Image description: Áine stands smiling outdoors on a house balcony, their short brown hair blowing in the summer breeze. They are a white non-binary femme. Suburban treetops dominate the background, with Auckland’s skyline visible in the distance.
I hope you’re all feeling the purple power today! 💜 I’m thrilled to share the latest edition of my newsletter and Martyn Sibley Show podcast, where we’re diving into the vital topics of climate and disability activism and how they can work together hand in hand. 🌍♿️
For this episode, I had the immense pleasure of hosting the brilliant Áine Kelly-Costello as my guest. Áine is a proud disabled storyteller, consultant, and campaigner, whose work centers on disability, climate, and migration. Their perspective is so insightful, and I couldn’t think of a better person to shed light on the powerful intersection of these two essential movements.
Based in, and originally from, the beautiful land of Aotearoa, New Zealand. 🇳🇴🇳🇿 They are deeply passionate about creating positive change and fostering greater understanding between the climate and disability communities.
Tune in to this episode to hear Áine’s inspiring journey, as they share their expertise and experiences, weaving a tapestry of knowledge and compassion that empowers us all to take meaningful action.
Together, let’s amplify the voices of those working tirelessly at this crucial intersection of climate and disability activism. Remember, it’s by joining hands and hearts that we can bring about a more inclusive and sustainable world. Let’s embrace our purple power and make a difference, one step at a time! 💪💜
Watch on YouTube here and listen on Spotify here.
Plus the transcript is shared below:
Martyn
Hello, everyone, welcome back to the latest episode of the Martyn Sibley show under the Purple Power series. And today we’ve got our first global interview with Áine Kelly-Costello, who is in New Zealand. And we’ve worked through different time zones and some tech challenges, which is always par for the course for these sort of podcasts, interviews online, we’re together and we’re very excited to talk all things climate and disability. So I’ll throw it over to you and you’re welcome to the show. And thank you for joining me today.
Áine
Thanks so much, Martyn. It’s great to be here.
Martyn
And um, yeah, be great. If you could give a bit of a back story of how you’ve ended up–obviously, one thing to mention, of course, is I came across your work through the disability debrief with with Peter. Disability Debrief is a fantastic newsletter talking all things around disability and sort of policy and activism. And that’s where I first came across you and asked you to come on the show. It’d be lovely. Just to hear a bit your backstory, what sort of led you to this crossover of two very important topics?
Áine
Yeah, thank you for that. So I think my first introduction, so I am a disabled person, myself as well. And my first introduction to climate campaigning was when I was in university and got involved in the fossil fuel divestment movement. So trying to remove the social licence of the coal, oil and gas industry to operate by getting institutions to disinvest. From it, so I learned a lot of general campaigning skills through that. So that was a really useful Foundation.
And then through another campaign that was starting at a similar time, but like a couple of years later, in New Zealand around accessibility law, I started getting more involved in like pan disability advocacy, and thinking about advocacy from a disability lens. And around that time, as well, having been involved in the fossil fuel divestment movement for a few years, and having some really good allies, within 350, Aotearoa, so the 350 country group here in Aotearoa New Zealand. We started working on, like thinking about how the organisation could make campaigning more accessible and inclusive and I was doing some trainings, and helping create an accessibility and inclusion manifesto for 350. So that was probably the first time I was thinking about the intersections of disability and climate from mostly that sort of campaigning lens back in about 2017.
Got a bit more involved in journalism, after that through a media internship, and through my master’s, which was in investigative journalism, which also looked at journalism related to climate change for my thesis. And then yeah. Peter kindly offered for me to write about disability and climate intersections for the fantastic newsletter Disability Debrief, which I think you’re going to talk about in more depth. So I won’t go into that now. Yeah.
Martyn
Yep there’s plans in motion with Peter to come on the show. And yeah, share that, that overall journey, as you say, that’s how we met and yeah, it feels like lovely culmination of all your backstory, I’m sure you’ve been writing and speaking and sharing about it elsewhere in general. But yeah, that that piece you wrote in the Disability Debrief was, was just really thorough, really striking. Very interesting, very informative. And yeah, exactly what sort of led me to invite you on the show today.
