Aussie Sustainable Community's topics - tribe.net

Fish and Chips and Bio-disel

2008-07-17T10:24:19Z

So info please.

Ive decided to buy a van and travel oz taking pictures... http://www.flickr.com/photos/smelkstarsuniverse/ (sorry plug plug)

but I want to make/use bio-disel from old oil..

anyone got any info/insight etc??

I know it can be dangerous? Didnt someone blow themselves up a bit making it or something?

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Utah goes to 4-day workweek to save energy

2008-07-14T09:32:21Z

Starting next month, thousands of government employees will only work 4 days per week, in an effort aimed at reducing energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Starting next month, it will be "TGIT" for Utah state employees. As in: "Thank God It's Thursday."

In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state's energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.

They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancy. They will get paid the same as before.

"One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses," said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director. He said he is looking forward to tackling items on his long-neglected "honey-do" list (As in: "Honey, do this" and "Honey, do that"); camping; and traveling more around the state.

The order issued by Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman will affect about 17,000 out of 24,000 executive-branch employees. It will not cover state police officers, prison guards or employees of the courts or Utah's public universities. Also, state-run liquor stores will stay open on Fridays.

The compressed workweek in Utah - whose motto is "Industry" and whose official symbol is the beehive, representing thrift and perseverance - could prove inconvenient to those who need to use state services and find certain offices closed on Fridays.

Also, some parents may have to rearrange their child care to accommodate their longer hours, and bus and commuter train schedules might have to be adjusted.

But many are excited about the idea.

"I'm thrilled," said Rose Kenworthy, 58, an executive secretary at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. "Now I can do anything I want. I can have lunch with my friends, spend time with my grandchildren or just chill out."

Sheldon Wood, 48, who writes property tax software, plans on using his three-day weekends to go into the mountains to hike and bike with his wife, also a state employee.

Turning off the lights, the heat and the air conditioning on Fridays in 1,000 of 3,000 government buildings will save about $3 million a year out of a state budget of $11 billion, according to the governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley. The state will also save on gasoline used by official vehicles, but authorities have not figured out how much.

The Department of Environmental Quality estimated employees in six buildings alone will save themselves more than $300,000 spent on gas to commute to work.

The four-day workweek could also be good for the environment.

"We feel like we can reduce the CO2 or the ozone by around over 3,000 metric tons, as well as have an impact on our air pollution," said Kim Hood, executive director of the Department of Administrative Services.

In addition, the governor said the new schedule could help recruit younger workers who prefer a three-day weekend.

State officials will evaluate the program after a year and decide whether to extend it.

Because of the downturn in the economy and $4-a-gallon gasoline, many states are looking at cost-saving measures, including expanded telecommuting, compressed workweeks and more flexible schedules.

"Everyone's going to keep a close eye on it and see what happens in Utah and whether they can demonstrate employee effectiveness and the energy savings, too," said Leslie Scott, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives, based in Lexington, Ky.

Many Utah state offices will extend their hours and stay open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. so people can use government services before or after work. And residents are being encouraged to use the Internet for hundreds of ordinary services, such as automobile registration renewals.

As for such things as hazardous spills and calls from Medicaid recipients who need approval for medical procedures, "certainly there are people who are on call 24-7 now, and those people will continue to be on call 24-7," the governor's spokeswoman said.

Natalie Smith, 38, who works on a state arthritis program, supports the governor's push to make government more environmentally friendly, but said the change will mean juggling schedules with her husband to take care of their two young children.

"We're not exactly sure how we're going to do it," she said. But she added that it will be nice to have Fridays to visit the library or the zoo or run errands.

Debra McBride, a Medicaid specialist who has been working four 10-hour shifts a week for about 20 years, said it is harder to make doctor's appointments and do other errands Monday through Thursday, and working longer hours can be rough.

"After working 10 hours in a day," she said, "I don't do anything after I get home

Source http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/03/news/economy/utah_work.ap/index.htm

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 8 replies

2. Miss-Information around ENLIGHTENED AWARENESS

2008-07-13T07:14:21Z

> IN SERVICE TO Clarity of Mind

> It's feels like time to cut thru the MISS-
> INFORMATION surrounding ENLIGHTENMENT. .
>
> It's time to explore this issue FULLY for the
> benefit of our Earths Survival.
> It can alter some individual journeys, due to
> NOT falling down the traps;1) Society has set
> for us, 2) We have set for us, 3) Lack of clear
> information has set for us.

> Clearly, we have ALL been born to LIVE, real
> CLARITY in the World around us,
> . . . But due to MISS-INFORMATION, . . . we
> knowingly-unknowingly absorbed thru our Lives,
> to known-unknown forces in the World, Clarity
> DOES NOT HAPPEN for all of us. [This too will change].
>
> MUSIC TV is singing right NOW in the background
> “”WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> WAKE UP,
> wake up to the manipulation””
>
> Pink Floyd sang it clearly, as did many others
> in music, film, writing, paintings, drawing,
> photography, etc.
>
> It’s IN the category of “THE EARTH IS FLAT”
> All the evidence showed that the Earth was round,
> BUT
> . . . It didn't stop, the consensus of the day,
> saying the Earth was flat, (and that was only a
> few seconds ago, in Earth history)---ONLY a few
> Hundred Years Ago, our time . . .
>
> Similarly, as a group of people on this Earth,
> many have been hoodwinked into thinking that;
> . . . Enlightenment is DIFFICULT to comprehend
> . . . We cannot talk about IT [to a certain
> degree true]
> . . . We must follow a GURU, a recognised
> Teacher, or Lineage of Teachers, or a pathway
> designated BY someone else
> . . . THE PROCESS of CLARITY into ENLIGHTENED
> AWARENESS, is DIFFICULT to conceptualise-
> experience-and KNOW, . . . .
>
> IS THIS ALL a blatant UN-TRUTH ???
>
> [Something I read years ago was a paper on an
> obscure subject, that around c.1900 was in ONE
> book published, followed by another book several
> years later. This, over a period of 50 or so
> years, was followed by 70+ books until one guy
> at the end of the process did a study that
> established that all 70+ books came from most of
> the information from the first and second book .
> . . Nothing else was of any REAL relevance.]
>
> How THIS Writer established Clarity, [in this
> Life], DID NOT COME from any religion, or book,
> or person
> . . . the Writers’ Awareness came from a
> personal event
> . . . that created the decision to live TRUTH,
> . . . in every moment of every day,
> . . . It came from breaking away (from all
> current ways found in Society) and going
> directly IN to TRUTH.
>
> The process of living TRUTH in every aspect of
> Life
> . . . CREATED THE INNER ENVIRONMENT for the
> experience to HAPPEN by itself (to unfold
> effortlessly), and to become so amazing that
> research to unearth others who have this same
> experience, was a very juicy recent experience,
> and the writer realized that this experience is
> transferable to the Minds and experience of
> others.
>
> WE can NOT grow a lettuce when the environment
> does not support that growth
> . . . Our Culture of Mis-information we ALL have
> been exposed to, has not supported the growth of
> our OWNERSHIP of OUR OWN Enlightenment Awareness
> in its Clarity.
>
> It does not feel to me to be an isolated
> experience that has happened to the writer . . .
> This feels to be a planetary unfolding of
> Awareness happening here, between us
> . . . that we are ALL PART OF...

