Who Cares About Climate Change ?

Abstract

In this chapter we analyse national survey data from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to examine the relative importance of climate change vis a vis other environmental issues of concern to Australians. We ask to what extent Australians believe that climate change is occurring, and what they think causes it. We show how a range of social and political background characteristics, and the type of media Australians rely upon for their news and information, is associated with their attitudes toward climate change. We then seek to better understand how the Australian environmental movement has tackled (or failed to tackle) the issue, using our interview data to explore the issue from the perspective of EMO leaders and Greens politicians.

Profile: Dan Spencer

Formerly of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition

I grew up in Renmark in South Australia , which is on the River Murray. I went to high school in the state capital, Adelaide, where I studied outdoor education and did a lot of bushwalking, which gave me an appreciation of the fragility of the environment. When I went back to the Riverland one time after a few years of drought, I noticed the banks were dried out and the river was about half the height I remembered. I’m not saying it was all to do with climate change , but I’d been learning about climate change and drought at the time, and I’d heard a lot of stories in the news about its impact on farmers. I could relate to that, having grown up in a country town.

Going in at the Deep End

In 2007, when I was 17, we saw Al Gore ’s movie An Inconvenient Truth as part of our high-school science class. Back then we wondered, ‘What do we do? Plant trees?’ After I left school I went to a few rallies. When one of my friends was helping start the Australian Youth Climate Coalition in South Australia , I was asked to get involved. That led eventually to the 2010 United Nations climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, where I got to work with young people from all over the world on campaign strategy, not quite knowing exactly how much would be involved. I hadn’t had a lot of experience, so in many ways I was thrown in at the deep end. But being at Cancun was really powerful. Hearing firsthand from Indigenous people and Pacific Islanders who were already feeling the impacts of climate change—of countries digging up and burning fossil fuels—made me realise that it was time for me to dedicate as much time as possible to the climate movement.

I really got the sense in Cancun that the UN is like a mirror: it reflects what is happening on the ground in countries. Politicians aren’t going to come and commit to something much beyond what they would in their home countries if they’re not feeling that pressure to do it. On the last night of the negotiations we stood on the steps outside the main building and counted off the number of people who had died from extreme weather events in the 12 months between the Cancun negotiations and the Copenhagen negotiations the year before. As we were counting, young people shared their stories of how climate change and fossil fuels were impacting their community. The action started with about 100 young people, but we were thrown out—asked to move on. Fourteen of us stayed and continued counting. So we were put on a bus. We didn’t know where in Mexico we were being taken. After probably about 20 minutes of driving we asked the bus driver politely if we could get off. We were just left on the side of the road, near a group of Mexican police officers—Federales—with machine guns. We jumped on a public bus back into town. We were all a bit shaken, but it left me wanting to get more involved.

Mobilising Youth

I’m into community organising, political campaigning and trying to make companies, politicians and other powerful decision-makers take climate change seriously. As the age of massive petitions and online campaigns has really taken off, I’ve learnt that we can’t just settle for that kind of shallow engagement. It’s become really clear that we can’t afford to lose the on-ground campaigning, because that’s where our power as a movement comes from. We need to go deeper and actually get people involved at the grass-roots level, turning up to rallies and taking action beyond the online space.

The AYCC often go into schools and run summits and presentations. We engage young people at universities and training colleges. The AYCC has also worked alongside young Aboriginal women to set up an Indigenous youth-led organisation called ‘Seed’, which is now driving change. We get out onto the streets and talk to people. When people get involved, we encourage them to spread the word.

I work with young people across the country trying to stop cuts to the renewable energy targets. On one occasion, we surveyed students who are studying for jobs in the renewable energy industry and took 10 of them to Parliament. By taking young people who actually wanted jobs building a clean-energy future to see politicians, we made a tangible connection between the politicians’ decisions and these young peoples’ futures. It was a voice politicians hadn’t heard before, and across the board they listened to the students with a lot of respect.

I’m also a big believer in music as a way of communicating and raising awareness about social issues and social change. I’m a musician, so seeing a lot of artists that I looked up to get involved with concerts about climate change and speak out about it inspired me to do the same. I play in a band called Babylon Burning and we sing about social issues. If the crowd at a rally really gets into the work of a poet or singer, it can be just as powerful, or more powerful, than hearing a speech. And when artists who have a national or international following spread the message in their concerts, I think it really does have a big influence on people. Young people look up to musicians. There’s the celebrity factor, but especially with music it goes deeper than that. You’re more open to hearing something when it’s done through song because it connects with you emotionally.

Leadership

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition is led by young people. Young people have always been leaders in social movements and social change. Martin Luther King was in his twenties when the Montgomery Bus Boycott started.

I don’t work only with young people. In the Repower Port Augusta campaign I had the opportunity to work with a lot of older people in the community. I come from a middle-class background, whereas Port Augusta is a working-class community. That campaign involved a broad cross-section of society—local council, union groups, environmental groups, health organisations, and predominantly older people than I was used to working with. It can be quite funny to be seen as a bit of an expert on how to campaign when you’re still in your early twenties and learning how to do it as you go along. Even so, if someone who’s 60 comes in for the first time, and the person who is 20 has a bit more knowledge, it breaks down the age gap and builds mutual respect for each other. My job was to support leadership in the local community so they could take the campaign further. So it’s not a model of leadership where you’ve got one person telling everyone else what to do. It’s much more a democratic form of leadership where people rely on each other, take on tasks, step up and get involved as best they can. The Port Augusta community and I were working together, and I had to respect that.

Courage is a huge part of leadership in activism, and people show it in different ways. One example was the blockade against the Maules Creek coal mine. We’ve seen such courage and resilience from so many people—not just environmentalists but local farmers and the Gomeroi Aboriginal nation standing really strong. I think for people to put their neck out and say ‘No, we want to see a transition’ in a community that’s been built around coal for so long is a huge display of courage. That’s an incredibly inspiring show of leadership from a local community who you wouldn’t expect to be doing something like that.

I think one of the worst messages young people get is, ‘Wait until you’re older before you do something.’ You don’t need to be qualified to be an activist. If you want to get involved and you’re passionate about an issue, do it now. Find the support, or ask for it. If you’re not getting it, demand it. Organisations like AYCC are out there to support young people. Get that support and get involved now—don’t wait.