YOUthdecide – voting starts this week

Calling all young people to vote in the Youth Referendum YOUthdecide.

Youth Decide '09 is a national youth vote on climate change. The Australian Youth Climate Coalition is giving Australia’s 4.8 million young people the chance to vote on what kind of world they want to inherit. It’s an opportunity to tell the government the sort of targets you want them to be talking about at the climate talks in Copenhagen later this year.

Part of raising awareness included the youth summit, Powershift, where young people across Australia came together to learn about the latest climate science and the action required to seriously act on climate change.

I sponsored a group of students from local secondary school, Sherbrooke Community School, to attend Powershift as well as two of the Shire’s young leaders, Nerida Lennon and Jaymie Rudd.

Here’s some feedback I got from the students at Sherbrooke Community School.

“We spoke to people from other high schools from our region on what their school is doing to be sustainable. We concluded that our school was doing pretty well but we can still do better.

In my group I said our school has got:
a 5.2 kW photovoltaic solar system
tank water used in the toilets
a specialised bin system where all food scraps are composted and paper and recyclable material is recycled
two sheep who mow the lawns
a developing fruit tree orchard
a newly built chook shed
revegetation strategy
a new conservation area
a plan to eradicate weeds in the school
a vegie patch transforming into a Koorie garden
and an enviro group to make these things happen

And a girl from a prominent Melbourne private school said WOW you have a lot of things at your school we planted daises at the front of our school.

That really told me something. Nothing against private schools well but our school totally kicked some butt when it came to sustainability.”

Great work Sherbrooke, your actions for a sustainable future set a benchmark for other schools to follow!

powered up from power shift

I caught up with Nerida and Jaymie earlier this week to talk to them about their experience up at Power Shift. Nerida and Jaymie are part of the Shire's young leaders program and I sponsored them to attend Power Shift (see blog) up in Sydney last weekend. The girls were very enthusiastic and had a great time with 1,150 other young people from across Australia. They were fired up ready to spread the word to young people across Yarra Ranges about climate change and a youth referendum on climate change.

That's Nerida Lennon on the left, me in the middle and Jaymie Rudd on the right. The girls are keen to access as many young people as possible to participate in Youth Decide '09.

In September the AYCC and World Vision will be holding the first ever youth climate vote, Youth Decide '09. Nerida and Jaymie talked about the campaign to get as many young people as possible to participate in a youth referendum so the results can be fed into United Nations climate change negotiations in Copenhagen later this year. Jaymie and Nerida are keen to get the message out there and are currently thinking about the best way to get to as many young people as they can.

I've heard that the group of students I funded from Sherbrooke Community School had an exceptional time at Power Shift and have come back thinking that Sherbrooke is ahead of many schools but they have to do more. The students are in the process of writing up a report, I look forward to reading how they went.

Click on the image for more info Youth Decide '09.








Power Shift participants will be encouraging young people to hold a voting events in schools, communities, universities, TAFE and the workplace.

Their enthusiasm was catching, I look forward to hearing how they progress and look forward to helping any way I can.

powered up for powershift

This week saw young people across Australia attend Power Shift, a summit organised by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. The summit was organised to coordinate a massive display of young people's commitment to finding stronger climate solutions.

When I first heard about Power Shift, I thought it was a great opportunity for young people across the country to learn more about climate change from leading figures of the climate movement. The organisers are keen to see young people armed with information to implement clear and ambitious plans of action to combat climate change. I was keen to ensure that young people from Yarra Ranges were represented at Power Shift.

I was very pleased to be able to assist with funding for a group of students from the Sherbrooke Community School to go up Power Shift. The students from Sherbrooke Community School are very active when it comes to climate change, two of them joining me recently for a meeting with Greg Hunt (federal Shadow Minister for the Environment).

Jamie Rudd, me and Nerida Lennon, the two young leaders I sponsored to go up to Power Shift.


I was also pleased to sponsor two of the Shire's "Young Leaders", Jaymie Rudd and Nerida Lennon to attend the summit.

Jaymie said the conference was a great opportunity to meet people who share the same opinions on climate change and were interested in making a difference.

Nerida said the conference gave her the chance to explore her interest in actions people could take to create and secure a positive future in terms of climate change.

The summit is covering a huge range of topics including campaign and event planning, public speaking, lobbying and leadership development and will be of great assistance to young people trying to get the message about climate change out there.

A number of presentations to be made include ‘How Combating Climate Change Leads to Job Creation’ and ‘International Security and Climate Change’, with keynote speakers including Dr Tim Flannery and Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Rajendra Pachauri.

I can't wait to hear how they all went, I'm sure they are now equipped with a valuable insight into current news on climate change and the knowledge and tools they need to pass on the message to their peers and the broader community.

A salient point was made at this weekend's Power Shift summit by Co-director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Anna Rose, who said "Young people have the most to lose from climate change, we're the last generation that has the chance to solve this problem in terms of the time frame scientists have told us we have."

And she's right.

powershift for climate change

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) are running a youth climate summit, PowerShift at the University of Western Sydney from the 11th to 13th July.

The summit will bring together 3,000 young people from across Australia to stand up against climate change and demand stronger action from our leaders. AYCC have been able to get some eminent speakers for the summit, including Tim Flannery and Rajendra Pachauri (head of the IPCC and Nobel Peace Prize winner).

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The summit will be a tremendous opportunity for young people who want to actively participate to do something about climate change. AYCC hopes the summit will be a display of young people's commitment to finding stronger climate solutions and how they can work together to implement clear and ambitious plans of action.

PowerShift will be a key moment where the younger generation can demonstrate their power, assert that power and direct energy to force political change for a Power Shift to a clean energy future.

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Celebrate World Environment Day this year by registering your place at PowerShift.