> Every person on this planet EARTH is related to
> you.
> The TRANSFORMATION IN AWARENESS,. . . of every
> person seems to BE a part of the Planetary
> Awareness in progress.
>
> IN SERVICE TO THIS "I AM"
>
> What are your thoughts???
> ESTABLISHING the process that Transforms into
> simple understandings
> . . . Is a process of Education-not an altered
> state of High Awareness
> . . . Blind Freddie can do it
> . . . It is NOT a Religion
>
> Call it whatever you like
> . . . FREEDOM,
> . . . Clarity
> . . . Enlightenment
> . . . OR, just a time in your Life when you say to
> yourself, . . ."Oh! ! , So that’s what IT IS . . . '
> . . . ‘THE WAKE UP CALL’ HAPPENS
> . . . Enlightened Awareness
> It does NOT MATTER WHAT IT IS CALLED
> . . . .It is An Experience we can all avail
> ourselves INTO . . .[if you so Allow IT to BE . . .] .

> Do you think it is Earth time for its people to
> live in Clarity of Awareness ???

> Where IS the information that cuts thru the Miss-
> Information found by many of us???

> It sounds like a tribe for this needs to be
> established, and later this may be so.
>
> Regards and Blessings
> Sam
>

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Can we do it?

2008-07-09T07:10:59Z

Not too different to paying for Tribe, will Aussies or any one be willing to pay more for their Electricity and energy costs. I'm with Energy Australia and have a choice to sign up for Pure Energy (sourced from Green Power Generators) but I have to pay a premium for it.

Can I put my $ and ¢ where it counts? It's so damn hard!
http://www.energyaustralia.com.au/energy/ea.nsf/Content/NSW+PureEnergy+Premium

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 9 replies

so the fun begins

2008-07-05T20:50:24Z

Just got this email.... i love it... mwahhaaa... eexxxx-cel-lent! I love it when people stir the pot!

July 3rd, 2008

Dear Smelkstar's Universe,

This news is just breaking.

Early this morning, twenty-seven Greenpeace activists quietly and safely took action to stop the burning of coal at Australia’s largest single source of greenhouse pollution: the giant and dirty Eraring power station in NSW.

Huge decisions are being made in Canberra on climate change right now. But there is no guarantee they will be the right ones, especially given the intense corporate lobbying and point scoring over petrol prices currently underway. This morning’s events are designed to push the real issues back to the very top of the debate: will you stand with us at this key moment, by joining the call for an Energy [R]evolution from dirty coal to renewable energy? Sign the petition and add yourself to our interactive renewable landscape now.

www.greenpeace.org.au/energyrevolution

This morning’s dramatic events are part of our sweeping Energy [R]evolution Tour – featuring an epic 2300km journey by the largest ship in our fleet, the MV Esperanza, stopping at ports along Australia’s east coast.

At Eraring, twelve of the trained activists dramatically locked themselves to the conveyor belt that delivers coal to the plant. On our website, you can live pictures from their camera phones.

www.greenpeace.org.au/energyrevolution

Stopping the flow of coal to a power station is certainly daring. But it’s far from being radical considering the scale of the problem – and the glacial pace of the political response. Prominent NASA climate scientist Dr James Hansen recently said, “The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants… I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself, but we somehow have to draw attention to this”. Former Vice President Al Gore has wondered, “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”

The fossil fuel industry may not like it, but a renewable energy future is possible. Three weeks ago, we released detailed economic modeling prepared for Greenpeace Australia Pacific by Dr Hugh Saddler providing a clear and workable blueprint to generate 40% of our power from renewables by 2020 and phase out coal entirely by 2030. Meeting with seventeen ministerial staff and MPs in Canberra last week to share the results, we found a lot of interest and surprisingly little skepticism - if not yet enough political will.
Sign the petition and stay around on our dynamic Tour website to learn more about the Energy [R]evolution scenario.
www.greenpeace.org.au/energyrevolution

I'll keep you updated.

With many thanks,
Simon Roz

Climate campaigner
& Energy [R]evolutionary

PS If you need any more evidence that last year’s federal election has done little to stop climate change, look no further than Victoria. Just yesterday, Premier John Brumby committed $150 million in taxpayer funds to a Chinese-Australian joint venture company to build a dirty new brown coal power plant. Surely such an outrageous project should be commercially impossible under a serious Emissions Trading Scheme – or does Premier Brumby know something the public does not? Please, sign the petition to get our urgent message across now so this cannot proceed.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

Climate Emergency Rally - July 5

2008-07-04T15:04:28Z

http://www.foe.org.au/news/2008/climate-emergency-rally-melbourne-july-5

We are calling for Victorians to join the Climate Emergency Rally on July 5. We want to send a wake-up call to state and federal governments that they are heading in the wrong direction. New coal, new freeways and desalination plants increase our use of and reliance on fossil fuels dramatically at a time when we must be cutting our use even more dramatically.

John Brumby and Kevin Rudd say that climate change is the biggest challenge humanity faces and their top priority, but their actions tell a different story.

We are calling for Victorians to join the Climate Emergency Rally on July 5. We want to send a wake-up call to state and federal governments that they are heading in the wrong direction. New coal, new freeways and desalination plants increase our use of and reliance on fossil fuels dramatically at a time when we must be cutting our use even more dramatically. We are calling on governments to implement sustainable alternatives to these irresponsible and expensive projects. Alternatives such as renewable energy and public transport.

We call on all community groups and individuals to join us to send this important message to the government. We are going to form a 140-metre-long human sign to spell the words "Climate Emergency". Please organise your group to send endorsement, tell everyone you know, and come on the day wearing something red to symbolise emergency.

