Tag: just transition

The Blackball Readers and Writers Festival 2021

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I last visited the West Coast in 1989, when I returned to Haast Beach, where I’d lived as a young child. (Here’s my poem about that return journey: Shetland Ponies, Haast Beach – and below is Lake Brunner, near Blackball.)

Lake Brunner, West Coast, South Island

For that and many other reasons, I was very glad to be invited as a guest to the Blackball Readers and Writers Festival – originally scheduled for 2020, but postponed till 2021.

I enjoyed getting to know the village of Blackball, where as the map below shows there is a lot going on. I enjoyed listening to the sessions, which gave so much more opportunity to get to know writers than the usual two-questions-and-on-to-the-next-panelist format of larger writers’ festivals. AndI enjoyed the panel I was on, where Caroline Selwood interviewed Kathleen Gallagher and I about wiring and activism, and what motivates us as writers.

Map of Blackball

Blackball is a remarkable community, which both acknowledges and celebrates its mining past and is actively seeking to move beyond it. Here’s more about Blackball, the Festival, and Blackball’s role in promoting a Justice Transition away from fossil fuels for the West Coast:

– Festival Report: Readers & Writers Festival successful
– Radio NZ: Blackball – the town that refused to die
– Coast future highlighted at May Day forum

I Talked With Solar Tribune About Climate Policy

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I mostly keep this blog about my creative writing – but I juggle that with family time, paid work, and my climate change activism for groups such as Coal Action Network Aotearoa and Connect Wellington.

Recently, US publication Solar Tribune interviewed me as part of their series of interviews with people working on climate policy. I contributed to sections on the need to ban coal mining and use and the importance of a just transition.

Since the interview, the New Zealand Government has announced a ban on low- and medium-heat coal boilers and a phase-out date of 2037 for existing coal boilers – but in a climate emergency, 2037 is at least a decade too late. Climate groups will be keeping the pressure on to ensure that coal boilers are phased out much earlier – and that the transition is to renewables, not gas.

Solar Tribune is worth checking out – and as well as the climate policy stuff, there’s also a section on actions individuals can take – notably, getting involved in pushing for stronger and more urgent climate action and for climate justice!