On June 13, 2009, thousands of people in Melbourne rallied for action on climate change. On that cold and bleak winter day they gathered at the State Library to hear from Greens Senator Bob Brown and Climate Code Red author and climate activist David Spratt (both pictured), among others. Leaving the State Library, the crowd marched down Swanston Street to the front of the Melbourne Town Hall to participate in a sit-down protest for climate change.

Inside the Town Hall was a meeting of the Victorian State Conference of the Australian Labor Party. A woman from Tuvalu spoke to the conference on the threat that rising seas pose to her country and other low-lying nations. Damien Lawson, National Climate Change Coordinator for Friends of the Earth, spoke on the need for a campaign of popular civil disobedience if politicians continue taking no action or ineffectual action to rapidly decrease carbon emissions.

For further information on this and other climate change action see my full report at Australia Indymedia.