Mr Tanner - 85% of Labour voters need watching...
Thursday, 26 November 2009

The GetUp! ReEnergise Australia campaign only has 10 days to go (we finish the day before Copenhagen). For the first few weeks of the campaign we doorknocked around some key polling booth areas in the Melbourne electorate and asked people if they wanted to see the government investing at least as much in the renewable energy economy as it was in coal etc. Unsurprisingly - nearly everyone wanted to see more investment in clean energy jobs.

We also asked them if this issue would influence how they voted in the next election. And, one of the really interesting results of our poll, considering that Mr Tanner (our local representative) didn't exactly waltz into power in the last election - is that 85% of people who said they voted Labour in the last election said that the issue of clean energy jobs would influence who they vote for in the next election.

Well - I don't mind saying - I voted for Lindsay Tanner in the last election, and there is no way in hell I'll be voting Labour again unless they do something about the travesty which the CPRS has become, and take a stand in Copenhagen.

Is it realistic to expect politicians to provide any leadership on this? Do any of them think past the next election, does the democratic system even enable them to? I suppose we can't expect our politicians to think further than four years into the future until enough of us do - and let them know that we do.

Posted by Kate McMahon 10:24 AM 0 comments Links to this post    

Back with Banners On
Wednesday, 21 October 2009

You may have noticed that I've dropped out of the blog-o-sphere for a while - our son arrived back in May, and a few weeks later we moved, and I've just started to work out which way is up again.

I've also been volunteering for the GetUp! ReEnergise Australia campaign.

I confess, I hate committee meetings, street marches, door knocking and banners - all the kind stuff you have to do for this sort of thing. I've forced myself to go ahead and do it anyway, largely because I think that climate change is really the biggest problem we have.

I care about other political and social issues- not enough to take to the streets perhaps - but to me climate change a the real cruncher. So, if you keep your eye out, you might see me waving a banner (if a little lackadaisically).

Posted by Kate McMahon 11:34 AM 1 comments Links to this post    

How to survive summer without air conditioning...
Monday, 2 February 2009

Our house is pretty well designed for passive cooling - so it does
well until temperatures rise over 38 degrees. Then we're stuffed. Or rather
par boiled.

But we don't have air con - so in the heat wave of the past few days

I've been looking around for ideas to keep cool when you could fry
eggs on the footpath outside. Heres some of the ideas we tried:

1. Pin up a bed sheet or blankets outside your windows. The key is to
do it outside rather than inside - you want to stop the heat before it
enters the your house - not afterwards. Also try to leave a gap
between the barrier (sheet, blanket etc) and the wall or glass of your
home - that way you'll get less heat transfer. Here's a guy who used
$5 reflective blankets to keep his home cool (just make sure you don't
position the blanket so that it bounces the heat somewhere you don't
want it - you might end up frying your garden).

2. Put a wet blanket over the top of the car and cover all the windows
(this didn't harm my duco at all - but try it at your own risk).

3. Cut the bottoms off water bottles, dig them neck down in the soil
beside sensitive plants and fill with water - this should drain into
the soil gradually throughout the day. You can cover plants likely to
burn with bed sheets too - pick a light colour to reflect heat. Of
course you can always take the attitude of my friend Tim, and see days
like Friday as a form of natural selection - let the heat kill of the
tender ones, and replace them with some tougher plants.

and the best one of all...

4. Run away. Go stay in a 5 star hotel with a pool and air con. We did
this on Friday night, and it was fantastic. I figure that the hotel is
cooling the whole building anyway - and for the 5-6 nights of the year
that are so ridiculously hot that good passive design and fans can't
cope - it's a better option than shelling out for an air conditioning
system which is just going to contribute to pushing up peak demand and
blackouts.

Posted by Kate McMahon 4:17 PM 0 comments Links to this post    

Urban Forage: DIY sustainable Christmas wreath & decorations
Wednesday, 24 December 2008

So here's my attempt at sustainable & local Christmas decorations. My friend Porsche says I'm turning into a Nanna, but I prefer domestic goddess...on second thoughts, maybe not.