We are facing a climate emergency, the time for real action is now!

Come for the rally, stay for the giant human sign.

Saturday, July 5, 2008
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: City Square
Street: Corner Swanston and Collins Streets

I will be there!!!!

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

Queenslanders - got any comments on Sustainable Housing?

2008-07-02T09:01:32Z

The QLD govt has a white paper on Sustainable Housing and is looking for your comments!!!

It asks a lot of great questions and its a really good opportunity to push them in the right direction...

http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/sustainablehousing

http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/sustainable-living/have-your-say-on-sustainable-housing-in-queensland.html

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Sign this - petition to remove means testing on solar rebate

2008-07-02T08:59:17Z

http://sunrisefamily.com.au/current/petition/index.php

Go Kochie go!

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

Tell everyone about this

2008-06-25T00:57:28Z

In the current climate crisis it is essential to look at new way to be sustainable. Australia being the most arid continent on the planet really should pick up on this model. Lobby councils to change building codes, we need a climate [r]evolution.

http://www.earthship.net/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2 video...because a picture is worth a thousand words

www.earthship.net

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Honda Announces First Hydrogen Car For Commercial Production

2008-06-22T07:02:58Z

Honda Announces First Hydrogen Car For Commercial Production
Posted on: Monday, 16 June 2008, 13:53 CDT

Honda has become the first car manufacturer to rollout its line of zero-emission, hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars for commercial production.

The Japanese car manufacturer said its new FCX Clarity, which runs on electricity produced by combining hydrogen with oxygen, will offer three times the fuel efficiency than a gas-powered car.

The FCX Clarity is based on Honda’s first-generation hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, the FCX concept car. Honda created about 34 of the concept cars, of which 10 are still in use.

Honda plans to produce 200 of the cars over the next three years. The first five customers, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis, are all based in southern California, because of the proximity of hydrogen fueling stations .

This seemingly small production may be the result of the lack of hydrogen fueling stations as well as the argument from some critics who say that hydrogen is expensive to produce and the most common way to produce it is from fossil fuels.

Even environmental analysis has shown that he overall carbon dioxide emissions from hydrogen-powered cars can be higher than that from unleaded or diesel-powered vehicles.

The car will initially be available for lease rather than purchase in California, starting in July, and then in Japan later this year.

It is being built on the world's first dedicated production line for fuel-cell vehicles in Japan.

"This is an important day in the history of fuel-cell vehicle technology and a monumental step closer to the day when fuel-cell cars will be part of the mainstream," said John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda.

The cost of the car on a three-year lease will be $600 a month, Honda said.

Car manufacturers are being faced with increasing demand for more economical vehicles.

Toyota said it was struggling to keep up with demand because it was unable to make enough batteries for its hybrid Prius, which switches between fuel and electric motor.

"Hybrids are selling so well we are doing all we can to increase production," Toyota Motor Corp’s executive vice president, Takeshi Uchiyamada said. "We need new lines."

Source http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1435274/honda_announces_first_hydrogen_car_for_commercial_production/

Only 200 ?

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 4 replies

Taxi drivers complain public transport is too good, sorry guys, not in Oz

2008-06-22T03:34:31Z

At the moment I am working out of Singapore and Bangkok, and its always interesting reading foreign newspapers and there take on the world. Traffic police on point duty on inline skates to beat the traffic in Jakartia. Taxi drivers in Sweden complaining about public transport being too good. Also in Stockholm they are cutting aircraft engines on approach and only using them on final part of the landing to save fuel.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Blessed Unrest

2008-06-21T04:10:41Z

This is a great book... positive and inspirational....

Its front cover says.... How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World...

http://www.blessedunrest.com/

Makes me feel good about all the small and big stuff Im doing.

Someone laughed at me the other day and said something like (patronising tone) you think you can save the world or something? Well yes Im gona give it my best shot. Sure I cant make the big changes, but the little things I do add to the momentum.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

Interesting....

2008-06-11T22:30:34Z

In todays Age.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/flawed-design-for-a-perfect-city-20080606-2my9.html

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 5 replies

Thrive

2008-06-08T03:49:54Z

I saw these really cool cooking/food classes on a flyer I got from the organic joint at the Vic Market

They run really interesting cooking classes

Im going to go!

http://www.thrivefoods.com.au

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

CERES Events... Winter Solstice

2008-06-07T03:41:38Z

This link just takes you to CERES....

There are a whole heap of things going on there.. but the one Im referring to specifically is the winter solstice event 'Beautiful Darkness". Think I will be going to that!!!!

Also I was going to send a link about the Earth premier.. but I forgot. Want to see it.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

Human Powered Cycles

2008-06-04T11:55:23Z

Found these guys strolling along Merri Creek yesterday...

http://www.humanpowered.com.au

aside from service, they also fix up bikes to give to Asylum Seekers... got to promote that!

Just near the Golden Topped Church/Mosque along Merri Creek (sorry Im not sure what religion those beautiful golden Towers belong to - but they would have to be one of my favourite things in Melbourne)

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 12 replies

Guerrilla Gardeing!

2008-06-03T02:42:17Z

http://guerrillagardening.org/

This looks ace fun!!! Although if in Oz I would only recommend native species, native to the particular area. Dont want weeds invading the joint anymore than they already do.

I saw a tree planting day this Sunday in the city of Darebin on my ride to work... hmmm will do some research. On Merri creek i think.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 14 replies

SAVE SHARKS!!!

2008-05-26T12:03:48Z

Something like 90% of the worlds shark population have been destroyed, primarily for shark fin soup! Removal of top predators has huge knock effects! I watched this documentary on Yellowstone national park on the weekend. They couldnt work out why the trees had stopped regenerating in the park. They took core samples and worked out that trees had stopped growing since about the 1930's. Coincidentally , the last wolf was killed in the park around that time. The top predators removed meant that tree munching animals were eating the trees before they had a chance to grow. There were all these other knock on effects as well. No trees, meant no cover or timber for the beavers to build along the rivers. No beavers meant no plants growing along the river from their waste/compost, which meant other animals didnt have cover. Plus the carcasses from wolf kills fed all these other animals and added to the soils. Sharks are the same. They even help with the absorption of CO2 in the oceans by eating the fish that eat the plankton etc which absorbs CO2.

http://www.sharksavers.org

There is a new doco out on sharks. They are killed so cruelly but just chopping off their fins and then just chucked back in the water. There is info on the website.

