David Spratt on rallies and four degrees of warming Part 1

BZE's Vivien Langford speaks to David Spratt, community activist and co-author of "Climate Code Red: The Case For Emergency Action".

In this first interview, David and Vivien talk about the climate action movement and recent climate advocacy action rallies. David discusses the differences between grassroots community engagement and large scale media driven campaigns. They also discuss the climate action movement in gerneral.

BZE interviews David Spratt

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Transcript

Vivian: Good Evening Everybody, this is the Beyond Zero Show, and we’re talking to David Spratt tonight. I think David Spratt is one of those go to people on what is happening in climate change.

He wrote with another author Climate Code Red, and he is an absolute veracious reader won anything that’s published and written about climate change. He puts out a digest every week of very useful articles that I would like to thank him for, because they are just what keeps me in touch with the latest thinking.

And he’s a person who’s often appalled at the worst things in nature or on the policy front, but today he wants to talk about the movement, some of you listeners who may have turned up at a rally on June 5thwhich a lot of people did around Australia, and he wrote an article about this saying it was symptomatic of malaise in the climate action movement. So David could you just tell me what you thought was wrong with the organisation?

David Spratt: Oh, look, I wrote a blog on my website which is called www.climatecodered.blogspot.com because I went to the rally and was sort of slightly disturbed. And afterwards a whole lot of people literally rang and emailed and said; well I didn’t like what was going on. Now these were rallies that were in support of the carbon price, and the rallies were called by Get Up, and they were nominally supported by the other large environmental groups, so I don’t think this is an issue about the grassroots movements. It’s about the climate advocacy more generally…

Vivian:Yeah.

David Spratt: …but they were Get Up rallies. And we know that no-one else was consulted, and in a number of places, for example in Adelaide grassroots groups asked if they had a speaker, and they were told no, they asked if they could have an information table, they were told no. This was the sort of the umbrella grassroots groups in Adelaide. They handed out a leaflet, and they were told that they shouldn’t, and I had reports from Melbourne and Sydney that people associated with the organising, went around and told people who were wearing greens t-shirts to take them off. So…

Vivian: Right.

David Spratt: What were these rallies about? Now, the cause was good in a sense, but it just struck me the way it was organising it was not about community engagement…

Vivian: No.

David Spratt: … and supporting and encouraging people, and consulting with local groups, and local activists to help build a bigger event. But it was almost the opposite as if these rallies were just media stunts. For basically a very expensive press conference…

Vivian: Yes

David Spratt: In Melbourne and Sydney they had paid security guards, which none of us have ever seen at a rally in our lives before. So it just got me to thinking about how this came to be.

Vivian: Well you said it seemed like the participants seemed like extras from a theatre crying out hooray for the king’s new clothes. What were you getting at there?

David Spratt: Well, I mean, you know, in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane we had CEO’s of Greenpeace, ACS, Get Up, and climate institutes speaking, so in a sense, I guess it was their day, and their stunt. The fact that this raises, is that Get Up called them without consulting anybody; they then didn’t deal with anybody in the movement to help build them.

Essentially nobody involved in the grassroots movement was asked to speak at them. There were no posters and flyers, it was just sort of an e-list thing, and apparently Get Up paid for a whole lot of those horrible phone box calls going to people, that’s probably annoyed people.

At the Melbourne one, there was no march, but we said we always march, you know a march is where you get out, you make a bit of noise and the city see you, and it’s a story so, people felt like they turned up not having being involved, not anybody from the grassroots movement being allowed to be involved in it in any way, weren’t allowed to march, got some pretty boring speakers to be honest, and then told to go home. So some people said to me that, they felt like they weren’t really participating, they were just sort of there more as a backdrop.

Vivian:Yeah, a pity because its de-motivating. And I know from having talked to you before, and read what you have written before, we are facing a government that’s only going to cut emissions by 5%, and if the whole world puts their emissions cuts on the table, apparently we’ll end up with 4 degrees of warming.

