It was calm seas on board Greenpeace’s flagship, the MY Rainbow Warrior, as we hosted a gathering of friends from the environmental movement in Port Melbourne in November. The below excerpt is from a speech given by the Executive Officer of the Reichstein Foundation and member of the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network, John Spierings, on the night. Greenpeace is grateful to John for agreeing to share his remarks about courage, hope and using your power, in the true spirit of the Warrior.
Large-scale, detrimental fossil-fuel projects (think Adani’s Carmichael coal mine) need one key thing in order to go ahead. Funding. But where does this funding come from? Well, in a lot of cases, it comes from banks.
“I’m here at the U.N. asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons,” said Toshiki Fujimori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, to diplomats from more than 120 countries gathered at the UN general assembly on 27 March.
“Nobody in any country deserves seeing the same hell again.”
This Valentine's Day I’m standing up for love. I work with Greenpeace and by the time you’re reading this, I’ll be driving a boat in Sydney Harbour, showing my support for the #LetThemStay movement.