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Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses my involvement as a scholar activist within the context of the Australian climate movement since 2007 and my efforts to push for a more radical stance within the movement as an engaged and critical anthropologist.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2007, as part of a large process of developing a critical anthropology of climate change, I have engaged in climate activism in several groups, including the Climate Emergency Network, Climate Action Moreland, Psychology of a Safe Climate, and the Socialist Alliance. I have identified two main tendencies in the Australian climate movement. The first is a green social democratic one which urges lobbying politicians and persuading business people to embrace a regulated green capitalism which would result in a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, largely by adopting a carbon price and renewable energy sources. The second tendency is a smaller anti-capitalist one, consisting of a mixture of eco-socialists and eco-anarchists, who while favouring particularly an emissions tax and renewables, calls for transcending capitalism and replacing it with an alternative system committed to social justice, democratic processes, environmental sustainability, and a safe climate. In that I have personally identified with the latter tendency, in this paper I reflect upon my own efforts to push for a more critical analysis and actions within the Australian climate movement as well as in the international climate movement.