On this day, September 2nd 2002, Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett gave a lecture at ANU, pointing to “community action” as the only real hope….
“In a time of change so fundamental that even the notion of humanity was not immune, being passive was to accept impending doom, Midnight Oil lead singer and environmental activist Peter Garrett said. Speaking at the Australian National University’s public lecture series yesterday, the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation decried the country’s environmental record, yet pointed to community action as the only real hope.”
Centenera, J. 2002. Garrett urges community to take action. Canberra Times, 3 September, p. 5.
On this day the PPM was 370.93 ppm Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Community action was never going to be enough. And it is so hard to sustain…
What happened next?
Australians got agitated about climate change in large numbers a few years later (2006), but the politicians fucked it up (if your perspective is that they are there to serve current and future generations. If you think they are there to protect the rich and powerful in the short term, then….).
Julia Gillard did the best she could, got some legislation passed – inadequate, but passed. In an act of cosmic vandalism, the next Prime Minister, a deeply inadequate figure called Tony Abbott, repealed it.
Another wave of community action happened. And the atmospheric concentrations kept rising…
See also this about Midnight Oil’s 1990 gig outside Exxon HQ…