Lighter Footprints joins CANA

CANA (Climate Action Network Australia) is a network of over 70 Australia non-government groups working for action on climate change. It is the Australian arm of Climate Action Network International.

In November this year CANA approved Lighter Footprints as a member, which gives us access to the latest climate change science and policy and campaigning in Australia and internationally. CANA has access to the civil societies activities at the international climate change negotiations.

In addition we became part of the processes established to work on joint domestic and international advocacy with other CANA members, and can participate fully in the annual conference.

Our membership means that we support the objects of CANA:

1. To provide a forum for members to work together on campaigns and projects to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to ecologically sustainable levels; 
2. To formulate and promote policies to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure that Australia is part of the international agreements to make the pollution reductions necessary to avoid and mitigate climate change; 
3. To encourage co-operation and develop strategic alliances to help advance the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; 
4. To encourage the active involvement and interest of the Australian community in campaigns to reduce Australia’s impact on the atmosphere; 
5. To represent Australia and contribute to the objects and purposes of the Climate Acton Network International as documented in the CAN Charter
   http://cana.enviro-geek.net/sites/default/filesCANCHARTER.pdf

For further information on CANA see www.cana.net.au

Why do people reject science?

Excerpt from an article by Stephan Lewandowsky:

"What does Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity have to do with the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV)?

What does acid rain have to do with the fact tobacco smoking causes lung cancer?

What does Reye’s syndrome have in common with the CFCs that caused the hole in the ozone layer?

And what do all those issues have to do with the fact our climate is rapidly changing due to human greenhouse gas emissions?

The answer is that in all those cases, solid scientific evidence was met with vociferous opposition.

The historical evidence is overwhelming that some of that opposition has been organised by vested interests, often successfully delaying political and regulatory action that posed a perceived threat to corporate profits. The peer-reviewed literature has clearly identified the subterfuge, distortion and manufacture of doubt with which vested interests delayed the control of tobacco, CFCs and sulphur emissions."

Lewandowsky is principally looking at the reasons why people tend to resist the science of climate change. Read the rest of this very interesting article at Climate Spectator.