Grow your dinner on your Head.

Let us take a lesson form the wombats and creatures of the underground...how much more comfortable it is in summer and winter to live with soil above you. How much more space efficient to grow your dinner on your roofspace. How beautiful to look down from your apartment not onto the next buildings shiny hot roof but onto their wildflower garden.
This image is a building of offices and apartments by Emilio Ambasz & Associates (who have been designing amazing landscape=buildings for yonks) and is located in Fukuoka, Japan.
I found the image on the VERY good Green Roofs Australia website. If you want to know anything about eating off your headspace, this is the place to go.

There will be a series of talks coming up soon, One in Sydney on the 27th Feb, $100 for non-members. Check the website for other locations and details.

Flush your toilet with dirty water.

A previous post showed these toilets which you wash your hands in the basin , and that water is then used for the next toilet flush! How exciting they are now available in Australia through Caroma. Good on you Caroma, you HAVE been leading the way in Australia for reducing water use in the bathroom.

Have been quoted $500 aprox for a unit. More info here.

Largest Flowering plant on earth MAKES GREAT PAPER

This tree is a Eucalyptus Regnans The tallest hardwood tree and largest flowering plant on earth. I guess all that timber must make lots of paper, and Gunns must have thought the same, as they are unashamedly clearfelling masses of ancient Regnans in Tasmania.

To find out more, read at this very interesting article from The Monthly, May 2007, available online.

If Tasmania is to far to go and make protest, take some cyberaction at the Wilderness Society Cyberactivist Site.

May the trees be happy.

Happy 2008 and a nice website to start it off!

yet another great WEBSITE: Inhabitat
These guys have a great motto:

GREEN DESIGN IS GOOD DESIGN
GOOD DESIGN IS GREEN DESIGN

This is a blog-like site, with tasty snipppets of all the latest funky green designs they can find. Including treehouse architecture! Plenty of images and video clips. This site has made it to my RSS feeder so congratulations Inhabitat!!

NEWS: Good News!

I was so happy listening to the news yesterday! What a good change!
I do try to be peaceful and loving in my life but sometimes I do shout grumpily at the radio when I hear the crazy things the governments get up to...
but yesterday was full of hopeful cheer
Kevin Rudd, the Prime minister of Australia ( already a quiet smile)
goes to Bali to sign Kyoto Protocol (HOORAY!!)
leaving Julia Gillard behind as the first female acting as Prime Minister (Yay for the ladies! )
(althoug of course we await Julia's realisation of the importance of ending nuclear and unsustainable logging practices.)
The next item in the news was the Nobel peace prize being shared between Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (YIPEEEEEEEE)

DIAL BEFORE YOU DIG

If you are Designing your new home or an extension, contact these guys before you start, they will send you out maps of your site and any services on there. Its a great way to start your site analysis! Their new website is : http://www.dialbeforeyoudig.com.au

Study architectue and forestry simultaneously!

The 4th August broadcast of By Design (ABC RN) featured the design of buildings which create less waste in their construction process.
It is available for mp3download or perusal .
Peter Graham, from the University of New South Wales Environment and Sustainability Research Group, spoke.
One of the most interesting notions was a joint project the UNSW is doing with a university in Japan. This university runs a course in architecture and forestry. So both professions become more knowledgeable in each field.. What a GREAT idea!

Meanwhile I have found 2 more good websites on sustainable materials choices,
one which is from the US, and slightly outdated, but the theory in there is helpful, and a nice idea for a website...
AIA Sustainable Design Resource Guide

The other is Eco-Find : based in Victoria but useful for all Australia, it allows one to search for particular products by category and area. It is not as credible as the Ecospecifier, however on first use it seems quite sound.

Peoples lives controlled by design! WEBSITE REVIEW

Here is what the blog Architectures of Control says about itself:

"Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments.

This site aims—with readers’ input—to examine and analyse the ideas and techniques of these architectures of control in design, through examples and anecdotes, and by keeping up-to-date with relevant developments.."

Interesting stuff! Thanks for the link Leigh!

Photo of tree reveals secret

I hope you get the chance to see the exhibition currently traveling the world :
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year
There are many beautiful and touching pictures in the exhibition. The one which struck me the most is this one. It is better to see this photo up close. A hurricane flattened an area of plantation timber in this shape, and the roads made by the trucks retrieving the timber have left this pattern of a tree. Perfect. This exhibition is on at the Lovett Gallery, Newcastle until the 11 August.

WORKSHOP: Solar Passive Design (at Swansea)

Hello to all the lovely people who attended this workshop! If you have any comments or questions please click the "comments" link below, and let me know. Thank you for attending, it was a very good workshop! Jo

WEBSITE REVIEW: Good Wood Guide

Greenpeace have just launched their Good Wood Guide.
It is not quite finished, but will give you some ideas about where to start looking for sustainable timber. It's a really difficult project, as truly knowing if wood is good means knowing the entire process from the tree to the piece of timber. This was the idea behind FSC timber. However FSC timber producers are only just starting up in Australia, so generally any FSC timber you would be purchasing would be imported from overseas.
The Rainforest Information Centre's NSW Good Wood Guide was really awesome but sadly it is now out of date, and no funds to update it. However it has great background information to help you understand the real issues of purchasing sustainable timber.
My answer is to use secondhand wherever possible! Flooring, windows and doors especially are easy, and so much cheaper, if not free!!

