CEN News

Hi CEN members, friends and supporters,

You are invited to attend the CEN Annual General Meeting

WHAT:   CEN Annual General Meeting
TIME:     12.30pm-5pm
DATE:    Saturday 31st July 2010
VENUE:  Climate Action Centre
              5th floor rear building
              Trades Hall
              Cnr Victoria & Lygon Streets
              Carlton

We do hope you are able to attend - especially our country group members. It is of course a very important time in the lead up to the federal election on 21st August and the VOTE CLIMATE CAMPAIGN.

Please renew your membership if you are wanting to vote for, or stand for election to, the next Facilitation Committee and of course to support our ongoing activities. To nominate please contact Steve Meacher, Membership Secretary, for a nomination form, complete and bring it on the day.

Membership is $50 for groups and $20 for individuals ($10 concession).

Fees can be paid on the day.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY NETWORK

AGENDA

12.30 - Lunch 

1pm Welcome

1. Reports from climate action groups (25mins)

2. CEN Report:

CEN direction (Philip) (10 mins)
Volunteering on Friday’s.( Ursula) (5mins)
Discussion (Philip) (10mins)

3. T10 report on what’s been happening. (Brigitte) (15mins)

4. Success of BZE report and to help get it out into the community. (Patrick/Mark) (25mins)

5. Confirmation of the minutes of the previous AGM held on 5th September 2009
Financial report and Statement
Election of the Facilitation Committee for 2010 - 2011 (Steve) (15mins)
BREAK 20 MINS at 2.45pm

6. Vote Climate Campaign. (Jane) (60mins)

Replace Hazelwood with 100% renewable energy

A statement from the Climate Emergency Network and other campaigners for circulation within the climate movement

Sign on statement:

The undersigned groups and individual climate campaigners support an inclusive campaign to urgently Replace Hazelwood with 100% renewable energy, including baseload solar thermal energy (as presented in the Beyond Zero Emissions, Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report).

The undersigned:

  • strongly support the Replace Hazelwood campaign;
  • support using renewable energy sources and increased efficiency to replace 100% of energy currently supplied by Hazelwood;
  • particularly support the use of proven baseload Solar Thermal technology; and
  • reject the use of fossil gas as an alternative fossil fuel.

When CEN members and other groups who support this statement use the Replace Hazelwood campaign logo, we will make it clear in our statements that Hazelwood must be replaced with unequivocally clean renewable energy by inclusion of wording such as “with 100% renewable energy”. The undersigned urge others who support this position to do likewise.

Read the complete Sign on Statement HERE.

Send an email with your Individual or Group details to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  to be added to the sign on statement. We will be updating the list on the website.

Signed by 14 CEN member groups:

Beyond Zero Emissions, Otway Ranges Climate Action, Melbourne Girls College Sustainability Collective, Locals Into Victoria's Environment, Climate Change Our Future, Ararat Greenhouse Action Group Inc, The Victorian Climate Action Calendar, Dandenong Ranges Renewable Energy Association, Mount Alexander Sustainability Group, Greenleap Strategic Institute, Sustainability in Stonnington, Inner Northwest Climate Change Community, Riddells Creek Sustainability & Yarra Valley Climate Action Group

 and 16 individuals.

Climate Emergency Network Facilitation Committee: Philip Sutton, Carol Ride, Jane Morton, Fiona Armstrong, Steve Meacher, Ben Courtice, Gisele Wilkinson, Ursula Alquier, Chris Breen & Hans Baer.

Read this fantastic article: SAVING CIVILIZATION IS NOT A  SPECTATOR SPORT
www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch10_ss8

 

The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism

 

One of the best climate websites is SkepticalScience.com run by physicist John Cook.

The goal of SkepticalScience is to “explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming” and answer the most common questions and objections raised both by the well-meaning doubters and the not-well-meaning disinformers.

Fortunately for us, Cook is blogging more now, which means we’ll be quoting him more (see “How we know global warming is happening — Skeptical Science explains: It’s the oceans!“).  Cook has a good discussion of a recent paper, “Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?” from which we publish this excerpt.

CEN Strategy for 2010

The CEN Strategy for 2010 has been completed by the working group of the CENFC and is available here. The Safe Climate Australia framework document, available here, provides crucial background to the CEN Strategy.


You will see that some pages of the CEN Strategy are marked according to whether the contents have been endorsed by the membershp at previous general meetings, endorsed by the CENFC or are still 'draft' as they are not yet endorsed by either the CENFC or membership. Some pages are marked as context only and therefore don't need endorsement.

Response to Climate Deniers

Keith Burrows is a Physics teacher and text book author who is the founding member of 'Science Teachers for Climate Awareness' - a group encouraging science teachers to get out into the community and talk about the science of climate change.

Keith has published two recent papers, one responding to deniers such as the Climate Sceptics Party (Leon Ashby) and another outlining the basic science of climate change. These and other presentations on climate change and dealing with deniers are also available at http://www.vicphysics.org/index.php?id=145.