movement

On Thursday, 2nd September, Six Degrees spokesperson on coal seam gas Drew Hutton addressed the Queensland Rural Press Club in Toowoomba. The Queensland Rural Press Club  invited Drew to address its second annual Heritage Toowoomba AgShow breakfast to discover how the farming community and the green movement have found common ground in an era of unprecedented mining and resource exploration and development across some of Queensland’s most productive land. A transcript of the speech is provided here.

Six Degrees has recently joined the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance:  a national collaboration of organisations and individuals working together towards a food system in which people have the opportunity to choose, create and manage their food supply from paddock to plate.

The purpose of the Alliance is to cooperate to create an equitable, sustainable and resilient food system for all Australians - a cause to which we are deeply committed.

We often get asked why we called this campaign Six Degrees. And while we've had an explanation on our website for a while, many people in urban Queensland are not aware of the full extent of the number of groups that make up the movement fighting fossil fuel expansion in all its horrific forms.

New action groups across Queensland are forming literally everyday. Here's a taste.

A critically important precedent has been set in the US state of New York, with an overwhelming majority of Senators calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas extraction until the environmental impacts can be determined.

The onus is now on the Queensland Government to heed this emerging global consensus. 

The Bligh Government must impose an identical moratorium on the controversial process of fracking in the extraction of coal seam gas in Queensland. The process used and the risks of this technology in Queensland and the US are identical. As we have consistently maintained, there is no justification for rushing ahead with gas extraction in Queensland before the science is known and the impacts understood.

On Saturday 26th June, Six Degrees and the Basin Sustainability Alliance co-ordinated a fact-finding mission to the Darling Downs, where 48 environmentalists, social justice advocates and community organisers from the city visited the communities of the Darling Downs threatened by coal and coal seam gas.

Want to do more than just walk at this year's Walk Against Warming? We are looking for a little help telling our politicians that we want them to take some simple first steps towards kicking the coal habit.

Tomorrow (Saturday, 19/09/09) community members concerned about climate change will attend training in peaceful direct action tactics in preparation for disrupting the coal industry - Queensland's biggest contributor to climate change.

The community is realising that only through taking action ourselves will we start to break coal's strangle hold on the Queensland Government and economy."Says Six Degrees spokesperson Eleanor Smith.

On Sunday, 21st June, the Brisbane Transition Hub will present a workshop with renowned economist and entreprenuer Michael Shuman on The Local Opportunity: Building Resilient Businesses and Local Living Economies. If you are interested in positive and viable ways to build stronger businesses and communities in the changing economic, environmental and global context, then this workshop is for you.

Toowoomba’s unique annual festival of the environment comes alive in Lake Annand Park next Sunday 31st May. World Environment Day’s vibrant multicultural mix of information, music, food, song and dance explodes into action from 10am til 4pm.