I mean, obviously, you know, most people, unless they’re living under a rock would be pretty aware of the climate challenges we’re facing in the world now. Maybe not everyone in the world is as familiar with disability, you know, challenges and the sort of nuances around that. But I think, obviously like yourself for myself with a disability, but I think lots more people are becoming more aware of social issues, particularly the last few years, we’ve definitely seen an uptick in the sort of awareness and consciousness of social issues, disability included, but at that intersection of disability and climate change, what What for you are the sort of standout important points that you’d love the listeners to learn today?
Áine
Yeah, I almost didn’t write that piece, which is called Where Disability and Climate Meet, because it was such a like… disability and climate are, as I kind of, say, in the piece, big, you know, sprawling things spreading out in lots of directions. So it’s a bit dangerous to even dare to write something, trying to talk about it holistically.
But for me, I think I look at it really from a very systemic lens. So even you know, before there was climate breakdown, and before that was kind of a phenomenon that was in the public consciousness and whatnot, the world was already, you know, really difficult for marginalised people and capitalism was already making certain people more valued than other people, and, you know, aspects of just how the economic order was, social attitudes towards disabled people, that was already really hard, right? So then in terms of positioning ourselves as disabled people, when now, you know, extreme weather impact weather from floods, or heat waves, or droughts, or storms, or the fact that like, these things are happening really, really often, and compounding each other, when those layers of oppression end up on top of us, as well, as a pandemic as well, it’s a lot! I think that’s kind of something I feel like it’s important to situate, particularly for multiply marginalised disabled people. So thinking about disabled people who are also living in poverty, or maybe indigenous, living in the Global South, people of colour, and so on.
So yeah, I think like, in terms of understanding why advocacy is so important in this area, there’s a couple things. One is that Rabbi And Professor Julia Watts Belser, who’s also disabled, has done some really good framing around the fact that disabled people can’t be seen as “expected losses” in the climate crisis. People who we can just kind of go, “Oh, yeah, no, well, it kind of sucks that like, these really big weather events are happening, and some people are just not gonna make it. And that’s just too bad.” No, no, no, like, that’s policy settings that make that happen. That might not be intentional policy settings. But there are still things that we can change and need to change. So I think that’s one like foundational thing. And I think the other aspect of that, which is more overarching, still in the way is thinking about a framing of like, ableism, which comes up within environmental spaces. So eco ableism. So like, that idea that disabled people are expendable would be one version of eco ableism, right? But you also have things like, you know, it’s not just the extreme weather stuff. It’s also the fact that now as we transition into decarbonizing societies, and economies and whatnot, lots of systems are changing as they need to do. And in those transitions, it’s really important that disabled people don’t get left behind either, right. So like thinking about how transport systems are changing. If you move too quickly, to, for example, kind of disincentivise cars without realising, in which ways disabled people, some disabled people are particularly reliant on cars for accessibility reasons, also, sometimes particularly reliant or you know, not able actually to access EVs yet, because of either their size or charging station accessibility or like what have you. So it’s really important to consider those needs actually, as well. Or another example would be on them, you know, when you have a e-scooters and, and bikes and whatnot, making sure that there’s actually separated cycle and micromobility lanes so that people who are using the footpaths, you know, pedestrians, and wheelchair users and whatnot, are actually still safe on the footpaths, making sure. Another example would be making sure that electric vehicles have sound standards when they’re going slowly or when they’re idling, so that if you’re blind like me, you can actually hear them. Which many countries do, but New Zealand where I live, still does not. So, yeah, responses that kind of leave us behind, you know, can be eco ableist, so it’s important to to fight back against that and to say, like, herehere are ways that we can do better and to really get allies on board with championing those aspects alongside us. Yeah,
Martyn
