Fighting For Our Future: This is the Climate Crisis

words by Emily Elvish, images by Jamie Wdziekonski & Gonçalo Carvalho

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With the smell of bushfire still lingering in the air, a crowd of 20,000 gather on the streets of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD). They are fighting back against a government that sits idly by while cities choke, towns burn, and dams dry. A mother tells the crowd the story of losing her home to the bushfires as Town Hall’s clock booms six mournful chimes. They scream “shame” and boo when the speakers remind them who is responsible. 

People from across the state gathered at Wednesday’s “NSW is Burning, Sydney is Choking” Climate Emergency Rally, demanding climate action, increased funding of fire services, and action to address Sydney’s smoke crisis. The crowd of thousands wearing P2 facemasks chanted, “’Cause we are unstoppable, another world is possible” as they marched from Sydney’s town hall into Hyde Park.

The rally — organised by Uni Students for Climate Justice, Extinction Rebellion, and The Green’s Member of Parliament David Shoebridge — comes after months of bushfires that have left the city covered in toxic smoke. Sydney’s Air Quality Index rated it 11 times over the threshold for “hazardous air quality” the day before the rally, triggering smoke alarms across the city. 

Over 600 homes have been destroyed, 2.7 million hectares of land burnt, and six lives tragically lost in NSW, Queensland, and Victoria since July. The total area of land burnt in 2019 outweighs any other year in the last four decades, at only 2 weeks into summer.

Across the nation people are grieving; people are scared, but people are also angry. 

21-year-old University of Technology student Dashie is one of these people. As a member of the Australian Student Environmental Network, he has been advocating for climate and first-nations justice for the last 4 years. However, the smoke crisis currently suffocating his Western Sydney home has made his activism all the more personal.

“The government is refusing to acknowledge that the fires covering the whole of Sydney in smoke are actually because of climate inaction,” Dashie said. “The government is refusing to acknowledge that it’s their fault and that they need to step up and do something about it.”

Dashie believes that it is difficult to know how large the effect of climate injustice without experiencing it first-hand.

“You can get on the streets and fight for climate justice, but unless you’re a Chippy working on top of a roof in Penrith in 40 to 50 degree heat, you really don’t understand how bad climate injustice is,” Dashie said. “I want people to get out on the streets; I want you to get out and fight.”

As an activist for LGBTQ+ homelessness, Dashie sees first-hand the inequalities that the climate crisis has exacerbated. 

“They are the ones directly facing the changes in climate,” Dashie said. “The extreme cold that we get in winter [is what] they’re sleeping through, [as well as] the extreme heat that they have to deal with on the streets. It’s acknowledging that climate change affects everyone, but will affect a lot of the poor people first.”

2019 is the year that climate action was brought to the forefront. On Sept. 21, over 300,000 Australians rallied across the country for one of the largest protests our nation has ever seen. While other world leaders chose to take a stand with their people, our prime minister told the kids that they should go back to class. 

7-year-old Zia and her dad Zack were among the first to rally at Town Hall. Sitting on the shoulders of a father terrified for her future, Zia shouted louder than most in the crowd surrounding her.  

“I’m scared of the bushfires; I want them to stop,” Zia said. “I want our firefighters to go home.”

Zia’s father Zack also had something to say about the situation.

“These guys are the ones who will be most impacted by the effects of these changes,” Zack said about his fears for his children under the current government. “If we don’t take action now, we’re making it harder and harder for them to have the kind of lives we had growing up.”

Despite decades of scientific proof, our politicians continue to deny climate change and ignore those who are affected. Just this week, as over 80 bushfires ravaged the nation, Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected calls for more assistance to our volunteer firefighters. On Monday, Labor Leader Anthony Albanese announced his full support of Australia’s coal industry. 

It was “pure frustration” towards our government which led couple of 30 years Tim and Pam to climate activism. 

“We believe there’s a climate crisis, and there’s no leadership coming from the federal or state government, or from either of the major parties,” Tim said about his motivations for joining Wednesday’s rally. “Around us we see smoke filling our streets, we see the state is burning up; we’re worried about the wildlife, we’re worried about the natural environment being destroyed. We’ve seen it for so many years.”

Tim expresses finding it incredulous what the government believes is the solution.

“Coal is not an answer!” Tim said. “You cannot sell coal to other countries and expect the carbon emissions of the planet to not go up. There’s no Planet B.” 

Our government’s continued denial of the climate crisis is why we need Australians like the 20,000 who rallied in Sydney to keep fighting for our future. Controlled by politicians who prioritise their matrimony to industry over the wellbeing of their own country, it is the power of a national movement that will bring about the change we need. 

The environment isn’t a political playground. The future of our country and its people isn’t rhetoric. This is an emergency, which will be fatal if left untreated.