The ORDINARY REBELS
A war cry is echoing through the streets of Sydney. It bounces off the sandstone city buildings and surges to a roaring crescendo in Hyde Park. It’s as much a desperate plea as it is an urgent demand. “What do we want? Climate action. When do we want it? Now!” chants the crowd of about 80,000 Australians, united in their fury.
Erin Remblance is one of them. She’s left her young kids at home so she can march – and shout – through the CBD streets at the School Strike 4 Climate rally, holding a sign that reads, ‘We’ve reached our tipping point, don’t let the climate do the same.’
A 38-year-old mum-of-three, wearing a buttoned-up Ginger & Smart shirt dress with her blonde hair cropped in a neat bob, Remblance is not your average striker – in fact, until that warm spring day in September 2019, she’d never attended a protest. But in October 2018, she was propelled into action after reading the 2018 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, in which the world’s leading climate scientists drew a line in the sand. They warned: if we don’t make dramatic changes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, we will face extreme heat, catastrophic droughts and floods, and unprecedented natural disasters including bushfires and cyclones. Remblance recalls the panic that washed over her and the adrenaline running through her body as she processed each chilling fact. And she realised