Humans are so greedy and stupid. Sorry there Ive said it.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 5 replies

Rooftop Gardening

2008-05-26T00:15:06Z

Was just watching this story on this beautiful rooftop garden in Sydney..

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2252908.htm

gorgeous~!

Australia is so behind on this! When i was living in Tokyo '99 to '04 the government made new legislation that demands that 5% (or something like that) of any new building must include plants/gardens... including rooftop gardens. There is so much roof space over there, the visions I had were amazing! We could so do it here, but it would mean changes to building design, esp to cater for weight...

http://www.urbanag.org.au/Greenroofs_Australia.html

http://greenroofs.wordpress.com/

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

Gardening

2008-05-24T08:50:50Z

My fave shows on the TV are ...

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/
Gardening Australia... Peter Cundall is a legend.. watching it right now

Vasilis Garden on Channel 31 in Melbourne
http://www.vasilisgarden.com/
It has great wisdom from a lot of the old Greek and Italians living in Melbourne. They grow so much of their own food

and I like to listen to Dirty Deeds on Triple R Melbourne 106.7 FM 1-2pm Sundays.. http://www.rrr.org.au/onair.php?pid=90

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

You guys might like this..

2008-05-24T08:31:10Z

I picked it up from another tribe

http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

The tribe was http://nontraditionalhousing.tribe.net/

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 7 replies

London 2020 targets

2008-05-23T04:55:51Z

Saw this really interesting and inspiring story on ABC Catalyst tonight.. about London's goal of reducing its emissions by 65% by 2020!!!! The guy in charge previously worked for another town council or something and they now generate all their own energy and reduced their emissions by 70% (dont quote me Im hopeless at remembering - have a look for yourself)

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2244790.htm

There was also something really interesting on green cement. Did you know its the third biggest man made CO2 emitter due to the chemical reaction required to make it. All you do is change the chemical reaction!

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2244816.htm

Learn something everyday.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 3 replies

Going Green Expo

2008-05-23T04:52:52Z

In Melbourne in June

http://www.goinggreenexpo.com.au/

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

The I want bigger, more and better syndrome.

2008-05-15T01:43:12Z

As I look around suburbia, you notice that nearly everyone wants to live in big houses, family rooms, spare bedrooms, studies, two or three bathrooms, parents retreats, the list goes on. One of the other things is how small the gardens have become especially when they put a 25 square house on their 450m2 block of land.

Everything has to be new, the current fashion, children have to have the latest and greatest, most families have at least two cars. Ducted heating, air conditioning, patio heaters for crying out loud. Where does it stop, when we will say enough is enough.

It costs more to heat/cool these larger houses, the insulation we use is crap, fibreglass batts breakdown over time and are basically offer no insulation when they have broken down. (If you can afford to use polystyrene to line your walls, roof and underfloor, never breaks down, and offers great insulation). We don't double glaze, we don't install water tanks with new houses (shouldn't that be compulsory now??). It seems that as a society we are willing to accept a cheap glossy exterior while not caring about the basics.

Bring back small houses, with small rooms, big verandahs, and what's more, gardens.

Sorry, this rant has been bought about by the house across the road who has just cut down every tree (some gorgeous big gum trees) in the their backyard to put a unit in. You can bet your bottom dollar I put a letter of protest in, but it didn't make any difference. *sigh*

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 7 replies

off the grid

2008-05-14T09:49:41Z

so who here is off the grid
who has there own solar and /or wind set up to minamise electricity used form mains power

and or who sell ti back to the grid for what you don't use??

i have been toying for a while how to set up a solar camp for when i go to festivals
and also a wind set up for ones like rainbow serpent which is always a hot windy party

the biggest issue with solar and wind is the cost

more so that any thing in the cost of the inverters and altinators to store power in battery cell banks to be used in low light and wind times

also what are peoples thoughts on the use of hydro power

i have seen a mini hydro set up on a waterfall on a property
no damming involved but th water flowing off the water fall runs the turbine for a miny gennie

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 13 replies

10,000 year misunderstanding

2008-05-13T00:39:37Z

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/12/2241454.htm

Interesting article, esp the discussion at the end

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Mothers Day Rally Fed Square

2008-05-07T08:42:39Z

Mother's Day Rally!
May 11, 2008; 12.15pm-12.45pm
Federation Square, Melbourne
This year, tell our leaders what you really want: for today's and tomorrow's children to enjoy the same safe climate that we all grew up in. You don't need to be a mother to join us, it's enough to have had one. So this Mother's Day, gather your mother, other people's mothers, friends, colleagues, neighbours and join us for a big group photograph to tell our leaders to clean up our climate for our young people's sake! For greater effect, bring along a photo of a young person to hold up. Download the flyer here. Supported by Greenpeace, Environment Victoria, the Victorian Women's Trust, SidsKids and Federation Square.

http://www.envict.org.au/inform.php?menu=9&submenu=232&item=235

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Go Yarra Flow

2008-05-07T08:38:18Z

http://www.envict.org.au/inform.php?menu=7&submenu=1768&item=1769

About this campaign

'Go Yarra Flow' aims to send a strong message to the Victorian Government that the people of Melbourne value a healthy Yarra River and that means we need Premier Brumby to deliver the river's promised environmental flows.

What do we want?
We want the Victorian Government to understand that the people of Melbourne value a healthy Yarra River and urge our Premier Brumby to:

• Honour the commitment to deliver life-giving environmental flows to the Yarra River
• Reverse the recent increase in water extraction from the Yarra
• Boost investment in water conservation, efficiency and recycling rather than taking more water from our stressed river

Pledge your support
Let the Victorian Government know you value a healthy Yarra River: click here to pledge your support to the Go Yarra Flow campaign today! Add your voice to the call and to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to support the campaign too.

Campaign launch - hosted by international music star!
Hawaiian pro-surfer turned singer-songwriter Jack Johnson threw his support behind the Yarra River as part of his world tour, by hosting the Go Yarra Flow campaign launch at his Melbourne shows on March 25 and 26 at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. Hundreds of Jack Johnson fans pledged their support to the Go Yarra Flow campaign while exploring the concert's 'Village Green' which featured a select group of local not-for-profit environment organisations including Yarra Riverkeepers, CERES and Tree Project. Stay tuned for photos!

Creatures such as the Eastern Banjo Frog rely on a healthy Yarra River to survive.
(Photo courtesy Melbourne Water)

Campaign background
In an average year 70% of Melbourne’s freshwater supplies are sourced from the Yarra River’s upper reaches, allowing us to enjoy some of the best drinking water in the world. We don’t just drink the Yarra’s water though: we use vast quantities to flush toilets and irrigate farms. Melbourne goes through about 400 billion litres of water in an average year, with residential use accounting for about 60%.

