Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor, and broadcaster who works at the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne.
At COP26 this week, some of the world’s biggest corporate polluters sent huge delegations to proclaim the need for climate action. They’re presenting themselves as the new climate saviors, but averting disaster won’t come from those who make a profit from killing the planet.
Last weekend, thousands of anti-vaxxers and COVID denialists marched across Australia to protest pandemic restrictions. A core of far-right activists were at the center of the action.
Last week, the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto blasted a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site so as to expand its iron ore mine in Western Australia. It’s the latest example of the powerful mining sector exploiting a legislative system built on indigenous dispossession.
Fascists groups in Australia, though tiny, regularly threaten violence. The state is traditionally blind to terror from the Right; don’t expect it to intervene.
Even as Australia burns, the government is reaffirming its commitment to coal and waging a war on climate activists. But as the crisis deepens, climate barbarism is no longer an option.
The Australian government’s latest proposition to ban climate protests appears as the country’s east coast is ravaged by fires. In the face of “climate barbarism” from both traditional parties, is a grassroots campaign stepping up?
A look back at the subjection of Tasmania shows that while Israel’s settler colonialism is brutal, it’s hardly without precedent.