We would really like to harness the enthusiasm that our community has shown by offering a number of different options on how everyone can be involved.

For personal changes see our pages with info on how to "Switch to Green Power" and "Cut your Greenhouse Gas Emissions" See our info on "Use your Political Influence" for proforma letters to let our leaders know that we would like radical change to avert Climate Change 

And if you feel like being actively involved with our group.....there are many ways you could become involved

• Fundraising - assisting with fundraising projects for our Schools Solar Panels project.
• Small donations to help us cover administrative costs: insurance, PO Box, printing...
  
• Props - making banners and props, printing T-shirts and bumper stickers, printing petitions and pro forma letters, posters etc.
• Events - Joining in under the CCBR banner at third party events and helping to organise our own.

We would love to hear from anyone who would like to help make a difference.  Everyone can become part of the solution.

Meetings: Please email us  and either specify a committee, an activity, or a particular skill you may have or just to let us know that you'd like to get involved. We meet alternate Tuesdays (venue changes).

Article written by one of our supporters, Lucy Macken, that was published in the Innerwest Courier prior to the 2009 World Environment Day Rally

One locals journey to march….

What does it take to inspire action from the usual concerned bystander? It is a question often asked in activist circles. Fear? Personal gain? Power?

For me, it is sleep. Or rather, a lack of.

At least, that is the case for this Leichhardt local, whose community involvement used to be limited to voting, paying parking fines and checking out the local real estate at open for inspections.
And then two things happened within a few years of each other: I had children, and climate change captured world headlines. 
I read all about it, with a slowly rising sense of despair about global warming.

At a time when all three kids were finally sleeping through the night, my sleep started to suffer, again. And I could no longer blame any of my three kids.

 As the former Howard Government continued its climate change policy of denial and the dire news from scientists around the world continued to worsen, my sense of hopelessness grew. Worse still, when I did fall asleep, exhausted, anxiety dreams about rising sea levels started to haunt me.

Now…. I am told no-one has ever died of sleep deprivation, but it certainly was inspiration enough for me to look at how I lived. And that was the point I started to make small, but incremental, changes to my lifestyle. For the greener.

Admittedly, nothing this family of five does will have an impact on carbon emissions worldwide, even nationwide. It has always been more about living the change I wanted to see in the world. And getting sleep.

You see, the more action I took, the more I embraced this problem, the more I started to live the solution, and the more I could engage with the subject, the more I didn't have to hide from it as a topic of conversation and - this is the beautiful part - the less anxiety I felt about change being possible.

And so I made a phone call and had the home electricity sourced from wind.

Then I got my first bill, and I started to really turn the lights off. Then the light bulbs were switched to energy-saving bulbs.

And every time I made one small change, the next small measure appeared like the riser from one step to the next.

So the worm farm was installed, compostable nappies came into my existence and the oil heaters were replaced with expensive quilts and bedsuits.

And after turning appliances off at the wall got a bit boring, I started to just unplug them. First the portable phone was replaced with an energy-free handset using Telstra's free home message service instead of an answering machine.

The same fate awaited the digital alarm clock, replaced later with a water-powered clock.

And so as successive federal and state governments have continued to turn their back on renewable energy jobs and investment, preferring to approve yet another coal-fired power plant or spend billions on the spin known better as Carbon Capture and Storage, I too have raised my own stakes: whirly birds and insulation in the ceiling, and push bikes with babyseats.

There is plenty of room for improvement. We drive a seven seater for starters, and are yet to afford photovoltraic cells on our roof but I continue to rise above the Can't-Do party politics of Canberra, reminding myself daily by all these little steps that actually, we can.

The problem is that we might all change to energy efficient light bulbs and unplug the cordless phone, but if I let the Federal Government continue its business-as-usual approach to coal, to "lead" international negotiations at Copenhagen DOWN to a dire 5 per cent, if I don't voice my concern at the billions of dollars to be spent bailing out the fossil fuel industries as part of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, then I am going to start losing sleep.

And so my steps are joining the rousing beat of thousands on Saturday, June 13, at the Climate Emergency Rally as we march from Barangaroo at 10 am around the Rocks to the Prime Minister's office at Philip Street, Circular Quay.

Wearing red, I will join thousands of other mums, dads, sisters, friends, colleagues, teammates and grandparents at similar marches around the country to let Mr Rudd know that he might have done a good job representing his mates in the coal industry in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, but on election day shareholders can't vote. And we can.

And I will sleep well knowing I have what it takes to go from being a former bystander to one of many, marching.

June 2009