[Oz-envirolink] Re: [ClimateChangeAction] Some campaign strategy suggestions re climate change

[Anne Goddard]

i really like the idea of an "April Fuels" day...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Anne Goddard
To: Group 1
Cc: bro at c031.aone.net.au
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 9:43 AM
Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Some campaign strategy suggestions re climate 
change


Hiya Members :-)
I have invited "Bro" to join the CCA group.
Some campaign strategy suggestions re climate change
Posted by: "Bro" bro at c031.aone.net.au
via "greenleap"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 8:18 pm (PST)
John Howard is (unless I have had a seniors' moment) the first serious 
Australian politician since Sir Charles Court thirty years ago to run 
nuclear reactors (not to mention the whole damn fuel cycle) up his flag 
pole.

Court the Elder used to speak of WA as the world's energy farm. Peter 
Costello spruiks our involvement in the G20 in terms "Energy our freeway to 
the future" (The Age, lead story 18 November).

Meanwhile almost 7000 people have voted in the current Yahoo web poll "What 
is the most important issue under discussion at the current APEC summit?" 
with the following result from a choice of four answers: Climate Change 59%: 
Iraq 19%; Economic Development 18%; Undecided 4%.

For the people climate change is the issue: for the Government it's 
consuming ever more energy with a bit of highly-vexed pollution-ameliorating 
expensive, yet-to-be demonstrated technology.

And the Sunday Times (19/11) reports:

'With the caucus aghast at Mr Beazley's latest verbal stumble, it will be 
badly buffeted by the latest Ipsos-Mackay poll to be broadcast on Channel 
10's Meet the Press this morning.

The survey shows that 60 per cent of Australians think the issue of climate 
change will play an important part in how they vote at the next election.

While 24 per cent believed the Greens would be the best party federally to 
handle global warming, they were closely followed by the Coalition on 23 per 
cent.

Remarkably, Labor trailed both parties, on 19 per cent.

The results will be deeply unsettling for many federal Labor MPs who already 
have a question mark over Mr Beazley's performance.

The recurring complaint from his internal critics is that he fails to ``cut 
through'' to voters with the Opposition's message.

The Ipsos-Mackay poll will simply confirm that impression, especially since 
John Howard has widely been seen to have been wrong-footed on climate change 
since the publication three weeks ago of the British Government-sponsored 
Stern Report.

The report concluded that Earth faced catastrophic consequences unless 
climate change was confronted. Mr Howard has been a self-confessed ``climate 
change sceptic'' and has refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol. "

Speaking to mainly young people at the Make Poverty History Concert on 17/11 
Tim Costello said (of course, it's not news other than he said it about him 
for, I believe, the first time):

"I do have a brother. That brother, along with both sides of politics, has 
failed to see with the same moral clarity what your generation gets This is 
how politicians govern: they wet their finger, they put it up to the air and 
they say which way is the wind blowing."

I've been banging on now for 6 months about the next federal election, and 
particularly the long lead up to it, being a once in a lifetime opportunity 
to blow the winds of sustainability with frostbite-inducing force over the 
wet fingers of our political leaders. The hooks being ever-increasing public 
concern over the impacts of climate change and the capture of the 
Government's (and, led by Ferguson and Fitzgibbon, a proportion of the 
Opposition's) agenda by the carbonucleophiles ("carbon dioxide - we call it 
the stuff of life!").

1 April 2007 falls on a Sunday.

Noting the success of the recent Walk Against Warming, as part of an 
escalating campaign for a real, anti-nuclear response to climate change 
significant nationwide actions on "April Fuels" day seem to me to be worthy 
of contemplation and organisation.

I shrink from showing my age by raising memories of 1977 or even using the 
term "mobilisation" (or looking ahead to 6 August 2007) for what might be 
contemplated and organised.

I would be grateful to receive any views that people may have on these 
Sunday morning musings.

Cheers, bro

Dr Bro Sheffield-Brotherton B.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D, Dip.Ed, MEIANZ
Chairman, Sustainable Solutions Pty Ltd
Scientific Advisor, National Toxics Network
Honorary Life Member, Australian Conservation Foundation
Member, Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand
47 Prentice Street
Elsternwick 3185
AUSTRALIA
Ph: +613 9528 1957, Mob: +614 1230 3 718
Fax: +613 9528 5100
Email: bro at c031.aone.net.au

"The ultimate measure of people is not where they stand in moments of 
comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and 
controversy." - Dr Martin Luther King Jr

"The danger is when you get old like us you may become soonical." - Dagmar 
Schroeder