Environment Canterbury chairman Steve Lowndes joins Extinction Rebellion protesters

Friday, 22 February 2019

He marched on Britain's Aldermaston atomic weapons establishment when he was 12 and occupied the French Embassy in Wellington in the early 1980s.

Now, 72-year-old Environment Canterbury chairman Steve Lowndes has rediscovered his protesting mojo, joining global climate-change campaigners Extinction Rebellion and saying it is time to 'panic'.

The group promises to organise civil disobedience 'to remind policymakers who's really in power'.

Environment Canterbury chairman Steve Lowndes says he will deal with any conflicts between being the council's top man and being a member of Extinction Rebellion if and when they arise.

Extinction Rebellion staged a protest at ECan's Christchurch headquarters a few days before Christmas, turning off the water supply to 500 staff. Of the 40 original protesters, including Sophie the dog, five were arrested for what police called 'obstruction-type offences'.

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Lowndes - who is not standing for re-election to ECan at its first fully democratic elections for 12 years in October - told Stuff he did not consider it incompatible for him to be council chairman and part of the Extinction Rebellion movement.

He was 'totally in agreement' with the group's aims.

'When I say I have joined Extinction Rebellion, most people laugh as if that is something silly to have done. But I don't mind being identified with something that is saying, 'hey, wake up'.

'Could it be a conflict? I guess so. I'm not conflicted at the moment. Nothing has happened. I'm certainly not going to tell stories out of school. I'm far too old for that.'

With a bike ride and a mock corporate board meeting sinking in the face of rising sea levels, the environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion called for climate change awareness in Nelson last month.

Christchurch group's Facebook page says 'You don't have to be Che Guevara to join the rebellion, just a passion for creating an optimistic future'.

Lowndes asked Extinction Rebellion members to his house to discuss their aims.

'In December they had the demonstration at ECan and I thought, 'I want to speak to these people'.

Environment Canterbury chairman Steve Lowndes has had enough of inaction on climate change and has joined Extinction Rebellion.

'I've been aware of what is going on climatically, in a global sense, the science behind it all has been unequivocal, essentially for the last 15 years.

'I have as much panic in me about this as these young people. I invited them home - two came - and we had a long chat, with my partner and my sister, the five of us, about these issues and that was that. I signed up.'

Lowndes agreed with the group's three demands - 'that the truth be told about climate change, that we become carbon neutral by 2025 and that a climate emergency is declared'.

The group's demonstrations against the Resource Management Act had really resonated with him, he said.

'It has been a particularly useless piece of legislation for addressing climate change.'

ECan had 'no means at all' of accelerating the drive to carbon neutrality.

Lowndes said he had been active in New Zealand's anti-nuclear movement in the 1980s, including briefly occupying the French Embassy over that nation's South Pacific testing policy.

'When I was a child in England, I was involved in the [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's] Aldermaston march. I was 12 years old.'

He was looking forward to the 'schools' strike' organised by Extinction Rebellion and scheduled for March 15.

'That will be a very good gauge as to how much the climate-change message is taking root in New Zealand. I feel so strongly about all this.

'We need to be on the right side of history.'

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