The Beyond Gas Network is a volunteer network of grassroots climate action networks that originated in the east and south east of Melbourne. It has now established links to groups and organisations in other parts of Melbourne, NSW, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. and through our groups’ email lists reaches audiences of tens of thousands. We are particularly active in the federal electorates of Goldstein, Higgins and Kooyong. We believe educating our community about the scale and impact of expansion plans proposed by the gas industry will encourage citizens to constructively express their outrage to their federal and state members of parliament. Our ongoing education campaign through town hall meetings, large-scale webinars, the media and social media, highlights the devastating consequences of gas emissions for our environment our health, climate and our future.
Climate emergency: an existential crisis
The earth is already too hot. We need to stop burning fossil gas and coal NOW. The IPCC’s latest report has warned that overshooting 1.5°C will push us over climate tipping points, triggering irreversible and abrupt changes. We need to embrace 100% renewable energy sources at emergency speed. Professor Will Steffen states: “we are already deep into the trajectory towards ‘collapse of civilisation’, which may now be inevitable because 9 of the 15 known global climate tipping points that regulate the state of the planet have been activated.” https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/ BGN’s focus on fossil gas exploration, extraction and production Australia-wide highlights the contribution that fossil gas/methane makes to our climate crisis. Like other fossil fuels, when methane gas is burned for energy it produces carbon dioxide (CO2). Methane is around 86x more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The gas industry also underestimates and underreports methane that leaks from gas wells, pipelines and appliances. We need to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible — not waiting till 2050 when it will already be far too late.