Sunday, December 20, 2009

If you want change - Follow up with your political representatives

There were a number of good speeches after the Walk against Warming. For its relevance to how we can create change locally the speech from Cr Helen Abrahams was quite interesting.
Similar to her message at the 350.org day of action, Cr Abrahams emphasised that if we want to create change not just at a personally level, but at a local level, turning out for events such as walk against warming is necessary but not sufficient.
We need to follow it up with our political representatives.

The BCC has a policy of making Brisbane carbon neutral by 2026, for now, I'll let you decide how well that one is going.
The BCC also has a policy of being carbon neutral council by 2026, which does seem to be making progress.

But as Cr Abrahams pointed out, if we want change at the rate we know is necessary, we need to tell our political representatives. Some semi-quotes follow.
"the council uses 50% Greenpower and plans to move to 100% Greenpower in 2010, tell your councilor you support this"
"everytime the council builds a bikeway, fill-up that bikeway and then demand more and bigger bikeways".
"everytime the council adds a new bus, fill that bus and then demand another bus"

So if you want change - Use the "green" initiatives provided by the council and follow up with your political representatives!

On its current trajectory it seems unlikely Brisbane will be carbon neutral by 2026, but this is council policy, if you don't want this otherwise laudable aim to be simply window dressing ...... well, you know what to do.

2 comments:

  1. Hear hear.

    I also think that statements like this:

    "the council uses 50% Greenpower and plans to move to 100% Greenpower in 2010, tell your councilor you support this"

    are particularly important - expressing support for policies that are moving in the right direction. I'm sure I'd get sick-to-death of just hearing complaints if I was working in council. But a bit of support and praise would really kick me along.

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  2. I would specifically like more spent on bike PATHS as part of the regular road network. Suicide markings on the road are no substitute. Bikeways are OK if you are travelling long distance.

    The problem with lobbying for this as a general concept is that it will never get started. How about instead lobbying for safe bike paths in some limited locality, e.g. around UQ, or around some of the shops in Kenmore?

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