Petition cover letter

this is the letter to go with the petition, giving info about it and suchlike.
i don't know if it's much good, it's pretty much a draft.
corrections, alterations?

VISEN.
VISEN (Victorian Inter-School Environmental Network) is a student run network aimed at joining environmentally conscious students from schools all over Victoria.

THE PETITION.
+ Australia, with 0.32 per cent of the world population, contributes 1.43 per cent of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Australia's carbon dioxide emissions per capita in 2004 were 4.5 times the global average. And yet, we as a people have done nothing to stop this. True, Australia has now ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia has been allowed to increase it's emissions, when the most important thing is reducing them!
- Therefore we are asking for a 50% decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels, which stand at 279,384 thousand metric tonnes of CO2.
+ In 1990, the area of approximately 3000 football fields per day was being logged throughout Australia. Old growth forests act as carbon sinks, storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide. They also contain many unique plants and animals, which will be lost for ever if such practices are allowed to continue. Plantation logging, the solution to the problem, is hardly done in Australia, even though it produces much more saw wood, as opposed to the wood chips which make up three quarters of products made from Australia's forests. Despite this, the Australia government has done nothing to stop the practice of old growth logging, and such logging is accelerating in many areas, particularly Tasmania.
- We are calling for an end to all logging of old growth forests in Australia.
+ Between 2005-06, Australia exported 233 million tonnes of coal; 30% of the world total of coal for those years. Australia is the worlds top coal exporter, supplying many nations in South East Asia such as Japan.
- We are asking for a stop to Australia's coal exports, which will in turn lower the earths CO2 emissions drastically.
+ The Federal government spends appallingly small amounts of funding on renewable energy research, infrastructure and businesses. In 2005, only $100 million was spent on renewable energy resources.
- We are asking for a large increase in funding of these areas, so that our impact on the environment can be minimised.

WHY?
The earth gives us all the essential things we need to live: food, water, air to breathe, and materials to build shelter with. We, as the next generation of young adults, need to secure a healthy future for our country and our planet, and the best way we can start to do this is by taking the issue to the federal government.