Yeah, that’s yeah, thank you for sharing that. And as I was thinking, you know, before I’d read your A piece and even like preparing for today when I sort of think of climate and disability, as you said, that is five such big topics under themselves and then trying to find those intersections and overlaps is felt for me, my brain was slightly overwhelmed with where do you start. And so what you’ve just shared is so helpful to have some of that tangibility. And even then you’ve just made me realise that Purple Goat, one of our clients is in that, you know, mobility sector for disabled people. And one of their big challenges is around the rollout of electric vehicles. And so we’re helping them by bringing in the voice of different disabled people by, you know, different impairments, but broader diversity and inclusion intersectionality as well. And very much to what you just said, it’s trying to help have that voice and to be at the right “tables”, in inverted commas, where decisions get made, so that you know, even if there is this decarbonizing and this rollout of electric vehicles, that it doesn’t leave disabled people literally behind and literally at home, so that I hadn’t even myself pieced together one of those very tangible, flying things that were involved in. Purple Goat. When I generally think of climate and disability, and I’d love to get your thoughts on this one, it’s the age old, the banning of plastic, and then I know for me, as a wheelchair user, with very limited upper body movement as well, you know, I need straws to drink, right? And I’ve tried so many different types of straws. I’m, I care about the planet, I’m, you know, very thoughtful of all that, that. And it may be that I’ve still not looked hard enough and far enough and found a suitable alternative, but I have struggled to find as true to drink hot drinks, particularly plastic. And so maybe you’ve got a solution for me, or maybe that can be a talking point around those sorts of sensitivities and public narratives that have sometimes caused a bit of a problem around this intersection conversation as well.
Áine
Totally, you know, in the in the waste space, this is a big issue in a lot of countries–here, here we have it as well. And I think I would really, you know, hope that for it for you and other disabled people who are relying on straws that, you know, we can reframe this away from being about you having to search for solutions that work for you individually and realise, actually, that it’s a systemicly unfair issue to say, Okay, we’re just going to make it really difficult to access a product that some people literally need to survive. Like, that’s, that’s eco ableist, that’s fundamentally flawed, that’s basically saying, Oh, we just don’t really care about disabled people, we can just make them jump through a whole bunch of hoops to find their plastic straws. And somehow, that’s okay.
And I would just give a plug at the moment if anyone’s listening to this, who happens to be, you know, involved in any of that organisations during Global Plastic Treaty negotiations, which are ongoing at the moment, this is one of the examples of how disability really, really needs to be part of those discussions. And I know that there are, there are some, I think, quite preliminary efforts to to make that happen, which is good. But yeah, it’s so important, as our expertise as disabled people, is a big part of these discussions. Also Ananya Rao-Middleton, whose name I may be pronouncing wrong, but in the UK has done a comic panel on the sort of plastics disability intersection on the Greenpeace, Greenpeace UK website. So that’s a good one as well for, like, if you want an explainer to give to, you know, to people who are not familiar with, with that particular issue. Yeah.
Martyn
Yeah. And thank you for that. And it’s, yeah, the more we talk, and I’m sure you’ve experienced it over multiple years now in your field, but it’s, it literally is everywhere, isn’t it? It’s not some particular thing that’s happening in isolation. You know, the climate is so important without understating the obvious to all of life. And then, you know, as we said earlier, disability is very close to our heart, but as we know, globally, it’s around that one in five figure in terms of the number of disabled people in the world and so, yeah, it is large issues, but it’s all these different pockets and areas of life and the world where the very rich and vital conversations pop up.
So was there any other tangible examples of this also, I think I’m keen, definitely for the audience to start to engage and embrace with how we can have our voices heard, I think there’s that age old balance, isn’t there, as an individual with disability, we often all feel like we always have to be activists, and not everyone always wants to spend all day long being activists, you just want to kind of get on and live, live everyday life sometimes as well. But I think it’s that balance. Of course, everything in life is balanced. But it would also be good as well to hear your thoughts on how can you know, disabled people, and generally all people bring their voice to this important topic without maybe having to start the next Greenpeace as a, as a large scary idea for one individual to consider.
