Spring is in the air in Melbourne! And FoE is blossoming as you can tell by this action packed newsletter!! We have been up to so much this month - AND EVEN MORE IS COMING!
From the TPP to public transport, renewable energy and a nuclear free future - FoE Melbourne never rests! We always are welcoming new volunteers, and if you would like to get involved, try coming along to our next volunteer information session on October 22 at 6:30pm - upstairs at our Smith St headquarters. Check out this link for more information.
Don't forget that you can sign up to become an Active Friend and support all this amazing work and more!
Also, make sure you mark December 5 in your diary as the Perry St festival will be back - and we can't wait to see you there!!
Keep reading to see all the amazing work that we have been doing!
Join the fightback against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)!
Friends of the Earth warned that the 'Trans Pacific Partnership', or TPP, will threaten people and planet, if ratified. The TPP favours safeguards for corporate investments over safeguards for nature and the chapters on technical barriers to trade will threaten regulators’ capacities to effectively regulate the roughly 85,000 chemicals in commerce needed to protect human health and our environment. In this respect the TPP is a ticking time-bomb for climate policy, because it further cements the unfair Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism that enables foreign corporations to sue governments for protecting the environment. Many government policies needed to address global warming will be subject to suits brought before biased, not transparent and undemocratic international investment tribunals.
However the fight is not over, the TPP still faces a number of challenges before being ratified at the national level, with a hostile US Congress, an election in Canada, a court action in Japan and New Zealand and wide spread opposition in Australia. If you are concerned about climate change and human rights now is the time to make your voice heard about this destructive deal.
Join the upcoming anti TPP Rally
WHERE: Veolia Services 85 Buckhurst street South Melbourne, Melbourne Victoria
WHEN: 12:30pm Friday 16 October
Check out the facebook event and invite your friends!
In Terra - Anti Nuclear - Pro Art!
The Anti-nuclear &Clean Energy (ACE) Collective have been busy preparing for this year's art auction. It is scheduled for December 9 at Hogan Gallery (next door to FoE) with viewing starting at 5pm and the auctions at 7pm.
ACE are gratefully accepting donations of quality art-work ahead of the December 9 auction. Interested artists can contact: [email protected], ph 0424 626 774 to make submissions.
Help Shape Victoria's Energy Future
Right now is a crucial time for our state's energy future. The Andrews government will soon decide whether to protect communities from risky onshore gas drilling with a permanent ban, and the level of ambition of Victoria's Renewable Energy Targets.
These decisions will shape Victoria's energy future. They'll will determine whether the state develops a clean renewable energy industry, or a polluting one.
Friends of the Earth's Coal & Gasfield Free Vic and Yes 2 Renewables campaigns have joined forces as they approach decision-making time. We can get the government to deliver a good outcome, but only with your support.
We're calling on supporters like you to take three simple steps to support a ban on unconventional gas, and renewable energy ambition. Step 1, email your local member; Step 2, write a letter to the editor; and Step 3, meet your MP.
If you're keen to join fellow FoE supporters in this push, please fill out this form.
Support the Wadi Wadi to manage Nyah-Vinifera Park
The River Country campaign (formerly Barmah Millewa collective) have been out talking to the Wadi Wadi people and other community members out near the Nyah-Vinifera Park in northern Victoria.
The Nyah-Vinifera Park is an important ecological, cultural and social asset for the community of the Riverina-Mallee region. The park includes significant Riverine ecological vegetation classes providing habitat for a range of threatened fauna and flora species. The park is also an extremely significant cultural landscape for the Wadi Wadi Indigenous Nation, with numerous cultural heritage sites.
River Country and the local community agree that the state Environment Minister Lisa Neville needs to ensure that the Wadi Wadi are allowed to manage the park and that there is adequate funding set aside to do that.
This Changes Everything - the film!
At long last, the Naomi Klein book 'This Changes Everything' has inspired a movie and it's coming to the Jam Factory for a once off screening on Wednesday 28th October.
**PLEASE RSVP YOUR TICKETS NOW**
The screening will only happen if we meet a certain threshold before the 24th October.
http://www.tugg.com/events/70212
This event is hosted by Stonnington Climate Action Network (SCAN) in conjunction with Friends of the Earth and Quit Coal.
Join us to see what all the fuss is about. We will have a quick 'Q & A' after the screening, as well.
For the Sake of our Waterways, Think Before You Spray
Friends of the Earth has just had printed 1000 copies of 'For the Sake of our Waterways, Think Before You Spray' information sheets. The sheets provide comprehensive information regarding the most commonly used garden sprays in the Melbourne region and the most commonly detected pesticides in Melbourne waterways. A survey of pesticide sellers earlier in the year found that the neonicotinoid (bee killing pesticide) Imidacloprid is commonly sold throughout Melbourne.
If you have any links to gardeners, community information networks, gardening groups or urban re-vegetation groups and you would like to help distribute these sheets email Anthony at [email protected]
Thanks for Black Rainbow for the generous donation to help get these sheets printed.
'Containment' film screening
Can we contain some of the deadliest, most long-lasting substances ever produced? Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering vast radioactive lands. Governments around the world, desperate to protect future generations, have begun imagining society 10,000 years from now in order to create monuments that will speak across the time. Part observational essay filmed in weapons plants, Fukushima and deep underground − and part graphic novel − Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative, troubled far future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Directors / Producers Peter Galison and Robb Moss will participate in an interactive discussion following the film screening. Both are Professors from Harvard University in the USA, with Galison working in the History of Science and Physics and Moss in Visual and Environmental Studies.
