The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change. Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices. Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our atmosphere and destroying our ecosystem.
The need for social change has become an urgent part of preventing catastrophic climate change. Can the market fix the problem? What is the real record of carbon trading? How can we build a social movement capable of averting this disaster? What models and experiences can offer real solutions?
To strengthen the exchange of ideas and contribute towards that urgent action Green Left Weekly is organising the Climate Change | Social Change conference from April 11-13, 2008, in Sydney.
We are pleased to have confirmed:
- John Bellamy Foster — author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature; editor of Monthly Review.
- Patrick Bond — director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society.
- Roberto Perez — Cuban permaculturalist (featured in The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil).
Speakers from Australia include:
- Matt Thistlethwaite — Unions NSW deputy assistant secretary
- John Kaye — Greens NSW MLC
- Stephanie Long — Friends of the Earth Australia’s international climate justice spokesperson; works on FoE International’s climate change campaign
- Dr Mark Diesendorf — Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW
- Tim Anderson — senior lecturer political economy, Sydney University
- David Spratt — co-editor, Climate Code Red
- Marlene Obeid — solidarity activist
- Dr Jim Green — Friends of the Earth anti-nuclear campaigner
- Dick Nichols — author of Environment, Capitalism and Socialism
- Renfrey Clarke — Green Left Weekly environment correspondent
- Cam Walker — Friends of the Earth, Melbourne
- John Rice — Adelaide Ecosocialist Network
- Adrian Whitehead — Zero Emissions Network
- Pat Eatock — elder from the Kairie community in central Queensland and secretary of the National Aboriginal Alliance
- Stuart Rosewarne — co-editor of Journal of Australian Political Economy and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
- Donna Jackson — Larrakia/Wulna woman who helped establish the Top End Aboriginal Conservation Alliance
- James Goodman — researcher on social movements at the University of Technology Sydney writer on Southern responses to global warming
If you would like to present a workshop, exhibit your artwork or register interest in the conference email climateconf@greenleft.org.au. Workshop submissions close on March 16, 2008.
To receive updates about the conference, send an email to climatechange_socialchangeconf_announce-subscribe
@yahoogroups.com.
Registration Costs
| 2 days/whole conf | 1 day/session | |
| Waged | $100 | $55 |
| Unwaged | $40 | $25 |
| High school | $20 | $10 |
| Solidarity | $120 | $65 |
| Public meeting | $6/$4 (included in registration free) | |