Minutes: 16 Dec 2005

Hello,

We will be holding a stall tomorrow, Saturday, 12 noon at Belmont Street. Please come along if you can!

Here are the minutes of Wednesday's meeting:

1. We had a long discussion about the Montreal climate change conference and protests. All agreed that a much stronger campaign and international movement was needed if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

2. Following a brainstorming session, the following ideas were taken forward:

MEDIA:
Mary Scott to send an edited version of our general leaflet to the Green Diary and ask them to print it. Future media work to be discussed - anybody who has any useful contacts, please let us know!

LOCAL ACTION ON TRANSPORT:
Road building, including the Western Peripheral Road, is one of the main reasons for Scotland's rising CO2 emissions. Aberdeen Friends of the Earth are taking the lead in campaigning on this, and members might wish to join their mailing list to find out more [if you contact myself, I will forward your details to the FoE mailing list, if you wish].

Shared Planet and Dissent are planning a Critical Mass cycling event, to be held monthly from the end of February. This will be supported by our group, and we will highlight the impact of road transport on the climate.

AVIATION:
BAA are consulting on their Outline Masterplan to extend the runway and help to increase air travel from Aberdeen. The consultation ends on 24th March. The group decided to work on this issue over the next few weeks. This will involve a new leaflet (Calvin to draft), stalls, door-to-door leafletting, a draft objection letter, contacting Dyce newsagents to try and distribute materials, attending residents' meetings (BAA will inform us when they will be held), and making local contacts. First stall this Saturday, 12 noon, Belmont Street.

OUTREACH/CONTACTS:
We have been invited to speak at the Aberdeen Trades Council on 11th January. [Also, since the meeting, to speak at Camphill on 16th January]. We are looking to approach other groups to make contacts, and try and get more people involved in the campaign and in work against climate change. Penny will contact unions whose members work in public transport, and the amnesty international group. Everybody to think of ideas for other groups to approach.

FUNDRAISING:
A sponsored swim on Boxing Day was suggested, but didn't appeal to anybody! Alfonso will be printing badges to be sold. Please contact him if you have an idea for a design other than the CCC logo. Fundraising to be discussed further next time.

NEXT MEETING:
Monday, 9th January, Blue Lamp, Gallowgate


UPDATE ABOUT THE TWO CLIMATE CHANGE MEETINGS THIS MONTH:
There has been a lot of positive coverage about the Montreal Climate Change Agreement. At last, Kyoto is workable - so the world is now where it should have been in 1998 had it not been for US and other obstruction. The Kyoto signatories have agreed to discuss future targets by 2008. The US have had some bad press coverage, but have essentially not given ground. They went back to the conference only when they were assured that talks would not be binding. Altogether a more positive outcome than expected. It would give us a lot of hope if we could avoid dangerous climate change by stabilising the atmosphere at 550 ppm CO2 (now about 380 ppm CO2) by 2050.

BUT...
At the same time, top climate and earth scientists have been meeting in the US. Many of them are convinced that, within 10 years, the world will be committed to temperatures not seen for over half a million years, and to a climate catastrophe involving massive methane/CO2 releases from melting permafrost, collapse of major ocean currents, mass extinction on land and at sea, runaway polar melting, and megadroughts and flooding. James Hansen from NASA says that the result will be a very different planet. Read here for more: http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=49507 Many top scientists have expressed fears for their own and their families' futures Only massive cuts in emissions now will save us - Montreal got nowhere close to avoiding catastrophe. No grounds for euphoria, or complacency.