But as more and more water is extracted from the Yarra, the river’s health is under increasing stress. Right now the Yarra’s flow is down to a small fraction of its natural level, creating a huge threat to the survival of the birds, fish, frogs and platypus that rely on a healthy environment to thrive.

For many years scientists and community groups like ours have urged the Victorian Government to help restore the Yarra by providing at least the minimum ‘environmental flow’ the river needs to support life.

For a river like the Yarra, a healthy environmental flow – changing in rhythm with the seasons – is vital; it flushes along pollutants, transports nutrients to where they’re needed and provides fish and other creatures with the right conditions to breed.

In October 2006 the Victorian Government made a proud commitment to provide the Yarra River with its minimum environmental flow needs as a key action of its Sustainable Water Strategy
for Melbourne. That promise is yet to be honoured.

Now, the Government is plundering the Yarra even further by taking an additional 10 billion litres of water from our stressed river rather than pursuing sustainable solutions to Melbourne’s water future.

The people of Melbourne have been using water wisely at home, at school and at work. We need to ensure our water savings provide real environmental benefits to our city’s great river through increased flows. And we need our Government to help Melbourne get even wiser with water use by boosting investment in water conservation, efficiency and recycling.

Contact us
For more information or to share your ideas, please contact Go Yarra Flow coordinators:

Leonie Duncan, Environment Victoria: leonie.duncan@envict.org.au, Tel: 9341 8120
Ian Penrose, Yarra Riverkeeper: info@yarrariver.org.au, Tel: 0448 927 720 www.yarrariver.org.au

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Compost?

2008-05-07T08:34:12Z

Do you?

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 6 replies

Solar Protest Rally Parliament Steps Melbourne tomorrow morning

2008-05-07T04:07:37Z

http://www.envict.org.au/inform.php?menu=9&submenu=232&item=235

SOS: SAVE OUR SOLAR
Premier Brumby: Solar Leader or Solar Faker
Thursday, May 8, 2008; 8.30a,-9.30am
STEPS OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE, top of Bourke Street
The Victorian Government is about to make a decision critical to the future of solar energy. We need to TAKE URGENT ACTION now to ensure Victoria's solar future. Join us from 8.30am to 9.30am sharp on the steps of Parliament House this coming Thursday to tell Premier John Brumby and the Victorian Government that we want a REAL Feed-In Tariff for Victoria's solar future. We need your help to get at least 200 people along, so bring your friends, bring your placards and let the Politicians know what we want. At the first test of the Brumby government since the Premier's Climate Summit, lets make sure we see real commitment, not more hot air. Please note: the rally will take place whether or not there has already been an announcement from the Government. For more information, contact Victoria McKenzie-McHarg at Environment Victoria on 9341 8112 or at victoria.mckenziemcharg@envict.org.au. Rally organised by Environment Victoria, Alternative Technology Association, Moreland Energy Foundation and Friends of the Earth. Download the flyer here and help us Save Our Solar!

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Pictures Tell a Thousand Words..

2008-05-05T12:25:59Z

Sure, it is American .. but still..

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

Organic beer to drink or not to drink?

2008-05-03T09:43:46Z

So Im not a big beer drinker.. love it in Summer of course, with Japanese food.. tastes great... but I rarely drink beer so I dont feel like Im really fit to comment on such a serious and important topic (?) but recently I went to the world's biggest green drinks in fed square and they had different organic beers.. and they tasted vile!!!

Know any that are good? Or are they just not?

Here's a few I found... Aussie of course (come on NZ is Aussie when we want it to be)

http://www.goatbeer.com.au
http://www.organicguide.com/blog/reviews/organic-beer-emersons-organic-pilsner/
http://www.feralbrewing.com.au/
http://www.redoak.com.au
http://www.greenmanbrewery.co.nz/

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 8 replies

Smoke screen hides truth

2008-05-03T09:39:49Z

http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23615712-5006550,00.html

A PALL has descended over Tasmanian forestry. It's there in the smoke that drifted over town and country last week. But it's another kind of pall too -- a gloom of uncertainty about where we go from here.
Much of the problem is visible every autumn in the regeneration burn-offs, or "regen burns", done to scour the land so eucalypt seeds can get direct access to mineral soil, which they need to germinate.

But there's an important third element, far removed from the battles and burn-offs in our forests. It's a game called international diplomacy, played by national leaders -- and in that game, the big loser has been truth.

When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997, Australia won a generous emissions target by bargaining hard to include a reduced rate of land clearing as a factor in the final agreement. It achieved that by making sure forestry was excluded from the deal.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, clear-felling mature native forests to grow new trees doesn't count as land clearing, so carbon emitted from that activity is left out of the ledger. The result is that forestry gets a dream run in all the official emissions statistics.

For 10 years our forestry industry has argued that its activities are greenhouse-friendly and that all the new trees planted make it possible to continue a slash-and-burn regime in our mature native forests.

But estimates using scientific findings and Forestry Tasmania's own data put native forest logging in the front rank of Tasmanian carbon polluters.

In a Hobart public forum last week, forestry industry representatives presented as "fact" official graphs prepared under Kyoto accounting rules that wrongly show forestry as greenhouse-friendly, a net absorber of carbon dioxide.

It's possible they sincerely believe that. But even if the truth is known to some in the industry, it would be very difficult to raise it publicly because of its ramifications. The solution will mean permanent changes to the industry as we now know it.

The forest conflict makes it a tortuous business to get access to good, solid scientific data. Hostility breeds polemic and that compromises both conservation activists and forest authorities. Credibility is further compromised by the commercial imperative driving our forest industry.

But research on how carbon is acquired and stored by forests is being done in plant science departments of universities, notably the Australian National University, together with greenhouse accounting and bushfire research.

I've learnt that in assessing carbon in forests we need to look at two things: capture and storage. There's no doubt that young, quickly growing trees are better at capturing atmospheric carbon than older trees. So we replace the old trees with young ones -- right?

No. Not a good idea, it seems, because of carbon storage. Perfectly adapted by evolution to their environments, mature forests have been accumulating carbon for centuries in canopy species, understorey plants including trees, shrubs, ferns and mosses, debris, peats and soils.

