Long Night: a Response to a Climate Emergency

L O N

G

A

T O

NI G HT.

R ES P O N S E

A CL I

MA

TE E ME

R G E N C Y

I acknowledge that this body of work was created on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.

I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging as the traditional Custodians and Knowledge Holders for this land.

Sovereignty was never ceded.

INTRO The environmental crisis we have found ourselves in as a result of hyperindustrialisation and profit-driven late-stage capitalism gives us a lot to worry about.

As adults, we understand that there are actions we can take that are in line with environmental consciousness and responsibility. We appreciate our liberty to vote for a political party whose policies reflect our values. We have a degree of clarity about the matter in that we see the faults of those who have continually prioritised profit over the wellbeing of our planet and driven us deeper into the anthroposcene.

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Children must be having quite a different experience indeed. They’re unable to vote, and many of them have probably operated under the taught doctrine that adults know best, and that their authority should be trusted. These are the people they come to when they’re lost.

It would be harder for a child to understand how anybody could see it fit to push the earth’s resources toward its limit. They would not yet understand capital as the driving factor and holiest asset under our societal system.

When we advocate for climate action we exhibit empathy for those growing into a climate emergency. Seeing school children at rallies and older school children organising rallies is an inspiring show of solidarity. This in itself is hopeful - the way forward nationally is unanimous solidarity against an irresponsible government.

CONTENTS

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N O W. An outline of the scientific evidence we have for man-made destruction of our Earth.

(IPCC report, COP26 & Australia, and Australia’s top 3 political parties’ climate policies.)

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FLOOD.

An account of the La Niña over Sydney in early March with a photoseries. A note on the Lismore floods and empathetic journalism.

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S T R I KE .

An account of the student-organised climate strike on the 25th of March 2022.

The contexts and demands of this strike, and a photoseries.

ONE:

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N O W.

N O W. The research I did for this publication gave me a lot of eco-anxiety. I had known the situation was bad. I suppose I had not sat down and learnt about how bad it was for hours at a time before. There are some pretty grim statistics coming up.

IPCC Stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It’s the most authoritative international body on climate science. By 2022 they have released six assessment reports on climate change. The report is released in three parts, Working Groups (WG) one to three.

WG I:

Reports on the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts & projections for the future.

WG II:

Reports on the damage climate change has already caused.

WG III:

Offers methods for reducing emissions or removing them from the atmosphere.

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So far, we have warmed the earth to 1.1 degree s celsius since the industrial revolution. At 1.1 degrees of warming, we’ve seen flooding that has devastated communities worldwide. We’ve seen the 2019/2020 Australian bushfires.

We’ve seen the loss of sea ice whose size equates to the landmass of Florida melting in the Arctic between June and mid-July 2021.

WGI of the assessment told us that we will probably reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celcius of warming in the next 20 years. We need to limit warming to 1.5, or the situation will become irreparable. What’s particularly awful is that if we continue along this high-emission path, we will warm the earth by 4.4 degrees by 2100.

Here’s the difference in outcomes by 2050 and 2100 if we choose rapid action or the route of high carbon emissions.

rapid action 1.6° 1.4°

by by

2050

2100

high carbon

2.4°

4.4°

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by

by

2050 2100

N O W.

What does ‘rapid action’ mean? What do we have to do in order to prevent further warming and irreparable damage to earth?

We need to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is to ensure we limit warming to 1.5° by the end of the century.

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Source : Waskow, D. Gerholt, R. (2021) ‘5 Big Findings from the IPCC’s 2021 Climate Report.’ World Resources Institute.

Even best-case scenario, the sea level rise we caused will not be reversible for several centuries after emissions fall.

N O W.

WGII of the IPCC’s report told us that it is presently unequivocal that human beings have caused warming. Of the 1.1 degrees, 0.1 has happened naturally. During the Summer of 2019/2020, the bushfires in Australia were undoubtedly caused by humaninduced extreme heat.

We have caused an atmospheric concentration of CO2 that has not been matched in two million years. We caused the sea level to rise faster than in any other Century for 3000 years. It’s beca use of us that the acidification of the ocea n has been at the highest level of the last 26 000 years.

