Barnaby digs for coal on the moral high ground. How did we get here?

Now that Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan have created their own buddy podcast, we can be fairly sure the medium has peaked. Teenagers across Australia had better hope the pair don’t take next to Tik-Tok, or it too will be ruined by association. As for Snapchat, we pray Joyce has never heard of it.

Long has the member for New England exhausted the mainstream media with his need for attention, and yet it’s strangely difficult to recall any formal policy positions he has fought for.

Not content with drenching the traditional airwaves with himself, this week Joyce was conscripted by his former chief of staff, the recently departed resources minister, Matt Canavan, to break the internet with their own podcast, Weatherboard and Iron.

The trend of politicians podcasting is a worrying one – Christopher Pyne, the former defence minister-turned lobbyist, recently launched one. Julia Gillard has one too.

Read the opinion piece from The Age by Jacqueline Maley - “Barnaby digs for coal on the moral high ground. How did we get here?”

Dave Eggers: why we should listen to teenagers speak about climate crisis

Teenagers speak with a directness and a moral clarity that is desperately rare in our elected leaders, and perhaps in the adult species as a whole. That’s why we created the International Congress of Youth Voices. It’s an annual gathering of young writers and activists, ages 16 to 22, who speak and live with urgency.

 Internsational Congress of Youth Voices, David Eggers interacting with students.

The first conference was last summer in San Francisco, where almost a hundred delegates from twenty-six countries gathered, and were mentored by the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Khaled Hosseini, and congressman John Lewis. One of our most inspiring young delegates in that first conference was 15-year-old Salvador Góomez-Colón from Puerto Rico, who created his own non-profit to help the island’s recovery after Hurricane Maria.

Eight months ago, we decided that we’d hold the second Congress in San Juan. We knew Puerto Rico would be a rich and inspiring location for the delegates to explore issues of colonialism and climate change, for starters, but we had no idea it would be, in August of 2019, the most exciting place on the planet to watch grassroots democratic change in action.

Read the story from The Guardian by Dave Eggers - “Dave Eggers: why we should listen to teenagers speak about climate crisis.”

The Trump administration just failed to stop a climate lawsuit brought by 21 kids

The Trump administration cannot short-circuit a federal climate change lawsuit brought by a group of 21 children and teenagers, an appellate court ruled on Wednesday, probably sending the ambitious case back to a lower court in Oregon for trial.

A U.S. coal-fired power plant.

The federal government’s request to halt the lawsuit “is entirely premature,” wrote Judge Sidney Thomas, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

“We’re looking forward to putting the federal government on trial on climate science and its dangerous fossil fuel policies,” said Julia Olson, the lead attorney for the young plaintiffs and chief counsel of Our Children’s Trust.

Read The Washington Post story by Chris Mooney - “The Trump administration just failed to stop a climate lawsuit brought by 21 kids.”

Teens’ Lawyers Plan to Question Tillerson on His Knowledge of Climate Change

Soon to be America's
 Secretary of
State, Rex Tillerson.

Lawyers for teenagers claiming the U.S. government failed to protect the environment from global warming plan to question under oath President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state on his knowledge of climate change.

Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson’s testimony, set for the day before the Jan. 20 inauguration, is being sought by lawyers representing 21 children and teenagers seeking to prove that oil and gas industry groups “have known about the dangers of climate change since the 1960s and have successfully worked to prevent the government” from Rex Tillerson’s. The groups, whose members include Exxon, joined the lawsuit on the side of the government to oppose the teens.

The youths from across the country claim that by perpetuating the use of fossil fuels, the government has trampled their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property. They won a shot at pursuing their claims in November when an Oregon federal judge rejected the government’s request to throw out their lawsuit.

Read the Bloomberg story - “Teens’ Lawyers Plan to Question Tillerson on His Knowledge of Climate Change.”