1) recognise that this crisis needs mobilisation as for war. World War 2 was horrible but huge technological and social advances were made in just 5 years.

2) recognise that, as in the run-up to World War 2, politicians will try to appease the enemy. The British Prime Minister proclaimed “peace in our time” in 1938 after he allowed Hitler to take over the Sudetenland. It didn’t stop him but did delay British preparations for reality.
The Australian CPRS – and what is going on in the USA, Canada and China – are attempts to appease vested interests in climate pollution. They will not stop are until they are stopped. That means lobbying the right people.

3) recognise the sceptics are out there actively lobbying. They are speaking to leading elders and opinion-formers at local Probus and similar clubs, they are speaking to businesses. Preaching to the converted is not enough.

All those bright lights burning, all that popcorn being popped, all that soft drink being refrigerated, in all those thousands of cinemas world wide, with not a solar panel or wind turbine used in the powering of any of it.

I also just wanted to say as far as Miranda Devine and Greg Sheridan are concerned , i mean come on who the heck are they???
Journo’s employed to sell dying Newspapers, surely we can find better ways to be informed of what’s going on in the world around us?

Thanks again and take care.

I hate when people are talking about giving up. Simply DON”T. There is hope ALWAYS.

If I crossed the line I appologise.

My ‘NO JUNK MAIL’ sign was taken of but I actually wrote with permanent marker and refresh it occasionally. I also wrote letters to the companies whose catalogues I found in my letter box asking to respect my property and wishes displayed, and believe it or not it worked. I still get some on occasion but much more less than before.

However, that helps me personally but not environment.

I like your suggestions regarding Council websites, so if something could be done I am all for it. However, there are still many households that do not have computers not to mention internet service (especially elderly and elderly migrants).

Maniacs do not have religion, race, sex or economic status.

Those who bomb things are maniacs but let’s be realistic just recent trend placed idiots in Islamic countries in front.
What about past millennium? Heard of IRA? Remember what was happening with Cubans, and do not forget Americans (Oklahoma bombing), and other maniacs mostly in developed countries who bombs their high schools, etc. I would not even try to provide a few most likely version of September 11.

So, please it seems you have some intelligent points to make, do not spoil it with ridiculous stereotyping known to less knowledgeable, intelligent people, please.

That will shut up those who like to discuss topics with their own pathetic prejudices’ without actually taking an effort to find real facts and information so they can intelligently participate in the grown up’s discussions.

I am so ‘jealous’ of your knowledge and wits. It is pleasure to read your responses to ignorant comments of some.

sorry i dont have any inspirational qoutes but i find that sometimes they just take up space. also sorry for the bad grammar and punctuation french keyboards are really confusing!

You wonder what it’s carbon footprint in the making might be. Perhaps not as much as one thinks because all that action, and destruction of nature on the screen, was hand painted frame by frame.

It was not done by moving large crews vaste distances, brning lots of oil, as would be the usual way of making an epic.

lastly, the fact that the movie has both Miranda Devine and Greg Sheridan spitting chips, speaks in its favor.

To my way of thinking, the fact that so many people ARE talking about AVATAR and arguing about its message already confers on it a degree of legitimacy and tells us that its message has struck a popular chord. What the politically minded choose to do with the momentuum that it has stirred will be interesting.

Many of my thoughts, ideas and passions, particularly when I was younger, were stirred by hearing stories, whether they were told to me in oral form, read myself or at the cinema. I think it is a foolishness to dismiss anything that comes from Hollywood simply because it comes from Hollywood. For all its many arguable faults, Hollywood is the probably the world’s current leader in producing human fantasy in all its many diverse forms. What comes out and becomes successful (and fails) tells us a great deal about who we are and for what we yearn, though we may not always see clearly the consequences of that yearning.

Though we may start to dream as children, it is not childish to dream.

AVATAR does have an important message and though its style may not get us all in (I know I’m a little too old for its too-overt message), I know that were I 17 again or even 27 perhaps and saw that film it would have made a huge impression on me and become part of a driving force to learn more about how to live in better co-habitation on our planet Earth.

