By Glen Klatovsky, Deputy CEO 350.org Australia  Ongoing and burdensome attacks on environmental and climate advocacy are part of an ideologically-driven program being rolled out by conservative governments across the world with a very clear intent of silencing the voices of advocacy organisations. As has been said many times, first they start with the greenies and then they go for any community voices they do not like.

When 700 Australians volunteer to meet with their local politician, you know you’ve hit a nerve.    That’s what’s happened this month, when 350.org Australia asked its volunteers, activists and supporters to deliver a copy of a new United Nations climate report to their local federal representatives.  Concerned citizens have already taken the report to more than 60 MPs and Senators  around the country and more deliveries are planned.  

While sea levels rise in the Pacific, huge droughts devastate and wildfires burn through Australia on a regular basis, a giant coal mine has been proposed right next to where Australia’s greatest environmental asset, the Great Barrier Reef, lies. Under the motto “We are not drowning, we are fighting”, Pacific climate activists are determined to stop it.

Community activist Bev Smiles doesn’t view the international coal giant Peabody Energy as just a faceless mining corporation. She calls Peabody her personal nemesis. For more than 30 years Bev has lived in the picturesque village of Wollar, between Denman and Mudgee in the Upper Hunter. Once a thriving community, the town has changed irrecoverably since 2006 when the Wilpinjong coal mine was approved.

Wow. In Australia, #RiseForClimate saw more than 5000 people show up to over 50 actions around the country this weekend, everyone calling for climate action! Globally, more than 250,000 people attended over 900 actions, in 95 countries, on all seven continents. THIS is what people power looks like. This is what will beat the fossil fuel industry.