Áine
For sure, yeah. I think finding a way to integrate climate related framing, or like climate related advocacy, or not even advocacy, but like, threads or aspects and to whatever your current passion, or thing that you’re doing now, already, is great. And the good thing about, you know, welll “good” in quotation marks, but about the fact we, you know, we need climate justice as sort of this overarching goal is that there’s often so many different ways to do that. So, you know, for people who are, you know, working in sort of a policy space and thinking about transport or employment or humanitarian issues or whatnot, those intersections with climate change are like, are basically right in front of you. And it’s a matter of sort of just building the knowledge to like, find, to make the connections. And so it’s not necessarily that it’s, you know, it’s definitely a… it can be tricky to articulate sometimes I think, and that’s where, you know, finding resources can be really useful. I’ve made a collection of resources on disability and climate change, which might be a good one that we could link in the show notes, maybe for people.
But yeah, and then and then other areas as well. I mean, like, you know, for people within the sort of education space. Could you think of maybe a way to see if climate and disability intersections could become a guest lecturer within a climate related course or something like that, you know, what I mean,? And I think within like, the, the business space? Yeah, I think one aspect that will remain important is not, not overly individualising stuff, right. So not putting it back onto like disabled people or anyone to unnecessarily need to take it all into like them being a conscious consumer. But on the other hand, saying, for example, on the vine of work you’re doing, how could we make it facilitate disabled people being part of conversations about I don’t know, decarbonising the economy or whatever. Money, money is always useful, honestly, like, making sure that disabled people are actually paid for their time within these kind of consultancy roles is really, really important.
I think sometimes, depending on where people are active, if they’re sort of in the disability advocacy space, or the climate advocacy space, there can be a lot of space for like, bringing people together. Getting the people who are more traditionally climate activists who may not be disabled or so familiar with the disability world, and the disability Advocacy organisations talking to each other. I know Disability Rights UK has been doing some good work in that area, for example. So yeah, I think just finding, finding something like, maybe it’s none of those suggestions for for listeners, right. Like, everyone’s completely different. Maybe it’s something creative as well. In the piece that I wrote, where disability and Climate Meet, I gave some some examples of some really cool creative work. So like, yeah, just like whatever feels the closest to you, whether it’s, you know, social media posting as well. I think there’s a lot of this idea that our activism that’s online is lesser, you know, we need to get rid of that. That’s an ableist idea. online activism is equally valid, and we need, we need all the different types. So yeah.
Martyn
Yeah, I think that that whole and thank you again, for those efforts. I think the thing I took away actually was that, you know, we all have that responsibility and accountability. And yeah, that does doesn’t mean something too big or too burdensome, either it’s, we can all do something and we have to work out individually, you say, within our own passions and interests and, and spheres of influence how we can move the needle in a personal way. And it’s impossible to prescribe that for every particular possible person or situation. But yeah, those exam, maybe helpful.
Áine
Thank you. Maybe if I say one more possible point, just in terms of my general philosophy of how I personally figure out what I work on, I guess. One is that working, if you can work with other people on this stuff, so that you’re not doing it, so you don’t feel like you’re isolated. I think that helps massively because obviously, climate grief is a thing, it’s a very overwhelming area to work in, and being able to have people ideally, people that you like, that you actually want to spend time with, to do that work with whatever it might be, is just huge. And I think the other thing is that when, if you are going into sort of the climate and disability intersection space, maybe, particularly if you’re new to it, but for everyone, like finding, finding good non-disabled allies is, amazing if you can, like and it doesn’t mean that, you know, people will already know all the things like they want and it doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily be perfect. But finding people who are really willing to support you and like championing the stuff that you are doing, to be able to actually get those, for example, you know, to get more people to actually come to disability related trainings, is invaluable, and makes it feel a lot more possible. So, that’s one of the things I really think about. If the space really feels like people are really, yeah, there and really wanting to push that, that I won’t be doing that alone. That’s, that’s a big factor for me as well.
