Ya pulingina.
I pay my deep respects to palawa people here today and to your elders past and present. And to your wisdom, endurance and your good grace. It’s not just the sovereign unceded palawa land that remains stolen, it’s your forests too.
As well as stolen forests, they could be being criminally-logged as well. We’ve just initiated the first ever private criminal prosecution of Forestry Tasmania for alleged breaches of the Forest Practices Act. You never know: they might plead guilty.
I’d also like to thank the Bob Brown Foundation. Bob, Jenny, Erik, Adam and the many volunteers who helped make these national rallies and forest actions happen. I pay my respects too to Dr Collette Harmsen – a woman gaoled simply for protecting forests from destruction.
I acknowledge the pain and suffering of the people of Maui, Hawaii, where more than 50 poor souls have lost their lives. Let’s send them our love and solidarity.
Noting that there is no superior combined climate and biodiversity action than forest protection, I’d like to read a newly-published poem by acclaimed Nigerian-British poet, Ben Okri. I dedicate it to Australia’s Prime Minster, Anthony Albanese, the Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek and the Climate Change minister, Chris Bowen.
It’s called Earth Cries.
Words for the day.
Denial. Justice. Right to protest.
And Earth cries.
O when will we wake up?
Gulf Stream dying.
Day’s end approaching.
Climate migrants. Oil spills.
Global boiling. Carbon
Emissions. Net zero.
Fossil fuel nightmare.
Wandering rage of the world,
Trying to find a home.
Who will give this crisis hanging over us a voice
that can open the hearts and minds of the people?
Disasters coming. No amount of hiding can hide it.
The young crave truth.
Only truth will save us.
Have to wake up before night comes.
Shadows are rushing towards us.
Earth is shaking. Insects are perishing.
Flowers are mourning. When will truth
Come? When will we have the courage
To give this hour in history its true name?
How many of us must perish before
The governments make this climate crisis a priority?
We’re the not so slow suicide of the world.
We are the not so fast saviours of the world.
O what I would give to have one person wake up to the truth
Of our world for every microsecond that they poison the air, the sea and the forests.
If we rise up as one in peace and truth and beauty will they listen?
Must we scream to be heard?
Must the Earth bleed to be nurtured?
Has the world not bled enough?
How do you get the ears of the world to listen without fear?
And to listen with courage?
We need a new language that howls and caresses at the same time,
A new language that frightens and gives hope simultaneously,
That tells the truth and transcends the truth in the same breath.
For the human being is a frail vessel that cannot take the light
And yet cannot face the darkness.
Must we become a new species?
Must the human being be remade anew to face the tough truths of the times?
There’s no time for this renewal.
We have to become new right now.
For time will not wait for us in all the evils and poisons we have spewed Into the belly and soul of nature.
Time will not wait for us to grow up and see what can be done
When we have had a long think about it.
Because of what we human beings have done we have to accelerate our Own transformation now,
In the teeth of the crisis we have inflicted upon ourselves.
No gods will get us out of this.
We are the gods that must do it.
We are the gods that must step up
To the biggest crisis in the history of human consciousness as we know it.
We are the gods that must turn this story around.
I’m not sure the bees
Or the trees or the fishes or the air
Or the future generations care
Very much how we do it.
All they will care about is that somehow, with
Intelligence, with passion, with sacrifice,
With our voices, our votes, our gifts,
Our rage, our love, our wounds,
With our disabilities, our courage,
Our certainties, our doubts, our fears,
Our loneliness, our solidarity, our style
Or lack of style, our clumsiness,
Our youth, our age, our deaths and our births,
That we get it done, that we reverse the climate
Disaster waiting in the wings of this sixth act
Of the human comedy or tragedy.
All they will care about is that
We make a now, a past, a dream,
A hope, a life, a future possible again
For the species of this magical Earth.
That is what we are called to do.
That’s our destiny in these times.
Nayri nina-tu.
