Finding local solutions to climate change

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In The Sustainable Hour on 94.7 The Pulse on 28 September 2016 we participate in a divestment action event at Vision Super’s headquarters, we hear about the climate emergency, and we jump of joy over the new climate change poll which shows that two thirds of Australians now want our government to take strong action on climate change.

We also touch on coming events such as the annual Divestment Day, the Walk to School month, and Sustainable House Day, and we recommend all our listeners to take the Victorian Government’s Take2 Pledge – as well as pushing for your workplace or school to do the same. Find more info about all of this below.


Listen to The Sustainable Hour no. 141 on 94.7 The Pulse:

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Take the climate change ‘bull’ by the horns

65 per cent of Australians want our federal government to take strong action on climate change, according to a new report from the Climate Institute, ‘Climate of the Nation 2016’. That’s two out of three of your neighbours. It’s 16 million Australians – the majority.

In The Sustainable Hour this week we meet some of the activists and pioneers who help creating this great shift in the nation’s climate change attitude. We discover that when we take the climate change ‘bull’ by the horns, it benefits not only our environment, but also our economy, our health, both mentally and physically, our quality of life and our connectedness in the community. So… it’s time to get involved, and first of all, to be the change!

In this Sustainable Hour:

Simon Grosser, volunteer, Market Forces
Che Olivia, volunteer, Market Forces
Sean Ellis, general manager, Strategy and Growth, Vision Super
Dan Musil, secretary Earthworker Co-operative
Marian Smedley, candidate for Surf Coast Shire, Torquay Ward
Ian Dunlop, former fossil fuel CEO, speaking at an Engineers Australia event


“The top of the world is turning from white to blue in summer as the ice that has long covered the north polar seas melts away. This monumental change is triggering a cascade of effects that will amplify global warming and could destabilize the global climate system. These changes represent a spiritual impoverishment of the earth, as well as a catastrophe for humanity.”
Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus of ocean physics at Cambridge University, a sea ice specialist with 46 years of research on sea ice and ocean processes in the Arctic and Antarctic.



 LISTENER SERVICE: 

Content of this hour

Links, excerpts and more information about what we talked about in this Sustainable Hour


Vision Super
Valerie Kay, Sean Ellis and Che Olivia at Vision Super’s headquarter in Melbourne

On 27 September, Market Forces delivered a petition this morning to Vision Super from 700 of their members, calling on the fund to release a plan to fully divest from fossil fuels.

Listen to The Sustainable Hour for a 10 minute report from the event.

» Market Forces – 22 September 2016:
Did Vision Super divest on the quiet?

» See on Facebook



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Dan Musil speaking at Walk with the Valley

Walk with the Valley

From 19 to 25 September 2016, a group of 20 people walked 100 kilometres to demonstrate their commitment to a ‘just transition’ for the Latrobe Valley, to raise money for the Earthworker Co-operative, and calling on government and community for support. They raised $18,798.

Dan Musil wrote:

“Why am I walking from Melbourne to Morwell? The Latrobe Valley community has provided – and paid for – electricity for generations of Victorians. As the world leaves coal behind, this community should not be left behind. Change in the valley should be an opportunity to create more sustainable, equal and democratic communities – working examples of better ways. The Earthworker Cooperative project is just one practical example (among many that will need to flourish) of how we can do work, energy, community and economy differently. I’m walking because I want to see more just, sustainable, equal and democratic economies everywhere – and it’s high time to start this right now in the Latrobe Valley!”


Dave Kerin wrote:

“At its heart it’s about community. It’s about power. Literally, our electricity now and into the future, but also our power collectively. The decision-making and economic power we give up or have taken away from us, the power we can reclaim.

We have a vision for the future that’s rooted in community-controlled power, of dignified livelihoods that can be sustained into the future costing neither our environment, nor our community, nor our health.

This is what compels me and many others to walk from the edge of Melbourne to Morwell, the heart of the Latrobe Valley, to join with the community there in calling for a ‘Just Transition’ – action on climate change that builds community rather destroying it. A jobs-based transition.”

