Lethal Heating: 08/20/20

20/08/2020

(AU) Fight For Planet A: Our Climate Challenge Episode 2

ABC TV - Fight For Planet A

Fight For Planet A: Our Climate Challenge

Tuesdays 8.30pm on ABC + iview

Craig Reucassel tackles one of our planet's biggest challenges: climate change, exploring where our energy comes from, health effects of transport and travel emissions plus the carbon footprint of what we eat.

Episode 2

iview

Fight for Planet A: Our Climate Challenge explores how we can all reduce our individual and collective carbon emissions.

This three-part documentary aims to empower and motivate Australians to take action on climate change.

In Episode 2, Craig Reucassel investigates Australia's transport emissions, which are the second major contributor to the nation's total carbon emissions.

He explores how we can make the move from petrol guzzlers to electric vehicles.

The Guardian reports:

Over three episodes, the team that made the ABC’s highly successful War on Waste delve into the more abstract but urgent issue of carbon emissions, and with it a vital question: how do you convince Australians that something they cannot see represents their greatest existential threat?

Fight for Planet A uses balloons to give Australia’s emissions a visual representation, and right from the first episode, we’re left in no doubt that there are too many of them. But what to do about it? And do we have the bandwidth to deal with the climate crisis now given everything else that’s going on in the world?

The onset of the coronavirus pandemic initially meant the air date for the show, which was filmed last year, was pushed back from June to August. Stephen Oliver, manager of documentaries at the ABC, thinks that now is the time to get the climate back on the agenda.

“No one knew how long the pandemic would last, how serious it would be, how it would change people’s psychology. It’s still bad, but to some extent, with the exception of the situation in Melbourne, we have come to terms with it,” he says.

And although global lockdowns have caused emissions to plummet, it is long-term behaviour and policy change that will make a difference in the long term. So how do we make that happen?

Fight for Planet A is a solutions-based show that aims to empower viewers to cut their own emissions at home and in their communities.

By way of example, five Australian households were chosen to take on the show’s “climate challenge” to reduce the carbon emissions generated by the energy they used, their modes of transport and their food production.

Can the wealthy family with underfloor heating and a massive TV for their pets cut their electricity bill? Can the share house of five blokes use less hot water and skateboard to uni instead of driving an old banger?

Those strategies for individuals wanting to reduce their carbon footprint include everything from changing showerheads so less water is used, to ditching the car, to switching to solar panels. There’s a good segment on how easy it is to cut emissions in schools by turning off power points at the end of the day.

Craig Reucassel with members of the community of Oatlands public school. Photograph: ABC TV

Other solutions are more expensive and thus more difficult – such as trading in your old fossil-fuel-guzzling car for an electric vehicle (the cheapest in Australia starts at around $50,000).

When asked if a lot of the individual environmental fixes are geared towards the rich, Reucassel told Guardian Australia: “People who are wealthier – say, in the top 50% of income – have a larger carbon footprint. They travel more, their houses are bigger, they use more energy. We need to call on the rich people first – we shouldn’t be putting more of the burden on poorer people.”

But does all this community and individual empowerment let the government and big business off the hook?

Reucassel says: “I wouldn’t have done this show if it had only been about individual change. But people becoming involved and interested in an issue changes the political debate and more strongly influences the business debate. We can underestimate the role that the public can take in leading.”

Councils too have proven to be proactive when it comes to grassroots climate action, says Reucassel, “much more so than leadership at a federal level, which tends to be really depressing”.

“Unlike coronavirus, we know the solutions to climate change,” says Oliver. “We can actually do something about climate change, whereas with the pandemic we’re sitting there waiting for the experts to find a vaccine. We wear a mask and stay distant but we’re not actually solving the problem, we’re waiting for experts to solve the problem.

“But we can all solve the problem of climate change. This is empowering. We can give people solutions rather than just bunker down waiting for more horror to hit us.”

“The hardest part is getting people to visualise emissions,” says Reucassel. But knowledge is power. “In Australia, change is up against far more vested interests – that’s why we need a population that is knowledgeable and engaged.”

