While the Parliament Lawn indisposed, we are holding our Fridays For Future protests at a different site each week.
This Friday we are meeting outside the electorate office for the MP for Wellington Central (and Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson). The office is on the ground floor of 220 Willis Street (opposite Warehouse Stationery).
Let’s meet there at 12.30pm for our usual hour of protest.
We’ll have our flags and some signs, but bring your own sign if you like. Maybe on a theme most relevant to the Finance Minister. For example, about investing enough money into the Government’s climate policies.
350 Aotearoa, Generation Zero and the Fossil Free State Sector Coalition are collectively hosting a series of climate justice potluck events.
The idea is that we can get together, share our mahi, ideas and see if there are overlaps, room for collaboration, and just have a general catch up and eat some tasty kai!
The first potluck will be held at:
Aro Valley Community Hall in central Pōneke
6 pm – 8 pm
Friday 25th February
What to bring
Bring potluck if you feel comfortable doing so. If you would prefer not to share food, feel free to bring something along for yourself to snack on.
The venue is vaccine pass mandated so please bring this along with you, and remember general COVID-19 precautions under the traffic light system.
Agenda
6:30 pm
Karakia and karakia kai/ Welcome, grab some kai and discussion of general kaupapa of the group
6:45 pm
Check-in and share a bit about yourself and the organisation you are representing (if you are representing an org)
7:15 pm
Thoughts moving forward
7:30 pm onwards
Eat some more yum kai and meet fellow climate activists and organisers!
Because Parliament grounds were closed (and otherwise occupied), some of us regulars took our Fridays for Future protest online – from our workplace and from home. Nice selfies!
Marcia from Whanganui sent us a photo of their climate protest. It’s a pretty good turnout!
As for what’s going to happen next at Parliament, if the Lawn continues to unavailable, we have a few options. We could keep doing our protests online, decide on an alternative site for in-real-life protests, or maybe even pick a different site every week. What do you think?
The Parliament Lawn just does not look right without climate protesters by the statue
This Friday we will not be at the Parliament Lawn – but don’t worry, we are still protesting the Government’s lack of urgent climate action. We’ll just be protesting online!
The Parliamentary grounds are currently closed due to the occupation by anti-vaccine mandate protesters. So, unless the situation changes before Friday morning we are protesting online, where ever we happen to be.
Please send us a selfie of you and your protest placard, and we’ll post it up on our website and social media!
Dolf and Francesca garbed in cycling gear and mini Fridays for Future flags
“Cycling is climate action”, say Francesca and her husband Dolf. Combining their love of travel with a preference for cycling as a sustainable (and healthy) way to get around, these two are off on a tour of the South Island to see the sights and get people talking and thinking what they could do to reduce emissions and work toward a more sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.
The international Fridays For Future has set March 25 as a day to demand climate justice.
“Climate struggle is class struggle, for years, the ruling class, primarily through corporations and governments from the Global North dominated by affluent, white, heterosexual cis-males, have exercised their power, gained through colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and exploitation, to destroy the earth and its occupants with no remorse.
They deliberately sacrifice the Global South’s ecosystems and peoples for the sake of their so-called “development” and everlasting “economic growth”. Meanwhile, the working class is used as tools to build the very system that is destroying them. “(As quoted from the Fridays for Future website.)
Here in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, our group will be protesting on the Parliament Front Lawn as usual. We’ll keep it simple, because of Omicron and Red. But we are thinking of doing more. Some ideas for additional activities include:
chalking messages on the ground outside Parliament and inviting members of the public to join in
having some picnic rugs on the grass to welcome anyone who just wants to relax and take in the atmosphere
making new placards
sending a letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern about why we still need to be here nagging her government after more than 2 years
What are your ideas?
Fridays for Future Aotearoa on 4 Feb 2022 Never give up! Never say die!
Fridays for Future at the Great Big Waterfront Clean-up 28 Jan 2022
On Friday 28 January a break-away group from Fridays for Future signed up to the Great Big Waterfront Clean-up (organised by Museum of Wellington and Sustainable Coastlines).
Inorganic rubbish that is not disposed of properly (into a rubbish bag that is taken to the dump) often ends up in our seas, rivers, streams etc, and then either inside bird/fish stomachs or around their necks.
Armed with garden gloves, plus-size rubbish sacks and specially made “Fridays for Future” flaglets, we followed the instruction to go forth and pick up litter.
Earlier groups of rubbish retrievers had already gone ahead and filled their sacks with the big stuff. We got the low-lying junk clinging to bushes and hiding under piles of leaves – bits of polystyrene, cigarette butts galore, bottle caps, chocolate bar wrappers, clingfilm, unidentified bits of hard plastic, and a cute anxiety ring (that I will take home to clean and wear). All that squatting was quite the inner-thigh workout!
Early arrivals waiting for the rest of the group.
In the meantime, our presence on the Parliament Lawn continued as usual…
Holding the fort at the Parliament Lawn
I will leave you with a photo from the previous Friday, when an impressive family group visiting Wellington for the day joined us to show their support. It is always great to talk to – and pose with – anyone dropping by.
21 Jan 2022 – Joined by members of a Tongan family reunion
On Friday 28 January, the Fridays for Future group is helping to clean up the Wellington waterfront. It will be a great way to get out in the community and raise our profile – and do something practical at the same time!
The clean-up is organised by the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, through Sustainable Coastlines.
Specifics:
Friday 28 January 2022
12 noon – 2pm
Meet at Wellington Museum (3 Jervois Quay, Wellington)
You will need your Vaccine Pass. Children under 12 years old need to be accompanied by an adult.
Wear close-toed shoes and dress for sun/rain protection. Bring your own filled drink bottle. Gloves are provided, but if you have your own, please bring them.
You don’t have to be there for the whole two hours, but it’s best to get there for at least the first half hour, for the health and safety briefing.
Note: if you would prefer to protest on the Parliament Lawn on Friday 28 Jan, that’s fine too. Some Fridays for Future protesters will be at the Parliament Lawn 12.30 – 1.30 as usual.
Now it’s summer we are protesting on the actual grass
With the end of COP 26 on 13 November, Glasgow seems to have been yet another missed opportunity to take decisive action and keep global temperature increases under 1.5C.
Climate scientists say that, based on concrete commitments before and during COP 26, Planet Earth could be affected by global temperature increases of 1.8C – 2.4C, leading to catastrophic impacts.
We are particularly concerned about:
the lack of binding commitments by richer nations to address loss and damage in poorer countries; and
The acceptance of a phase-down rather than a phase-out of coal-powered energy generation.
A slow start, last minute targets and a 5 month delay to the implementation of carbon budgets under the Zero Carbon Act have been underlined by the Prime Minister’s failure to attend in Glasgow. It is also hard to see how Aotearoa will meet its commitment to methane reduction given its selective treatment of agricultural emissions.
It seems to us that the Government is not getting the message that “Go Early Means Now”
So Fridays for Future Aotearoa NZ will continue our protests for climate justice outside Parliament House in Wellington every Friday from 12.30 – 1.30pm. We started our protests in May 2019 with a call for a Climate Emergency. This call was answered in December 2020 by the Government by declaring a nationwide Climate Emergency. The lack of meaningful climate action orchestrated by our Government – or how Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Centre at Penn State University calls it, – the Implementation Gap – is the reason why we continue protesting. Click the link below to hear the voices of protesters who joined the Global Climate Strike earlier this year.