I made the Christmas wreath with from foliage trimmed from the two street trees on the footpath outside my house - one is the classic 1980's street tree, a paperbark (Melaleuca) - and I'm not sure what the other one is, probably Brush Box (L. confertus). I used some flowering gum blossoms from a local tree for the highlights as well as a less-than-sustainable decorative bird, and some ribbon.

And for the Christmas pomanders (flower balls) I cut some flowers from a shrub in my back yard, and scavenged some clippings from one of the neighbourhood privet hedges. Then I took the easy option and bought a bunch of Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) from the florist.

Of course I also used oasis bases, and florist wire, ribbons and a couple of little decorative balls - so that's got to count against the sustainability - but it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully.

Posted by Kate McMahon 11:40 AM 0 comments Links to this post    

The problem with Christmas
Wednesday, 17 December 2008

As I've said before in an earlier post - the problem with being Australian is that the seasons are all wrong. Or rather, the problem with being Australian we're all wrong for the seasons.

This is never more obvious than when you find yourself slaving over a hot stove producing roasted turkey and root vegetables on a swelteringly hot 25th of December, and then follow it with steamed christmas pudding and brandy sauce (except maybe when you find yourself wearing a fake beard and a bikini).

How about the way we ignore all the beautiful asparagus, salad greens, strawberries and summer fruits in season in favour of nutmeg, oranges, sultana's and nuts. Or decorate our houses in tinsel and sparkly lights, which just end up looking kind of bedraggled and sweaty in the heat.

And then there's the problem of the Christmas tree. There's really not anything much more incongruous than a Germanic pine tree covered in sparkly lights in the middle of Australian summer. I always think they look a little sad. And worse they make me feel like I'm having a pretend, lets-make-do-since-we're-here-and-not-there Christmas. And that's not how I feel at all.

I love Australian Christmas, and I love the traditions we have which suit our climate and culture. I love the family game of cricket after lunch out in the back yard, or outside on the street. I love the massive bowls of cherries, and the pavlova, and I especially love the prawns. I just think we have to do a better job of translating the other Christmas traditions so that they move beyond threadbare nostalgia to something that celebrates who we are, where we are, and our connection with our environment.

So this is my attempt to have an eco-friendly Australian Christmas tree. I thought about getting a Wollemi Pine, which is a pretty elegant solution. It not only looks like a traditional Christmas tree - but by planting it you're helping to conserve a native endangered species, you can feel even better about yourself by buying one from here and donating funds to cancer research.

But I didn't go that way because, well, lets face it, you've got to be satisfied with a pretty small tree until it has a chance to grow a little.

So this was my solution - it's on the wall because floor space is a bit of a premium at my place. We collected some eucalyptus branches from a road side reserve (so I figure the council would have cleared them out anyway, and I wasn't impacting on the the habitat value of fallen wood too much). And I sprayed them with a little silver paint. I figure this is a more sustainable option than a plastic or farmed tree (even with the silver paint).


I haven't decorated it yet - I'd like to do that closer to Christmas Eve and then leave the tree up for the 12 days of Christmas until January 6th.

Will post photos of the tree later when it's dressed.

Posted by Kate McMahon 2:51 PM 0 comments Links to this post    

Labels: philosophies + opinions

What is Carl driving anyway?
Tuesday, 2 December 2008

And another thing. I just realised that Ashwood is only 16km or so out of the CBD.

Obviously I'm missing a critical piece of data which wasn't included in the article in The Age. Because looking at it on face value, the figures make you wonder just what Cr Jetter is driving.

If you assume Carl worked about 200 days in the year (40 weeks x 5), which is probably a fair rough estimate even if he occasionally heads into the city more than once in the same day (because I'm assuming he spent a fair bit of time overseas...or working at his full time private job rather than the Town Hall).

Anyway if my calculations are correct that works out at just over $50 a day on eTag fees and petrol. (he didn't have to pay for parking - because apparently he got that free from council as well). Which leaves about $40 a day for petrol. Let's call it a 30km round trip - that's about $1.30 per km. Which at today's prices is about a litre of petrol per km.

What is this man driving? Even a Hummer gets more than 5km to the litre.

