Ward off Climate Change

Switch to Green Power

Gary — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:05:00 +1000

The single, easiest and most cost-effective way to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions is to switch to Green Power. I am ashamed to say that here in Western Australia, less than 1% of electricity subscribers have signed up for Green Power. This compares with 8% in New South Wales which is the next worst state. Green Power is a nationally accredited scheme where you can opt to pay extra for your electricity, knowing that your investment is helping contribute to the installation of additional renewable energy infrastructure such as wind farms. Synergy offers residents in WA two options to sign up to greenpower

Natural Power where you can opt for 100%, 50% or 25% renewable; or
Easy Green where you can subscribe in $10 annual increments.

100% Natural Power in my view is the best option as it will eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from your electricity usage, which represent about 17% of average household emissions. This will cost an extra 4.4c/unit which works out at about an extra $150 per year. Signing up is easy—simply phone Synergy on 13 13 53, or visit their website. If you are concerned about the fact that here in Western Australia we are continuing to build dirty coal-fired power stations to produce our electricity, then you can take a stand by saying NO and purchasing one of Syergy's Greenpower products.

Free Solar Power for your Home

Gary — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:30:00 +1000

For a while now I have been negotiating special deals on solar panels for participants in Living Smart courses that I have facilitated.

It is amazing the see how the price of these systems have come down in recent times, however I was amazed to hear of an offer to install a 1kW system for free for households that qualify for the $8,000 federal goverment rebate.

The company behind the offer is called Regen Power. Basically their offer is for a 1.02kW grid connect system.

A 1kW system will produce about 5kWh on average per day. Based on the current A1 residential electricity tariff, this will save you $250 every year, however I fully expect electricity prices to double over the next couple of years (we are currently only paying about half of the true cost of electricity production), which will translate into a saving of $500 per year.

If we end up with a feed-in tariff in WA, the savings will be even higher - all for an investment of the massive sum of $0.

For more information on this offer, visit the Regen website at http://www.regenpower.com/other/systems.php?ID=30

The company is making the offer to the first 250 subscribers, so you will need to hurry. The $8,000 rebate is disappearing at the end of June (to be replaced by a more complex, less rewarding (for households earning less than $100,000) system).

Note that this offer represents the price for a basic installation. It does not include any extra costs associated with modifications to existing switchboards, or where the installation is complicated by factors such as double story, difficult access etc.

I'm not making any warranty as to the relative merits of this company or the system they are offering and I always recommend you shop around, however I think that the mathematics in this case are pretty simple. Feel free to forward on to your contacts.

Gary Warden

Recipe of the Week - Green Vegetable Curry with Eggplant

Gary — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:02:00 +1000

We've got a great supply of eggplant and chilli in our veggie garden at the moment, and we've got a permanent supply of kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass, so I took the opportunity to make a green curry incorporating all of these ingredients, plus some beautiful butternut pumpkin that I picked up at the Kalamunda Farmers Market over the weekend.

I make the curry paste myself, and I think that the reward is well and truly worth the effort, however if you don't have the time, then use your favourite prepared green curry paste.

As always, this curry would work fine with whatever vegetables are fresh and seasonal - so experiment!

http://www.wardoffclimatechange.org.au/file.axd?file=Green+Vegetable+Curry+with+Eggplant.pdf

Simple Steps to A Bright Future

Gary — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:04:00 +1000

Since January this year I have been working on an almost full-time voluntary basis on an exciting new climate change project called Days of Change which some of you will have already heard about.

This is a project that aims to engage 200,000 Western Australians in taking simple steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions during March 2010.

However this is only the start, as a project of the City of Perth Rotary Club, and with endorsement from Rotary District 9450, we intend to use the enormous reach of the Rotary organisation to expand the program to the rest of Australia in 2011 and the world from 2012.

I am proud to be an Executive Director of this project and am very excited by its enormous potential. The program was originally devised by my colleague Julian Ilich while working with the Department for Environment and Conservation and is based on extensive research on behaviour change and social marketing.

I’ve seen people make amazing changes as a result of their participation in Living Smart courses, and with this program, we hope to achieve similar changes on a much larger scale.

You will shortly be receiving the inaugural Days of Change Newsletter. While this is an important project, and I urge you to become involved, I understand that some of you may not wish to receive the newsletter, so there will be a simple unsubscribe option at the bottom of the newsletter (as there is with this newsletter).

You can find out more about the project by visiting our interim website at http://daysofchange.org.

Home Brew More Sustainable

Gary — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:36:00 +1000

An analysis by Brett Menzel has shown that the environmental impact of home-brew beer is less than for beer purchased in glass stubbies or aluminium cans as a result of its relatively lower transported volume and weight, less packaging materials and the reusability of the PET final bottles.