» More info on www.walkwiththevalley.org

» Facebook event page

» www.earthworkercooperative.com.au




“Whether it’s through sport (GO DOGS!) or work or music or gardening or just fucking saying ‘Hello, how are you?’ to your neighbour or shopkeeper or the homeless person in front of you, it doesn’t matter – we need to find, and re-find, and foster ways to craft a better ‘we’ (well said Tim).
It’s going to take the serious work of finding and re-finding ways of sharing and negotiating this world so that each of us have enough, and it needs practical and tangible ways to demonstrate and enact this. It’ll take compassion and patience and love and openness and solidarity.”
~ Dan Musil

 (excerpt from Facebook post)



» Peter Gardner – 28 September 2016:
Closing Hazelwood and the Just Transition




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Ian Dunlop: The climate emergency

Ian Dunlop, former fossil fuel CEO, speaking at an Engineers Australia event


“What is needed today is a widespread global campaign to actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using techniques like direct air capture. In my view, initiatives to devise economically acceptable methods for carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere should be the most important concern of science and technology. The success of these efforts will mean the difference between the prospect of a positive future for mankind and the certainty of a descent towards climate-driven chaos.”
Peter Wadhams, professor emeritus of ocean physics at Cambridge University


No carbon budget left

The IPCC reports that “to provide a 93% mid-value probability of not exceeding [a dangerous post-industrial increase of] 2°C, the concentration [of atmospheric greenhouse gases] would need to be stabilised at, or below, 350 ppm CO2-equivalent, that is, below current levels, which means no carbon budget left for 2°C.”

At the moment, humanity is responsible for adding over 54 billion tonnes extra CO2-equivalents of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere every year. Still rising every year, not to mention. All that needs to come out again, unless we accept that we have already today committed the planet to as much as 7°C degrees of warming in the next 1,000 years. The oil and gas we have already tapped will take us past 1.5°C, wrote New Scientist on 22 September 2016.

“No carbon budget left…” That means – with the words of the Climate Emergency Mobilisation campaign:
“No new coal, oil or gas projects. No new pipelines. No new permits. No new exploration. No more excuses.”

And no more subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. According to new figures from GetUp, Australian taxpayers are
funding the fossil fuel industry with subsidies to the tune of $40 billion every year.

Politicians and media, many of whom are in various alliances with the fossil fuel companies, deliberately act as if they are paralysed – deaf, dumb and blind – simply because they hope to be able to protect their financial self-interests a little longer.

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Climate change is getting worse

Climate change is already killing hundred of thousands of people every year, and according to NASA, climate change is getting worse every week.

The last 12 months has been the hottest on record. August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). (NASA Earth Observatory: Visualizing the Warmest August in 136 Years)

Heatwaves are longer and more intense. Last year in India and Pakistan, heatwaves killed thousands of people. In May 2016, India recorded its highest temperature ever.

Glaciers and sea ice are shrinking. In 2015, James Hansen and a team of climate scientists warned that sea level could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted. 

Catastrophic forest fires in the US and Canada, and also in Indonesia, add more carbon to the atmosphere over few weeks than some countries emit in an entire year.

Flooding and droughts are getting worse. Hurricanes in the North Atlantic and Pacific are getting more frequent and more intense.

Permafrost is melting. As it melts it’s releasing methane, and anthrax. Permafrost covers 20 per cent of the Earth’s land surface.



Pseudo climate policy

You’d think our governments would do everything they possibly could to avoid this situation and to protect their country. More than 2°C degrees of warming will be catastrophic for millions of people and countless species. And our politicians entered parliament and were sworn in, they promised to do everything to protect the nation.

In Australia, this is currently not the case. Australians are being betrayed by their leaders. Under no calculation does the government’s plan to cut emissions measure up to Australia playing its part. Cutting 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 is a pseudo climate policy. If we want to match what is happening in the US and the European Union, we have to cut of at least 60 per cent by 2030.

“Australia will likely miss its Paris climate commitments by around one billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions by 2030 if it continues with its current policies, and may have to cut another billion tonnes if it commits to what most analysts suggest is the country’s fair share of the Paris target,” wrote RenewEconomy.

If our lawmakers ever would get serious about cutting emissions, they would find emissions can be brought down much more rapidly and at lower cost than claimed by those who have their vested interests in the fossil fuel industry.

This country should as a minimum adopt the targets the Climate Change Authority recommended last year: net zero emissions by mid-century. If politicians and the people committed to this, they’d find that it can be done much faster than that.

» RenewEconomy – 21 September 2016:
Australia facing 1 billion tonne emissions shortfall on current policies

» Business Insider – 22 September 2016:
Scientists think we could hit a critical climate threshold in the next 10 years


“We are woefully behind in our current response to climate change.”
~ Stefan Raubenheimer, director of SouthSouthNorth



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Australians want climate change leadership

» Check the series of short videos on www.youtube.com

“According to the Climate Institute’s Climate of the Nation poll, 65 per cent of Australians want their country to lead the world on finding solutions, a significant increase since the time of divisive debates about the Gillard government’s carbon tax.”

65 per cent… that’s two thirds of our population – 16 million Australians. Two out of three of your neighbours.