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N O W.

“This year’s report is even bleaker than previous assessments and the mess age is clear: this is our make or break deca de for limiting temperature rise to 1.5°”.

At the time, the main goals for COP26 were:

ONE Strong 2030 emission reduction targets TWO NET-ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2050 AT THE LATEST.

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Here’s how Australia responded to this news at the COP26 conference at the end of 2021.

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N O W. Source :

Morton, A. (2021). ‘COP26: Australia Accused of ‘Hiding’ While Opposing Deal Needed to Limit Catastrophic Climate Breakdown.’ The Guardian.

Based on reports, Australia seemed pretty passive throughout the conference. The draft negotiating text released after COP26 by its British hosts was based on the science of the IPCC’s report. It urged countries to strengthen the plans they have so that they align with the Paris Agreement in 2015: to limit warming to 2 degrees at most. The draft recognises the jump in severity of repercussions between 1.5 degrees of warming and 2. Australia would need to cut emissions to 45% by mid-century to reach this goal of keeping warming at 1.5 degrees. Australia under the Scott Morrison government committed only to 26-28% emissions reduction from 2005.

N O W.

“The overall view of Australia is it’s the worst I have seen it in my career. It’s not exposing its position publicly but it’s clear that it doesn’t want a process next year for all countries to come back and close the emissions gap for 2030.”

Bill Hare, chief executive of climate analytics.

The federal election is this month. Here’s how the aims for emission reduction of the Liberal Party, Labour Party, and the Greens look side by side.

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Source : Climate Crisis (2019). ‘Climate Policies of Major Australian Political Parties.’

LNP

LNP

ALP

GREENS GREENS

Goal for emissions reduction from 2005 by 2030

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-

28%

45%

63

-

82%

Committed year to achieve net-zero emissions

2050

2050

2040

r must “After this report, Liberal and Labo coal and abandon their plans to open 114 new alia won’t Austr rate this at use beca s, mine gas the climate hit net zero until 2146 and we’ll lose fight.”

Adam Bandt, Greens Leader

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TWO:

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FLOOD.

Source :

Morton, A. (2021). ‘COP26: Australia Accused of ‘Hiding’ While Opposing Deal Needed to Limit Catastrophic Climate Breakdown.’ The Guardian.

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, La Niña conditions occur when equatorial trade winds become stronger, changing ocean surface currents and drawing cooler deep water up from below.

This results in a cooling of the central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. The enhanced trade winds also help to pile up warm surface waters in the western pacific and to the north of Australia. The warming of ocean temperatures in the western pacific means the area becomes more favourable for rising air, cloud development and rainfall.

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FLOOD.

I am making this work because I’m a young person who sees value in engaging with the realities of my time. I’m writing about the flooding of the East Coast of Australia during the early months of 2022 as a person virtually unaffected by them. For this I am privileged.

By March 8, 2022, it had been raining for about a month. We hadn’t been necessarily keeping track of precisely how long it had been; the reality dawned on us seemingly all at once.

We had water trickling down the walls, and we were stepping over soggy towels in the hall, sneezing and coughing from the mould and the dampness that had pushed the skirting board out. We’d sit in the living room with our wet clothes on the line in the middle of the floor, and we’d hear rubble fall through the decorative fireplace that was boarded up decades ago.

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FLOOD.

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FLOOD.

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FLOOD.

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FLOOD. On this particular day the clouds were still hanging over us, but it had stopped raining. I left the house to walk to Glebe. By the time I had made it to the University of Sydney, I could barely see what was in front of me. I pulled my camera out of my bag. I was trying to capture what it felt like to be there, stuck, cradling my camera in one hand and directing my umbrella with the other. Then I was looking for a place to hide from blankets of rain.

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I would usually feel particularly seen when I’m taking photos. In this instance, I felt as if I was hidden, that the rain had brought on a very long night. The playground of Victoria Park had become unrecognisable. Feeling invisible, I trudged through the mire and over submerged steppingstones to capture drenched playground equipment perched upon puddle s and soggy grass.

So many times I’d seen kids leap onto the big blue dome, or give the flying fox a try. Needless to say there was nobody around doing that.

