Environmentalist Bill McKibben: ‘Mother Nature is a very powerful educator

Bill McKibben, 58, is an author, environmentalist and founder of 350.org, a global grass-roots climate change movement. He spearheaded the fossil fuel divestment movement and resistance to the Keystone oil pipeline. His latest book, “Falter,” will be released in April.

Bill McKibben is an author, environmentalist and founder of 350.org.

What drew you to environmental issues first, and can you talk about your progression from writing to full-fledged activism?

My first job out of college was at the New Yorker. And I wrote my first long piece about where everything in my apartment came from. You know, Con Ed was getting oil from Brazil, so I went down to Brazil, and up to the Arctic [where] they were getting hydro power. Along the New York City water system, on garbage barges, in sewer systems and so on. Somehow, doing that reporting impressed on me not only the physical-ness of the planet, but the fact that these were somewhat vulnerable systems, more fragile than I had assumed. That set me reading the early science on climate change. And I wrote “The End of Nature,” the first book about this subject for a nonscientific audience.

Read the story from The Washington Post magazine by KK Ottesen - “Environmentalist Bill McKibben: ‘Mother Nature is a very powerful educator.”

Energy policy captive to lobbyists and 'mad ideologues', Tim Flannery says

Five years since the Abbott government scrapped the Climate Commission, the environmentalist Tim Flannery says our energy policy remains hostage to lobbyists, political self-interest and “mad ideologues”.

‘We’re being held hostage at a federal level,’
Tim Flannery told Guardian Australia.

But the organisation Flannery helped start from the ashes of Abbott’s climate bonfire, the Climate Council, says that attitudes have shifted substantially since 2013 – at least those outside federal parliament.

“We’re being held hostage at a federal level,” Flannery told Guardian Australia.

“It has been a disgrace. Our failures are the failures of a small group of politicians who are supposed to be acting in the national interest. Instead, they’re using energy policy as a cudgel, they’re listening to paid lobbyists and doing their bidding.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Ben Smee - “Energy policy captive to lobbyists and 'mad ideologues', Tim Flannery says.”

Water damage and the Great Barrier

Sugarcane farmer Vince Papale has built a
 wetland that traps and filters pollution
off his farm in Home Hill, 90 kilometres
south of Townsville.

Vince Papale is an environmentalist, but wouldn't dream of describing himself that way, and the green movement wouldn't recognise him as one of their own.

His family has farmed sugar cane on the table-flat fields of the Burdekin, about an hour south of Townsville, since his great-grandfather emigrated from Sicily almost a century ago.

Nearly a decade ago, Papale and his wife Rita made a decision that dramatically changed how they and their three children ran their Home Hill farm, and how they thought about themselves.

Frustrated to breaking point by poor drainage on their property that constantly flooded the cane fields, they signed on for a $195,000 federal government grant and poured in another $270,000 of their own.

Read Adam Morton’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Water damage and the Great Barrier.”

Being and environmentalist is both good and bad

by Robert McLean

Demonstrate an interest in mitigating what it is that changes our climate and almost immediately you are lumped-in with environmentalists.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be both a handicap and a distraction.

Concern for what humans are doing in disrupting the earth’s climate system is bigger than simply worrying about our environment.

Naturally, environmental matters are high on the agenda, but the fundamental concern for most climate change advocates is rarely among those matters foisted upon them by the popular media and so top of mind for many people.

Being labelled as an “environmentalist” brings with it certain baggage, certain stereotyping in that many immediately see you as a long-haired, sandal and hair-shirt wearing anti-establishment person with your roots in the 60s and so disengaged from what is real.

Concern about climate change equates directly about human welfare, how people are going to live and prosper (not economically) and how we are going to keep the infrastructure upon which we all depend intact.

Yes, I care about the environment, deeply, but I also care about how we live, how we behave, how we treat our fellows and understand that all of those things are inherently implicated in and depend upon how we treat our home, hence the environment.

Interestingly, Oxfam has just released a story headed: “Climate change is not just about the climate, it is about our lives” as the world gathers in Lima to work on drafting a global treaty on climate change. The story makes a similar point.