Oliver agrees. “It’s about getting people to be more engaged in the issue instead of feeling a bit angry and hopeless. If you only focus on the big corporations and the government you can get angry, frustrated and just kind of retreat from the conversation.”

YOUR PLANET

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Tessa Khan: ‘Litigation Is A Powerful Tool In The Environmental Crisis’

The Guardian - Tessa Khan

When a court in the Netherlands ruled its government’s actions unlawful, it inspired others to hold big polluters to account

From the Philippines to Canada to Colombia, people are looking for accountability for decades of broken promises.’ Composite: Getty Images

Tessa Khan

Tessa Khan is a climate change lawyer, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network and a member of Urgenda’s legal team

At key moments in history, courts around the world have helped to accelerate social change – they have vindicated the demands of people fighting to end slavery, racial segregation and gender inequality.

It should therefore come as no surprise that they are being called on to help resolve the biggest social and environmental crisis of our time: the climate emergency.

The case against the government of the Netherlands powerfully illustrates what climate litigation can achieve. In 2015, the Hague district court issued a groundbreaking decision in response to a lawsuit filed by the Urgenda Foundation and 886 Dutch citizens, arguing that the government was failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough.

The court agreed that the government’s actions were unlawful and ordered it to slash the Netherlands’ emissions by 2020. That decision was upheld by a court of appeal and ultimately by the supreme court of the Netherlands in 2019.

It’s hard to overstate the impact: in response, the government has taken huge steps to reduce emissions, including closing or significantly reducing the capacity of coal-fired power plants and overseeing €3bn worth of low-carbon investment. The first judgment also spurred public debate that led to a new Climate Change Act.

But the value of the litigation was just as clear in the hushed, crowded courtroom in the Hague. People waited for the country’s highest court to validate what they instinctively knew to be true: that governments cannot know the risks of climate change and wilfully ignore them.

Urgenda’s case has inspired communities and organisations around the world to hold governments and big polluters legally responsible for their contribution to the climate crisis. From the Philippines to Canada to Colombia, people are looking for accountability for decades of broken promises.

Governments signed an international treaty to address climate change almost 30 years ago, and fossil fuel companies have known that since at least the 1970s the product that they sell leads directly to global warming.

Last month, we supported a historic case challenging the Irish government’s inadequate emissions reduction plan, which resulted in the supreme court requiring the government to make a new, more ambitious one.

Lawsuits are not a panacea. It takes significant public vigilance and pressure to ensure that judgments translate into real change. But litigation is one of the most powerful tools we have for claiming our rights and making clear what’s at stake – and the stakes have never been higher.

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(AU) Climate Grief Expected To Be Widespread Soon But It's Still Not Openly Acknowledged

ABC Health & Wellbeing | Paige Cockburn

Those who suffer from climate grief don't always feel their grief is worthy which leads to complications. (AAP: Dean Lewins)

Feeling miserable, anxious, helpless and just generally terrible because the world is becoming less habitable? You're not alone.

The good news is there are strategies that may help you cope. The bad news is the pandemic we're now facing may test your passion and enthusiasm for climate action.

For the past 18 months, Canadian scientist Kurtis Baute says he has been dealing with a lot of 'climate grief'.

"Basically I can't stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable," he recently announced on his YouTube channel.

"We can stop using fossil fuels but so far we've completely failed to do so...it feels completely out of control and it's depressing."

Kurtis Baute recently sought out professional help to cope with his despair about climate change. (Supplied: Kurtis Baute)

Climate grief — or eco anxiety/despair — is a strong psychological response to the current and future loss of habitats, species and ecosystems.

It's recognised by the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and sufferers may feel emotions like fear, anger, guilt, shame, grief, loss and helplessness.

It can be related to the direct impacts of climate change, such as drought or bushfire. But it can also take the form of a sense of doom or even existential crisis about our warming world.

In some ways it's a lot like the grief we experience when someone dies.

