Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Community Dialogues on Coal

Six Degrees - the coal campaign of Friends of the Earth in Brisbane - formally launched the report Community Dialogues on Coal earlier this month.

The report is an overview of the findings from a coal communities listening tour conducted by the campaign in last November.

In November 2008 Six Degrees undertook a listening tour of coal affected communities in Queensland. The purpose of the tour was for Six Degrees to improve our understand of the impacts of the coal industry in Queensland, and to gauge the attitudes of affected communities to climate change and the expansion of the coal industry.

Following the formal launch of the report at the Griffith University Ecocentre today, the findings from the listening tour are now publically available.

This report provides a snapshot of regional attitudes to the coal industry. It is intended to serve as a point of reference for those with an interest in future of Queensland's industry, and an interest in the prospects of a just transition for Queensland to a sustainable future.

As quoted from the introduction to the report:

The coal industry in Queensland is entering a period of enormous uncertainty and risk, with continuing job losses, shrinking global demand, and massive sector-wide restructures due to climate change policy responses. In all this, it is the people of Queensland's coal communities who will have to deal with the very real impacts of this period of transition. It is time for a serious and sober dialogue in this state about the role that coal plays in our future prosperity and in the way we respond to climate change. We hope that this report can begin to inform that dialogue.

You can download a copy of the report from the Six Degrees website here.

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Get Up's - Spot the difference Ad

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Sunday, December 07, 2008

Queensland Climate Movement Summit

Summit Update



Walk Against Warming 2008
Exactly one month ago, the Queensland Climate Movement Summit was attended by more than 60 activists, thinkers and citizens, with some 30 organisations represented and 26 workshops conducted on building and strengthening the climate movement in Queensland.

To those of you who participated, the event was a success only due to your input and contribution. Many most humble thank-yous for your involvement.

But, of course, the Summit was just the beginning.

As promised, the proceedings from the Summit have been edited, and the Proceedings of the Inaugural Queensland Climate Movement Summit are now available online at:



You'll notice that the summit proceedings are available in both a PDF and in a webpage format. We hope that through the website's comment and forum capabilities, the summit proceedings can become a living document of our evolving strategies and campaigns addressing the climate crisis in Queensland.



One of the desired action steps from the summit was the request for Six Degrees to establish a collaborative web-space, where we can share information, resources and news.

We hope that www.enoughhotair.com will provide us with that webspace - but it needs your input to make it so. Some of the ways that you can contribute are below:  


  • Continue the summit discussions at the online forum on the summit webpage. We are trialling this feature of the site, subject to its popularity. The more you post, the more useful the online forum will be.





Thanks once again for your participation in the Queensland Climate Movement Summit - it was a rich and powerful event. Looking forward to working with you in the coming months to build a resilient and effective climate movement across the state.



In solidarity and hope,
Clare, John, Brad and Shani

on behalf of
Six Degrees

- taking climate change personally -

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Act Now - Global Day of Climate Action December 6

December 2008
Friends of the Earth Europe's video asking the "Men in suits" to start making positive decisions that address the problem of climate change.

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Saturday, December 06, 2008

Global Day of Action on Climate Change

This is an amazing and very powerful video - watch, embed, link, tag and comment!

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Carbon crash hits Europe's emission trading scheme

November 06, 2008
From The Australian

WalkAgainstWarming200860
This is why we should have a straight carbon tax or carbon rationing instead of relying on the ETS Market system which is just capitalism which has caused the problems in the first place.

A Carbon Tax is where a GST / VAT / .. type tax at some percent is applied calculated on the cost it will take to repair that Carbon that has been emmitted in manufacturing, transporting etc... the product in question. It would be calculated and not a plucked figure.

Carbon rationing is even better where we work out how much carbon per person we're allowed to emit to remain sustainable. It will involve some credit card type arrangement. If you use more than your allocation you can buy from someone who didn't use as much.

Both are politically difficult to implement in our current capitalist societies.


WHILE you were distracted by crashing banks and clashing US senators, you may have missed a small environmental earthquake.

The price of carbon has collapsed.

