WHY YOU SHOULD COME TO THE GLOBAL CLIMATE STRIKE ON MAY 21

Australia is already experiencing the devastating effects of the climate crisis.

The past decade has seen mass suffering caused by droughts, heatwaves, bushfires, cyclones, and floods. The 2019-2020 bushfires killed 34 people in Australia and destroyed more than 3,500 homes. Less than 18 months later, unprecedented rainfall in New South Wales caused flooding so severe that more than 18,000 people needed evacuation, and many thousands of homes were damaged. These ‘natural’ disasters are not natural. They are becoming increasingly frequent and increasingly severe, as a result of climate change. The climate crisis is not a future concern; it is well underway.

Our leaders are fuelling this crisis.

In the face of the loss of lives and livelihoods caused by these disasters, the Australian government continues to champion fossil fuels without mercy. In 2017, Scott Morrison brought a lump of coal into parliament. The associated catch-phrase “don’t be scared” showed just how uninterested he was in taking the issue of climate justice seriously. The Liberal Party’s recently announced gas-led recovery plan makes clear that nothing has changed since then - they will stop at nothing to make profits for the fossil fuel industry; our futures are a trivial expense. But we can’t look to the Labor Party as a solution. They are similarly in the pockets of mining corporations, recently announcing they are committed to mining and exporting coal well after 2050.

Asking our leaders nicely for climate action will never work. We need to fight for it.

COVID-19 paused the climate action movement, but it did not pause the climate crisis.

On the 20th of September, 2019, the global climate strike saw an estimated 300,000 people – 150,000 in Melbourne alone – take to the streets to demand climate action. Through striking, students, workers and the climate movement gained a sense of three things: the dire situation of the climate, the brutal priorities of our elected ‘leaders’, and, importantly, our own power. This mobilisation had the potential to spark a disruption to the system of unignorable magnitude – until the COVID-19 pandemic enforced a year-long pause.

The lockdowns of 2020 were a period of collective simmering as we sat through the hottest year on record, and watched the government continue to pour gasoline on a burning world. 2021 is the year we reignite the fight back, with more strength than ever.

La Trobe University is in bed with climate criminals.

La Trobe presents itself as a progressive, ‘green’ university. It claims it has committed to divesting from fossil fuels. It also claims it will have net-zero carbon emissions by 2029.

Despite this, La Trobe’s Bundoora campus is host to a Rio Tinto research facility. Rio Tinto is one of the largest mining companies in the world, whose claims to fame include the habitual poisoning of waterways and agricultural lands and the merciless destruction of culturally significant sites, including the 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site, Juukan Gorge.

It is critical that we stand against our university’s complicity in Rio Tinto’s social and environmental crimes. All La Trobe students should attend the climate strike and demand that our Vice-Chancellor John Dewar cuts ties with climate criminals.

The fight for climate justice is the fight for refugee justice.

The fight for climate justice goes beyond the environment. Australia has one of the most brutal border systems in the world. Over a thousand innocent refugees are held in detention centres around the country and offshore on Manus Island and Nauru. In Melbourne, more than 30 refugees are imprisoned in the Park Hotel, only a few hundred metres from where the climate strike contingent is meeting at the State Library. Detention is indefinite - some refugees have been held for nearly nine years.

The climate crisis is predicted to create hundreds of millions of refugees in the coming decades. It is terrifying to think about what our government will do to people who reach Australia. To fight for climate justice, we need to fight to free every refugee and dismantle the government’s system of torture.

The next Global Climate Strike is happening this Friday, the 21st of May. Meet the La Trobe Uni Students for Climate Justice Contingent at the State Library at 12pm to fight for our future. 

MELB: Contingent to School Strike for Climate

Bronwyn Murphy is a socialist and member of La Trobe Students for Climate Justice.