A mature wet eucalypt forest in Tasmania has been estimated to contain between 1100 and 1600 tonnes of carbon per hectare -- a level that regrowth forest takes centuries to reach. Plantations, whose life is measured in decades, store less than 10 per cent of that much.

The evidence says that clear-fell logging in any mature native forest results in a loss of carbon that it will take hundreds of years to recover.

Only the most intense wildfires are comparable with eucalypt regeneration burn-offs. Normal wildfires and controlled fuel-reduction burns eliminate lower-level plants and sometimes destroy the big canopy trees.

But regen-burns are intended to be intensely hot. The result is like a nuclear explosion. Nearly all combustible material is sucked into the air in a massive blast, leaving behind (as intended) bare earth.

The billowing smoke from regen-burns in Tasmania's mature forest sends vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

A 2001 Forestry Tasmania study estimated the quantity of carbon in the smoke of a wet eucalypt regeneration burn averages 196 tonnes per hectare. That would mean the smoke from a 100-hectare coupe contains 19,600 tonnes of carbon.

We need more data on the combustion process and what happens in other forest types, but with ANU research showing such forests contain well over 1000 tonnes per hectare, the Forestry Tasmania estimate seems conservative.

But using this official data and making allowances for lower output from drier forests, CO2 emitted from regeneration burning alone is at least on a rough par with the state's total transport emissions.

Time is against Forestry Tasmania's long-term plans, which show forest operations will be net emitters of carbon each year until 2026, when growing forests will take up more than is given off.

Even if that's true, it will be nearly 20 years too late for our 2050 emissions target. Savings in 20 years' time are worthless if in the meantime we maintain high-polluting regimes. Every delay makes future action that much tougher.

Leaving logging out of carbon emission estimates is self-defeating. Australia must account for all polluting in its internal accounting systems -- and now, not after the Kyoto period ends in 2012.

Premier Paul Lennon has asked Ross Garnaut, who is investigating economic aspects of climate change, to look at the effect of logging. On the evidence I saw, Professor Garnaut would conclude that today's mature native forest logging regimes are dangerous and recommend they be stopped.

But rural communities have reason for optimism -- and politics will play a part in that.

Tasmania will have a legislated 2050 emissions target that's 60 per cent below 1990 levels. At present, our electricity consumption, increasingly reliant on Victorian coal-fired power via Basslink, is taking us in the opposite direction.

But with clear-felling and regeneration burning stopped, Tasmanian carbon emissions would be sufficiently below historical levels (adjusted to take account of forestry's real effect) to meet most of what will otherwise be a near-impossible 2050 emissions reduction target.

Soon all carbon emissions will cost money. The economic value of such emission reduction will far exceed the return from harvesting wood fibre, enough to sustain rural communities while they manage and conserve these great carbon stores in perpetuity.

Conversely, continuing clear-fell regimes with their attendant emissions will impose heavy financial costs -- almost certainly enough to make them uneconomical.

In facing the climate challenge, we can't afford to quarantine forestry, or any other activity, from scrutiny, or put vested interests ahead of the truth. We most certainly can't allow any stepping-up of native forest clear-felling in anticipation of a future ban.

But it's vital that rural communities continue to thrive, deriving nourishment and wealth from the land, and that is everyone's responsibility: loggers, conservationists and the rest of us. Those same communities, as food producers, may turn out to be our lifeline.

We must heed the warnings about the extreme danger of carbon pollution, put politics and squabbling aside and change how we manage our forests. Together.

Peter Boyer is a writer, illustrator and publisher who has written extensively about science. Since 2006 he has been a presenter for The Climate Project (Australia).
peterboyer@southwind .com.au

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

Victorian Desal Plant

2008-05-01T16:57:01Z

So what do yall think of this?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Victoria-to-build-desalination-plant/2007/06/19/1182019073256.html

One of the world's largest desalination plants will be built in Victoria as part of a $4.9 billion drought-busting plan, but consumers will pay.

Water bills will double to fund the $3.1 billion plant, earmarked for Wonthaggi, south-east of Melbourne.

The plant is part of a drought-proofing package announced by the Victorian government and will generate 150 billion litres of drinking water annually - about one third of Melbourne's current consumption.

The package also provides for a $1 billion upgrade of water infrastructure in the Goulburn Murray Food Bowl and an expansion of Victoria's water grid, including a north-south pipeline to funnel more water to Melbourne.

Together the projects will provide Victorians with an extra 375 billion litres of water a year.

Premier Steve Bracks heralded the plan "the largest water spend in 25 years", saying it would secure the state's future and pave the way for a relaxing of water restrictions.

The desalination plant will be Australia's largest and is expected to be complete by 2011.

Fed by a 1km pipeline from Bass Strait, it will extract salt from sea water through a process of reverse osmosis.

The salty waste will be discharged into the ocean and purified water pumped into a new 85km pipeline to Melbourne.

A second pipeline will link Geelong, while Wonthaggi and Westernport will also benefit.

Consumers will be slugged the full cost of building the facility.

But the premier defended the move, saying Victorian water bills were the cheapest in the country.

"I think it's necessary and I think that people in Victoria realise that water prices have to go up to account for new infrastructure because of drought, because of climate change," he said.

"We have to find new water and there is a cost to that."

The government has contributed $630 million to the water projects.

The bulk will be spent on the first stage of a $2 billion project to upgrade irrigation channels in northern Victoria, eventually saving 450 billion litres in lost water.

The extra water will be shared evenly between irrigators, rivers and Melburnians, via a $750 million north-south pipeline.

The Food Bowl Alliance, which championed the idea, said it was a fantastic result for the region.

"It's an absolute win-win situation," spokesman John Corboy said.

"If you put Melbourne's amount into reality it is 16 per cent of the savings we will be making, it's a pittance compared to what we can achieve with the whole project."

The government is relying on an extra $1 billion from the federal government to complete the second stage, but that looks doubtful with the water ministers at loggerheads over Victoria's refusal to sign up to the commonwealth Murray-Darling Basin water plan.

Industry groups welcomed the announcement but warned the extra cost of water would be a double-hit to consumers.

"What the average shopper and average consumer has to understand (is) these costs will be passed on, there's no doubt that costs (of goods) will increase," Australian Industry Group Victoria director Timothy Piper said.

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said the government was not spending enough to fund its plans, and the projects would take too long, while Victorian Nationals leader Peter Ryan warned it would see "the future of the Goulburn Valley flushed down Melbourne's toilets".

The Greens said the environment and households would lose out in the deal, but Environment Victoria has welcomed the move.