In only three months, life has become a lot cheaper for polluters. The financial cost of warming the planet has plummeted in Europe's emissions trading system (ETS) and the effectiveness of such a volatile market mechanism in curbing carbon is being questioned.

You may recall that the ETS is a mechanism to encourage businesses to reduce their carbon output. Europe's larger companies are allocated permits to emit CO2, and these allowances, called EUAs, can be traded on exchanges.

Companies that emit less CO2 than their allocation can sell EUAs for cash, but inefficient polluters must buy EUAs or face financial penalties.

The idea is that a shortfall in EUAs allocated by governments will cause the carbon price to rise, stimulating investment in carbon reduction.

It's a market solution to pollution, but this carbon market is showing a distressing tendency to behave like most financial markets -- hysterically. In July, the right to spew out one tonne of CO2 from a chimney would have cost a power generator E29.33, but yesterday it could be bought for only E18.25 ($34.14).


...

Read the article.

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Sunday, November 09, 2008

Walk Against Warming 2008 - 15th Nov

This event is happen around Australia on November 15 (except for Canberra's walk which is on Dec 6th). In Brisbane it will start at 12:30 in Queens Park (Corner of George and Elizabeth Streets) and we'll walk to Roma Street Parklands.

Find more information or for promotional posters or flyers see http://www.walkagainstwarming.org/ for all locations in Australia.



The below information is not so relevant now though we could still do with some Marshalls.

If you'd like to be part of the organising committee then please shoot over to the CAB_Team group at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CAB_Team/ and click on Join.

WalkAgainstWarming2007_035
We are meeting every Monday up until the day at:

  • Monday 6th October and every Monday till 15/11, 6:00pm - 7:30pm
  • QCC, Level 3 166 Ann Street, Brisbane City (Queensland, Australia).


Enter by the door on the right side of building. If it is locked, please call us on 3221 0188 and one of us will pop down.

Or take this as an invitation to join in the fun as we walk to highlight that climate change is a real problem and we need to change business as usual - keep coal in the ground and invest in renewables, efficiency measures and education.

Find photos of past WAWs in Brisbane at Tintuna's Environment photos collection.

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Community-led Tarong coal action & media

Hi all,



Loads of media from yesterday - just a glimpse (I love how the media
keeps calling us "Power Protesters").

We made ABC, 10 and 9 evening news :-) I think we made it into local and regional print media (Kingaroy, Nanoonga, etc) - we're visiting the State Library today to find out.

Check out www.enoughhotair.com for photos, videos and more links (coming soon).

Australia:

Two Charged Over Power Station Protest - Channel 9 News (with photo)
http://news.www22.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=661871&rss=yes

Tarong Power Plant Protesters Arrested - Courier Mail
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,24615621-952,00.html...

Protesters Arrested at Tarong - Brisbane Times
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/protesters-arrested-a...

Police Arrest Tarong Power Protesters - ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/07/2413600.htm

'Peaceful' activists chained at power plant - News.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24615589-1248,00.html?from=publi...

International:

...an excellent article from the BengaliTimes - compliments of Reuters.
http://www.banglalive.com/news/NonLeadNewsDetail137_11_2008.asp

Climate Activists Disrupt Australian Power Plant - The Standard, Hong
Kong (Reuters Feed!)
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=9228&icid=4...

3 Climate Protesters Chain themselves to Coal Equipment - News.uk.msn
http://news.uk.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10751237

Syndicated at:

Sydney Morning Herald
http://news.smh.com.au/national/two-charged-over-power-station-protes...

The Mercury (Tasmania)
http://tools.themercury.com.au/stories/10008681-breaking-news.php

The West Australian
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=528523

The Age
http://news.theage.com.au/national/two-charged-over-power-station-pro...

Climate Ark
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=110000
Sunshine Coast Daily
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/nov/07/aap-protesters-chained-at...



--
Clare Towler
m: 0412 055 600
skp: clare_t
http://stepitupaustralia.wordpress.com

"If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?"
www.enoughhotair.com
www.climatemovement.org.au

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