Whatever your circumstances, you can take four important actions to help change the trajectory of climate change.

LEARN. Familiarise yourself with the spectrum of climate solutions. Project Drawdown’s Solutions Library offers eye-opening insights into 93 science-based technologies and practices that together can halt climate change.
DO. Alter your own activities to reduce your personal contribution to climate change. Check out Project Drawdown’s Get Involved page for specific suggestions.
SHARE. Communicate the opportunity to make a difference with others.
ADVOCATE. Urge change-makers within your sphere of influence to go all in on halting climate change. And send a message to those running for office this year that climate change is a paramount issue – it affects every other issue they and their constituents care about.

Jonathan Foley, Executive Director, Project Drawdown

A quickstarter to residents of Geelong, Victoria

Get informed: Read, watch, learn

Knowledge is key, so:

Make sure to be picking up the latest news

• Environment Victoria’s News Wrap – your daily summary of news on our environment and climate. → Subscribe here

• Climate for Change – fortnightly email of climate news

• One Step Off The Grid – provided by the sister site to Australia’s leading renewable energy website, RenewEconomy.com.au. The newsletter is being specifically designed to provide information to consumers on new technologies, what other people are doing, and to help them through this maze of information. To sign up click on the button in top right corner

• Dig Deeper’s Daily Wrap – delivers you a daily overview of what your Facebook or Twitter-friends have shared most frequently. → Sign up here

Get your daily climate and sustainability news update via Facebook and Twitter.
Click ‘like’, ‘follow’ or ‘join’ on, for instance:

• www.facebook.com/TheSustainableHour
• www.facebook.com/GeelongSustainability

Sign up to Facebook groups such as:
• www.facebook.com/groups/GeelongSustainabilityGroup
• www.facebook.com/BicycleUsersGeelong
• www.facebook.com/groups/GeelongOrganicGardeners
• Transition Streets Geelong
• Geelong Garden, Conservation & Sustainability
• Climate Change (Australia)
• Climate Emergency Mobilisation

Become member of one or several mailing lists

Such as:
• Grassroots Climate Oz is a national discussion and announcement list for grassroots climate change activists in Australia. You can subscribe to the Grassroots Climate Oz email-list by sending a message to grassroots_climate_oz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.au – New members will be asked to provide names and locations and interest in the issue, and members must be approved.
• Victoria Climate Action Network – a network of almost all grassroots climate organisations and campaigns in Victoria

Get together around this

Organise social meetings with friends

You could invite them over to see a film, show them a powerpoint on your laptop, or hand out a booklet – or just a one-pager you have produced yourself.

A couple of potential conversation-openers:

Two short ones:
• ‘A Race Against Time’ – a six-minute “extract” of the famous tv-series Years of Living Dangerously which ran its first season in the US in 2015. “The short film presents a clear choice between a dangerous world affected by accelerating climate change and a clean energy future. The future is our choice.”
» Home page: www.araceagainsttime.org

• Here is a good 6-minute speech by Leonardo diCaprio that you might like to show

A longer one:
• ‘The Future of Energy’
One hour inspiring, crowdfunded documentary from the US, about exactly that: the future of energy.
» www.thefutureofenergy.org – Read more

Also see the videos on Spell of climate inaction: Lift it with knowledge

Join your local climate action mobiliser group

See VCAN’s list of climate action groups
If you live in Geelong, see whether you like what Geelong Sustainability is doing, and if you do, join them!

Other groups and campaigns in Geelong that could be in need your volunteering or assistance:

Say No to Lara Big Incinerator
Cool Geelong
Transition Streets Geelong
Transition South Barwon
Transition Norlane
Geelong Organic Gardeners
East Geelong Food Growers
Highton Edible Garden Network
Geelong Repair Cafe in Highton
Bellarine Catchment Network
Australian Conservation Foundation Geelong
Help specific campaigns that you like. For instance, in Geelong, there are campaigns running to stop Viva Energy’s proposal to build a gas important facility in Norlane, and another campaign to stop the planned incinerator in Lara.

You could also offer to give a hand with promoting the Climate Emergency Mobilisation campaign and collect signatures for their petition. Inspiration for online assignments: Toolbox

Get engaged in politics at the local level

• Become a candidate at the next Council election – or support a party or a candidate advocating for strong climate action. What matters is that you help spread the word and engage others in the public conversation.

