Having voted in the successful 38 degrees campaign against the mega-dairy, I was disgusted to find, on a recent visit to my home village in Lancashire, that the local farm has stopped letting the cows out into the fields in the summer. Instead they are kept in sheds all year round. This is just a mini-mega-dairy! It is unacceptable that animals aren't allowed outside, never mind the intensive farming practices that probably go alongside this in terms of feeds, antibiotics etc. We should campaign for these indoor dairy farms to be banned, but the people of this country also need to recognise that these farming practices reflect the pressure that is put on our farmers by supermarkets and our demand for cheap foodstuffs.

We had the fight over the draft National Planning Policy Framework ( NPPF), which due to huge public opposition ( including by 38 Degrees- thank you 38 Degrees) and the Government had to bend to public pressure somewhat in the NPPF issued this March. Now they want to renege on that by relaxing the system in their new economic development bill. The Government says that planning is holding up development. Planning is not holding up development- particularly housing which is so dear to this Government.... there are plenty of permissions out there for houses - its the builders not building in a stagnant housing market. Why is it stagnant? Because the banks etc are not lending to people. Please oppose this Governments short term thinking- once Green Belt or other open countryside is built on - its gone forever...

We are a tiny community who are opposed to a Planning Application by D W Hall of Ferryhill to open cast 250,000 tonnes of coal from as near as 180 metres to our homes. D W Hall will not even offer us triple glazing or regular cleaning of our houses. They have made "arrangements" as they put it, with two local businesses - perhaps financial arrangements but we cannot say for definite. We are overwhelmed by the project which will carry on for 3 years. It appears noise, light, dust etc are not options for objections. Traffic is and the lorries will use narrow local roads. Do we have a human right not to have this dumped upon us? Please join our campaign and those of anyone whose lives are affected by open cast. D W Hall lost out recently at Gibside and pulled out of an appeal. So it can be done. Gibside raised thousands of signatures of objection. Please help us do the same.
Thank you. Michele Finch

Create a carbon capping scheme where carbon is taxed at the point of production, and the proceeds used to protect the carbon-poor. The Govt should auction carbon extraction quotas (for coal, oil, gas, timber, and chalk - used in steel production). Imports from non-compliant countries which don't operate the same capping scheme should be charged from the importer's carbon quota. Countries should be allocated quotas according to global CO2 levels and national population, but should be able to trade (so developing countries can sell to developed countries). Abolish fuel duties etc.
-- The result is that all products would be priced according to their real environmental cost, and all countries would be pressured to comply effectively.

I am re-inspired by the book 'The Story of Stuff'. We know we throw too much away into landfill. ..the book highlights the take-make-waste theory and that it's not sustainanble to use resources once and then throw them away. Supermarkets have enough profit to deal with the products that they make. The true cost of the manufacture must include the reuse of the packaging. Let the private companies deal with the waste they create and not the government. Our council and collection system and the landfill were never designed to deal with the level of consumerism we are living at now.

The aim of this project is to force governments throughout the world to stop pussyfooting around on the subject of CO2 emissions. Scientific evidence clearly indicates that global temperatures are rising because of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions.

“Of all the crises, I think this one – global warming – looms larger and more threatening than anything in all of human history.” – Dr Albert A. Bartlett, University of Colorado at Boulder

Sometimes it seems that the fossil fuel industry and its torchbearers really have ‘won the day’. Governments, when it comes down to it, appear to be doing almost nothing at all about CO2 emissions. They talk the talk about bringing emission levels down to 1990 levels, to 1998 levels, to this level, to that level. But because they take no effective action, carbon emissions keep going up and up and up, year after year after year! And – at the moment – there is no end to it in sight, there is absolutely no change for the better in sight. Nothing. All we have is a sort of blind hope, or a sort of fearful blindness, and the odd wind farm or other green initiative here and there. That’s all.
This project is about letting our voices, the powerful voices of the people of this Earth, ring out loud and clear, right round the planet, across all nations, to all governments, and to all their international institutions and bodies, such as the UN, the EU, the Commonwealth, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, and so on.
When the petition is formulated it will demand legally binding action. It is hoped that upwards of 10 million people will sign the petition in the UK alone. We will be demanding action on CO2 emissions from our own government as well as joining with millions of others throughout the world who will be demanding action from their governments and, together, the whole ONE BILLION OF US will be demanding action from all governments. We demand that our governments work together to tackle this gigantic global problem which threatens all our lives, and we demand security for the lives of our children and our children’s children, and for all the earth’s species of plants and animals.
For some of the Earth’s people, the measures demanded of governments in the petition will probably lead to lifestyle changes – remember, we will be demanding that all our governments take strong measures on a global scale. Such measures may include (for example) the following demands:

- Legally binding carbon rationing (with rich countries setting the example - an individual in a rich country uses 30 times more of the earth’s resources than someone in a poor country).

- Serious investment in alternative technology.
- New buildings being fitted, where possible, with solar panels and/or other green energy equipment.

- The recognition by governments that year-on-year economic growth is simply not possible on a planet of finite resources. The holy grail of ever-increasing growth and consumption is simply not sustainable.

Is is extremely uncomfortable for us as individuals to acknowledge what we have done to our planet and to let ourselves see what we are still doing to it. But we are not helpless. Global action is possible for the first time in human history. We have the power – as a species – to actually force our various governments to face up to what needs to be done and to get on and do it.

We have the power to save our Earth.