Join XRDC outside of the Australian Embassy this Friday, January 17th at 6pm to support our comrades in XR Australia and around the globe demanding action on the climate crisis.
Australia is on fire. Twelve million acres have burned or are currently engulfed in flames. The fires have killed more than one billion animals, destroying rich habitats as they sweep across vast swathes of the country. 27 people have died, among them brave firefighters who were trying to put out the inferno, and many more are missing.
Many of the firefighters battling the inferno are volunteers. They have been working round the clock for weeks. They are exhausted. So too are communities in Australia whose resilience is being tested as the flames destroy buildings and engulf the natural world around them.
First Nations people are seized by the fear that they will become internal climate refugees, as the heat and drought forces them to leave their homes in central and northern Australia. Towns are out of water, shelter, food and telecommunications, and major cities choked with smoke.
These are the largest bushfires in recorded history in Australia. And they have been enabled by the hottest year in Australian history (2019) coupled with unprecedented droughts.
And yet the Australian government refuses to tackle the root cause of the bushfires. It is actively denying the linkage between the bushfires and global heating despite overwhelming scientific evidence. Instead, it is seeking to double coal exports to China and India and actively blocking international climate agreements. The Australian government has the blood of its people, its wildlife, and its future generations on its hands.
We support XR Australia’s Demands
1. For the Australian government to tell the truth about the climate emergency.
2. For the Australian government to act now on the climate emergency which, for us, is the largest ecological disaster in recorded Australian history — the catastrophic fires.
3. To expose the climate criminality of the Australian government. They’re complicit because they’re funded by and support the fossil fuel industry which is driving the crisis. Both major political parties are in bed with coal and gas. we are in the top 5 exporters of coal in the world so this is not just a problem for Australia, but the entire planet.
4. To insist that the government listens too and implements indigenous knowledge in how to care for the land and address the fire crisis. Aboriginal people have been custodians of the land for 80,000 years and KNOW how to manage fires. The colonial government is Eurocentric and driven by fossil fuel interest. This is why we’re burning.