Climate Action Pittwater Group
Walk against warming rally and walk held in Sydney, 12th December, starting with a rally in Martin Place in city centre and then walking to Botanical Gardens which is on the foreshores of Sydney harbour. Under the sky of fantastic sunny summers day approximately 20,000 people protested against global warming. The rally and walk was also to send a message to all world leaders in Copenhagen where the global warming conference is being held. It was a excellent turnout and a great family day.
There where similar rallies across the world
Video of rally and walk
Organised by Pittwater climate action group the event took place on Mona Vale beach.This 
was part of two other events on the northern beaches of Sydney. The other two events organised by Manly Warringah Climate Action Group, These events took place on The Steyne and Dee Why beaches.
While across the world there were another 4000 events taking place, all in a protest to bring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back to below 350 parts per million, currently 387ppm and rising.
There were climate action events from the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef to the summit of Mount Everest. At each event -- at rallies and parties and deep-sea dives -- people have taken photos that somehow depict the number 350. The crew at 350.org have taken of thousands of photos, projecting them on the giant screens in New York's Times Square, and delivering them directly to hundreds of world leaders and politicians in the coming weeks.
Helicopter flyby
Can we afford a plan B
When are we going to get of the fence. If nothing else last Saturday shows that we can take action and be heard but we can not afford to be complacent. The action we need to take should be positive and solution focused.
Below an article from "The Age" on a plan B
THE world has struggled for more than 20 years to make plan A on climate change work. That involves capping greenhouse gas emi
ssions, which climate scientists have warned since the 1970s are driving global warming. In 1988, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher became the first major leader to call for action. In that year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up and two years later it issued the first of its reports warning that the world is warming, causing rising sea levels. Yet today, the world is still unable to agree on measures to limit climate change to safe levels.
The evidence of change is all around us. Centuries of continuous observation provide particularly convincing records of impacts on fauna and flora. Despite modest successes such as the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which committed developed nations to targets for cutting greenhouse emissions, the international political process has not been up to the challenge.
A new analysis of measures proposed in 109 countries shows the world is still far short of reducing emissions to levels regarded as safe even if all policies achieve the best possible result. The IPCC's 2007 report said stabilisation of greenhouse gases at 450 parts per million could avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global temperature rises to less than 2 degrees. The analysis by Deutsche Bank's Global Climate Change Policy Tracker shows business as usual will lead to emissions 34 per cent higher in 2020 than required to achieve the stabilisation target, while current and announced policies would still exceed the target by 16 per cent. That is why Deutsche Bank says a strong deal is needed at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
It is now clear that the chances of that are slim. Participants are preparing to manage failure at Copenhagen and set a new deadline for a treaty. Despite a welcome shift in the US attitude to a treaty, no nation is willing to lead by example. The result is a paralysing stand-off. Such is the global record of failure since 1988 that it is reasonable to begin work on plan B. Nations will have to manage climate change. This might also prove prudent if dissenters from the majority belief in emissions as the main cause were to turn out to be right.
An 18-month investigation by a federal parliamentary committee has produced a sweeping report that reveals how exposed Australia is to the many impacts of climate change. The bipartisan report warns of the need for national plans to manage the consequences of higher seas, warmer temperatures, changing rainfall and greater fire risks. Eighty per cent of Australians live on the coast, which makes Australia ''particularly vulnerable to the coastal erosion and inundation that will accompany increases in sea level''. The 2007 IPCC report predicts sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100. As a general rule, every one-centimetre rise causes the coast to recede by about a metre. A conference in New Orleans this week contemplated whether the entire city should be relocated inland. Delegates heard that the rates of the Mississippi Delta sinking and sea rising could mean half of Louisiana being lost within a century. Low-lying Pacific islands fear a similar fate.
Although some scientists rightly note that climate change could make some currently dry or cold land areas more productive, the parliamentary committee's report highlights the costs for many communities. As many as 700,000 coastal buildings, including 80,000 in Victoria, may be vulnerable. With up to $50 billion of property at stake, the report calls for an inquiry into insurance, as some insurers refuse to cover ''saltwater risks'', and proposes plans to share the costs of mitigation such as sea walls. It identifies development risks in potentially vulnerable areas and suggests local authorities are bedevilled by uncertainty over legal liabilities: they are ''damned if they do and damned if they do not'' issue planning approvals. The report also notes the spread of tropical diseases as temperatures rise and disease-bearing mosquitoes, which were thought to have been eradicated, re-emerge.
In an ideal world, political leaders would live up to their collective responsibility to the planet and wrap up an effective agreement to minimise the impacts of climate change. This month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was no plan B, and one must hope that plan A can be made to work after decades of failure. Yet, as the parliamentary report confirms, we have reached the point of having to prepare a plan B