Finally, an initial large carbon footprint is likely going to be an inevitable part of changing systems. Were AVATAR to become a focal film for people around the world, spurring them on to create a more sustainable existence then the films initial footprint will be seen as worth it.

If AVATAR is as succesful both critically and commercially as it seems to be, the smart thing to do would be to get in front of its momentuum and use it for all we can.

Thanks for the posts.

We all need to start embracing our collective future, we all have a responsibility and should begin to look forward with the vision that there are a great number of opportunities currently disguised as insolvable problems.

Remembering that politicians will follow the voters.

In case you missed it, i will say it again-

*** AVATAR IS A PIECE OF FICTION***

A clever ploy to part you from the contents of your wallet, NOTHING more, your comments about moving ideas and connecting with the plant world are again pieces of fiction.

I will also note, that James Cameron has chosen to impart this piece of fiction, by utilising the most expensive technology he can muster, in order to dupe the public into feeding money to the companies for which he works, One does wonder at the carbon footprint that has been generated by this one movie alone.

Hollywood will never save the planet, it relies on exploiting it way to much.

Suggest the above video becomes a TV clip and target all time slots to get the message to all Australians – as a nation we need constant reminding – the tendency to slip into apathy is very Australian

Have you seen Avatar? It is really a very powerful statement about how we have trashed our world, for though set in space, it’s all cleverly allegorical.

I did not expect to like it, but so many touches are genuine, heartfelt really moving ideas about how we might connect with the plant world, that I was quite won over, and am delighted that my daughter’s generation are rushing to see it. (she’s 17) I feel it could be very important at this moment as a wake up call for the young.

On another matter, I am disappointed that my several comments about how bikes can help, personal car transport is a big part of our green house problem, do not seem to resonate on this thread.

Everyone agrees we must act as responsible individuals, but few can see bikes playing any real part, or if they do, they are very quiet about it, and yet they do elsewhere. Why? The only direct feedback I got was a rude comment, one of the very few here.

Perhaps Australians of the sensibility of those who post here, just cant imagine themselves on bikes as transport. Isn’t that true?

This is for two reasons, I suspect . Firstly, all the oxygen around cycling is being consumed by the sport and leisure cycling gang, the people in Lycra who dominate Australian cycling even as they yell; “Share the damn road!”

Nothing wrong with sport and leisure riding in itself, but it does crowd out what we need, which is people on stately European bikes, going comfortably from A to B.

Maybe that image does no lodge because you never see it here. No bike shop will encourage you to purchase such a bike if they have them in stock , which is unlikely. All of which is why I’ve put together a short movie called: The waltz of the Bikes.

It’s people, unaware of the camera, going about their business in Amsterdam on a sunny day on sit-up bikes Set to music, it becomes a ballet.

There is no expensive bike infrastructure visible here, though Holland of course has that in spades, 29,000 kms. of bike ways, in fact.

No, the ballet works because the traffic is slow and people are riding the right sort of bikes, regally upright, their heads far higher than a car, even than a SUV.

They look and feel safe because that society has decided it will be that way, and lined up their carrots and sticks to make it happen. We could do the same of we chose to.

Have a look, experimentally , and see if this film helps you visualize yourself on a bike, Australians on bikes all over the place, and maybe as well, discover what your personal block is.

The film is on my blog; http://situp-cycle.com. and is called; The Waltz of the Bikes.

Do let me know if you have any insights on blocks to bikes as transport, both here and on the blog itself. That is a future movie topic. It will be a great help. Mike Rubbo

Sooner or later we will burn through all the available fossil fuels and have to develop alternatives. It would be far less disruptive to the world economy to phase these alternatives in slowly rather than wait for a crisis. The threat to the biosphere of global warming means we need to apply ourselves with greater urgency to this task. If it’s impossible or ruinously expensive, we’re all screwed in the long run anyway. From what I understand of the problem, it’s neither. But we will need to do some serious R&D to fill the gaps, and the fossil fuel industry is selfishly employing lobbyists and seeding fake grass roots movements in the style of tobacco denial to delay the inevitable.