The health industry predicts it will be common place in the next 10 years.

The danger of unvalidated grief

Climate grief is often categorised as a form of disenfranchised grief which means it isn't always publicly or openly acknowledged.

"There's no ritual around loss of environment," says Tristan Snell, a counselling psychologist and researcher in environmental psychology at Deakin University.

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"When you lose someone, there's a funeral and all sorts of ways people connect and this helps process that loss. That's just not the case for loss of environment."

People experiencing disenfranchised grief can feel unsupported or ashamed, and consequently can be very reluctant to talk with friends, family or a professional.

"People may feel this isn't something someone else can help with," says Dr Snell.

This can then snowball into major physical and mental health problems.

Some will feel this more than others

Researchers, including Dr Snell, are currently trying to gauge the mental health impacts of climate change and recent climate-related events on Australians with this survey which you can get involved in.

However, the latest research says that if you're between 15 and 24-years-old you are at higher risk of feeling climate grief, with almost half of young Victorians feel extremely frustrated, fearful, sad and outraged about climate change.

Young Australians are particularly vulnerable to climate grief as their future is at stake. (ABC News: Jedda Costa)

Dr Snell says the issue is also pressing for younger children and unfortunately they won't be able to handle grief as well.

"What usually helps is expressing it, talking about it, making sense of it. But that's really hard for young children," he says.

"I don't know if we have the right language in our culture to recognise and express grief related to climate change, so it makes it really hard for adults and even harder for children."

Feeling homesick when you're home

'Solastalgia' is a term coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe the feeling of homesickness, even when you're at home, due to climate change.

Those who depend on the land for their livelihood are very susceptible to this kind of loss.

An interview series with farmers in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia revealed the ecological grief that comes with wind erosion, which is a consequence of persistent dryness.

"[Losing the farm] would be like a death. Yeah, there would be a grieving process because the farm embodies everything that the family farm is [...] And I think if we were to lose it, it would be like losing a person ... but it would be sadder than losing a person," one farmer said.

While no research on climate grief among Australian Indigenous people exists, interviews with Inuit communities in Canada speak volumes about the disruption to cultural identity when the land changes.

"It's hurting in a way. It's hurting in a lot of ways. Because I kinda think I'm not going to show my grandkids the way we used to do it. It's hurting me. It's hurting me big time. And I just keep that to myself," one Inuit said.

The realisation that the world must be relearned is particularly disruptive for Indigenous people, and healthcare professionals predict they will be the hardest hit by climate change-related mental health issues in the future.

Grief may lead to burnout

The impact of COVID-19 on those who struggle with any form of eco grief is still unknown but psychologists are looking for answers.

Dr Snell predicts that some people may feel more positive about COVID-19 related changes — like working from home — enabling us to reduce our environmental impact.

But the APS emphasises others may experience burnout from the combined stress of the pandemic and climate change.

Your planet

Stories and interactives exploring our environment and seeking solutions to climate change. Read more

This could in turn trigger cynicism and a loss of purpose and energy, and could even undermine enthusiasm for climate action.

There are certain aspects of climate change action that can make people particularly vulnerable to burnout, including the slow pace of progress and having to work against resistance (for example of the fossil fuel industry).

How to cope

Clinical psychologists are developing strategies to help people work through climate grief, but research is still quite limited.

However you may find the follow tactics help with feelings of emotional distress:

Gather trusted and authoritative information on the topic to ensure your knowledge on climate change is correct
Become more environmentally engaged by getting involved in land care or tree planting for example — taking action to better the planet is thought to relieve some anticipatory grief
Spend time in nature to remind yourself it's a source of strength
Talk with like-minded family or friends and if needed, seek professional help

For Mr Baute, finding a therapist who was responsive to the concept of climate grief has helped with his anxiety and helplessness.

"This is a really serious problem for a lot of people .... and [the therapist] is helping me navigate the emotions," he says.

"Again, these emotions are entirely rational, it's an extreme situation, and it's reasonable that we would be having an extreme emotional response."

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