Byron Greens -> media -> roadtocopenhagen2009

The Road to Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

Sasha Hunt gives the opening address at the meeting on Tuesday Night

The climate change conference in Copenhagen this December may be the last chance to avoid a potentially catastrophic future for the world's climate. The federal government has set a target for emissions reduction of 5% by 2020, or 15% if a global agreement can be reached this year. But the science tells us the reduction needs to be at least 25%.

With this in mind The Northern Rivers Environmental Defenders Office held a community meeting on Tuesday 3rd of February in Ballina. The intention of the meeting was to send the message to the Government, "Improve Australia's response to climate change?" This community forum was held to coincide with the Climate Change Summit in Canberra and the first day of federal parliament for 2009.

The speakers were, Sasha Hunt, Dr Mark Byrne, Dr Chris McGrath, and Helena Norberg Hodge

Sasha Hunt spoke first and mentioned that the Chinese character for climate is the same as for danger as well as opportunity. She said we can look at this situation in the same two ways. The earth is now talking back, with natural disasters. She quoted Martin Luther King” I refuse to accept despair as a final response”.

Jumping from Denial to Despair; Chris McGrath

Chris quoted Al Gore: "Lots of people go from denial to despair about global warming without pausing in between: " He said that people who are in denial or ignorance often go straight into despair. When you are in denial or ignorance you take no action, and when you go into despair you also take no action. Result, the situation does not change or gets worse. It is imprtant to take action.

Chris also stressed that the CO2 we put into the atmosphere now will stay there for the next 100,000 years,that is 5,000 generations.

Ask the simple question: will we leave the Great Barrier Reef for our children? The answer is , the present Governments targets equals NO!

When asked by a member of the audience why governments and beurocracies aren't taking real action, Chris replied with a quote from Upton Sinclair; “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it” .

Book: The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones (about green jobs)

www.acfonlin.org.au/MyMP (ACF campaign)

The Insanity of Global Trade Helena Norberg Hodge

Helena said that there is a worldwide blind faith that more trade is better. That is why it is cheaper to get NZ butter in the UK than locally produced butter. But this means enourmous transport and global emissions and the destrucction of local economies. "We need to get a closer relationship between production and consumption." continued Helena."

Book: Bill McKibbon wrote “The End of Nature”

He also wrote “Deep Economy”

“Omnivores Dilemma” by Michael Pollen also recommended.

Farmers Markets and Local Economies

There have been studies on how local economies help to rebuild communities – In a study on the behaviour of shoppers, people were followed and they found that people who shopped at farmers’ markets had ten times more conversations than people who shopped at the supermarket. The totality of the experience is far different. The more interactions between people means they are usually happier and have a stronger community connection. When food travels shorter distances you don’t need plastic wrapping, refridgeration, preservatives, colouring etc. Less CO2 is used in transport. Long distance growing forces producers into vast monocultures.

Economic Literacy

Economic Literacy is about what is happening in the broader economy as well as the local economy. Saving our society’s economies as well as saving the planet increases prosperity worldwide. In third world countries,small farmers are being destroyed by the global trading system. Help them become more self reliant and grow healthy foods for themselves. Trade mania has been hurting the planet for a long time. As Sasha Hunt said at the start of the meeting: The earth is talking back.

The Meeting ended by making the following resolutions

1. To prevent the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme from becoming law; and to (a) introduce stronger emissions reduction targets and (b) explore other ways to legislate to reduce Australia's emissions, including the possible imposition of a carbon tax.

2. Build community-wide action to demand green jobs, a just transition and 100% renewable energy by 2020 (there was one dissenter and one abstention)

3. To build community support for a goal of stabilization at 300ppm CO2 and strong international agreement in line with what science and global justice demands. To communicate this position to Copenhagen Conference of Parties and advocate for the Australian Government to adopt that decision.

Robert Hart and Deborah Lilly

Events Calendar
Click on a blue date
to view days events.

No events for today

Next Event
Byron Greens Monthly Meetings ...
Add your event here

Welcome to
Grass-roots Democracy, Ecological Sustainability	Coal exports keep drifting back	Social and economic Justice, Disarmament, Non-violence

Welcome to