BLURB: My published Blurbling

In case you missed it, here is a copy of my letter to the editor which appeared in The Newcastle Herald on Tuesday, July 10, 2007:

..........
Low coal sales a high achievement
THE Herald's coverage of the Live Earth concerts reported 2 billion people world-wide showing their commitment to cut carbon emissions ("Powerful plug for revolution" Herald 9/7).
A few pages later NSW Minerals Council chief Nikki Williams appeared sad that the growth in Australian coal exports was remaining low ("Now's not the time to let coal boom pass us by" Herald 9/7).
I feel we should celebrate this low figure, and keep it small.
Australia may be rich in coal but it is also rich in other, less carbon-emitting resources.
Solar power, wind energy, and the resources and knowledge to generate these and other forms of renewable energy are the best investment for the government and industry of our country.
Ms Williams hopes for the Government to take a long-term vision and to have the willingness to take a gamble.
We can't make a wager on the future of our planet.
As the 2 billion people who watched the live earth concerts shows, we need to invest in renewable energy for exports and local use, and certainly not coal or nuclear any more.
..........

The Talented Nikki Williams presenting an environment award to Hunter Valley Coal Corporation 2005

Interestingly, Nikki Williams appeared on the forum panel which came after the ABC screening of "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (see my previous post). She is a magnificent PR agent for the new coal industry. The only woman on the panel, she appeared sophisticated, intelligent, and very caring about the climate change predicament. (She certainly is involved in many environmental community initiatives, which I cannot complain about, but we must keep following her motives.) The comments she made on the panel did not mention her push to increase coal exports for financial gain (as she mentioned in the Herald), but the "need" for coal fired power in developing nations in order to end poverty. Apparently, coal-fired electricity is the way to solve the issue of 3rd world poverty and health. Once again, I wish it was that easy! Sadly, here in Australia, we have a huge population of people living in 4th World conditions, with shameful poverty and health issues, and these populations HAVE electricity. I very much doubt that the short term solution of coal fired electricity is going to be much appreciated by anyone who 1. can't even pay the bill 2. Will absolutely not appreciate the temperature increases and changes in climate, health, farming practices in their homelands which are predicted to be the result of climate change caused by co2 increases (i.e. by producing this coal fired power in the first place!)

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Last night on ABC TV certainly was exciting. They broadcast the controversial "documentary" by Martin Durkin "The Great Global Warming Swindle" followed by an interview by Tony Jones and then a forum with an expert panel and an audience full of interesting characters.

Basically the documentary put forward a case that humans are not creating climate change through carbon dioxide emissions, that temperatures are increasing and climate change is part of the earth's natural process, volcanic emissions and sunspots.

The conclusions I guess were that we can keep driving our cars and we don't have to bother pushing for renewable energy in developing nations, that those nations need to invest in coal right now, in order to end world poverty (?)

How I wish it were true! I wanted to believe! Imagine if all we had to do was cope with climate change, and not have to reduce our carbon emissions as well!
I could stop worrying about energy efficient housing and get back to worrying about resource depletion, ecosystem and habitat preservation, clean water, etc.

Unfortunately, from the outset, the doco appeared flawed with un-rigorous presentations and dubious science. The panel afterwards confirmed my fears.

Today I read an interesting article "The Great Global Warming Swindle": a critique., published in the Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol 20. by David Jones, Andrew Watkins, Karl Braganza and Michael Couglan of the National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology.

I suggest you read it for a bit of scientific rigor.

The main errors it saw in the documentary were:

• Graphs and information used in the documentary were incorrect and/or had no identifiable source and/or have been superseeded and/or were made up in part.
• Temperatures today ARE higher than they have been in the last 1000+ years (evidenced by many different temperature measurement methods worldwide)
• Human activities ARE creating climate change, evidenced by climate "fingerprints"
• Volcanoes actually only produce less that 2% of the annual emissions of carbon dioxide produced by humans.
• Ice core temperatures measurements from the past only tell us the local temperature and not the global temperature so are not relevant to measuring global temperature, and indeed do show the climate scientists more intricate understanding of the fluctuations in earths temperatures .
• Sunspot theory is some kind of unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, and not fully documented in the documentary.

Anyway, the document is well written and a good read, so don't just read this post on the issue.
And there is a lot more stuff out there.

Moral of the story:
SORRY BUT THERE IS NO CLIMATE CHANGE SWINDLE :(

HAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR 100% GREEN POWER YET?

