Athletes going to extremes to highlight climate crisis

‘eye opener’

For each of these athletes, their connection to the environment began many years ago.

Baldwin became acquainted with the realities of climate change on the water, sailing among whales, dolphins and turtles.

Then, visiting a friend reading about climate change before the World Economic Forum in 2019, Baldwin realized the true extent of the crisis and was inspired to become an activist.

“It was like reading the script of a horror movie,” she says.

Stott’s transition from athlete to climate activist was a more gradual process, founded on his lifelong love for Pocock, who initially worked as a conservationist after his retirement from rugby.

Before joining Extinction Rebellion, Stott co-founded a group called Champions for Earth, made up of British athletes to advocate for climate action.

“The sport has this incredible reach,” he tells CNN. “It gives people a shared emotional experience that connects them in a really strong way.”

Likewise, Pocock’s Senate campaign was not his first foray into the political world; His rugby career was marked by activism.

In 2014, he chained himself to mining equipment to protest a new coal mine in Moules Creek, New South Wales, while he and his now-wife did not marry until the same time in Australia. The marriage did not become legal.

“I knew what it was like to be that young kid idolizing rugby players,” he tells CNN.

“If I could use any platform I had during the game to really talk about these issues that I thought were important and could move the conversation forward with young people, I would do that.” was ready to do.”

‘My athlete mentality kicked in’

As the climate crisis becomes more apparent, Pocock, Stott and Baldwin have used these platforms and leveraged their all-playing experience to accelerate their campaigning.

“You realize a set of skills that you’ve spent thousands of hours developing, you’ll never use again,” Pocock says anxiously.

“It totally sucks for the rest of your life.”

Although tackling, jacking and passing may not have been useful in a campaign for the Senate, other skills Pocock developed in rugby proved crucial to his success, such as working with people who worked hard to advance a team’s best interests. Have different views.

“You come from different backgrounds, have different religious beliefs, political persuasion, but some kind of shared goal. And that can be a really powerful thing,” he says.

Mastering this broad coalition allowed Pocock to win in a field previously unimaginable to anyone other than Labor or the Liberals – the two largest parties in Australia.

Pocock’s campaign was rooted in community organizing, with forums and events he dubbed ‘Politics in the Park’, which provided opportunities for people to engage with policies.

“It was really about connecting with people,” Pocock says. “Meetings with community organizations … finding out what the issues are and then actually sitting down and talking to experts.”

“And you find solutions to a lot of these problems, there are solutions. We really need the political will to do them.”

Similarly, much has been told about Stott’s activation based on his experience in canoeing. “My athlete mindset kicked in,” he says.

“We’ve got a goal here; a really clear goal that we need to save our planet for future generations … and Extinction Rebellion had a really clear goal.”

Extinction Rebellion has used public disruption and illegal demonstrations to demand the UK government reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero by 2025 and establish a citizens’ assembly to consult on climate justice.

“Also, as an athlete, you look for the most effective methods that are going to send you toward your goal,” Stott says, “and peaceful civil disobedience was proven to be the most effective method in history.”

This approach has led to the group’s trademark, disruptive tactics such as blocking traffic in London, blocking oil refineries and the widely covered arrests of its peaceful protesters.

“Most people, and I was exactly like that, never dream of breaking the law… so understanding,” Stott says.

Extinction Rebellion’s extreme strategy has drawn attention to the urgency of the crisis.

Weeks after the group’s first protest in 2019, which disrupted much of central London, the UK parliament declared a climate emergency.

“I’ve been asked several times by journalists, ‘Aren’t you worried about your reputation,’ but I’m really concerned about the safety of my son’s future,” says Baldwin.

“It seemed like doing the morally right thing in this instance was literally just getting out in front of the system.”

‘Tell a more optimistic story’

Campaigning inside and outside the system produces different effects.

Pocock’s goals, constrained to act within the government, are somewhat more modest than Extinction Rebellion, aiming for a net zero Australian economy by 2050 with a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – but that’s a trade off. – It’s worth making the closure for that.

“When it comes to the big problems facing us, individual choices and actions are important, but ultimately they must be scaled up by the government to be able to respond in the required time frame,” he says.

Taking forward government policy, Pocock aims to tell a “more optimistic story about what our future might look like”.

For Australia – a country rocked by wildfires and floods – the dangers of the climate crisis are very clear, but action to address these risks could also unlock new opportunities in industries such as green steel and green hydrogen, Pocock says.

Working in government also has its drawbacks; Its wheels are slow and have limited resources.

“The climate crisis is happening right now,” Baldwin says of his decision to campaign outside the system. “And we absolutely have to take action now to stop it.”