The environmentally aware consumer is faced with a perplexing array of marketing and sales-driven product options in today’s retail outlets; options that will almost certainly have a range of different environmental impacts.

For the Australian beer consumer, in addition to beer styles and alcohol strengths, there is a large range of packaging, volume and convenience-level alternatives.

The analysis found that Home-brew offers the beer consumer a choice that has a lower life cycle environmental impact compared with glass stubbies and aluminium cans. The relatively lower environmental impact results from lower transport weight and volume, the reusability and ultimate recycle ability of PET and the greater utility of the concentrate.

Home-brew beer is also the most economically favourable option although it is considerably more time consuming and less convenient than stubbies or cans and unfortunately convenience is more strongly marketed and sought after by the consumer than a lower environmental impact.

References

Brezet, H. and Van Hemel, C. (eds.) 1997, Eco-Design: a promising approach to sustainable production and consumption, United Nations Environment Program, Paris.

Coopers 2008, Environment - water usage, Coopers Brewery Limited. S.A. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from http://www.coopers.com.au/environment.php?pid=2

EcoRecycle Victoria 2004, Information sheet 7 - Glass. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/resources/documents/Info_7_-_Glass.doc

The Aluminium can group n.d, retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.aluminium-cans.com.au/Facts2.html

Farmer's Markets Coming to Kalamunda

Gary — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:52:00 +1000

For some time now I've been working to get a Farmer's market established in the Kalamunda area.

It is with delight therefore that I can announce that a Farmer's Market will start in the Mead Street Mall in Kalamunda on Sunday mornings from May 3.

Farmer's Markets are fantastic for farmers, the community and local businesses. Farmers benefit by receiving a fairer share of the sale price for their produce, thereby ensuring a vibrant fresh produce industry within the area. The community benefits from access to fresh, local, seasonal produce. Other businesses benefit from increased trade as a result of visitors to the market.

The market is being established in conjunction with the Kalamunda Chamber of Commerce. Visit their website for more information, or check out the article in today's West Australian http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=128935

Don't forget to mark down May 3 in your calendars.

Climate Change Still a Key Issue - Survey

Gary — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:11:00 +1000

A recent survey of 1,400 Australians undertaken by the Climate Institute has shown that tackling Climate Change is second in importance only to the global economic crisis - and then only by the small margin of 4%.

The survey shows that most Australians understand the linkages between tackling climate change and tackling the global economic cirisis, and importantly, don't believe that action on climate change should be delayed as a result of the economic crisis, as is being suggested by some sectors, including the Australian Industry Group and elements within the federal coalition.

Climate Crisis and Economic Crisis are Linked - Nicholas Stern

Gary — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:56:00 +1000

Famed UK Economist, Sir Nicholas Stern says that the causes of the climate crisis and the current economic crisis are linked and the solutions to both crises are also linked.

He said that lack of action on the economic crisis, despite early warning signs, resulted in the crisis being much worse than might have otherwise been the case. Similarly each day that we delay taking action on climate change will make the consequences worse for future generations.

Stern says that those calling for action on climate change to be delayed due to the economic crisis are misguided. He says that actions such as insulating homes, building of new infrastructure or research and development into green tecnologies will help create jobs today and into the future.

Plan Your Journey on Transperth with Google

Gary — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:04:00 +1000

While I am passionate about catching buses or trains in preference to hopping in the car, I realise that not everyone shares my passion. One of the reasons that people give for not taking public transport is that they don't know what services are available or when.

The Transperth website has a journey planner that is slightly better than awful. However it is not particularly intuitive, tends to be exceedingly slow, and forget about trying to get up a map that shows your journey.

Julian Ilich (my Days of Change program partner) and I were mulling over this the other day and thinking "wouldn't it be great if you could use Google Maps to do your public transport travel planning for you", and were even wondering about sending an e-mail to Google suggesting this.

You can imagine our delight then when a colleague of Julian's told him that Google Maps have exactly this functionality already.

And it works BRILLIANTLY!

Today we had to travel from our office at 110 William Street to the UWA Club in Crawley. We went to Google Maps and typed "from 110 William Street Perth to Corner Mounts Bay Road and Hackett Drive Crawley" into the search field, pressed enter, and voila, the following screen appeared showing a range of bus options, a map of the route, stop information etc.

This is the last time that I use the Transperth Journey Planner. The Google planner is simply brilliant.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Google maps, simply go to http://maps.google.com/

If you know anyone who catches the bus or train, then send them this article. I suspect that most people wouldn't know about this functionality.

And now you have one less excuse not to use the bus or train!

