This was us yesterday protesting seismic blasting in a proposed sanctuary for the endangered blue whale and Maui dolphin. The Amazon Warrior, which is exploring for deep sea oil, lets out loud seismic explosions every eight seconds that disrupt their feeding, breeding and ability to communicate.
Climate Justice Taranaki is campaigning to fight climate change by leaving the fossil fuels that remain in the ground. Fossil fuel mining (mainly in the form of fracking) has been enormously destructive to our local environment and people’s health and lives.
Yesterday New Plymouth was one of 35 New Zealand communities kicking off the global Peoples Climate March calling for real action on climate change at COP21.
In our community, 100 people celebrated with a Peoples Climate Picnic and rally, followed by a flash mob in our mall and a march down Devon Street.
We chose City Centre mall, based on predictions it will be under water with a 6 meter rise in sea levels (to be honest, I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing).
Fifteen thousand people marched in Auckland, ten thousand in Wellington and eight thousand in Christchurch.
Two nights ago, the New Plymouth Green Party and Climate Justice Taranaki sponsored the showing of Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything. We used the Tugg theatrical-on-demand platform, which allows individuals and groups to show one night film screenings at their local theater. Our cinema was packed (with 90 people) in contrast to the 12-15 watching Hollywood films in the other auditoriums.
The documentary, based on Naomi Klein’s best selling book of the same name, is about the global climate justice movement. Both the book and film take their title from Klein’s premise that the problem of climate change can’t be solved under our current capitalist economic system.
The documentary mainly showcases the mass global protests against the environmental destruction caused by the fossil fuel industry. Klein, who narrates the film, notes a major shift in the environmental movement, with growing numbers of poor and indigenous peoples fighting a fossil fuel industry whose slash and burn mentality threatens their ability to provide food, water and other basic necessities for their families.
The main premise of the film (and the book) is the carbon pollution, like other large scale environmental damage is the result of a dysfunctional story we’ve been telling ourselves over the last 400 years – namely that nature is a kind of machine that must be mastered and dominated at all costs. According to Klein and the numerous activists she interviews, this needs to be replaced by the much older story about humanity living in harmony with nature.
One highlight of the film is her visit to an ultra right free market think tank called the Hartland Foundation. Funded by billionaire fossil fuel barons like the Koch brothers, Hartland is the primary sponsor of the US climate denial movement.
This Changes Everything can be rented from Vudu for $3.99
Groups interested in bringing This Changes Everything and other anti-capitalist documentaries to their local theater can contact Tugg at their website.
The Most Revolutionary Act 