Halo vrienden,

Yuendumu recently got its own version of Blue Poles. Yuendumu School is now surrounded by a magnificent expensive fence consisting of bright blue steel poles. It was installed by non-Warlpiri foreigners.

Some years ago I read two very interesting but seemingly thoroughly ignored books:
Clive Hamilton’s ‘Growth Fetish’ published in 2003, and
Kerryn Higgs’ ‘Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet’ published in 2014

Every time the bull run on global stock markets has a hick-up we’re told by our illustrious leaders to spend more, to consume more, lest the sky fall in. And every time, the bastards make me feel like an anachronism seeing as I grew up being told to save and not waste (“Think about the starving children in Africa” or was it India?).

These days we talk about the effect on the economy, supply and demand chains, productivity, fiscal stimulus, sanctions and trade barriers as if these should trump happiness, justice, freedom and the health of the planet.

On the supply chain, Warlpiri lands supply over a billion dollars worth of gold per annum.  It is owned and mined by non-Warlpiri foreigners. Much of this gold is destined to sit in bank vaults or to adorn well off foreign ladies.

Our only other significant contribution to the supply chain I’ll not talk about as I don’t want to alert the corporate vultures or the Authorities’ control freaks. In Yuendumu success usually ends up being usurped.

On the other hand you’ll find Yuendumu at the end of the demand chain. As well as the Blue Poles, there is the $7.6M Police Complex, the state of the art Centrelink building, the “new” Clinic, the visiting student doctor’s flash residence, the multi million dollar Child and Family Centre and so on. Then there is all the food and fuel consumed, virtually all of it imported.

All of this installed by, owned, run or controlled by non-Warlpiri foreigners.

Yuendumu has a relatively small carbon footprint, but as pointed out in the previous dispatch, we’re not immune to climate change, neither are we immune to the Corona virus. Vamos a ver.

Rather ironic that what the bush-fires, the countless canaries in the coal pits, the Greta Thunbergs, the climate warriors and the children skipping school couldn’t achieve has now been achieved by an invisible organism.

A bit of the old Chinese foot-binding has considerably reduced the world’s carbon footprint.

Who knows, maybe the world isn’t ruled by Kurt Vonegut’s ‘God the Utterly Indifferent’ after all. Maybe Mother Earth is not as passive as we assume!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY8-N8-pn1I

Tot ziens

Frenk

PS- A good friend (Ximena Jordan) who used to live in Yuendumu is doing some research on tattooing- her survey takes around 10 seconds- so please:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf8NT73GXGbtTiMFeX5_pKjxSlq_vA6Ez1T3_9fiZqAuL2x0A/viewform