INFO: 2050: Young Future Leaders of the Built Environment

2050 has been running since 2004, but I only JUST found out about it!
It be an "an incorporated not-for-profit association of like-minded young development professionals dedicated to a more sustainable built environment for Australia."

The 2050 mission:-

"2050 exists to drive national initiatives towards a more sustainable Australia with passion, commitment and youthful energy."

Sound good? They also say:

What is the 2050 demographic?
Being made up of so many professions concerned with the built environment, the 2050 demographic is broadly based along the following:-

• Age : 21 - 35
• Sex : 55% male, 45% female
• Education : over 95% tertiary qualified
• Employment : over 90% full time, over 40% in management positions

How do I Join?

Are you a young professional or student working towards a sustainable built environment? Simply send an email to info@2050.org.au and we'll sign you up to our mailing list so you can receive our monthly newsletters and information about upcoming events and activities. Membership is FREE and entitles you to access to the members forum on our website.

Looks like I should join! Maybe you should too.

a BIG sign

Not last Sunday but the one before, I took a bus out to Anvil Hill with about 100 other Novocastrians. There we joined several hundred people who had come to show that they also did not want another coal mine to be approved. It was a lovely day and we joined together to spell out our message "save anvil hill". Can you spot me in the V of ANVIL?
How lovely it would be if the people investing in this new mine would take their money and invest it in renewable energy instead.



Last Sunday, I went down to Nobby's with several thousand other Novocastrians to look at the amazing sight of a huge coal ship beached on Nobby's. It was beached on the day that the Anvil Hill Coalmine was declared to be approved. It was also world ocean day and world environment day was the day before.
I'm not making any comment about climate change causing the storm.
But I am just going to say that the title for both of these pictures which fits perfectly is:
" A BIG SIGN"

NEWS: Solar Panels Improve

I do some very interesting work with Suzan Bailey from LIVSIMPLY: an Eco Path. This business helps you to make the best environmental decisions concerning buildings, home and lifestyle.
livsimply.com.au
Suzan forwarded me some info on new assessment by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Prometheus Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This says that production of Photovolatic (solar panels for electricity) cells :
"has risen sixfold since 2000 and grew 41 percent in 2006 alone. Although grid-connected solar capacity still provides less than 1 percent of the world's electricity, it increased nearly 50 percent in 2006, to 5,000 megawatts"

It seems this increase in uptake combined with planned new mega-enormous production of polysilicon, which will be used in more efficient ways, will probably make the purchase of photovoltaic panels much less of a financial burden.

"The conventional energy industry will be surprised by how quickly solar PV becomes mainstream—cheap enough to provide carbon-free electricity on rooftops, while also meeting the energy needs of hundreds of millions of poor people who currently lack electricity," Sawin says.

This is great news.
I just wonder however about the production methods to be used.
It looks like all these cheap panels will be produced in China to keep costs down. Does this mean also that unsustainable and un-ethical production methods will be used? Apparently photovoltaics already use half the worlds supply of polysilicon... after watching the "Crude" oil documentary the other night, I wonder is this material going to be available in the long-term? How are we sourcing and forming it? hummmmmmmmmmmmmm

TIPS: Calculating energy use in the home

Here are some good on-line calculators to help you understand how much energy(and water) is used in the home:
http://www.countryenergy.com.au/internet/cewebpub.nsf/Content/env_eff_calculator

PONDERINGS:The Cost of Sustainabl extras

I was reading a comment by Caroline Pidcock (currently pres. of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council) in the Sydney Morning Herald March 24-25.
She said:
"I've seen alot of clients not query how much they spend on consumer goods and gagets for the house, such as televisions and stereo systems, but complain about how much a water tank is to put in." (My Career p8)
So true Caroline. Indeedy, some folk boast proudly of the excessive amounts they spent on a plasma TV or other item for the home.
Let us be pround of the amounts we are spending on our sustainable extras.
Money well spent, in my account book.

NEWS + EVENT: Local greenie legend becomes official climate change ambassador

Bernie Hockings, a well-known environmental activist around Newcastle and beyond, has been recognised by Al Gore.
One of only 86 Australians chosen by Al Gore, Bernie now represents his local community as a Climate Change Ambassador.
Bernie is one of the few people I know who has a great head for envisioning environmental change, and then making that change through very practical, apparently simple, but really very smart methods.
He is a green builder, educator, a main player in the creation of the Nationsal Association of Building Sustainablility Assessors (ABSA) and much more.
Bernie will be speaking at a presentation with Sarah Bishop, who is currently walking from Brisbane to Sydney to raise awareness about Climate Change and Earthhour ( Where sydney will turn of its lights for an hour. wow.)
The free presentation will be held on the 17th March, from 2-4pm at Panthers Newcastle.

EVENT: Solar Passive Workshop

Yes, another workshop! I love running workshops, they are such a great way to share knowledge. on the 1st of May Lake Macquarie council is organising a free passive solar workshop, which I will run. Places are filling fast so contact council if you are interested in attending. Ph. 49210144