Do the Maths

Global warming’s maths means Australia really counts

In November 2012, following publication of his Rolling Stone article, Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math, Bill McKibben and 350.org hit the road to build a movement strong enough to change the terrifying math of the climate crisis by getting people, colleges and governments to take their cash out of coal investments.

Now the tour is coming to Australia.

Book tickets or volunteer to help along the way.

You can also download our A4 poster and DL flyer (3 per page) and distribute them around your campus, workplace and friends to help us promote the tour!

Here’s what the big four banks do with your money

We’re calling on customers of those banks to tell them to stop financing reef destruction or they will pull out their funds and go elsewhere.

Bill McKibben, coming to Australia in June for a “Global Warming: Do the Maths” tour, said “When you do the maths on avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, there simply isn’t enough room in the carbon budget for new fossil fuel projects. We’ve got to wind down the fossil fuel era with great haste if we’re going to keep the planet from overheating. This report by Market Forces provides Australians with the information they need to make hard decisions about where their money is invested and if it’s helping or destroying the planet.”

Book tickets to hear Bill McKibben speak about fossil fuel divestment in Australia in June and share the graphic on Facebook!

Coal must stay in the ground: Bill McKibben. Photo: Nancie Battaglia

Australian coalmining has become a ”rogue industry” and most of the coal slated for export must stay in the ground if the nation is to tackle climate change, according to prominent US environmentalist Bill McKibben.

Many coal projects, and coal infrastructure projects in Queensland, are expected to run for decades, and are only now gaining development approval.

But the federal government has pledged to reduce Australia’s greenhouse output by 80 per cent by the middle of the century, putting it on a collision course with the resources expansion.

”If the world ever takes climate change seriously, that coal simply has to stay in the ground,” Mr McKibben said. ”There’s no physical way to burn it, or Canada’s tar sands, or Venezuela’s shale oil, and not go over the red line that almost all governments, including Australia’s, have drawn at two degrees.”

Click here to read the full article at the Sydney Morning Herald Website

Today Australia took a huge step – a committed effort to work to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to invest in clean energy and to find innovative ways to tackle climate change. It’s a massive success for all of us who have worked hard, spoken up at community meetings about the issue and organised events to call for action – that’s you!

At 9:29 am, The House of Representatives passed the Government’s package of 19 bills setting up a carbon pricing scheme from July 1, 2012 by a vote of 74 to 72.

As ACF’s CEO Don Henry said, “Today’s vote is historic for the millions of Australians who, in the face of well-funded scare campaigns, have tirelessly urged successive Australian governments to take action on climate change.”

Take a moment today, tonight or this weekend to celebrate what you helped do because it’s so important. Your children, your grandchildren and people all over the world – from Tuvalu, now facing a fresh water crisis and Bangladesh facing a future of extreme weather events to the African countries facing devastating drought – so many will benefit from the action we took in Australia today.

Smile, pat yourself on the back and be proud of what we achieved today! It’s just the beginning of getting us back to 350 parts per million but it’s a great beginning! Now onto the Senate vote and a clean energy future!

Many thanks for all of your efforts!

Blair Palese and the 350.org Australian team

2. Write a letter to your local paper explaining in short sharp points why you think a carbon price is essential for Australia!
3. Talk to those in your community about why a price on pollution is critical for Australia including:

-We need to take real steps to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to speed up the transition to clean energy.

-We need an economic incentive to encourage clean energy and energy efficiency.

-We need to work with other countries that have already priced pollution by establishing a framework in Australia that will allows us to be part of a low carbon future.

Please help by taking action in whatever way you can!

]]> http://world.350.org/australia/2011/03/09/rally-for-a-carbon-price/feed/ 0 http://world.350.org/australia/2010/10/13/what-an-amazing-day/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-an-amazing-day http://world.350.org/australia/2010/10/13/what-an-amazing-day/#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:39:23 +0000 australia http://world.350.org/australia/?p=151 Continue reading →]]> I want to thank everyone that was involved in 10/10/10- so many more than 7,000 events signed up. Just think of how many people were involved. What we achieved was really something incredible.

