Latest Updates
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Re-engaging
Well, I’m back! As you may recall, I stepped down as Executive Director of the Green Institute back in March in order to focus fully on my election campaign for the seat of Canberra. The board kindly kept my position vacant for the duration, while the wonderful Elissa Jenkins very ably held the fort, and…
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6 Months, 9 Webinars, 26 Speakers, Countless Ideas!
Six months ago, just as coronavirus was reaching Australia and we were beginning to grapple with what a pandemic response might look like, the Green Institute called a snap webinar, Staying Together While Keeping Apart, to discuss how to ensure that, through looming lockdowns, we continue the vital work of cultivating connection, cohesion and democracy. The…
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Building Community To Stop Fossil Fuels
One of the most obvious fault lines exposed in COVID politics is over climate action and fossil fuels, with governments using the cover of the pandemic to push forward with polluting and destructive projects despite ever clearer evidence that a clean energy-driven recovery is the way to go, and stronger than ever demands from communities…
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There’s No Time Left Not To Do Everything
After a few months of suppressing our terror of the climate crisis while we’ve focussed on the immediate crisis of the pandemic, I’ve noticed, in conversations in person and online, that the fires in the USA have brought the trauma of last summer back to the surface for many many people. It’s patently obvious that…
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People Want A Better Future: Let’s Work Out How To Build It
What if I told you that people in regional Queensland want to transition to renewables? That they know it’s inevitable, and want governments to manage it? If you follow the news, or listen to politicians, you’d think I was talking nonsense, wouldn’t you? But if, like Dr Amanda Cahill, you’d spent months and months in…
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Community Building vs Fossil Fuel Digging
I’m super excited to bring you our next COVID Democracy webinar, featuring two of my favourite climate champions, Julie Lyford and Amanda Cahill, talking about their groundbreaking work. One of the most obvious fault lines in the present COVID moment is over climate action and fossil fuels, with governments using the cover of the pandemic to…
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Green Agenda is evolving!
Well, this is a time of transformation, isn’t it? I’m sure you are all aware of the Institute’s open publishing platform, Green Agenda, where we publish articles and essays and interviews about Green politics. Hopefully you’ve all read something stimulating there over the years, about protecting nature, urban environments, peace, democracy, work, or the future…
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Turn It Off And On Again?
If only it were that simple. It never really is, of course. But it’s the idea that this extraordinary moment creates the opportunity to reset our politics that inspired the Reset Reading Group, the first round of which came to a close with our webinar last week. The Reading Group sprang from the idea that,…
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Ideas For A Just Future
One of the fantastic projects that sprung up thanks to this extraordinary moment, and that the Green Institute has been delighted to be involved with, is the Reset Reading Group. Launched by our friends at the Commons Social Change Library, this brought together six of us to curate fortnightly sets of readings around ideas for…
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Sharing, Caring, Co-creating, Co-governing
We had a fabulous conversation last week with Julie Miller Markoff from Bendigo’s bHive and Nat Defriend from London’s Participatory City, taking us through their work to build better, healthier, happier, greener communities from the grassroots up. In the 6th webinar in our Covid Democracy Series “Community-building From Bendigo To London”, we learned about how,…
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Community-building How To
Following last week’s inspiring conversation about cooperatives as a path to democratic economic recovery, next week we have the opportunity to dig a little deeper into how communities can take the lead and just do it for themselves. Join us for a discussion about Community Building from London to Bendigo. I was so inspired, in…
