writes David Ritter. Originally published in The Drum. “Hey True Blue, don’t say you’ve gone…” As Australians, we like to…
-
#AustraliansForCoal is the latest sign of an industry in values freefall
‘The problem for coal is that it is the single greatest driver of climate change’. Originally published in The Guardian Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters During the second world war, my dad performed his war service down the coal mines in the UK. The work cost him his sense of smell, but gave him a profound sense…