Christian knitters for climate action will today gift parliamentarians with scarves depicting climate data through coloured stripes.
The scarves are part of Common Grace’s Knit for Climate Action initiative, inviting Christians from across Australia to knit a scarf with 101 stripes.
Each stripe represents a year from 1919 – 2019, with different colours indicating the average global temperature for that year.
Monday is #ShowYourStripes day, where more than 50 representatives from Common Grace’s Knit for Climate Action will head to Parliament House in Canberra to gift the scarves and ask politicians for urgent action be taken for climate change.
Common Grace CEO Brooke Prentis said the initiative provided an opportunity to send a gracious but strong message to our leaders that people across the country wanted to see urgent action now on climate change.
“I have been humbled by the time, effort, and individual stories of Common Grace supporters and knitters in creating more than 300 scarves, and still counting,” Brooke said.
“This represents thousands of hours of knitting and over 13,000 metres of wool.”
Knitter and retired biomedical scientist Loraine Holley is from independent MP Craig Kelly’s electorate and is making the trip to Canberra.
“I’m eager to meet with Mr Kelly to discuss the science and to present him with my scarf,” Loraine said.
Students from Radford College will also attend and will gift local MP, Labor’s Alicia Payne, with a banner displaying the coloured climate change stripes.
Common Grace’s Knit for Climate Action project was inspired by the Cambridge Federation of Women’s Institute’s 100 Years Climate Scarf and uses Dr Mick Pope’s temperature data from 1919 to 2019.
Each temperature is assigned a different colour using a spectrum from blue to red to show the progression from cool to warm, and a striped colour is knitted to correspond to each year.
It starts from 1919 – the cool ‘blue end’ – to 2019 the hot ‘red end’ shows the concerning rise in average global temperatures.
Throughout July to September knitters and Common Grace will meet with MPs and Senators to gift them the scarves as a reminder of our warming planet.
They will also have conversation around the need for a bold and credible national plan to tackle the climate crisis.