Imagine you came across a 150-year-old message in a bottle that predicted the world would face a catastrophic crisis as a result of profit-driven capitalism.
Imagine that prediction also explained why capitalism — sustained for generations through the exploitation of nature and human labour — would push aside all moral, rational and scientific objections in the blind pursuit of profit.
Catastrophic fires in New South Wales and Queensland have come early in the fire season, which usually starts in October. Climate scientists and frontline fire fighters agree: they are a consequence of climate change.
What began as a series of symbols with cryptic messages about climate change plastered on poster poles in the suburbs and protests by as few as 20 people, has evolved into a broad movement that is mobilising thousands of people committed to mass civil disobedience in response to the climate crisis and fears of a mass extinction.
The global #ClimateStrike movement is more than just a call for genuine climate action. It is also a recognition that governments have failed to take the action that was both possible and necessary to avert catastrophe.
The Australia Institute (TAI) released its latest annual Climate of the Nation 2019 report on September 10. The annual report, first produced by the Climate Institute and for the past two years by TAI, has been tracking attitudes on climate change for more than a decade.
Support for the September 20 student-led global Climate Strike is growing in Australia as the big day nears. Councils, unions and churches are declaring their support and more strikes are being organised every day in what is building up to be the biggest day of protest since the 2003 anti-Iraq war mobilisations.
As the climate crisis worsens, the fires that are currently raging across New South Wales and Queenslandse are becoming the new normal.
More than 1000 people rallied in Melbourne on September 10 in solidarity with the Djab Wurrung people fighting to defend a sacred songline and trees from being destroyed by the Victorian state government.
The protesters demanded the government halt its plan to demolish the trees.
Speakers denounced ongoing colonisation and said the treatment of the Djab Wurrung was just the latest in a long line of attacks against Indigenous people by the state government.
A red alert was issued by the Djab Wurrung Heritage Protection Embassy on September 11 after police and VicRoad workers arrived near the protest camp sites set up by Traditional Owners to protect sacred trees from a $672 million highway duplication project in south-western Victoria.
Rex Rumakiek and Ronny Kareni from the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) addressed a rally in solidarity with West Papua in the Sydney suburb of Kensington on September 7. Organised by the Anticolonial Asian Alliance, the action came after students in Surabaya (East Java) were raided by military personnel and were called monkeys in a tirade of racial abuse.
The struggle of the Djab Wurrung people to protect their sacred lands from a proposed duplication of the Western Highway in south-western Victoria, continues to garner support.
On September 10, dozens of academics and researchers released the following open letter calling on Victorian premier Daniel Andrews to intervene to save the sacred Djab Wurrung trees.
National accounts figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on September 4 show economic growth was slower over the 2018–19 financial year than at any time in the past 10 years.