Understorey: Energising Climate Action Pt 1

Last night in Mandurah another Climate Change and You forum rolled out; a few weeks ago there was the student climate strike; and two weekends ago, former South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill came to Perth to share his insights about the past twenty years of renewable energy politics, speaking to Citizens' Climate Lobby.  Jay Weatherill felt the sharp point of the business-as-usual fossil fuel worldview in 2016, when a devastating freak storm turned the lights off in South Australia. Commentators and fossil fuel enthusiasts seized on the event, blaming the South Australian Labor government’s decade-and-a-half determination for revving up renewable energy in that state.  But the critics, from PM to "fake" twitter accounts using the apparently "hacked" Chamber of Mines WA stock photos, were as wrong as they could be. And South Australia showed that a state could go from 2% to 50% renewable energy, well ahead of schedule and with financial advantage, make a regional contribution to a planetary problem, and put a state decisively ahead of the national energy game.  (Photo: A Glamorgan)