Ah! Democracy... Election Day, NSW 2007

This is Erin Brockovich. She came all the way from America to help Patrice Newell attract media attention to the CLIMATE CHANGE COALITION - which is agroup of independents standing for the House of Lords... er, the Legislative Council, which is a direct descendent from the house of lords as it was originally made up of grandees and squatters and bunyip aristocrats - privilege and position and inbreeding don't make for a very good political system.

My contribution for the advertising was the following:

"FFFFFFFFFF" (CO2 ESCAPING)

VOTE 1 GROUP F TO STOP IT

You won't see it tomorrow or anytime.

Here is the official blurb:

CCC is not a political party. It is a group of 21 independents ensuring climate change is a primary consideration in all government business. CCC will work with any political group, community organization or individual taking positive action against climate change. Once elected CCC members will be free to vote on other issues according to their own conscience, but will take a combined stand on any issue impacting on climate change. The Coalition is united on all climate change policies and will assess all government proposals, including those for education, health etc for their impact on climate change. We will ask key questions about each piece of legislation that comes into the New South Wales Parliament. Does the proposed law address climate change? How can it be amended to make it better? See our policies at www.climatechangecoalition.com.au By scrutinising every piece of government legislation for impact on climate change, CCC will be able to lobby for changes to address the climate change problem. We will actively promote zero energy growth by 2010, ensure best practice standards are incorporated in all NSW standards for buildings and equipment, push for a moratorium on new coal-fired power stations and for a government commitment to a 25% renewal energy target by 2020. See our policies.

And this is my inspiration. When the future of the planet is in the hands of such an individual, everyone must answer the call. Mother Nature needs a hand.

Do you support the Carbon Coalition?

The work of the Carbon Coalition has been entirely voluntary for the past year. (SEE http://carboncoalitionoz.blogspot.com for out 12 month activity report.)

The Convenors have funded:

• lobbying,
• outreach,
• speaking engagements,
• website activity,
• blogging,
• research,
• overseas study tour,
• attending conferences to make contacts,
• appearing before official enquiries…

Please see the attached activity sheet. The time involved has grown to consume time previously devoted to income-producing activity. We can't go on this way. We need to professionalise the operation. Get serious or get out.

We believe the mission of the Coalition is too important to wind down at this important point.

We are on the point of creating the soil carbon market in Australia, We are enrolling landholders for trading. But the challenges we have coming up include:

1. Being fobbed off with Federal Government Stewardship Payments instead of carbon credits. These are a poor substitute for three reasons: i. it puts you in the hands of the public servants; ii. They could never be as lucrative; iii. They represent handouts, not payments for produce. We believe the Howard Government is implacably opposed to soil carbon credits. (Leopards don’t change their spots.)
2. Missing out on offsets when on-farm emissions are measured/estimated and landholders are required to buy credits to offset CO2, methane, nitrous oxide etc.
3. Put an end to the myth about Australian soils and carbon.
4. Force the hand of the regulators (IPART) by forming markets.
5. Promote the notion of Carbon Farming among business as usual growers.
6. Maintain pressure for Australia to join Kyoto.
7. Protect landholders from exploitation by unsympathetic middlemen and opportunists.
8. Teaching landholders about the carbon trading markets.

We need your help…

We need your help to achieve the goals of the Coalition:

• Making the family farm more economically viable
• Strengthening rural communities
• Restoring the ecological health of farmland
• Reducing the extremes of Climate Change

What we need resources for…

• Website development
• Membership database system
• Publicity
• Management
• Lobbying
• Research
• Conferences
• Subscriptions
• Travel/Acc

There is so much more we can do… getting Members involved in our activities is FIRST AND FOREMOST… but it takes time and time is always short when you’re short of money.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There are many ways you can help:

• You can send a cheque to the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming C/- MB & AL Kiely, “Uamby”, Uamby Road, GOOLMA NSW 2852

• You will find a “Donate” button on the website (www.carboncoalition.com.au) and on the blogsites.

• You can buy Australian Farm Soil Credits from http://carbonfarmers.blogspot.com

• You can engage CarbonCreditedBrands by visiting http://carboncreditedhowto.blogspot.com

Your contribution is an investment in the greatest opportunity to solve the problems of declining land health, declining economic health, and declining personal health in agriculture.

Thank you for being part of this historic moment.


Michael, Louisa & Daniel Kiely
Convenors

PS. Please pass this email letter on to others you may know who would be interested.

NB. YOUR TAX DEDUCTION: While we cannot offer tax deductibility as a CHARITY, we can arrange a deduction for you by the following means: 1. You make your contribution. 2. The Coalition invoices you for CARBON ADVISORY SERVICES (which is a legitimate part of our activities) and your receipt can be used for deduction.

"Stands out like a beacon!"

When Holistic Resource Management International's Peter Holter and Judy Earl visited "Uamby" a month ago, Judy said it 'stood out like a beacon' because of the way we had conserved the vegetation and protected the soil. Now we know why she said it.

Daniel flew the light aircraft while the pilot took these photographs. This shows what our soil has done with the rain compared to the neighbours' (and compared to the 'sacrifice paddocks we used to hand feed our flock).

Amazing!

Look at the difference on the river banks - the erosion and damage on the bare side versus the vegetation on the green side. Stunning! Thank God for all our Adopting "parents" who enabled us to take the flock off most of the paddocks.

Obviously we were able to make full use of the rain. (Their animals keep breaking through our fences.)

Holistic Resource Management is the system of decision making we use to manage our farming enterprise. It was developed by Allan Savory and is practiced around the world by conservation-minded landholders because it gets results like these.

78MLS IN 30 MINUTES!

This is Daniel paddling in our sheep yards during a massive dump of water that almost washed us away! Luckily the lambs and the two new rams had been moved to the shearing shed the day before or we would have lost large numbers drowned in the flood. This was the rain we have been waiting for for 12 months. Now we will see the benefit of retaining grass groundcover in the way the grass will regrow. Also we have not lost the tonnes of topsoil that would have been washed into the river had we eaten out the pastures. Now we need a 10ml-20ml follow up fall in a week or so and in a few months the pasture will be reestablished. It's too early to put the stock onto the grass. (We have 3 weeks' hay and grain left in our reserves.) To all of you who have renewed your adoption for another 100 days, THANK YOU. Thank you, everyone. We are truly blessed.