Martyn
Yeah, it can sound a bit cliche and a bit easy to say, but I think it’s that awareness is always the first step. And so when anyone has that moment of like, oh, actually, you know, the climate side is something very real, and we need to address it. And likewise, like, wow, look at the stats around disability and exclusion one way or another. And first, it’s that first step is literally having awareness of the problem of economies. And then it’s sort of like, if everyone has that awareness, and everyone does something even minute, eight billion people doing something minute adds up to a lot as a that, that can sound and easy to say, be shaped, but it’s actually very true. And in fact, if it actually played out that way, it would all fix the problem pretty quickly, right?
Áine
Yeah, and particularly if our political leaders decided to listen to long standing demands of people who’ve been most marginalised and most impacted and done the least to cause climate breakdown, then that would really start turning things around. And also if, you know, if basically, we transitioned ASAP, like, right away, away from the fossil fuel industry and towards renewable energy. So yes, but no collective action, and collective like, envisioning of what a better world looks like it’s so needed. And that comes in so many different forms. So yes, we all have a part to play in that for sure.
Martyn
Yeah, I think you’ve referenced that, you know, the power of social media in general. And the fact that for some disabled people, that’s the main, you know, tool or tactic at their disposal. And I think the downplaying of clicktivism is more about if it doesn’t translate into change and into policy, which sort of speaks to your point at the end that that standout, not It’s not down to people using social media, and it being pointless. It’s just about those in power actually listening to the citizens and acting.
Áine
Yeah, and I think that the other point around that, actually, is that I think people confuse the fact that… So using social media to do to do whatever is like a tactic, right? And like going through a protest is a tactic. The thing that would make it effective, or particularly effective, as the strategy behind that, which we generally have a lot of different tactics. So of course, there’s you know, there’s always a place for thinking about strategy. But I know that you know, a lot of us just don’t have the The spoons have the capacity or the energy day to day to do that as well. So I don’t want to, you know, just anything. There’s, I definitely don’t think about strategy when I post every every single thing on social media, right.
But like, when there are particular hashtags now around the pandemic, and other movements, disabled people and others organised around the #NoDodyIsSisposable hashtag, for example. And movements like that, that can be great, because it can bring media attention to the issue, and it can, you know, get it a little bit more visible and mainstream spaces as well.
But yeah, I think, you know, even just on a on a personal level, for me, if this is useful to like, tie the pandemic, back to sort of activism and how that all has intersected for me as well, like, I got long COVID at pretty much straight off the bat, like I got COVID and march 2020, and realised that I was still sick about six weeks later, and I still have long Covid now. And that’s affected, like I have temperature dysregulation, so even when the temperature goes up a bit, that really, like I really noticed that. So I have to be very mindful of that. I’ve started eating chicken again, even though I was vegetarian before, because of dietary changes I needed to make in relation to long COVID I have not gone to a protest since the start of the pandemic, for sensory overwhelmed reasons, and also because of the risk of getting covered again, which I’m trying very hard to avoid. So like the way that I my activism has looked, and the way that climate impacts affect me have changed. And I think that that’s, that’s something that can happen to any of us at any point in our lives as well. And so in real life, you know, the, the climate around us is changing our personal circumstances are changing, these like systems and multiple crises. You know, we haven’t talked about, you know, the cost of living and economic stuff too much. But all of these things intersect as well. So we’re in we’re all in these, like, really messy spaces, I think, and just kind of have to keep finding ways forward and finding ways to be visible and have our voices heard as disabled people.
Martyn
Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that very personal, experiential part. So make that bigger, articulate that bigger point. And I think sort of pulling us more towards the end of the conversation I was going to share with you and for some of the listeners that haven’t maybe come across this as well was bigger, because there’s so many different elements within climate and within disability, and then the all the different tactics we will just speak into as well. I think for me, that overarching framework that I found the last year, that’s been really helpful to apply on whatever, whether it’s sort of planet or people. One was citizens, which was, I interviewed the author of Ccitizens on a couple of episodes ago called John Alexander. And that’s basically about having more power and decision making structures given to people not so centralised in that traditional way in government. And I think that resonates a lot what we’re talking about today that, you know, there are having a voice at the table and all that good stuff is one way that As citizens, we can have agency and affect change. And definitely, particularly with this intersection of climate and disability reminds me of the Doughnut Economics theory. Is that one you’ve come across before on yeah.