Disclaimer: Obviously I have no idea what Cr Jetter's daily routine was last year, for all I know he had to make multiple trips each day, and was called to drive all over Victoria and he actually drives a pious little Toyota Prius. And who knows how accurate the article in The Age is. Just speculating based on the limited information to hand...

Posted by Kate McMahon 8:49 PM 0 comments Links to this post    

Maybe if Carl rode a bicycle...

Maybe if Carl Jetter rode a bicycle he wouldn't have got rate payers to shell out for over $10 grand in petrol and eTag expenses last year.

Yesterday's figures (July 27th, 2007) also showed the council paid $10,379 in the last financial year on petrol and eTag charges for the low-profile councillor Carl Jetter to drive from his home in Ashwood to the Town Hall, even though he works full-time in his private business from an office next door.
...

Yesterday he defended spending public money to get to his private workplace, saying he was legally entitled to claim local travel expenses when visiting the Town Hall for council-related work.

"I am just spending what I am entitled to," he said.

(Clay Lucus, The Age 28 July 2007)

Perhaps you should stop dodging bikes Carl, and get on one instead.

Posted by Kate McMahon 4:08 PM 1 comments Links to this post    

Labels: bikes, eco news, philosophies + opinions

So, will Robert Doyle suck?

Robert Doyle - the new Mayor-elect for Melbourne isn't exactly coming off like a poster boy for sustainability.

In todays Age he's quoted as saying that he wants to re-introduce traffic on Swanson Street for the first time since 1992. This is part of an overall strategy to make it easier to drive into the city which includes providing cheap parking on the immediate surrounding areas as well as removing the tram 'super stops'.

Today cars are allowed between 7pm and 7am in the street, which must still cope with 6000 taxis, 1700 trams, 4000 cyclists and hundreds of delivery trucks each day.

Mind you I agree that some of those super stops are pretty useless. If he wants to remove the one from outside Melbourne Uni on the top of Swanson Street I'll be happy back him up. You've practically got to walk to Monash before you can cross the road.

But bringing more cars in the city is really not so good. We need to be doing everything we can to encourage more public transport use, as well as walking and cycling. I thought that adopting a pedestrian/cyclist friendly city philosophy was getting to the level of a no-brainer in planning and city management circles? Where's Doyle coming from?

"Encouraging private motor vehicles in the heart of the city is something we need to be moving away from, not towards," Planning Institute president Jason Black said.

Besides the fact that it's really not a good thing for the environment - it's difficult enough to deal with the traffic we already have on the roads, without increasing it.

But I think the most damning quote in this article came from Carl Jetter...

And councillor Carl Jetter, reelected on Mr Doyle’s ticket, said cars in Swanston Street were not the problem — it was cyclists.

"I am sick of being run down by cyclists again and again,’’ he said, calling for bicycles to use Russell Street instead.

Run down by cyclists again and again? What is this man doing; interpretive dance routines in the middle of Swanston street? Would he prefer it if the 4000 cyclists who ride down Swanston Street each day all decided to drive their cars instead? I hope for Jetter's sake that he was being quoted out of context. Otherwise the man is dangerously out of touch.

Posted by Kate McMahon 3:31 PM 2 comments Links to this post    

Labels: bikes, eco news, philosophies + opinions

Buying Nothing Much Day

So I did the Buy Nothing Day on Saturday - and I'd love to say I had an epiphany - but really I didn't - not even a little one.

Maybe it's because we didn't really go far from home, and we certainly didn't go shopping (why would you if you can't buy anything?); so we weren't exposed to much in the way of impulse-buying temptation or marketing.

Although I did pass a little festival of consumerism outside the Nike outlet on the way home - they must have been having some kind of sale because the queue to get in was all the way down the block. Apologies for the crappy photos, I used the phone camera, and I couldn't take a better shot because Adrian kept saying "Come on Kate, they're all looking at us".

I also cheated a bit - we didn't have any food in the house, so we went out for breakfast to our local cafe. And then we bought ingredients for dinner at the supermarket later (but strictly food items only).

