It Getting Hot In Here - Climate Change : Melbourne Indymedia

The time for half-measures, manufactured doubt and self-serving delays is over. Tackling our climate crisis is priority number one - this is the resounding message you came back with when we asked you to help set a positive new agenda for Australia.

And here's how we start: there are GetUp members in every electorate across the country, and we're redrawing the map of Australia to make the climate crisis personal. Politicians at all levels of government need to see the writing on the wall, and realise this is not a problem for somebody else to solve - it's the issue in their backyard.

With more than 15 million Australians of voting age, we've set an initial target of 250,000 to create a groundswell for change that cannot be dismissed, trivialised or ignored. Put yourself on the Climate Action Map now, and ask your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to join you.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ClimateActionNow

Our strategy starts with one unified message: this issue is bigger than party politics, bigger than special interests and more important than short-term economic gain. Give us responsible leadership and bold action now to solve the climate crisis, or step aside.

Our Federal Government likes talking up its action on climate change, but has its head too far down a coalmine to sign the Kyoto Protocol, price carbon appropriately or encourage genuine large-scale investment in renewable energy. As a result, Australia has the highest emissions of planet-changing greenhouse gases of any industrialised country, and they continue to rise. We still rely on 19th century technology and polluting fossil fuels to power our 21st century lives, and now we are all paying the price.

Our farmers are crippled by drought. Bush fires are breaking out earlier every year. We're facing record-breaking heat waves, increasing water scarcity and intensifying cyclones and storms. Each of us with hopes for our future, or with children and grandchildren who will be left with our mess, must act now.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ClimateActionNow

CSIRO research shows we're on track for average global temperature increases of between 1.4 and 5.8°C in the lifetime of today's newborn child. Yet a mere 1°C rise is likely to double the number of Australians exposed to floods, while a 2-3°C rise in average global temperature will leave up to 80 per cent of the freshwater wetlands of Kakadu evaporated and up to 97 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef dead and bleached.

The economic costs of doing nothing are greater than we can imagine, while the potential returns of acting now are tremendous. But first we must overcome the timidity, the blind spots in our vision and smallness in our politics that are holding us back.

If you haven't already seen Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, go now and tell as many people as you can to join you. It will leave you awestruck, inspired and determined to be part of the solution. The groundswell movement begins today. Let's show them just how hot an issue global warming really is.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ClimateActionNow