World Environment Day:5th June

 This year's world environment day will feature three eventson Thursday 5th June.

1. Cairns Regional Council will be hosting a day of stalls and entertainment at City Place.

City Place, Cairns, 11am- 2pm.

2. Cycle event -World Environment Day 

7.15 am- 9am: Westcourt Plaza, on Mulgrave Road - City Place 

3. Short Films and Japanese animation PRINCESS MONONOKE.

Tramways - Spence & Bunda Sts, Behind the Cape York Hotel, 6pm.

Entry by gold coin donation

The UN theme for this year’s World Environment Day is “Kick the CO2 habit: Towards a Low Carbon Economy.” In Cairns we’ve decided to focus on transport, the biggest contribution to greenhouse gases from the Cairns & Wet Tropics region (30% in 2005).

Cairns is growing fast. And while other cities around Australia and the world are moving away from car dependency, the current government plan for public transport in Cairns has as its grand aim only 20% of peak hour travel by public transport by 2036. This is hugely inadequate. What it means is more highways, traffic jams, accidents, CO2 emissions, heavy costs on the community as petrol prices go through the roof, more social isolation for the elderly and those who can’t afford a car, and more natural environments given over to carparks, highways & urban sprawl.

Hardly what you’d call future planning.

This World Environment Day we are calling on our council & state government to shift some of the millions spent on roads and fossil fuel subsidies to investing in a city for people, not just for cars:

fast, frequent, cheap & reliable public transport powered by renewable energy
a proper network of bikeways & footpaths
facilities and urban planning which allow and encourage the majority of all trips by public transport, foot or bike

We want to see a cleaner, healthier, safer & fairer Cairns, and we need your help. For more info or to get involved, go to cairnsactionforsustainabletransport.blogspot.com

World Environment Day 2008 in Cairns is organised by:
Cairns Action for Sustainable Transport
Cairns and Far North Environment Centre
Cairns Bicycle Users Group
Australian Conservation Foundation (Cairns Office)