I'm not sure whether food counts. And I also was talking to a friend who was getting her car serviced and buying a second hand sideboard on Saturday. Is it against the Buy Nothing Day rules to pay for recycled goods, or for services?

Is it 'buy nothing' day - as in spend no money at all? Or is it more like a buy 'no things' day?

I guess it also depends on what's motivating you to do it. In my case I'm less concerned about the social or moral implications of consumerism than I am with environmental impact (although I acknowledge that they're related).

If you're concerned about the ecological 'footprint' of your consumption - then it's arguable that eating out in a cafe is more sustainable than cooking at home. You have all the economies of scale, and the possibility of minimising waste (although whether that actually happens is another thing...).

Paying for services and buying recycled goods is pretty good in terms of sustainability too - certainly much better than a shopping spree at Nike.

Posted by Kate McMahon 2:16 PM 0 comments Links to this post    

Labels: philosophies + opinions

Buy Nothing Day
Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good.

Hannah Arendt

So I've decided to take part in Buy Nothing Day this Saturday the 29th.

At least I'll try. It will be interesting to see just how often I have to restrict myself. And it will be interesting too to pay attention to the kinds of things I want/need to purchase, and find out just how much my lifestyle is driven by, or structured around, what I consume.

I guess with the current financial crisis and downturns in the retail sector a lot of community minded people might see this as a good time to be out there spending. And they're right. The problem is that that spending money today is a only ever going to serve as a quick fix to the current downturn, and does nothing to address the underlying fact that our current economic models are fundamentally unsustainable.

Because, of course, our financial markets, not to mention our lifestyles, rely on constant growth and expansion. The definition of a recession, or depression for that matter, is a lack of growth. In order to survive in our current economic structure; a business has to expand. Children are expected to have a better standard of living than their parents, and this usually translates into a larger house, and more consumer goods. The developed world needs to be able to access the markets of the developing world in order to maintain expansion, and when people in countries like India and China access those markets, they are also obliged to embrace the associated behaviors of growth, expansion and consumption.

The problem of course is that infinite growth is not sustainable. It just can't happen. If everyone in the world lived like I do we would need 4 planets to live on. Which means I use up the resources of three other people. Clearly my current lifestyle is not sustainable, or at least it's only sustainable if I can make sure that the other three guys aren't going to ever want more (or take more). And even that's impossible, because in order to maintain my current lifestyle, we need to expand our markets, which means trying to get those three other guys to buy the stuff we make. The more I do that, the more they're going to become like me... and... it's a vicious cycle.

A very Faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behavior as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.

Edward O. Wilson

So what do we do?

I wish I had an answer.

I especially wish I had an answer which I'd want to hear if I was working in the retail sector.

I think we could start the process of change by..

• thinking about the problem and admitting that things are not working...that they're really really not working.
• not letting the urgent always take precedent over the important (I think Leo said something like this in the West Wing episode '365 days').
• growing to understand ourselves; paying attention to our behavior, and recognising the cultural forces which drive us to behave in certain ways. We need to learn to see the paradigms we operate within which function to make some aspects of our lives visible (this deodorant looks cool, I'll buy it), and render other aspects invisible (the product will last a month but it's packaging will last an aeon in landfill).
• recognising that if we continue to trust in a kind of laissez-faire-capitalism style of philosophy that suggests that if we leave things to their own devices everything will work itself out, we just might end up with a world we don't want to live in...or worse.
• seeing that the economic system as we know it (with the underlying requirement of constant growth) isn't inevitable. It is a relatively new idea historically (200 years or so) and that there are lots of other existing models for barter and exchange of goods which might be more sustainable.

Buy nothing day isn't about fixing the problem by not buying things for one day. I know that's not going to change anything much. But it might be a way to make some changes in myself.

Maybe after Saturday I'll understand more about how I operate; what's driving my needs, desires and behaviors? What and who am I now, and what I want to become...

Maybe. Anyway - will let you know how I go.

Are you doing it? Let me know if you're doing an event (especially in Melbourne) or otherwise tell me how your BND goes!

Posted by Kate McMahon 7:44 PM 0 comments Links to this post    

Labels: eco news, philosophies + opinions