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1. Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment Roadshow in Vancouver Wednesday 15th
2. RIC Annual Report
3. Our new climate change website

Friends, after over 100 gigs in Australia and eastern N America, the Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment roadshow www.climate.net.au , is headed for Vancouver Wed August 15 and from there making its way down to San Francisco and then Hawaii. Presented by Kelly Tudhope from the RIC with the help of Pat Rasmussen of the World Temperate Rainforest Network, the roadshow teaches us how to transform despair into empowerment and inspires grass roots action to head off climate chaos.

Please forward this notice to any friends along the roadshow route. Vancouver, Olympia, Port Townsend, Seattle, Vashon Island, Portland, Eugene, Salem, Ashland, Takilma, Arcata, Santa Rosa, Bay Area, Sacramento, Nevada City and the Big Island.

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We've just produced our annual report for the fiscal year 2006-2007. This includes details of the many projects we've been working on and supporting from opposing the expansion of the oil industry in the Amazon headwaters to reforesting the sacred mountain Arunachala in the south of India. We've also been able to raise and distribute more funds this last year than ever before to support scores of cutting edge projects and individuals around the world working for ecological protection and regeneration, and for indigenous survival. See http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/grants.htm

We have just launched our new climate change website and blog at http://www.climate.net.au. There is space for discussions on renewable technologies, biofuel, tree planting etc. as well as a discussion on "What Would Gandhi Do Now?" which begins with a very short film and then ideas for how to go from where we are now to where we want to be in a Gandhian fashion. (To join this one, visit http://www.climate.net.au/?p=30 )

We're also starting a distributed research project at this website looking for answers and solutions. If you have experience in research and some time on your hands, please email me to participate in this. For example,

* what role will biological sequestration play, in forests www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/04/08/1175970936472.html and especially in the soil. www.amazingcarbon.com/ .

* Must we accept carbon trading as the foregone conclusion fund-raising mechanism? In the light of the criticisms of carbon trading at http://www.climate.net.au/?page_id=28 and http://www.tni.org/detail_pub.phtml?know_id=56&menu for example, surely there's a better way?

* The production of cement is one of the major CO2 producers worldwide. Yet new ways of producing cement could dramatically slash this. How can we facilitate smooth technological transitions?

The 40 Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment events that I presented on the E Coast in the spring were very heartening www.climate.net.au/articles/report.doc . 5 people in the NE travelled and trained with me and are available for presentations, please let me know if you'd like to organise something in that neck o the woods.

As part of the roadshow we gave away over 1000 copies of 2 DVDs to anyone who will use them to educate their people - “Boiling Point” with Ross Gelbspan and “Climate Change, Despair & Empowerment” with Ross Gelbspan and John Seed which, like many of our films now, also streams from Google . These same free films will be available through Kelly's roadshow along with a new DVD by Jeremiah Wallack - "John Seed's North American Roadshow 2007" also streaming from Google . Please let me know if you'd like me to mail you one or more of these to help educate your community in empowered action to forestall climate chaos.

ps, check out the comprehensive article on the history of the climate denial industry in, of all places, this weeks Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/site/newsweek/