David Spratt: Well this is the problem. So, there’s an opportunity to say, as I think most people who care would, was that, yeah look being on a carbon price might be a start, but we need a lot more action. So this is just a start, and we want action to measure with the problem. And in fact in Canberra the climate movements had some bad experiences. They got all the environment groups in the ACT together, and they decided to organise a rally and basically told Get Up to keep out of the organising of it, and they had a rally that was proportionately the biggest for the size of the populations of the cities of any of the rallies around Australia, and they had a message that was not so much just a price on pollution, but we want real action on climate now, we want renewable energy built…

Vivian: Yes, they…

David Spratt:… So they had a more grassroots event in terms of involvement and engagement, and they got a bigger crowd. Because these rallies are not just an instant or a moment. In building community engagement, the rallies have a long build up, or should have a long build up with local people doing things, you know you do letter boxing, you talk at railway stations, you get stories in the local papers, you do stunts, you have your street stalls outside, and you have your supermarket on a Saturday morning. I mean the rally is part of community building in the local area, and the rally is the really of end point of a whole lot of that sort of engagement, and the rally is like, names and addresses, and you divide them up amongst the groups. You can see they built up the movement. But with this one, there wasn’t really anything before the rally in the way of community engagement and there wasn’t anything after…

Vivian: No, no real follow up.

David Spratt: No, no follow up, so there’s no before and no after, it was just a moment in time, and while that gets a few people on telly for the night, it’s really talking about building public support and engagement.

To my mind and I know it is not always popular to say that Get Up was anything beautiful and wonderful, but in this case, I think it’s a mess that is really difficult. And one of the problems that made me think about it is that we have quite a few in the climate area, and in other areas, quite a few large non government organisations who are professional, who rely for some of the part of their funding on what they would call members, who make regular contributions, and tick off on the emails, the Get Up model. So these groups run, compete with each other for money. I mean, if it’s all said and done, the amount that Get Up gets, probably less than what Greenpeace or ACS gets or whatever.

So, they are in competition with each other to say we’re the smartest, we’re the best, and I don’t think it is necessarily healthy from a movement building point of view, because I think it makes competition difficult. And the second thing that I think is quite ironic is that, some of these groups do have membership that gets to vote and participate in their affairs. The Australian Youth Climate Coalition, the ACS, and Environment Victoria are like. For these others like Get Up and the Climate Institute, they have no members, there is no democratic process. People get to a vote thinking online every now and then they fill out…..

Vivian: And it’s very hard to contact them too. I have found when I have tried to get back to them…

David Spratt: Yeah well indeed because that’s…

Vivian: you know to get Get Up on our side they….

David Spratt: … but you know most democratic organisations, these are self appointed groups, they are raising a lot of money, and getting the publicity. But there is no democratic responsibility for what’s going on…

Vivian: Well I think you’re comments are very valid, but I don’t want to, we shouldn’t be too negative about it. For example, I have been to a few rallies in Sydney organised by Get Up, and I went to one outside St Vincent’s Hospital, and it was just a snap rally, I just got an email, come along and bring a candle. And it was raining, so I bought an umbrella and a candle, and it was an electrifying event. With people in the dark, and Patrick McGorry spoke to us, and people who had been mentally ill as well, and it was very, very moving, and very, very informational…

David Spratt: Look absolutely….

Vivian: summarily upgraded on all the information about that issue, which is not my main issue but…

David Spratt: Absolutely….

Vivian: And I thought it was a useful way to gathering people…

David Spratt: Sure, Sure….

Vivian: …but on climate…..

David Spratt: … what disturbed me was that if this model of organising continues, I don’t know whether sending someone money, ticking the e-mail box, and turning up to be part of extras in a film set….

Vivian: No I…

David Spratt: is no way….

Vivian: … I was turned off a bit myself…

David Spratt:… to grow the movement…

Vivian: No.

David Spratt:…that’s what concerns me. And I had a lot of people saying exactly the same thing, so occasionally we do need to reflect and think about these things.

Vivian: I think its good to reflect, and not criticize them, because they’re very vibrant, and they’ve got this terrific website way of doing things, and it’s good, but its shallow, and we need to have that depth that your talking about….

David Spratt: it’s a depth problem, and rallies aren’t just a moment in time, they are part of a longer organic ongoing process, and I would think that it would be great if these sorts of organisations could actually co-operate with local climate groups. So if there’s a climate group in Richmond in Victoria, or Newtown in Sydney wants to have an event, why couldn’t the Get Up, and ACS just find the addresses of people in that postcode area, and help promote, and partner these groups in local events. So it’s building the movement, not just building the brand.