“Public support for world-leading, federal government-level action on climate change has bounced back, according to a new poll, as people perceive environmental impacts around them and support a larger role for renewable energy production,” wrote Sydney Morning Herald.

The Climate Institute has been conducting our annual Climate of the Nation attitudinal research since 2007. It is the longest continuous survey of community attitudes about climate change. They have charted the views of Australians about matters relating to climate change and energy policy, through the ups and downs of changing weather patterns, related natural disasters and the waxing and waning of the political landscape.

This year’s research, conducted by polling over 2,000 people across the country, as well as holding focus groups in Brisbane, Melbourne and Newcastle, once again benchmarks the views of everyday Australians on these key issues. In the report ‘Climate of the Nation 2016’, the institute compares and contrasts them to the findings over these past years.

Australia’s signature on the 2016 Paris Agreement committing nations to holding the increase in global average temperatures below 2°C ought to have huge consequences for Australian coal, oil and gas industry. However, environment officials have told a parliamentary inquiry there is no modelling on how current policies will affect emissions beyond 2020, or when emissions will peak.

» The Climate Institute:
Climate of the nation 2016

» Sydney Morning Herald – 25 September 2016:
Support for world-leading action on climate change skyrockets, according to new poll

» The Guardian – 29 September 2016:
Officials admit no modelling shows how Australia will meet Paris climate pledge



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Take2 is Victoria’s collective pledge initiative to help keep the global temperature rise to under 2°C degrees. It enables businesses, local government, community and educational organisations and individuals to take action on climate change.

» Be a part of Take2 and make your pledge

Take2pledge





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Interview: Marian Smedley

The interview clip we played with Green’s candidate for the Surf Coast Council election, Marian Smedley, was conducted by Mitchel Rye in Mitchell’s Frontpage on 94.7 The Pulse on Tuesday 27 September 2016.

» Listen to the 11-minute interview

» Download podcast audio

Surf Coast climate policy

As Marian Smedley referred to in the interview, Surf Coast Shire Council has a Climate Change Strategy and a ‘25% renewables by 2020 Task Force’. Currently, only five per cent of the electricity consumed in the shire is produced by renewable energy sources.

Surf Coast Shire Council has appointed the 14-member 25% By 2020 Task Force to drive the development of an action plan to enable Surf Coast Shire to achieve the State Government’s renewable energy target.

By 2020, Council’s emissions is targeted to be 30 per cent below 2010 levels. The Council writes:

“The Surf Coast Shire Climate Change Strategy 2011-16 seeks to provide the organisation and the Surf Coast community with a clear direction for taking action on climate change at the local level.

Surf Coast Shire seeks to be known as a climate change action leader. We aim to inspire our resilient and connected community with optimism and enthusiasm; and support and work with this community to protect our natural environment and high quality of life.

Strategic objectives have been allocated to four key areas for action as follows:

Leadership and governance:  Council will transform its decision making and management systems to effectively respond to climate change.

Reducing emissions:  Council will reduce its emissions efficiently and effectively.  By 2020, Council’s emissions will be 30 per cent below 2010 levels.

Adapting to climate change:  Council will work with other stakeholders and agencies to identify and plan for climate change risks, and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Community capacity and partnerships:  Council will engage with the community to exchange ideas and responses to climate change risks and opportunities.”

» “25% by 2020 Task Force”

» Climate Change Strategy 2011-16 



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New City of Greater Geelong council policy on emissions reduction

Shane Fowles, Geelong Advertiser wrote on 22 September 2016:

Geelong council’s new climate change strategy will outline an aim to heavily cut carbon emissions, with stronger investment in solar energy systems on the agenda. Administrators will next week decide just how deep the emission cuts will be, with options starting from an 8 per cent reduction by 2020.

A draft report, prepared by council officers, has outlined an aim of achieving a 30 per cent fall in emissions from the organisation’s buildings and vehicle fleet.

It would be backed by an energy efficiency and solar program on 10 civic buildings, which would be paid back within five years and then provide annual savings of $265,781.

The council has already introduced a staff bike fleet, and replaced its six-cylinder cars with four-cylinder cars.

Forecasting has shown that without any new initiatives, the council’s emissions would increase by about 6 per cent over the next 20 years, creating a total increase by 31 per cent over the next 20 years without intervention.

» Geelong Advertiser – 22 September 2016:
New climate change strategy at Geelong council to slash carbon emissions



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 ADDITIONAL: 

In other news

From our notes of the week: news stories and coming events we think you should also know about


A Race Against Time

Watch ‘A Race Against Time’ to learn more – or show it to those you care about:

» Home page: www.araceagainsttime.org




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We need climate action now

Kick big polluters out of climate policy.