But I could never tell the story as well as the pictures… so I’ll let them do the talking

New Zealand hate it when we say this, but Australia helped kick off the global day of action

Some of the cutest kids ever got to work in India

Few people appreciate the environment’s balance like the Tibetans- this is in Shangri-La

and in our very own Centennial Park, Sydney

Blue 350 Graffiti:

and to see more amazing images of the movement, click here

1) Since so many of you had done such a good job last year–5200 events in 181 countries, what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”–I was concerned that it was going to be hard to top.

2) Because the Global Work Party called for real, tangible Work, I thought fewer people would be willing to rise to the challenge.

3) It had been a discouraging year, with the failures in Copenhagen and in the US Congress, and the unwillingness of governments all over the world to take any sort of meaningful climate action. People told me the movement was deflated, and that no one had any energy left.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry.

Thanks to you, this weekend will be remembered as the day when a single message blanketed more of the planet than ever before. This won’t just be the most widespread day of carbon-cutting action in the planet’s history–it will be the most widespread day of just about anything the earth has ever seen.

In the same year when global temperatures have set one scary new record after another, you are rewriting the record books for civic engagement. We don’t have the final numbers yet because registrations are still streaming in, but it’s clear that we’re on track to shoot past 7000 events in 188 countries. That leaves four countries unaccounted for: North Korea, Andorra, Equatorial Guinea, and San Marino. Barring those, the entire planet is engaged. Which makes sense, since this is the first issue that involves the entire planet.

We look at the map of events around the world and some days it seems crazy, that this many people would volunteer to do this much work in this many places. But mostly it just seems beautiful.

And now we need to make sure that everyone sees just how beautiful. Your photos will be how we show politicians and the media that people around the world aren’t just ready for climate solutions–we’re getting to work building them.

So remember to email your top photo to ‘photos@350.org’–and put your City and Country in the subject line, and put a short description of your event in the body. Try to get a “350″ in your photo somehow–it’s our universal message knitting this whole thing together. And if you can get a photo that shows how people are getting to work on climate solutions, even better.

You can read simple instructions of how to submit your event photos, and be sure to check out this great guide on how to take an unforgettable photo.

Things are happening fast here, and I’ve got to get back on the phone with reporters to try to explain to them about everything happening around the world. We are so grateful for all that you’re doing, and committed to making it count.

Onwards!

Bill McKibben for the whole 350.org Team

P.S. It’s been an amazing week already–first the announcement from the Obama administration that they are going to put solar on the White House. Then we got reports from President Nasheed’s solar installation in the Maldives.

To kick off the Global Work Party, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives installs solar panels donated by Sungevity. The event came just two days after the Obama Administration’s announcement that the White House is going solar.

October 5, 2010
Bill McKibben Congratulates President Obama for Taking the White House Solar
Leading up to Sunday’s Global Work Party around the World

Washington, DC — Just in time to give the Global Work Party a White House-sized boost, the Obama administration announced this morning that they are going to put solar panels on the First Family’s living quarters, returning to a tradition begun by president Jimmy Carter and abandoned by Ronald Reagan.

350.org founder Bill McKibben urged President Obama to install his new set of solar panels back on September 10 as part of 350.org’s 10/10/10 Global Work Party, a day when millions of people across the planet will be getting to work on climate solutions.

“The White House did the right thing, and for the right reasons: they listened to the Americans who asked for solar on their roof, and they listened to the scientists and engineers who told them this is the path to the future,” said McKibben. “If it has anything like the effect of the White House garden, it could be a trigger for a wave of solar installations across the country and around the world. Obama’s not the only world leader taking the challenge. Tomorrow Maldivian president Mohammed Nasheed will install panels on his official residence, and on Sunday 7000 communities around the world will engage in similar projects.”

