An open letter to Joe Hockey MP 27 July 2009

I have heard that you are planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro soon. I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro in 1990. At that time it had snow on its peak.
It was a dazzling white peak on the equator, surrounded by tropical forest and the vast Serengeti plains, a mountain of many myths, of Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh.
The Kilimanjaro you climb see will be very different. If you approach it from the east, you probably won?t see any snow at all. Had you seen the one that I climbed it would break your heart.
I want you to ask yourself, why? How has this happened? Where will it end?
The first European to report a snow capped mountain on the equator was ridiculed, just as many in your party ridicule those who now want policies that will protect this mountain.
When you come back to Australia and are again asked to formulate climate change policy, think of Kilimanjaro. It is a beacon to the world as you could be a beacon to your party.
regards
Harriett Swift