Chief executive officer Kelly O'Shanassy said desalination could be environmentally friendly and would take pressure off the state's rivers.

© 2007 AAP

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 7 replies

Recognising my local Traditional Owners and the Apology

2008-04-29T21:39:01Z

I should have done this from the first moment I started this tribe. I apologise for not doing so earlier. I have a great respect and desire to learn from Australia's Traditional owners as I believe they have so much to teach us not only about living sustainably in this country, but also about an absolute love of this land which is the key to preserving its beauty and wonder. I am also extremely happy that we finally apologised to the Stolen Generation and Indigenous people as a whole for the terrible treatment they have received. I would like to believe that this change in the national psyche will also be intrinsically linked to a shift in the relationship we too have with this country, its spirit, beauty and protection.

I would like to acknowledge that I am living on Wurundjeri country, the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung speaking peoples.

I acknowledge the members and elders of the Wurundjeri community/ies and their forebears who have been custodians and the traditional owners of this country for many centuries

http://www.antarvictoria.org.au (Australians for Native Title and Reconcilation)

The Apology

I MOVE that today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment. We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed. A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility. A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

There comes a time in the history of nations when their peoples must become fully reconciled to their past if they are to go forward with confidence to embrace their future. Our nation, Australia, has reached such a time. That is why the parliament is today here assembled: to deal with this unfinished business of the nation, to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul and, in a true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia.

Last year I made a commitment to the Australian people that if we formed the next government of the Commonwealth we would in parliament say sorry to the stolen generations. Today I honour that commitment. I said we would do so early in the life of the new parliament.

Again, today I honour that commitment by doing so at the commencement of this the 42nd parliament of the Commonwealth. Because the time has come, well and truly come, for all peoples of our great country, for all citizens of our great Commonwealth, for all Australians—those who are Indigenous and those who are not—to come together to reconcile and together build a new future for our nation.

Some have asked, "Why apologise?" Let me begin to answer by telling the parliament just a little of one person’s story—an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life’s journey, a woman who has travelled a long way to be with us today, a member of the stolen generation who shared some of her story with me when I called around to see her just a few days ago.

Nanna Nungala Fejo, as she prefers to be called, was born in the late 1920s. She remembers her earliest childhood days living with her family and her community in a bush camp just outside Tennant Creek. She remembers the love and the warmth and the kinship of those days long ago, including traditional dancing around the camp fire at night. She loved the dancing.

She remembers once getting into strife when, as a four-year-old girl, she insisted on dancing with the male tribal elders rather than just sitting and watching the men, as the girls were supposed to do.

But then, sometime around 1932, when she was about four, she remembers the coming of the welfare men. Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide. What they had not expected was that the white welfare men did not come alone.

They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman on horseback cracking his stockwhip. The kids were found; they ran for their mothers, screaming, but they could not get away. They were herded and piled onto the back of the truck. Tears flowing, her mum tried clinging to the sides of the truck as her children were taken away to the Bungalow in Alice, all in the name of protection.

A few years later, government policy changed. Now the children would be handed over to the missions to be cared for by the churches. But which church would care for them? The kids were simply told to line up in three lines. Nanna Fejo and her sister stood in the middle line, her older brother and cousin on her left.

Those on the left were told that they had become Catholics, those in the middle Methodists and those on the right Church of England. That is how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that.

She and her sister were sent to a Methodist mission on Goulburn Island and then Croker Island. Her Catholic brother was sent to work at a cattle station and her cousin to a Catholic mission.
Nanna Fejo’s family had been broken up for a second time.

She stayed at the mission until after the war, when she was allowed to leave for a prearranged job as a domestic in Darwin. She was 16. Nanna Fejo never saw her mum again. After she left the mission, her brother let her know that her mum had died years before, a broken woman fretting for the children that had literally been ripped away from her.

I asked Nanna Fejo what she would have me say today about her story. She thought for a few moments then said that what I should say today was that all mothers are important. And she added: ‘Families—keeping them together is very important. It’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations.

That’s what gives you happiness.’ As I left, later on, Nanna Fejo took one of my staff aside, wanting to make sure that I was not too hard on the Aboriginal stockman who had hunted those kids down all those years ago. The stockman had found her again decades later, this time himself to say, ‘Sorry.’ And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him.

Nanna Fejo’s is just one story. There are thousands, tens of thousands of them: stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their mums and dads over the better part of a century. Some of these stories are graphically told in Bringing them home, the report commissioned in 1995 by Prime Minister Keating and received in 1997 by Prime Minister Howard.

There is something terribly primal about these firsthand accounts. The pain is searing; it screams from the pages. The hurt, the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity.

These stories cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology. Instead, from the nation’s parliament there has been a stony, stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow we, the parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors, as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon.

But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.

The nation is demanding of its political leadership to take us forward. Decency, human decency, universal human decency, demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. That is what we are doing in this place today.

But should there still be doubts as to why we must now act, let the parliament reflect for a moment on the following facts: that, between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers; that, as a result, up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families; that this was the product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the state as reflected in the explicit powers given to them under statute; that this policy was taken to such extremes by some in administrative authority that the forced extractions of children of so-called ‘mixed lineage’ were seen as part of a broader policy of dealing with ‘the problem of the Aboriginal population’.

One of the most notorious examples of this approach was from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who stated: "Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation, all native characteristics of the Australian aborigine are eradicated.

"The problem of our half-castes— to quote the protector— will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race, and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white ... "

The Western Australian Protector of Natives expressed not dissimilar views, expounding them at length in Canberra in 1937 at the first national conference on Indigenous affairs that brought together the Commonwealth and state protectors of natives.

These are uncomfortable things to be brought out into the light. They are not pleasant. They are profoundly disturbing. But we must acknowledge these facts if we are to deal once and for all with the argument that the policy of generic forced separation was somehow well motivated, justified by its historical context and, as a result, unworthy of any apology today.

Then we come to the argument of intergenerational responsibility, also used by some to argue against giving an apology today. But let us remember the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s.

The 1970s is not exactly a point in remote antiquity. There are still serving members of this parliament who were first elected to this place in the early 1970s. It is well within the adult memory span of many of us. The uncomfortable truth for us all is that the parliaments of the nation, individually and collectively, enacted statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful.

There is a further reason for an apology as well: it is that reconciliation is in fact an expression of a core value of our nation—and that value is a fair go for all. There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that, for the stolen generations, there was no fair go at all. There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that says that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.