When he dedicated the original set of panels in 1979, President Carter stated:

“In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy. A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

In 1986, President Reagan removed the panels and let subsidies for renewable energy expire. A number of the panels were donated to Unity College in the 1990s.

Over 40,000 people signed a letter urging President Obama to install a new set of panels at the campaign’s PutSolarOn.It website. The site provided live updates from the road and a chance for the public to interact with the road trip participants.

The website is here: http://PutSolarOn.It

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About 350.org

Founded by American environmentalist Bill McKibben, 350.org is an international campaign that works to build a global climate movement. On October 24, 2009 they organized what CNN called the “most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history.” 350.org is named after the goal of reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere from its current level of 390 parts per million to below 350 ppm, the safe upper limit according to the latest science.

It’s been a tough year for those of us committed to tackling the climate crisis. The previous government tried fruitlessly to legislate for an emissions trading scheme, while the tragic floods in Pakistan, record heat waves in Europe, and steadily melting ice in the arctic all hint at what life in a warming world could look like.

Still, even as one who approaches politics with a healthy dose of realism, I’m optimistic that we are turning a corner in the effort to cut the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving climate change.

First, while it may seem incomprehensible that our leaders would sit idly by while study after study made it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the climate was changing, and that the burning of fossil fuels was responsible for it, we know that politicians, being politicians, act more frequently out of self-interest than they do out of common interest.

And so one must greet the announcement this week that Prime Minister Julia Gillard will herself chair a committee specifically dedicated to tackle climate change, by acknowledging the possibility that what is good for politicians is finally starting to align with what is good for the planet.

This assertion is supported by a new political reality that has the Greens enjoying more leverage in parliament than at any point in history, as well as a recent Australian Conservation Foundationpoll that shows more than 80 per cent of Australians want the new government to rapidly invest in clean energy alternatives such as wind, solar and geothermal. (Incidentally the poll showed that regional Australians are even more enthusiastic than those from cities about the switch to renewable power, dispelling an age-old myth about a rural-urban divide when it comes to cutting carbon.)

It is truism in politics that those in power, even the ones we think are on our side, don’t change, maybe can’t change, unless we make them.

Fortunately, the numbers are beginning to look like we are on the cusp of what the fight to tackle climate change needed all along, not more data about how gases were dangerously accumulating in the atmosphere, or tired old laments about the uselessness of politicians, but a movement of people, young and old, rural and urban, that won’t take no for an answer. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd certainly learned the hazard of opposing an idea whose time has come.

And so at 350.org we’re working with people from all walks of life, from across Australia and across the world, to empower and amplify the voice of the climate movement through the power of the internet.

Last October, we organised 5200 rallies in 182 countries in what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history”, to support the goal of stabilising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 350 parts per million. You can see the energy of the movement in the 20,000 photos that streamed into our Flickr set over the day.

Our latest effort is the 10/10 Global Work Party. Working with the 10:10 campaign and many others, we are co-ordinating what is expected to be the largest practical day of action to fight climate change in history on October 10. From women in Pakistan learning to cook with solar ovens, to sumo wrestlers in Japan riding their bicycles to work, to villagers in Fiji restoring mangroves damaged by Cyclone Tomas, people are getting to work on climate solutions and sending the message to world leaders while they’re at it: “We’re doing our work, what about you?”

Scores of events are planned in Australia as well. For example, in Victoria, hundreds will be gathering outside the Hazelwoodpower plant, calling on their leaders to close one of the industrialised world’s dirtiest and most inefficient coal-burning facilities. At Macquarie University, students will plant carbon-gobbling trees and share ideas on how to go green. In Townsville, folks are focusing on how permaculture can help alleviate the climate crisis.

Of course, this isn’t enough. No person or country or leader can solve the crisis alone. But I’m optimistic that in Australia, even if the evidence that the world is coming to end isn’t enough to spur our politicians to act on climate change, the reality that their careers will come to end if they don’t, finally will.

Emily Mulligan is Australian national director of 350.org, which is creating a global movement to combat the climate crisis.