You could sign up as a volunteer helping a community independent candidate in the next state or federal election, or help one of the Greens’ candidates:

→ Voices of Corangamite
→ Voices of Corio
→ Greens Geelong

Sign petitions

• See the list of petitions you could sign here and now

Get carbon physical

Make real changes on the home front

Start investing. Renovate. Electrify! Begin asking yourself and explore what it takes to become a zero-carbon citizen. At a personal level, ask: “How do I achieve real carbon freedom in my own life?”

It’s time to initiate your own, personal journey towards a zero carbon lifestyle. You could aim high and become a leading all-electric urban-organic off-the-grid ‘Carbon Freedom Fighter’ and a role model for others. Or you could say, “I am only going to do what is feasible and makes economic sense at this point and time”.

For inspiration to that end, you could check some of the ideas and links on this page:

» Centre for Climate Safety:
What we all can do

Nine simple actions for reducing carbon emissions

• Minimise transport emissions
For example, walk, ride, take public transport, use an electric vehicle, avoid air travel. Instead, use video conferencing, skype for business, etc, whenever possible.

• Put your money into renewable energy
Invest in renewable energy, or donate to community solar projects – see lists of investment and donation opportunities at www.corenafund.org.au.

• Divest – Move your money out of fossil fuels
For banks see www.marketforces.org.au, for superannuation see www.superswitch.org.au.

• Power your house with clean energy
Install solar if you can, or buy renewables-friendly electricity. Disconnect from gas – see www.greenelectricityguide.org.au.

• Be a conscious consumer
For example, buy only what you need, and buy things that last. Recycle. Upcycle.

• Plant trees
For drawing down excess carbon in the atmosphere. For example Earth Day, Trees for Life

• Eat less meat
For example, meat-free days, vegetarian, vegan

• Make your house energy efficient
See www.energyfreedom.com.au

• Promote the Climate Emergency Declaration campaign. This might ultimately prove to be the THE most important climate action you can take since governments have the power and resources to make the big changes we need.

Sharpen your general sense of carbon-neutrality

In every choice you make, think: “What will the carbon footprint be, if I make that choice?”

Search through The Low Carbon Economy’s lists of carbon neutral and low carbon certified businesses, for instance when you are looking for a carbon neutral hotel or biodegradable and compostable catering products.

What is it we need to do – and why?

Why we need to do something urgently is a long and complicated story – but it can in a way be explained over six minutes simply by watching ‘A Race Against Time’.

What we need to do is – as the length of the page What we all can do shows – also rather complex and lengthy. Marie Venner from the GCCM Movement explains it in this way:

“Those who’ve been looking at this the longest tell us it’s down to 1-2-3 in that order, we must decarbonize our electricity, our transport, and then everything else – without delay!

IPCC scientists, including Catholic leader and GCCM co-founder Pablo Canziani, are trying to help us by distilling some of the top points.

A drastic change, a rapid shift in the way the world produces and uses energy must occur. (See 1-2-3 above)

Already, the delay in phase out of fossil fuels has raised the need for measures to store and remove CO2, even though technologies in this area are unreliable and even unlikely at the scale needed. Staying on fossil fuels is not an option!

Adaptation measures and policies need to be implemented, such as:

In freshwater resources: rainwater harvesting, water reuse, desalination, and more efficient soil and irrigation water management, as well as restoring and protecting freshwater habitats, and managing natural floodplains.

In food production systems: altering cultivation and sowing times for key crops, breeding additional drought-tolerant crop varieties, improving water management and access to irrigation, as well as using water delivery systems more efficiently.

In urban adaptation: city-based disaster risk management such as early warning systems and infrastructure investments; ecosystem-based adaptation and green roofs; enhanced storm and wastewater management; urban and peri-urban agriculture improving food security; and good-quality, affordable, and well-located housing.

A rapid shift to clean energy is imperative and it’s possible now! It’s happening in many places already (see rapidshift.net).

How much do we value the lives of others? “The key issue is the scale of impacts and risks we are willing to bear and the mitigation actions we are willing to implement in order to minimize those impacts,” says Dr. Canziani.

In hope,

Marie Venner
GCCM Movement Sharing & Resources Coordinator”