Tom Allen is campaign manager with the Wilderness Society Tasmania.
Featured image above courtesy The Habitat Advocate.
Ben Marshall
August 13, 2023 at 11:59
“There is no superior combined climate and biodiversity action than forest protection.”
Bang on, Tom! It highlights our State government’s (and the Labor Opposition’s) aggressive acceleration and expansion of native forest logging, plus their failure to leverage our wind resources to Tasmania’s benefit, as revealing their total indifference to genuine action on climate-biodiversity.
Judith Matwetwe
August 17, 2023 at 14:12
All hail the back door religion of the Bourgeoisie Death Cult ! What a splendid counterfeit of the Lord’s Prayer and Apostle’s Creed this misty-eyed transcript presents. The emotional bondage to Ideological Totalism is quite fascinating to behold.
Fearful, guilt-ridden climate justice activists are the chattel of Global Governance overlords; and once the activists have ritualistically colluded with them in the self-decapitation of Australia, (insert your sovereign nation here) legal impunity is granted to the overlords to herd their talking cows into lawless, poverty stricken 15 minute digital gulags. Here, all must volunteer to be cashless, jobless, homeless, locked down, sober, cold, constantly sick and malnourished. Why? To collectively save the planet ! Do the right thing! Comply! In these Utopias, filthy humans like me, you and earnest activists do not get to access nature at all. We don’t get to travel. We are not the elite inner circle of ‘golden souls’ But that is the goal, isn’t it? A Global Governance Empire. Regression to Masters and slaves just like the good old days of hegemonic rulers and bloodlines. What do you expect when you cry, in mass formation “Nature must be protected from humanity!” and “Global boiling!” like the old climate messiah recently exclaimed, or “Human forced climate change” that Follow The Science said! “The forests are stolen” weaponise the law, send them marauding logging industries broke and get justice for the trees! And the overlords love everything you say; “You will be happy and own nothing,” they wink at you from the pulpit.
However they, as Billionaire Jesus, (you know, the fake philanthropists who are temporarily funding full time activist organisations like the Australian Wilderness Society to the tune of $14.8 million) get to swoop down from the clouds in private jets, believing themselves pure and holy enough to live sanctified in perfect harmony with mother nature on, “oh, let’s game the world old chap… fancy the entire island state of Tasmania perhaps?” “Conspiracy nut,” you scoff. But, This scenario is a common currency of existence now for Green progressives in ‘public-private partnership’ owned New Zealand and (as mentioned in this speech) in Hawaii. Activists there who thought they would get special treatment are now getting a rude awakening instead-regarding what ’Catastrophic Wildfires,’ ‘Traditional,’ ‘COP,’ or ‘Agenda’ really means. Highly targeted land grabs, centralisation of power to imperialist bad actors, weaponised laws used against citizens and the wanton destruction of all their familiar institutions, homes, farms, industries, recreational activities and small businesses. Because, you know, climate change.
Useful idiots are useful because of their hallmark depression and hopelessness which is the self-destructive spirit underlying all their activism. It is abundantly clear in this transcript. Those bereft of real meaning in their lives are easily manipulated to take the black pill offered by misanthropic occult and pagan belief systems, rebranded in 2023 as enlightened public private partnership saviours. There is always a demand that initiates reject the personal freedom and abundance of the Judeo Christian worldview, with its pragmatism, abundance and eternal truths, exchanging this civilisational jewel for voluntary slavery within a degrading web of intellectual fraud and sophisticated lying- enforced by a bewildering carrot and stick approach of personal transformation to a fake ‘higher consciousness.”
Stop building and worshipping at counterfeit high altars. Get out of whatever cult masquerading as a cause you think you identify with now. RUN. You are not gods. The planet does not need saving- you do!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor’s note: Once in a blue moon we publish a load of arrant nonsense, like this marvellous word salad sans one whit of coherence, to raise awareness of how mental illness can spill over into the political sphere. Let’s be careful out there.