The Australian Conservation Foundation now has a website, called Who On Earth Cares, where we can each put ourselves on a map of Australians who care about climate change. Over 11,000 of us have already signed up, and have committed to taking the equivalent of more than 16,000 cars off the road by reducing our personal greenhouse gas emissions. You can answer some short questions and input your address and it will generate a letter you can personalise and send to your local member of Parliament - it even creates it in PDF and gives you the name and address of your MP! I cruised around the map and saw that a number of people in my city have already signed up, and other members of relocalize.net have too (yep, I found you Sonya!) I asked the ACF to add functionality to allow people to message one another through the site to work together on community actions - hopefully they'll come through.

My local MP is Paul Neville. I emailed him my letter, rather than posting it, to save transport emissions and materials consumption. I also edited it heavily. Here's what my letter said:

Dear Mr Neville,

Climate change and resource depletion are the most critical issues we face today, bar none. As indicated in next month's IPCC report and recently discussed by Tim Flannery, because of our overconsumption, since 2005 Australia has already been producing the amount of greenhouse gases that weren't expected until 2015. We have very little time before climate change happens so rapidly and on such a large scale that it is irreversible. To reduce my greenhouse pollution, I:

- shop with businesses that sell local (instead of imported) products whenever possible
- will be installing solar panels on my home
- have installed a water efficient shower head and reuse my greywater in the garden
- always set my washing machine to wash my clothes in cold water, on a lower RPM setting
- always turn off appliances at the wall when they aren't in use, instead of leaving on standby
- eat less meat, grow my own vegetables
- work from home, and walk or bike instead of driving whenever possible

It is absolutely critical that we reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and unnecessary stuff. We must carefully conserve resources, and manage and recycle our waste. We must start treating the environment with the respect it deserves - we don't have anywhere else to go once we've used it up and left it for dead. I hope to see Australia become a leader in relocalisation: reducing consumption and producing all our needs locally, instead of polluting our air, water and soil to transport the latest shipment of iPods.

Ordinary Australians are doing what we can, but we also need your leadership. I would like you, as my political representative, to step up to the challenge of reducing Australias greenhouse pollution. What goals will you set to reduce our emissions by 2020 and 2050 as part of Australia's contribution to avoiding dangerous climate change? How will you ensure that 25% of Australia's electricity comes from renewable energy by 2020? Will you help Australia join the rest of the world by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol? I ask that you raise these important questions with your party and let me know your party's position on them.

Please acknowledge receipt of my letter, which I am sending via email instead of post to reduce transport and materials consumption. I look forward to receiving a prompt response to my questions.

Sincerely,
Andi Hazelwood
SustainaBundy
http://sustainabundy.org
(contact info removed)

Sign up, add yourself to the map, and send a letter to your local politician. Who On Earth Cares makes it as simple as possible.