Here’s my mum, brother & two wwoofers staying with us putting a call out for 350, as in 350 parts-per-million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Find out more at 350.org
You can also sign a petition over at Avaaz. If you’ve got your own photo, add it to the Flickr pool.
I was featured in the local paper yesterday with a promotion for Walk Against Warming (which has completely taken over my life at the moment).
“At 22, Erland Howland [sic] is helping co-host Australia’s biggest day of community action on climate change.”
Yes, they did spell my name wrong, but at least they got the Nature Conservation Council of NSW correct in full – that’s got to be a first. They also plugged our local Climate Action Group (the Hills Against Global Warming) film night that I’ve just got home from and ClimateMovement.org.au which is probably the best thing.
We actually screened two films tonight – “Carbon Connection“, a film about two communities affected by the global carbon market. One community was Grangemouth in Scotland where petro-chemical companies had been polluting the local environment for decades and the other was Sao Jose do Buriti in Brazil, where carbon offset companies have cleared native forest to plant huge monoculture eucalyptus plantations used as carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol’s ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ for the very companies who continue to pollute and cause health problems in Grangemouth and other Western cities. The monoculture plantations in Brazil have caused many problems including loss of indigenous medicinal plants and a lack of water for local people. The second film was a short video put together by Make Poverty History about climate change, development and Australian climate policy.
Anyway, I’m spending every waking hour (which accounts for a bigger share of my total 24-a-day allocation than I’d like at the moment) on Walk Against Warming until this Saturday. If you’re in Sydney, please come – it’s not only a critical time to let the government know the community is demanding a strong emissions reduction target, it’ll make me feel better for all the sweat, blood and tears, not to mention the sleep, I’ve lost over it. Better yet, help postering, letterboxing or on the day as a volunteer. One of the aspects that’s currently least organised but I’m most excited about is having a ‘meet and greet’ for local communities – Walk Against Warming participants wil have the opportunity after the (short, trust me) speeches to meet and find out about their local community climate groups and will be given assistance to start a new climate action group in areas of Sydney where there isn’t one already. Here’s the kind of guide we’ll be giving people, and here’s a map of all the Climate Action Groups we currently know about.
Finally, my job is now up for grabs – it’s advertised on our site and applications close next Monday. I finish work on Dec 12 and leave Sydney on Dec 19. My bus, bus & train to Darwin are booked, my flight from Darwin to Ho Chi Minh is booked and now I just need to get visas and bookings for the trip through Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and to Rennes in France. Ahem.
‘Severe environmental damage’ caused in West Papua by a Rio Tinto owned gold mine has led Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to dump £500m worth of shares.
This could be a great trend for the shocking mining operations that happen in developing countries… at the beginning of the year I was in Papua New Guinea and was shown around the Porgera Gold Mine in Enga Province (map). The photos speak for themselves, but it was absolutely shocking. No fences to keep people away from the tailings nor even guards, no proper treatment of the toxic waste, half-arsed compensation deals for the local indigenous people who have rights to the land… the list goes on. As you can see in the photos, the locals were panning for gold only metres from where untreated waste was spewing from open pipes – I was told that the water contained lethal levels of cyanide, suplher and mercury apart from being about 70 degrees celcius. Also, pretty much all the fish and aquatic life downstream (the waste ran down to a big river) had died. The mine was being run by Canadian company Barrick Gold, who are also poisoning indigenous land in Australia at Lake Cowal.
Read the full story from the Guardian UK.
My Mum and I have just launced SustainablePlaces.org.au – an online directory of homes, communities, schools and places in Australia undertaking sustainable initiatives – everything from renewable energy systems to native revegetation projects, water conservation, sustainable agriculture and habitat protection. There’s just a handful of places so far, but we’re looking for more, so if you have a sustainable place, or if you know someone who has, add it to the site. I designed the web site too. 
Well, I’ve kicked off organising for this year’s Walk Against Warming. We’re hoping to make it a massive event in Sydney with Make Poverty History, Greenpeace and a bunch of other organisations coming on board to help out and promote. Should have walkagainstwarming.org updated early this week with more details. See you there:
