How are you coping in these crazy scary times?

Dear GS Climate Actioner - Mik

The last week has been hugely turbulent and worrying for all of us as we try to adapt to life amidst the coronavirus pandemic. We hope that you are finding ways to cope during these challenging times and to stay connected with your family, friends and community.

The Pulse’s Sustainable Hour “Light at the Start of the Tunnel” covers the parallels between how the British in WW2 found resilience and hope in the railway tunnels during the Blitz and how Zoom might be the equivalent for us in this crisis and subsequently also provide a solution for the Climate Crisis. There are many interesting overlaps between the two crises and effective responses to both as I am sure you have been pondering. (Thanks Mik for sharing this with us!)

What have we been up to?

Several subgroups have met face-to-face or via Zoom since our Climate Action Drinks in February. We’re keen to keep people connected and supported so they continue to advocate for our governments to take Climate Action.

Geelong Sustainability is a community partner of the ACF. They have kindly set up a Zoom online meeting room for GS. Zoom is a video conferencing service where people can meet virtually with others using video or audio or both. Other useful features are screen sharing and chat. 

To help you become more confident in using Zoom, the ACF has made a really good Participants Guide to using Zoom.  I hope that your local Climate Action groups will be able to meet up again soon via Zoom. I can help the Group Leaders with arranging a time via Doodle Poll and setting up a meeting on Zoom using our Zoom account and facilitating it if required.

We’ve recently published two new blog posts on our website.

• Advocating for Climate Action about our February drinks - read more
• Project Drawdown about our recent Clever Living seminar - read more

Climate Action 'Drinks'
Our next Climate Action Drinks is scheduled for Wed April 29 from 6.30-8.00pm using our Zoom room. Bryony Edwards will join us from Council and Community Action in the Climate Emergency to help build our climate advocacy skills.  Lets all ensure we pour ourselves a drink and socialise via Zoom and “make a night of it”!  More info & bookings

What can you be doing now?

In the meantime, there’s a range of ways you could advocate for Climate Action.

Have Your Say re. City of Greater Geelong Sustainability Framework before April 11.
Geelong Sustainability is preparing a formal response. Our views are listed in this shared doc which also has the survey questions and action plan etc.

The Victorian Government’s  Emissions Reduction Target will be announced very soon. You can still help the Friends of the Earth campaign, which is pushing for science-based targets that will keep warming below 1.5C.

STEP 1: Take a selfie with our "Lead the Drive for Less than 1.5°C" placard or home-made version - be creative and spell out "<1.5°C" somehow. See Vicki's version here.
STEP 2: Post the photo on your social media accounts between asap before end March with a message to the Premier (why do you want Victoria to show climate leadership?).
BUT BEFORE YOU POST ANYTHING…
STEP 3: Make sure you tag Premier Dan Andrews in your social media post. The Premier can be tagged on Facebook by using the "@" symbol and typing Dan Andrews. On Twitter and Instagram, it's @DanielAndrewsMP.  Use the hashtags #VicTargets and #SpringSt to put the issue on the agenda of politicians and journalists across the state.
STEP 4: Tag FoE at /ActOnClimateVic so they can amplify your message via our accounts. We're Act on Climate Vic on Facebook and @ActOnClimateVic on Twitter and Instagram. 

Zali Steggall’s Climate Change Bill will not be tabled in the Federal Parliament until later this year. So it gives us time to build support. Please talk to your friends and family about it. Over 77,000 people have signed it but that number needs to over 100,000. So sign and share widely.

Sign the #NCESummit2020 Declaration - Addressing The Climate Threat - read more.

Letters - Finally, why not start writing yourself. See some sample letters to Editors, MPs in our GDrive here. Send us your letters and we’ll add them to this folder to give other ideas and inspiration. 

Email me at sal@geelongsustainability.org.au if you have queries or you’re keen to have a chat in our new Zoom room.

We’ve got this everyone, hang in there and hang together.

Best wishes

Sally Fisher
GS Climate Action Coordinator