Peace And Environment Expert Panel U Syd Dan Cass 2009

Where is peace?Personal reflections for ‘Making Connections’

University of Sydney Post-graduate summer school 2009

Dan Cass

1980s :growing up under the cloud

Young People for Nuclear Disarmament

• Vigils / camps : Watsonia Barracks, US Consulate, City Square

• Stop the City ‘Flash mobs’ versus war toys

• Gigs, benefits, badges, newsletters, talks, films

• Palm Sunday street festival

• "Phyllis Cormack" 15 September 1971 Amchitka test zone

• Test series later cancelled• Quaker history of non-violence• Core mission and method of

Greenpeace• 3 million supporters

Peace first but always Green

New Zealand 2003

Germany 2003

Chile 2004

Iraq 2003

• Global Peace Initiative : defining the good• Triple Threat : Peak Oil + climate change +

financial crisis• Green New Deal

Approaches

• IPCC/Al Gore Nobel Peace Prize “tells us that the fossil fuel industry is waging war on the world's climate and we must make peace with the planet if we are to survive”

• Relocalisation is the new community organising

• New Energy Radicals blessed by James Hanson, Al Gore

Definitions

Why civil disobedience ? • We already have majority support to free

world of nuclear weapons according to polls– 1997 USA 87%– 1998 Russia 61%, India 62%, Japan 78%, Australia

92%, Norway 92%, Belgium 72%, Canada 93%– 2004 Turkey 72% – 2005 UK 54%

[REF : http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/peace/abolish-nuclear-weapons Accessed 8.1.9]

• United Nations annual vote: most of 191 states support abolition of nuclear weapons

Resources for making connections

http://relocalize.net/

http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/

www.visionofhumanity.org

http://whosepower.wordpress.com/

Thank you.

Dan CassCommunications managerGreenpeace Australia Pacific

dan.cass@greenpeace.orgWork blog | http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/energy/Personal blog | greenfunkdan.blogspot.com