Vivian: Yeah, I hear a lot about building the movement, and people say that. I have been a part of rallies that have been disappointing really when there has been a lot of work went into it a lot of weeks before and so on, but it was all disappointing.

David Spratt: we have all been to the good, the bad, and the ugly in rallies.

Vivian: That’s right. So for this building the movement, I think Get Up’s got to be part of it…

David Spratt:Absolutely, and that’s why there should be more partnering with local climate groups, and these

Vivian: …talking with them…

David Spratt:... groups getting together and making things really effective.

Vivian: But one of your articles on that digest you sent us of all those brilliant articles you’ve read, and one was in the guardian, by a guy called Charles Secret, he said that this is a general problem in the world, presuming like England, America and Canada, that the NGO’s have just become too professional.

David Spratt: Oh look, I think it’s part of a bigger problem which apparently sociologists and political scientists call the ‘professionalization of politics’.

I mean, we’ve seen the political parties as well, a point in fact with the Labour Party, and across the parties generally except The Greens, that they don’t seems to have too many rank and file members anymore. But you’ve got this professionals lead the people that get into student politics to then become a volunteer in the MP’s office, then they get a job as an adviser, and then they become a ministerial adviser, and then they get a seat. So these parties effectively have been inhabited by people whose whole life has been professional politics.

And so, it’s not just in the area we’re talking about in politics more generally that it has become more and more professionalized, and obviously a consequence is the non professional remainder become disenfranchised one way or another. I am sure Labour Party members feel that way about the Labour Party, and the Liberal Party and so on.

So this is a broader question of that, and also I think people are retreating to social media politics, where you go to a website and click a few buttons and you think that’s your engagement. So I think a lot of that in the end, is actually very passive. I don’t think political parties find people clicking an online petition a particular threat to them. But I think a group of say 30, 40,50 people door-knocking in a suburb, talking to people, and building a climate group, and getting the energy up in a suburb is much more of a substance of politics.

Vivian: That’s right, just like the 100% renewables. We interviewed them last week, we had a guy from Wagga from them and we had Lindsay Souter, and we had genuine conversations, and they feel the process is giving some sort of depth when they go and speak with Rob Oakshot, they can say this is from your region, we talked to those guys and politicians listen.

David Spratt: It’s real people, doing real things with hands and feet and pens and so on, and small protests. No so much the social media form of politics which while interesting as you say, is very shallow, and I don’t know in the end if it is all that politically effective in terms of really stirring up a local member, I don’t think a local member cares if a couple of hundred people sign on to some petition. I think 100 people outside the supermarket stirring people up is more effective form of politics.

Vivian: Another thing David, I just want to ask you 1 question more from my own personal position. I’m in Beyond Zero Emissions, and we get bogged down in the renewable future, in this wonderful blueprint that’s evolving… I go to the climate summit every year, but that’s about the only time I really latch on to what other people are doing, and I really feel… I mean I know it’s not a centralized movement, but I know a lot of people must feel their working in their little corner, and they don’t get the bigger picture, which I do get from your digest of articles, of a global picture rather than our little Australian picture…

David Spratt:it’s a very diverse and big movement if you take climate, and sort of the climate aspects of the environment and it runs from professional organizations lobbying government, to people door-knocking about 100% renewables, to a little climate group in the suburbs people. Climate groups doing more on sustainable panels, climate groups doing more lobbying… it’s not in a sense a united movement with one demand, or one purpose. It canvasses a very diverse ground, and I think that’s one of the challenges.

Vivian: it is. It’s hard to get an overview and therefore it’s easy for people to think that we are a negligible force, even though there are really a lot of people quite active now.

David Spratt: I think. That’s right.

Vivian: Well thank you very much David for that.

David Spratt: My Pleasure.

Vivian: We’re going to take a little break now, and after the break we are going to talk to David about something that he is really knowledgeable about which is the frightening prospect of a world of 40 degreees warming. There is going to be a conference in Melbourne which is called 4 degrees more, and I know David will have a lot to say about that.