To me the visual properties of these weird coloured plastic and metal objects, designed to be played with, were haunting covered in rain and mud. Conceptually they were more so.

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FLOOD.

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FLOOD.

than 2017: Christine Tondorf’s article ‘Worse After Floods Lismore Faces Mammoth Rebuild reports as Community Inundated by Loss’ its a on the crisis in a manner that exhib unity great deal of empathy for the comm alistic of Lismore. She breaks down journ on the neutrality completely. She reports body who some as unity comm the of state 15 years. lived in the Northern Rivers for ees that She makes it clear to her interview ss them. they need not reply if it would distre centre as After having seen an evacuation writes a local rather than a journalist, she ad of not of what she saw there but inste car. the in cry” a elf] [hers ing “allow

She writes eloquently of the helplessness felt after reaching out to the Prime Minister and the State Premier off the back of climate crises like these and hearing nothing back other than “not today.” Tondorf’s article demonstrates the possibility for empathetic journalism written by people whose personal lives are enmeshed adequately with the story. It illuminates the actual state of Lismore in a way that somebody outside of it could not.

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If we are to understand the imperative of climate action and media’s role in it then we must break down otherisation between those affected and those unaffected. Journalism of this calibre starts to do that. So do first-hand accounts told to a microphone on Scott Morrison’s doorstep.

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THREE:

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S T R I KE .

S T R I KE .

School Strike 4 Climate is an activ ist group of school students of all ages and backgrounds. They organised a climate strike for the 25th of Marc h 2022 demanding 100% public renewabl es by 2030, net zero emissions by the same year with no new coal or gas projects, and a just transition for fossil fuel work ers into renewables. Tiger Perkins broke down these demands in the University of Sydney’s student newspaper Honi Soit:

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01 100% publicly-owned renewables by 2030 If the government were to direct the transition to renewables as opposed to a profit-driven market, the profits made would go to the public rather than the elite.

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S T R I KE .

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A just transition to renewables for fossil fuel workers.

ers would A just transition for fossil fuel work impede mean that climate action would not of fossil ition trans the If . rights ers work upon al, it could capit te priva to left were ers fuel work give way to green capitalism.

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03 No new coal and gas projects.

This demand is in light of Santos’ recent move to attempt to extinguish Native Title by building 850 new gas wells on Gomeroi land in the Pilliga.

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S T R I KE .

On the morning of March 25, I gathered with the USyd contingent of the Climate Strike outside of Fisher Library. Several members of the Enviro Collective spoke out about the negligence of the Morrison government and its implications. They spoke about the irresponsible choices made by the government to invaest in new coal and gas projects and cast light specifically on Santos’ plans for new gas wells in the Hunter Valley.

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Bright painted placards decorated the cobblestone outside the library. Layin g there with their grey backdrop they looke d like a modular art instalment whose parts would soon be scattered throughout a crowd of students marching and chanting down Easte rn Avenue.

We chanted, “the people united will never be defeated,” and “bullshit, come off it, our planet is not for profit.”

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We continued to march down Broadway toward UTS. I felt the rough terrain of the road beneath my feet. We met with the UTS, UWS and UNSW contingents outside of the Tower Building. We heard two more speeches and made our way down to Central Station. It was unique that we were taking the protest onto the train. Some hit their open palm against the top of the carriage as we continued to chant,

BU I L D S OL A R , B U I LD WI N D

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A crowd had amassed outside Kirribilli House by the time we got there. School Strike 4 Climate delivered impassioned speeches about their unique position as school students amidst the climate crisis. We heard from Beatrix Jones, a young student from Bowral deeply affected by the flooding. She spoke of the terror of not knowing if her friends were safe.

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School Strike 4 Climate left the microphone open for any students who wanted to come up to speak. Many were brave and came up to state how disappointed they felt in their government, that their presence at the strike was a testament to the imperative they felt for action. Some came up to quite literally scream with frustration, “fuck you Scott Morrisson!” I remember the voice of one student cracking with distress as she spoke of her disenchantment.

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CAN N O T RE L Y

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ON THE ADU LT S

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IN

P O W E R.