Generation Hero: How Gen Zero are taking on climate change critic.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from critic.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Blood On Our Hands: Local climate activists taking on big corporations
It’s easy to think that the future is already fucked. Activists of New Zealand past have lived and died fighting for nuclear disarmament, environmental protections, and the return of stolen land to tangata whenua, fed up by the unjust world they saw around them. But we still face apocalyptic scenes of an uncertain future today. Young activists today are just as fed up but are keen to make a real difference.
Local groups including Extinction Rebellion, Environmental Justice Ōtepoti, Students for Environmental Action, Generation Zero, and School Strike 4 Climate are organised, focused, and passionate about climate justice. Critic talked to some of those involved over the past year to hear about how they shut down a coal mine in Canterbury, and took on a local fertiliser company linked to armed conflict in the Western Sahara.
University hopes the climate will wait for them to get their shit together
Otago Uni approved a Carbon Zero Programme in 2019, but did not hire a staff member to work on it until last month. The programme was first proposed in 2018.
“The programme business case, including a road map to carbon zero, will be created approved and well underway by the end of 2021,” said Otago’s Sustainability Office Head, Ray O’Brien. He explained that “Covid impacted the recruitment of the Programme Manager.”
“We’re in the middle of a climate crisis, yet Otago is not going to have their climate plan ready until the end of this year, three years on from its proposal,” said surveying student Jett Gannaway from climate organisation Generation Zero. “Covid-19 should not be used as an excuse for inaction. It’s an opportunity for Otago to reset and transition away from carbon intensive practices for good.”