First posted as a message on the Eco-Committee Facebook page.
Last Year's Walk Against Warming
The Arctic Ice caps are expected to melt completely in five years time. The sea levels are rising and will continue to rise, increasing the rate of global warming as the sea becomes darker and destroying the lives of millions. New waves of natural disasters are sweeping the planet, and islanders in Papua New Guinea have already been displaced as a result of rising sea levels. These people are the first of what are known as climate refugees, the first of many to come unless the the urgent climate emergency is recognized for what it is, an emergency, and addressed immediately.
Yet the most the Rudd Government has to offer us is an emissions trading scheme that will let the heaviest polluters off the hook, even “compensating” the coal industry. The right to pollute will become enshrined in the form of a hundred-billion-dollar commodities market. In Victoria, new coal-fired power stations are being built, under the guise of “carbon capture ready” – a skillfully deceptive work of greenwashing that conveniently covers up the fact that the technology will only leave the experimental stage in 20 years time.
Let’s make one thing clear: It is the profit-driven logic of the market that got us into this mess. The market will not rescue us from climate change, it’ll only ensure that the real costs are driven back to ordinary people. You’ve signed kyoto, Rudd. Now it’s time we start seeing some real action on climate change.
What we need is not more lies and greenwashing, but massive public investment in renewable energy and public transport. If companies can’t cut their emissions without jeopardizing their profits, then they should well be nationalized and put into public hands. Where are the publicly-subsidised solar panels on peoples’ homes, and that free, accessible public transport system that people would acctually want to use?
Ultimately, ordinary people are going to have to bear the brunt of the effects of climate change. The most oppressed among us will be the hit hardest – as we have seen in the pacific already.
Over 40,000 people attended last year’s Walk Against Warming, either as individuals or from various community activist groups. We held the single largest climate change rally in history, a testament to the sheer urgency of the crisis and the need for an alternative.
A month later, Australia signed Kyoto.
At this year’s Walk Against Warming, we will be sending a clear message to Rudd, Brumby and corporate polluters that we will not put up with any more compromises. We want this year’s rally will be bigger and louder than ever before. The time for urgent climate action, and change, has never been more urgent. So cancel your arrangements, your saturday school, your holidays, your honeymoons, your trip to the moon etc. and invite everyone you know to get out onto the streets on November the 15.
See you there.
- Jimmy is a member of the GWSC Eco-Committee
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RALLY DETAILS:
November 15 2008
1pm at State Library (we will meet at 12:30pm)
GROUP PUBLIC TRANSPORT ARRANGEMENTS TO BE ANNOUNCED. STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FROM GLEN WAVERLEY SECONDARY WILL BE ATTENDING THIS DEMONSTRATION. BRING BANNERS, PLACARDS, SIGNS, ETC.
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Posted by gwscecocomittee 
Posted by gwscecocomittee 
Posted by gwscecocomittee 
