POWERFUL TOGETHER
MARCH 2024 NEWSLETTER FROM THE LETITION PROJECT
We're trying to keep it very simple - we are all busy running our lives.
The March Letition continues our climate plea with:
The DUTY OF CARE BILL
Enormous climate damage is occurring
A strong message to Parliamentarians is needed
The Letition Project's success in 2024 starts with the strong team and support from everyone in continuing to send their Letitions to their local Member of Parliament, every month. Saving the climate is a very long battle and takes everyone.
This is where we can beat the fossil fuel industry. They have the money and the lobbyists in Canberra but we are the grassroots, we are the voters, we are many and we are powerful when we come together.
View the March Letition and send it to your local Parliamentarian:
Generate your Letition. It will be emailed to you to read before sending.
Read this month’s Letition. They are ready to send in 6 minutes.
Find your local member of Federal Parliament.
See the numbers of Letitions already sent to local Members of Parliament.
As always, a very big thanks to everyone who helped by sending their monthly Letitions. We are still very much about pushing for a stronger message in Canberra.
This March Letition evolved from a working group in the two Geelong electorates. They are outraged by the enormous amounts of money, $1.9 billion dollars going to the Middle Arm and Beetaloo develop ments, opening a massive gas field south of Darwin. Is the Federal Government about to commit more money?
Small groupsand individuals cannot work in isolation to send thousands of letters asking for climate action.
But using the Letition system we can.
The grassroots across all electorates can team up and organise.
Everyone pulling together as a team can send the message to our Parliamentarians: Fossil fuels are killing us.
IN GEELONG THIS MONTH they have sent the most letition-letters (over 125 so far) to Richard Marles in Corio and Libby Coker in Corangamite.
WITH THE GEELONG SUCCESS in generating and sending so many letition-letters to the two local Members of Parliament, the Geelong community are now calling these local members to join a meeting to explain the massive climate problem, the ever increasing CO2 levels and rising global temperatures.
THE NEW COUNTING DOCUMENTATION IS A POWERFUL TOOL for everyone to use.
letition.org/submission-reports.
With all Letitions now being counted, it is so easy to notify and bring together all Letitioneers in Geelong for a very urgent meeting on Thursday 9th of May 2024 at Geelong West Town Hall at 5.30pm.
This connection can be done in all other electorates with as little as 10 Letitioneers.
Check the numbers in your electorate and form a Saturday morning coffee group team to also approach your local Member. This has been achieved in Geelong and is driving the action.
View the full March Letition and see the numbers at www.letition.org
We have produced a video, which explains about the Letition idea and how the system works: 'Letition - the power of us coming together'
The video features Jenna, a Geelong resident and a mum to four children, who is also co-producer of the video. In this clip Jenna explains why she decided to take this step.
Share the video with your friends on Facebook
Graphics by 350 Australia
Read this month's Letition
"Our elected officials have a moral obligation to protect our children."
Here is the March 2024 letition letter to our Canberra representatives:
I am an Australian voter and I am writing to you as my local Member of Parliament to request that you support decisive climate action. Many of us from a range of environmental and community groups have been sending Letitions across Australia over the last several months to make the case for much stronger climate action.
I am writing to urge you to support the call for a legally mandated duty of care to be enshrined into legislation by the government to protect Australian children and future generations. The Australian government owes young Australians a duty of care by considering the impacts of climate change when assessing all environmental planning and future projects.
Global temperatures have been exceeding 1.5 degrees and scientists are now warning we could be facing out of control warming between 1.5 and 2 degrees. I am deeply worried about the future for the next generation and the broader community who are now inheriting this massive environmental, economic, social and health problem.
If we continue on our current trajectory, our children will suffer immensely from the effects of climate change. It is predicted that one million of today’s children will require hospitalisation from heat stress, thousands will die from heatstroke and bushfire smoke, and they will increasingly be hit even harder by fires and flooding as conditions worsen. Climate change will cost Australia hundreds of billions of dollars and our young people will bear those costs.
Despite the evidence, Labor Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek and Resources Minister Madeline King have approved several new fossil fuel projects and extensions to existing ones in the past year. Minister King has approved 1.5 billion dollars to develop a petrochemical facility at the Middle Arm project in the N.T.
In addition Minister King is also seeking new powers which would override the Environment Minister giving them sole discretion over all future gas projects.
Our elected officials have a moral obligation to protect our children, however at the moment they do not have a legal one - as illustrated by the overturning of the Sharma case. The judges stated the duty of care case was “based on the incorrect conclusion that human safety was an implied mandatory statutory condition under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.” The court said although the threat of climate change is indisputable, it is the government’s job - not the court’s - to set policy on climate change.
We are sending Letitions directly to all Parliamentarians and asking all Federal Members Parliament to support and vote in support of the Duty of Care Bill and fulfill the need for legislation which protects our children from the threat of climate change.
Will you support this Bill and meet with us to discuss this serious matter?
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely
Signed by _____________________________
Generate your own version of this letter at
www.letition.org
OUR CURRENT PATH
According to the European Union's climate science institute Copernicus, the southern part of Australia will go past 4°C degrees of average warming in 75 years from now unless we take action and change the current trajectory.
The scientists tell us it doesn't end there. Once we reach 4 degrees, temperatures will continue rising due to a number of dangerous feedback loop thresholds that will have been crossed - with catastrophic and existential consequences for all life on our planet.
Learn more on atlas.climate.copernicus.eu/atlas
Your local member is the only person who can take your concerns and wishes to our Ministers and Prime Minister in Canberra.
A big positive is that many Parliamentarians welcome our Letitions.
They see that the message we are sending is fully supportive of their own efforts in Canberra to stop the fossil fuel madness.
These Parliamentarians NEED OUR SUPPORT to push for emission reductions. Send them hundreds of Letitions. Go to www.letition.org to strengthen the fight for climate safety.
The ADAC committee has decided that the following campaigns are worth pursuing:
The new Letition.org system and its application.
Continuing to approach Local Members of Federal Parliament to organise forums to meet with us.
Supporting forums where possible, with backing from the scientific organisations.
Asking local MP's: How it is that they are setting emissions reduction targets on the one hand and starting up new fossil fuel project on the other hand? According to the United Nations, "No new fossil fuels, it is total madness".
Supporting all groups asking for “deep, rapid and sustained” emission reductions.
We need your support now if we are ever to gain the most urgent climate meetings with federal parliamentarians.
It will happen with your help and thousands of letitions mailed to all politicians in Canberra.
Thanks for your continuing support.
Much appreciated.
Convenor: Robert Patterson robpat@senet.com.au - tel: 0414 328 230
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