We are facing a climate crisis. Flooding in the Gulf Coast. Droughts in California and New England. Devastating storms in the Midwest. Extreme weather across the country is threatening our homes, our businesses, and our lives. And the same is happening around the world.

The only way to change course is for the global community to act quickly to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

But the world’s largest polluters like ExxonMobil and Shell are determined to maintain the status quo by preventing progress toward bold climate action. So as world governments come together in Marrakech in November to figure out how to implement the Paris Agreement, the fossil fuel industry will do everything it can to influence these talks and block meaningful climate policy.

What does that look like? Industry executives actively involved in drafting climate policies. Shell aggressively lobbying the European Union for weak renewable energy goals while promoting gas. The World Coal Association hosting a simultaneous summit for negotiators on “clean coal.”

That’s not right!

Your voice is already making a difference on this issue. For more than 20 years, the fossil fuel industry’s presence and interference in climate policy was unchallenged — even though its influence meant weak policies with no regulatory teeth.

Then you got involved. More than half a million people from around the world joined our action last December to expose the role the industry has played in blocking meaningful climate action. Governments around the world took notice. And just a few months ago, delegates representing almost 70 percent of the world’s population broke the silence at the U.N. climate treaty meetings. They stood up and, for the first time, demanded action on the conflicts of interest that the fossil fuel industry has with strong climate policy.

This is great progress. But powerful governments in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry — like the United States, the European Union, and Australia, are standing in the way.

We have no time to lose. Take action now to tell your government to stand with the people of the world, not the big polluters.

I am headed to the next big climate treaty negotiations in November with our climate team, and we’re taking your demands with us. We’ll hand-deliver this petition – and we need as many signatures on it as possible.

It’s grassroots power like this that helped kick Big Tobacco out of similar treaty talks — and we can do the same with the fossil fuel industry. Raise your voice with us. Real progress on climate change is possible when we act together. Thank you for all you do to challenge corporate power.

Onward,
Tamar Lawrence-Samuel
Associate Research Director
Corporate Accountability International

» American petition: Protect climate policy from the influence of big polluters





Calendar


Public hearing on the Paris Agreement

Thursday 6 October 2016 in Melbourne: the Paris Agreement under inquiry. An opportunity to talk to politicians about the climate emergency. 
Climate Action groups will be writing submissions on the need to declare a climate emergency.

The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has today announced a number of public hearings on the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Paris Agreement on climate change. The newly elected Committee Chair, Stuart Robert MP, announced the dates for the public hearings, and emphasised the importance of the two agreements for Australia.

“The Committee is using the evidence gathered by the Committee in the last Parliament, as well as these additional public hearings, to undertake a thorough and timely inquiry,” Mr Robert said.

Mr Robert said people interested in the Committee’s inquiries should visit the Treaties Committee’s website for further information.

Public hearing on the Paris Agreement:

Thursday 6 October 2016 at 1.00 pm in Parliament House, Melbourne

Public hearing on the TPP:
Friday 
7 October 2016 at 1.00 pm in Parliament House, Melbourne


» Source: www.businessacumen.biz



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Click to sign up
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7 October: Divestment Day in Geelong

Come to Divestment Day in Geelong on Friday 7 October. Geelong banks need to feel the heat and know we mean business.
 
We meet at Johnstone Park, corner of Gheringhap Street and Malop Street for a briefing at 12pm before heading for the big four banks to explain our concerns.

» Read much more

» If you want to know if your super is invested in fossil fuels, find out and take action at www.superswitch.org.au



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October is Walk to School month

VicHealth’s Walk to School month is a free, easy and fun way for kids to get active this October. Victorian primary students are encouraged to walk, ride or scoot to and from school to kick-start healthy travel habits that can lead to good health for life. Primary schools and students can sign up to track their achievements throughout October and be in the running for fantastic prizes.

» www.walktoschool.vic.gov.au




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icon_small-arrow_RIGHT Podcasts and posts about climate change

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Acknowledgement

We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wathaurong People, and pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future.

The traditional owners lived in harmony with the environment and with the climate for hundreds of generations. It is not clear – yet – that as European settlers we have demonstrated that we can live in harmony for hundreds of generations, but it is clear that we can learn from the indigenous, traditional owners of this land.

When we talk about the future, it means extending our respect to those children not yet born, the generations of the future – remembering the old saying that…



The decisions currently being made around Australia to ignore climate change are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How utterly disgusting, disrespectful and unfair is that?




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Podcast archive

Hours and hours of sustainable podcasts

Listen to all of The Sustainable Hour radio shows in full length and in selected excerpts:

» Archive on climatesafety.info

» Archive on cpod.org

» Archive on itunes.apple.com – iPhone friendly



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