Locals can hit Melbourne, Marching Capital of Australia & make news front and centre!

CORRECTION

As you can see and read, Networkers, I got carried away

by the picture front and centre of The Age report on yesterday's event.

(It is the second picture down in this post.)

I have now been advised by Helen Lewers that these angels

are NOT the WHAM angels. 

However, I am leaving the article and my enthusiasm as it is.

Immediately below, I am posting a pic of our angels as they marched yesterday.

Helen is in the centre.

Picture from The Age

The Angels of the Forest

courtesy of WHAM (Western Highway Alternative Mindsets)

I am so-o-o excited.  

I have got up this morning and opened The Age 

hoping to see a good report of yesterday's Climate march and rally.

And what did I see - a picture of the WHAM angels front and centre.

The gals from the bush are back in town!!!!

Congratulations to Helen Lewers and The Angels of the Forest - 

you are beautiful and you have done an excellent job.

For those of you who weren't in and around 

the Art Gallery of Ballarat late last Saturday afternoon, 

the angels were present at a demo that WHAM turned on 

to greet Local Government delegates to a big shebang at the AGB.  

WHAM stands for Western Highway Alternative Mindsets.  It has been protesting for a very long time at the environmental destruction caused by VicRoads as the duplication of the Western Highway between Beaufort and Ararat forges ahead.  You can follow the efforts of WHAM on Facebook. 

Word is from Helen that there could be some progress being made on the issue.  If this turns out to be the case, it has been a long and arduous task which has seemed mighty impossible at times as politicians have proved to be a brick wall, not all the locals have understood etc.  So many ancient River Red Gums have been destroyed.

  

I may live in Ballarat - some way from the duplication - but I have been on the fringes for quite a while thanks to my friend of the long ago in Townsville and North Queensland Conservation Council days, Iona Mackenzie.  The MacKenzie family have been landholders in the area for a very long time - and Iona's sister, Marianne, is one of the beautiful angels.  She is the centre angel of the three pictured above. Their 90+year old mother is pictured on the WHAM site tied to a RRG with Helen!!!

So be loud and proud 

and congratulations to 

WHAM, Helen Lewers, the Mackenzies 

and 

The Angels of the Forest. 

Introducing ... the Australian Climate Roundtable. Now let's see who blinks first on Climate Change!

This post comes from the website of Austrralian Coastal Councils Assocation Inc.
 --- thx to friend of The Network, Maria Riedl.
Please take time too visit their beautiful site.
This is organisations doing for themselves what the Australian Goverrnment is refusing to do.
All I can say to these organisations is:
Good on you.
Congratulations.
But what took you so long?
Giving the Abbott Government a long lead to prove how intransigent it can be?

One also wonders, giving those involved in the Australian Climate Roundtable, how much support - donations, backing, etc - will be withdrawn from the Abbott Government and how much pressure will be placed on Labor to bring forward sensible, practical, well-thought out, convincing policy on Climate Change without resorting to pink batts type policies.

NEWS

POWERFUL ALLIANCE FORMED TO PROMOTE COMMON GROUND ON CLIMATE CHANGE

JULY 5, 2015 ADMIN

An alliance of major business, union, environment, investor and social organisations has been formed with the objective of  ‘putting the climate policy debate on common ground and offering a way forward’.

The alliance, called the Australian Climate Roundtable, includes

• The Australian Aluminium Council,
• The Australian Conservation Foundation,
• The Australian Council of Social Service,
• The ACTU,
• The Australian Industry Group,
• The Business Council of Australia,
• The Energy Supply Association of Australia,
• The Investor Group on Climate Change,
• The Climate Institute and
• WWF Australia.

The organisations in the Roundtable have been meeting in secret for more than a year to discuss how to tackle the issue. “This is born of collective frustration,” Matthew Warren, the chief executive of the Energy Supply Association of Australia, told The Guardian.

A statement issued by the Roundtable said the organisations had come together ‘because climate change and climate policy both impact our missions and our members.’ The statement went on to say: ‘We believe Australia should play its fair part in global efforts to avoid 2° centigrade and the serious economic, social and environmental impacts that unconstrained climate change would have on Australia.’

In an effort to put an end to the political debate on climate change the alliance has identified a set of principles to guide future Australian climate policy. The principles include that climate change should:

• drive domestic abatement wherever it is efficient and internationally recognised across all sectors of the Australian economy;
• make use of internationally recognised abatement from overseas to ease the transition towards net zero emissions;
• recognise the strategic importance of reducing emissions from the energy sector in achieving the overall goal; and
• use any revenue resulting from climate policy to address legitimate needs directly related to climate policy, and otherwise be returned to businesses and individuals.

The principles demand a policy that allows Australia to play a fair role in limiting global warming to 2°C and eventually achieves no net greenhouse emissions – meaning more emissions are taken out of the atmosphere or bought from overseas than emitted by activities in Australia.

John Connor, the chief executive of the Climate Institut, said the aim of the alliance is to ‘reset the tumultuous debate and try to establish a civil and constructive discussion.’ “We are offering ourselves as a sounding board for all parties to test and discuss their policies,” he said.

Jennifer Westacott, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said: “There is now overwhelming common ground on the need for a more certain and meaningful approach to emissions reduction”.

More information about the Roundtable is available at –

http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/articles/media-releases/broad-alliance-points-to-common-ground-on-climate-policy.html

Sustain Ability Links

From Maria Riedl to Julie Bishop: on forcing Colin Russell and Greenpeace to pay for consular efforts.

My friend Maria Riedl has written to Australia's Foreign Minister

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 January 2014

Dear Miss Bishop,

I heard on the tv and saw on the internet that you intend to force the Tasmanian Mr Colin Russell and Greenpeace to pay for his so called rescue. Disgusting on your part. What a small minded person you are continuing to be.

I ask that you resign immediately, because your actions so far as foreign Minister have been appalling and pathetically naive and totally inept. You have absolutely no idea do you, how and what you are required to do! You are penny pinching Ms Bishop! Unbelievable.

Mr Russell is an Australian and considering another government stood up against the illegal taking of a ship and its crew (see ICJ ruling) and YOU did nothing worthwhile at all. Pathetic Miss Bishop, pathetic and unacceptable.

I demand that you do the right thing for once and not carry on like the very stupid woman politician you are turning out to be.

Mr Russell has drawn the world's attention to a very nasty rush to destroy the Arctic environment.

Don't act in such a idiotic manner and pretend you have right and might on your side. Mr Russell is admirable and is worth many many more than you because he actually believes in something that has value and is not an idiotically fixed, narrow minded politician like yourself.

Act in the best interest of Mr Russell and if you don't you will most certainly show what kind of spineless and selfish person you are.

I am just so angry that you would even consider forcing Mr Russell and his family or even Greenpeace, to pay for a moral stance that is to the benefit of the global community and mankind. You certainly don't care about the environment nor about protecting it and neither does your party. Most evident. Shocking!

Regards

Maria Riedl


"Democracy is not a spectator sport"