Oxfam Invites You to Screening of Sisters on the Planet

Gary — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:47:00 +1000

Helen (Australia), Ursula (Papua New Guinea), Sahena (Bangladesh), Muriel (Brazil), Melissa (UK) and Martina (Uganda) live on different sides of the planet, but are united against climate change. Oxfam has produced six short films that tells the amazing stories of these women and is screening them on Wednesday March 4 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Alexander Libary.

See the invitation below for more details.

If you are interested in attending this event, then contact Jael Johnson at jaelj@oxfam.org.au

Climate Change the Focus on Lateline

Gary — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:51:00 +1000

Last night's Lateline program on ABC TV featured a number of fascinating stories on climate change.

The first story highlighted the latest science of climate change that shows that the effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases are exceeding even the worst case scenarios presented by the IPCC, including the alarming melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2499388.htm

Andrew Robb, the Coalition spokesperson on Emissions Trading joined the program and explained the Coalition's position on an ETS. The Coalition believes that it can set a target above the government's 5% target for emissions reductions by 2020, but is unwilling to specify exactly what their target is.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2499392.htm

Bob Brown from the Greens then explained the Greens' postion on an ETS, saying that they believed that a target of 40% was required to avoid cataclysmic climate change given the alarming news presented by the scientists.

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2499394.htm

Aquaponics Producing a Rich Bounty

Gary — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:22:00 +1000

Towards the end of 2007, we used Joel Malcom and Faye Arcaro from Backyard Aquaponics to install a large aquaponics system adjacent to our house in Piesse Brook.

The system consists of six large grow beds, a small sump tank and a large 3000 litre fish tank. It took us a while to get the system set up right. For example, initially we stocked the tank with just 25 Silver Perch. We found that this stocking level didn't produce enough effluent from the fish to supply the grow beds with enough fertiliser for the plants to grow effectively.

Since adding an additional 125 Silver Perch, we haven't looked back. The vegetables have been growing like crazy and we've now successfully harvested lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, beetroot, spring onions, celery, artichokes and capsicums in the grow beds.

The fish are also now plate size and ready for harvesting.

The system is large enough to provide a large proportion of our fish and vegetable needs.

One of the great things of this approach, is that it uses just 10% of the water of traditional vegetable growing methods. So in an increasingly dry climate, this is a great way to go. The only downside is that the pumps do require electricity to run, however we have 2kW of solar PV panels being installed tomorrow, so this will help us run those pumps free of emissions.

The six grow beds. Celery and spring onion in the foreground.

Broccoli and young artichokes doing well.

Succulent cos lettuce and spinach.

The 3,000 litre fish tank, covered to keep children and predators out.

A plate-sized silver perch straight from the system.

Check Out This Video - Garbage Warrior

Gary — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:54:00 +1000

Toni and I found a new release movie entitled "Garbage Warrior" in our local video store.

The movie tells the story of Michael Reynolds who for 30 years has been on a crusade to build self-sufficient, sustainable homes from what most people would consider garbage - used tyres, drink bottles and cans.

It includes his efforts to overcome archaic planning laws in his home state of New Mexico and his inspirational work helping survivors of the Boxing Day tsunami build new homes.

Check it out at your local video store, however here is a taste of the movie.

Changes to Federal Government Solar Rebate

Gary — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:59:00 +1000

I’ve got good new and bad news.

The good news for those of you who don’t currently qualify for the $8,000 solar rebate from the Federal Government because your household income is above $100,000, is that from July 1 this year the $100,000 means test is to be scrapped.

The bad news is that the new scheme is horribly complex, and it is impossible to predict exactly how much the rebate will be as the value of it will be tied in with the Renewable Energy Target Scheme and will therefore vary.

What is certain is that households earning less than $100,000 will also get less assistance under the new scheme.

For example, under the current scheme, a household earning less than $100,000 can install a 1kW system and receive a $8,000 from the federal government.

Under the new scheme starting in July 1, the same household will receive as little as $4,500. To receive the maximum rebate, the household will have to install a much more expensive 1.5kW system, in which case a rebate of approximately $7,500 will apply.

Households earning more than $100,000 will be the big winners, going from receiving no rebate under the current means test, to receiving the same rebate as lower income households as described above.

So what should YOU do?

If your household income (total income less allowable tax deductions) is less than $100,000, then you should move quickly to sign-up for panels before July 1. If you wait until after July 1, you will lose up to $3,500 in rebates compare to the current system.

If your household income is above $100,000, then you are probably better off waiting until July 1 to sign up for your system.

The Story of Stuff

Gary — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:56:00 +1000

The Story of Stuff is a 20 minute video that tells the story of how things that you buy are produced.

This is a truly amazing video—funny, appalling, informative and inspiring—all rolled into one.

Your shopping habits will change forever once you have watched it.