Thirteen years ago, on this day, August 15, 2010, the “walk against warming” … waned
From 40,000 in 2006 to barely 10,000 in 2010. That’s the number of people who protested yesterday against “the greatest moral challenge since the dawn of time” or something (© KRudd). Maybe it’s because the population is slowly waking up…
and
More than 500 protesters gathered by Lake Burley Griffin and marched to Parliament House yesterday to demonstrate their support for climate change action. Walk against Warming, held simultaneously around the country, was timed to coincide with the lead-up to Saturday’s federal election. Tens of thousands of people took part across Australia, with 10,000 filling the streets of Sydney’s CBD. Protesters also marched in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne and Perth.
Kretowicz, E. 2010. TURNING UP THE HEAT; Climate crusaders walk against warming. Canberra Times, 16 August, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was as per the BZE post a couple of days ago, the air has kind of gone out of the issue. People are confused, frustrated, bored, fed up, disappointed. They feel they were conned by Kevin Rudd, who had been revealed to be just another cowardly scuzzy politician. And what’s the point of going on a march for that especially when there’s an election coming and you don’t know who might win it. People get tired of marching.
What happened next?
Labor’s Julia Gillard, because of the electoral math, was forced to reintroduce an emissions trading scheme. This was a non negotiable with both the Greens but also some of the Independents like Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.