Essay by Eric Worrall
Is Australia’s increasing shunning by climate activists a blessing or a curse?
The British star teenager does not fly to Australia because of climate problems
from Rob Harris
Jan 26, 2023 – 8:27 am
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16-year-old runner Innes FitzGerald is a rising star in British athletics. He set a national U17 record in the 3000m and finished fourth in the 4000m against athletes three years his senior at the U20 European Cross Country Championships in Turin last month.
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The teenager, dubbed “the Greta Thunberg of sport” by the British press, wrote to the sporting director this week that she would not be available for selection because she could not in good conscience make the journey to the Championships in Bathurst, NSW. in February.
“To have the opportunity to represent Britain in Australia is a privilege,” she wrote. “When I started running, the prospect of competing in the World Cross Country Championships was just a dream. However, the reality of the trip fills me with deep concern.
“I was just nine years old when the COP21 Paris climate agreement was signed. Now, eight years later, global emissions are steadily increasing, putting us on the path to climate catastrophe.”
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Read more: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/star-teenage-british-athlete-won-t-fly-to-australia-over-climate-concerns-20230126-p5cfk8.html
Despite the lack of in-person visits from leading climate influencers, their message still resonates. We have our own homemade batch of wannabe Gretas.
June 1, 20215:40 GMT+1
“Australia’s Greta Thunberg” boosts climate protection activism
SYDNEY, June 1 (Reuters) – Leading thousands of protest marchers through central Sydney and joining a landmark class action lawsuit are not usual activities for most 14-year-olds.
But Australian student Izzy Raj-Seppings has abandoned more frivolous extracurricular activities to increase pressure on the country’s leadership in the fight against climate change.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australias-greta-thunberg-steps-up-climate-change-activism-2021-06-01/
All in all, I think isolation is damaging to Australia’s political health.
There was a time when Australia’s isolation helped mute contact with the 20th-century madness that afflicted much of the northern hemisphere. Sure we had native communists and fascists and our contribution to WWI and WWII had a significant impact on Australia, many Australian heroes lost their lives fighting Japan and Germany. My great-uncle once used some very Australian slang phrases when speaking to the nurses on an Allied medical ship – they had not tended his wounds because they thought he was German. The Australian city of Darwin in the far north was bombed by Japan during World War II.
But the most exciting thing that happened to my family during the wars and upheavals of the 20th century, apart from those who served, was when a light aircraft appeared to come too close to an American warship docked in Melbourne. My grandfather often told me how he dragged my grandmother and the children into their bomb shelter when pieces of flak rained down over Melbourne, blasting holes through people’s roofs.
Those days of isolation and relative safety are long gone. Today, for better or for worse, the internet is inviting global influencers and all the world’s issues into homes and schools everywhere.
With internet access, does it make a difference if foreign climate fanatics come to Australia in person to spread their poison?
I think the lack of face-to-face contact probably makes things worse. If Australia’s Greens could see their climate heroes up close, they would have a better chance of realizing that they don’t walk on water, that they are people with human foibles.
I believe Australians’ obsession with climate activism is likely to be compounded because our native Gretas and Innes FitzGeralds seek to live up to mythical ideals rather than interacting with flawed human leaders they have met personally.
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