#63: Are you excited for the future?

On the future and the wealth that matters

We’d like to welcome our new volunteers, Lou and Owen! Lou is joining us as our social media coordinator, and Owen has been a big help in organizing and facilitating our Climate Action Workshops. We’re having our next one on 24th April in Auckland, message us if you’re keen to come along! 

Mōrena, and happy Tuesday! We hope you’ve found some moments of rest and time with loved ones over the weekend.

I love seeing old movies predicting the future - it’s all flying cars, people using balloons to walk over lakes, and swishy monorails everywhere (that one still sounds good to me!). In contrast, these days many of us struggle to imagine a good future. This can feel like an inevitable result of the climate crisis and short-term politics, and that’s definitely a reasonable response. But I’d argue it’s also bad PR for the climate movement. 

It’s harder to inspire hope and perseverance if climate action is all about giving up things that bring joy, swapping convenience for caution, or material affluence for a grim, penny-pinching future. 

But what if we’re actually poor now in the things that matter? Free time, connection, belonging, purpose, and a sense of security in our future- where are these things in our money-driven world?

Whenever we have a crisis, there’s this gap where people stop and try to figure out what’s going on. This is when we make meaning. Who controls this meaning and narrative is up to all of us. There will always be conspiracy theorists and powerful corporate media pushing for a narrative that upholds the status quo. To energise our neighbours and friends to become climate do-ers and climate voters, we have to be able to paint a vivid picture of how good the future can look if we act on the climate crisis. 

Rebecca Solnit offers us the chance to see our response to climate change as an opportunity to rethink what we see as abundance: 

What if we imagined “wealth” consisting not of the money we stuff into banks or the fossil-fuel-derived goods we pile up, but of joy, beauty, friendship, community, closeness to flourishing nature, to good food produced without abuse of labor?

Here’s an essential read on how we can achieve an equal and abundant future with what we have now - Less Is More by Jason Hickel (Storygraph, Goodreads).

What can we do today?

The most-clicked link from last week’s issue was the call to keep half-price fares for everyone, for good! 

🐝 If you have 5 minutes: Bring our bus business above board

• To have a climate-friendly future, we need double the public transport, but we can’t do that if we don’t have the people to drive it (pun intended!). A public ownership model (it’s a public service after all) would mean better wages and working conditions for bus drivers, which could help improve driver shortages and bus cancellations.

  Action: Call for public ownership of this public good

🐇 If you have 15 minutes: Do you wanna build a snow-plan?

• Online, April 17th, 5pm: Protect Our Winters NZ is an organisation for anyone who loves winter, and particularly winter sports! They have volunteer training next week for anyone who wants to get involved.
  Action: Join the online induction next Monday and/or nudge a friend who’s into snow sports!
  You can also check out other open volunteer opportunities at climate orgs here

• Local boards are discussing their 3-year plans, and they want folks to be part of the conversation. This includes locals and regular visitors(e.g. maybe you have family or work in the Auckland area). The survey is friendly and easy to complete.
  Action: Find the local boards that matter to you and have your say by submitting an idea or taking their simple survey

💃🏽 If you have 30 minutes or more: Get our trains on track

• How good would it have been to take a train somewhere this long weekend? Save Our Trains is launching a nationwide series of talks on the future of rail. This is a great chance to get involved in a campaign advocating for accessible inter-regional transport that skips the traffic! 

  • 18th April, Timaru

  • 19th April, Ōtautahi/Christchurch

  • 15th April, Ōtepoti/Dunedin

  • 17th April, Oamaru

  • Or if you’re into direct protest, Restore Passenger Rails have a bunch of in-person and online intro events happening all over the country. 

• Tāmaki/Auckland, 15th April: Looking for something to do this weekend? Greenpeace and Forest & Bird are calling all moana lovers to gather at Mission Bay in support of Tīkapa Moana/Hauraki Gulf. Our government is one of only 7 countries that still allows destructive bottom trawling practices, even in globally significant biodiversity hotspots like Hauraki Gulf. 

  Action: Get down to Mission Bay (if you bring a kayak, SUP, or boat - even better!) on Saturday - register here or see the Facebook event here.

In case you missed it!

• Waka Kotahi are proposing options for new harbour crossings across the Waitematā harbour in Auckland. Unfortunately, so far all of the plans include new infrastructure for more cars. Being able to walk, bike, or scoot over the bridge will be crucial for our target of reducing transport emissions by 64% in the next 7 years.
  Action: Have your say on the proposals for a new Waitematā Harbour crossing

Save the Date 

• May 26th is the next School Strike for Climate. 

• April 21st, 12:30pm: For Te Whanganui-a-tara/Wellington folks, Fridays for Future are planning an early Earth Day action at Midlands Park.

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That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action! Enjoy this hopeful piece from a woman in NYC who went into a community meeting prepared to oppose bike lanes, and then changed her mind after listening to other people talking about why they wanted them.

See you next week, 

Dhanya & the Climate Club team