WHEN: Wednesday, November 11, 7pm to 9pm
WHERE: 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne (off Bourke St)
PRICE: $10 concession / $15 waged / $25 solidarity
Official Website (including Trailer): http://containmentmovie.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheContainmentFilm
Film screening organised by Friends of the Earth, Melbourne. Contact: Jim Green [email protected] / 0417 318 368.
Join FoE at the People's Climate March!
We invite you to join Friends of the Earth Melbourne at the world's biggest climate mobilisation - the People's Climate March!
All across the world as world leaders gather in Paris for the COP21 climate talks, millions of ordinary people will be standing up for social and environmental justice - and for REAL action on climate change.
We must send a clear signal that the time for talk is over - and now we need to see real action if we are to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.
WHERE: Melbourne CBD
WHEN: Friday. November 27, 2015 at 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Register here and we will keep you up to date with where we can meet up and march as a bloc.
How To Make Trouble And Influence People 2016 Diary Launch
Come celebrate the launch of the 2016 diary! Join our friends at 3CR for food, speakers plus classic Australian protest songs performed by Laura MacFarlane (ninetynine) and Jimmy Rat (Glitter Rats).
The 158 page diary features 366 radical dates in Australian history plus dozens of images and stories covering strikes, protests and political mischief making from across Australia. All profits go to 3CR and Ecuador's Los Cedros Biological Reserve. Copies are available from the FOE food coo-op as well as other social justice groups and radical booksellers around Melbourne.
WHERE: Friends Of The Earth, 312 Smith St, Collingwood
WHEN: 6-8pm Friday November 13th 2015
Invite your friends on Facebook!
Flood the System!
In the lead up to the United Nations climate talks in Paris in December, Flood the System are calling for individuals and groups to plan their own non-violent direct actions, attend the people’s climate march and join larger mobilisations to stream smaller efforts into a massive flood of resistance.
But this is not just another protest. What begins as a trickle, turns into stream, and a torrent of actions to bring about real action on climate change.
If Friends of the Earth supporters are interested in getting involved in Flood the System they can find out more at the info session
WHERE: Graham Cornish A and B, level 2 of Union House at University Of Melbourne, Parkville campus.
WHEN: Saturday 17th October 1pm -4pm
Check out Facebook for more details and don't forget to share with your friends!
Ask Hesta to Divest from Fossil Fuels With Healthy Futures
Healthy Futures are a new affiliate of Friends of the Earth Australia aiming to empower health professionals, students and other supporters to address climate change, fossil fuel use and related threats to health. Healthy Futures are Melbourne based in their operations at the moment and often work out of the FoEM office.
Their current campaign is for HESTA, Australia’s largest health industry super fund, to divest from fossil fuel based electricity on health grounds. Not only does fossil-fuel based power contribute to climate change, but air pollution from coal causes heart disease, lung disease and cancers, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide each year. Unconventional gas extraction also threatens health in a number of ways, including risking contamination and depletion of water supplies.
Join us in calling on HESTA to divest from fossil fuels.
We’d also love to meet and work with you at our next Campaign Day at FoE on Saturday 31st October. Details and RSVP here
Our Power
OUR POWER (2016) is an empowering and moving documentary about the necessity for a just transition towards sustainable modes of power production in Australia, with a specific look at Victoria's own energy hub, the Latrobe Valley.
The aim of this film is to give a larger voice to the community of the Latrobe Valley and to support them in their call for a just transition to a more sustainable future.
Change always begins in the communities and the people of the Latrobe Valley are no exception to this rule. Their determination to fight for a just transition is simply inspiring. It needs to be shared with the entire country. We believe this documentary is the vehicle to do just that.
We need to raise $10,000 to finish this film and share the Latrobe Valley story. This is an extremely small budget for a 90-100 feature film. We only have a few days left to raise the rest of our target. We truly depend on your good faith to help continue the post-production on this film.
Please help us share this story across the country, and donate to our crowd-funding campaign >> https://chuffed.org/project/ourpower
This is a film about two types of power. 1) The power systems that enable energy to be produced and distributed all across Victoria and 2) the power of the people pushing for social justice in Australia.
Liverpool Plains Harvest Festival Against Shenhua
The Liverpool Plains "Harvest Festival against Shenhua” aims to bring together hundreds of everyday people at the site of Shenhua’s proposed mega coal mine. And you are invited!
This weekend event is for the amazing diversity of Australians who care about protecting land, water, and culture from coal mining.
There is a contingent going up from Melbourne and you can join the carpooling to get up for what will be an historic weekend.
WHERE: Breeza NSW
WHEN: 7pm Friday 6th November - 4pm Sunday 8th November, 2015. Gates open 12pm Friday 6th for camping set-up.
Please REGISTER for the event here.
Please SHARE the event on Facebook with your friends.
Any other queries about the event or carpooling can be directed to Phil on [email protected].
Race4PT
Public Transport Not Traffic continue to roll out their "Race4PT" campaign to see increased investment in sustainable transport across Melbourne, this time with a Race to Preston Market on Saturday October 24. The event will see participants from the City of Darebin and adjacent suburbs bring to life a variety of important local transport issues like poor weekend services and connectivity while demonstrating to our pollies that public transport matters. Being a race there's a winner – but unlike most races first prize will be awarded to the person/group with the highest average speed, not the one first across the line.
Don't forget that you can sign up to become an Active Friend and support all this amazing work and more!
Enjoy the beautiful Melbourne weather!