Áine
Yes, but elaborate on the on the connection for you as well, I’m curious.
Martyn
I guess when I look at, well, yeah, I would see the climate environment, that’s the outer ring of the doughnut. And frankly, one, listen, as I come across it, I apologise if it’s sort of a bit suddenly abstract in what I’m coming out with. But the idea is, there’s a diagram of two rings, one inside the other. So it’s like a doughnut. And the outer ring represents the limits of our sustainability with our resources on the planet. So we don’t want to go outside of that outer ring, because that’s basically what we’re doing in terms of affecting the environment and the climate and everything we’ve been talking about today. And the inner ring is about the basic standard of living of all people, which I would see as sort of social, you know, social issues, social challenges, which of course, does a disability and disabled people would be one of a bigger conversation around poverty, and you’ve referenced it earlier Áine, different parts of the globe and different people that are marginalised. so we want to bring all the people from the centre to that that inner ring so that everyone has a very basic standard of living. And so yeah, for me, that doughnut is quite a good visual representation of both how disabled people in this instance can have that basic standard of living, but also on that outer ring, the planet is still sustainable as well.
Áine
Yeah no that that’s a really good articulation. Thank you. I think one of the one of the really huge areas, globally, and particularly in the Global South, but not only where this is sort of implicated, as well as just the absolute huge number of people who who work off the land, and for whom the land, you know, whether in the agricultural industry or around other other land based management, and how much that is changing, because of climate breakdown, and making sure that, you know, sustainable land use practices. And people’s livelihoods can actually be part of a just transition that also takes people with disabilities along as well, as you know, the wider green jobs, movement and employment side of things. Which, of course, very much, very much agree there’s so much to do with the sort of standard of living, which is intimately tied to the fact that extreme weather are just continuous now they’re just a present reality now. Yeah,
Martyn
Yeah. And I guess for me that I don’t want to oversimplify and over abstract but the citizen book and model is around that we all have that responsibility and agency to make change. And that’s more of a social change political narrative. And then doughnut economics is actually looking at economics and how we’ve, it talks in the book a lot about how we’ve come to know, economics as it is today. But actually, there can be a different model of economics, which is about the two things I just described before and yeah, so I think it all it all intersects, it all overlaps. And in the end, it’s just about us all trying to help build a world that is based, sustainable and includes all people, right?
Áine
Yeah, totally.
Martyn
Cool. Well, um, well, I’ve got to dive off in a minute for another meeting. So I think, unfortunately, we’re gonna have to wrap I really would love to chat for longer because this is just so interesting and fascinating for me, and I’m sure people listening are learning a lot. But I mean for you on yet what if people want to learn more? Obviously, we can share some links in the notes, but where can they find your work where you know, any sort of general places you’d like to point people towards that are feeling inspired now?
Áine
Yeah, I mean, I think definitely subscribing to Disability Debrief, which is edited and produced by Peter Torres Fremlin, and it’s just this really amazing resource on all things disability news is great. So disabilitydebrief.org, you can sign up for free there. My Twitter is [spelling] @ainekc95. So Áine K C. And I can put some other links to my work in the show notes, as well.
Martyn
Yeah. Amazing.
Áine
I am also hosting the upcoming season of the Enabling commons podcast, which might be starting to come out as this episode comes out. So that podcast interviews people at the intersections of disability and climate change as well, through the Disability Inclusive Climate Action Research Programme at McGill University. So yeah, you can subscribe to Enabling Commons, wherever you like to listen to podcasts as well.
Martyn
Awesome. I’ll definitely check that out. Thank you for staying up late. I know it’s getting late too now and your time in New Zealand and um, yeah, just thank you for sharing all your experiences and thoughts and knowledge on this really important topic.
Áine
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
Martyn
Nice ne. Take care and I’ll see you soon.
