Page 202 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

16 AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID RITTER … 197

BB: That probably created a divided environment for this push
against the environmental movement.

DR: I think there is a vast constituency for the environment in Australia,
but that the kind of language we use really matters. I don’t talk to many
people who hate trees! I don’t talk to many people who don’t want fish in
the sea when they go fishing on the weekend with their kids. I don’t talk to
many people who don’t want to be able to walk to work with air free of
gunk. They don’t want pollution. They don’t want pollution in their kids’
playground. They don’t want pollution in wherever the local place is that
they go and play on the weekend. People want green space. They want
shade. I’ve never met an Australian that wasn’t very proud of the wonderful
animals in that live in this country or amazing places like the Great Barrier
Reef and the Great Australian Bight. Now what you might find is that
when you’re talking to people you don’t know, at a barbeque or in the
shops or a children’s birthday party, you might not find people who say,
“Well look, I’m concerned with the latest biodiversity indicators and
frankly I’m very disappointed in the way that our national indicators have
been structured arising out of the COP talks,” but you will find people
talking about the amount of plastic in their kid’s bedroom, or the rubbish
on the beaches, or the fact that they feel like the country is out of control
and politicians are not acting like grown-ups. You will hear people wor-
rying about spending too much time in cars and not being happy that the
air doesn’t taste good. I think it’s all linguistic tricks. You can write off
policy wonks as people who are not connected with society, but I simply
think it’s absolute bullshit that the people of this country don’t care deeply
about clear air, clean water, thriving animals and the places we love.
BB: Australia has the highest per capita emissions anywhere in the
developed world and while the Great Barrier Reef is dying, Australia
insists to open the largest coal mine anywhere in the world. How is
this even possible? As a scholar, journalist and media reformer, I am
convinced that the lack of action on climate change is partly due to an
unprecedented media failure. Do you feel the same? What can be done
about it?
DR: I agree it’s not just neoliberalism and it can be a mistake to use the
label ‘neoliberalism’ as shorthand for a range of structural factors that
underly the state of things… One of the things I like about Naomi’s This
Changes Everything is that she coins this term “extractivism” and I think we