Earth Hour on Goat Island

When I booked tickets for the Earth Hour event on Goat Island this weekend, I was looking forward to exploring the island, listening to a bit of music and being in the company of like-minded people. Instead, I got something quite different.

At no point was it made evident that the event would actually be a self-congratulatory PR exercise for various politicians and corporate sponsors. At least not until they arrived and began swilling champagne, smoking cigarettes and dropping litter.

We had taken the opportunity to arrive on the 4.15pm ferry and had enjoyed a lovely couple of hours taking in the views and soaking up the atmosphere (albeit that we were somewhat disappointed that so much of the island was out of bounds). But the promised musical entertainment never happened and, instead, we were subjected to a barrage of smug speeches intended for the assembled audience of invited VIPs (who, incidentally, also took it upon themselves to stand in front of everyone else's view of the stage). Listening to glib statistics about the Copenhagen summit (an unmitigated disaster) and the half-hearted attempts to get Sydneysiders out of their cars was not why I was there.

I sincerely hope that the $60 I paid for two tickets for the afternoon wasn't paying for the non-organic bubbly and imported shrimps they were consuming. I would assume that with $100,000 of sponsorship money between them, these people had in fact paid to be there and weren't just on a 'freebie' for the benefit of the Mayor. I'm still just a little confused as to the real point of the exercise. It was clearly not the public event that it was billed as, but something quite different. I would be mortified to think that I was associated with an event that was supposed to be in aid of the environment, but which left such a mess of (non-biodegradable, non-recyclable) plastic and other litter in its wake, not to mention the cigarette butts.

Why did the music not start until nearly 9pm? In fact, why was there amplified music at all during this hour? We had been led to believe that there would be music beforehand, but were looking forward to spending an hour by candlelight in the peace and quiet, contemplating the stars! By the time any entertainment did begin, most of the public 'guests' would have been rushing to catch the last ferry home.

This appalling example of corporate and political 'spin' is exactly what is wrong with all those feeble and half-hearted attempts to tackle our environmental problems head on. They are being spearheaded by people who just don't really care, not even enough to pick up their own rubbish. I feel for the Parks & Wildlife staff who were left to clear up the mess on Sunday morning.

A one-hour partial switch-off by a few buildings does not strike me as a particularly ambitious target when climate change threatens us more and each day. Particularly not on the part of a nation which has one of the highest per capita levels of carbon emmissions in the world. If Clover Moore and her associates are really serious about tackling the issue, then a poorly executed PR stunt in which a couple of hundred members of the public were duped into paying $30 a ticket just so they could say it was a 'public' event, enjoyed and supported by the citizens of Sydney, is not the way to do it. The skyline of Sydney is lit up on a nightly basis by these beacons of conspicuous consumption. Why is nobody taking these building owners to task for leaving their office lights on 24 hours a day, let alone their advertising signs (for which I am assuming the city receives revenue?).

I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I hadn't felt as though I were gatecrashing a gravy train event at which I were not welcome. As a grass roots 'greenie' who likes to get their hands dirty in the garden growing my own veg and routinely picks up litter in the street, I was given more than the odd sideways glance when I tried to mingle with the crowd. Perhaps it's because I wasn't wearing the right shoes ... but since no-one told me it was going to be a VIP event I didn't think I needed to dress up!

I've got dozens of ideas about how we can tackle wastage and climate change on a local level. But nobody handed me a cold glass of beer and asked my opinion! Could somebody please enlighten me as to what the true purpose of this fiasco was? We left before the end of the hour, not least because I don't think I could have stomached the cheer of delight when the lights came back on!

I understand that some of the ticket money I paid may have made its way into the hands of the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service, which is great. But I would consider it an appropriate gesture of goodwill on the part of the Mayor's office if they were to reimburse me (and everyone else who was there) the cost of our ticket ... unless, of course, they can assure me that every free drink quaffing attendee had personally made a donation to the World Wildlife Fund ... because from the way it looked last night, we hapless citizens of this fair city who had, in good faith, supported an event they believed to have been put on by the Goat Island trustees, seemed to have funded nothing more than a binge drinking session for corporate sponsors.

Not amused.

Australia : Welcome to the first Murdochracy

http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/pilger-australia-murdoch-media