It is for these reasons, quite apart from concerns of fundamental human decency, that the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology—because, put simply, the laws that our parliaments enacted made the stolen generations possible.

We, the parliaments of the nation, are ultimately responsible, not those who gave effect to our laws. And the problem lay with the laws themselves. As has been said of settler societies elsewhere, we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors; therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well. Therefore, for our nation, the course of
action is clear: that is, to deal now with what has become one of the darkest chapters in Australia’s history.

In doing so, we are doing more than contending with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public debate. In doing so, we are also wrestling with our own soul. This is not, as some would argue, a black-armband view of history; it is just the truth: the cold, confronting, uncomfortable truth—facing it, dealing with it, moving on from it. Until we fully confront that truth, there will always be a shadow hanging over us and our future as a fully united and fully reconciled people. It is time to reconcile. It is time to recognise the injustices of the past. It is time to say sorry. It is time to move forward together.

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification.

We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied.

We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments. In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the stolen generations and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the nation—from Yuendumu, in the central west of the Northern Territory, to Yabara, in North Queensland, and to Pitjantjatjara in South Australia.

I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the government and the parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally. Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that. Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing. I ask those non-indigenous Australians listening today who may not fully understand why what we are doing is so important to imagine for a moment that this had happened to you.

I say to honourable members here present: imagine if this had happened to us. Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive. My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is accepted in the spirit of reconciliation, in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia. And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.

Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot. For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history. Today’s apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs. It is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt.

Our challenge for the future is to cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—to embrace, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives.

But the core of this partnership for the future is to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall life expectancy.

The truth is: a business as usual approach towards Indigenous Australians is not working. Most old approaches are not working. We need a new beginning—a new beginning which contains real measures of policy success or policy failure; a new beginning, a new partnership, on closing the gap with sufficient flexibility not to insist on a one-size-fits-all approach for each of the hundreds of remote and regional Indigenous communities across the country but instead allowing flexible, tailored, local approaches to achieve commonly-agreed national objectives that lie at the core of our proposed new partnership; a new beginning that draws intelligently on the experiences of new policy settings across the nation. However, unless we as a parliament set a destination for the nation, we have no clear point to guide our policy, our programs or our purpose; we have no centralised organising principle.

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children—a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations. Let us resolve over the next five years to have every Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs.

Let us resolve to build new educational opportunities for these little ones, year by year, step by step, following the completion of their crucial preschool year. Let us resolve to use this systematic approach to build future educational opportunities for Indigenous children to provide proper primary and preventive health care for the same children, to begin the task of rolling back the obscenity that we find today in infant mortality rates in remote Indigenous communities—up to four times higher than in other communities.

None of this will be easy. Most of it will be hard—very hard. But none of it is impossible, and all of it is achievable with clear goals, clear thinking, and by placing an absolute premium on respect, cooperation and mutual responsibility as the guiding principles of this new partnership on closing the gap.

The mood of the nation is for reconciliation now, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The mood of the nation on Indigenous policy and politics is now very simple. The nation is calling on us, the politicians, to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point-scoring and our mindlessly partisan politics and to elevate this one core area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide. Surely this is the unfulfilled spirit of the 1967 referendum. Surely, at least from this day forward, we should give it a go.

Let me take this one step further and take what some may see as a piece of political posturing and make a practical proposal to the opposition on this day, the first full sitting day of the new parliament. I said before the election that the nation needed a kind of war cabinet on parts of Indigenous policy, because the challenges are too great and the consequences are too great to allow it all to become a political football, as it has been so often in the past.

I therefore propose a joint policy commission, to be led by the Leader of the Opposition and me, with a mandate to develop and implement—to begin with—an effective housing strategy for remote communities over the next five years. It will be consistent with the government’s policy framework, a new partnership for closing the gap.

If this commission operates well, I then propose that it work on the further task of constitutional recognition of the first Australians, consistent with the longstanding platform commitments of my party and the pre-election position of the opposition.

This would probably be desirable in any event because, unless such a proposition were absolutely bipartisan, it would fail at a referendum. As I have said before, the time has come for new approaches to enduring problems. Working constructively together on such defined projects would, I believe, meet with the support of the nation. It is time for fresh ideas to fashion the nation’s future.

Mr Speaker, today the parliament has come together to right a great wrong. We have come together to deal with the past so that we might fully embrace the future. We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future, with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched. So let us seize the day.

Let it not become a moment of mere sentimental reflection. Let us take it with both hands and allow this day, this day of national reconciliation, to become one of those rare moments in which we might just be able to transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself, whereby the injustice administered to the stolen generations in the name of these, our parliaments, causes all of us to reappraise, at the deepest level of our beliefs, the real possibility of reconciliation writ large: reconciliation across all Indigenous Australia; reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the Dreamtime a thousand generations ago and those who, like me, came across the seas only yesterday; reconciliation which opens up whole new possibilities for the future.

It is for the nation to bring the first two centuries of our settled history to a close, as we begin a new chapter. We embrace with pride, admiration and awe these great and ancient cultures we are truly blessed to have among us—cultures that provide a unique, uninterrupted human thread linking our Australian continent to the most ancient prehistory of our planet.

Growing from this new respect, we see our Indigenous brothers and sisters with fresh eyes, with new eyes, and we have our minds wide open as to how we might tackle, together, the great practical challenges that Indigenous Australia faces in the future.

Let us turn this page together: Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, government and opposition, Commonwealth and state, and write this new chapter in our nation’s story together. First Australians, First Fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance just a few weeks ago. Let’s grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land: Australia. I commend the motion to the House.

Here and hereabouts the people of the Wurundjeri clans have performed age old ceremonies of celebration, of initiation and renewal over millennia.

I acknowledge their living culture and their unique role in the life of this region.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

Eco calculators and carbon offset

2008-04-29T11:25:06Z

Well this is another complicated topic.. which I will do some more research on but for now here are some fun things to do to calculate your carbon footprint.. and some give you the option to offset

http://www.greenfleet.com.au/ (calculate and offset)

http://www.acfonline.org.au/custom_greenhome/calculator.asp?section_id=86 (calculator)

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Patriots. Defending Australia's Natural Heritage

2008-04-29T09:56:13Z

Great book Im reading. Just started! On the history of the environment movement in Australia. Totally recommend it!!

http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/ras/article/view/479/514

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

Plastic shopping bags.

2008-04-29T09:35:03Z

After all the fuss of over plastic shopping bags I am wondering what other people use to line their kitchen bins. I use old shopping bags and assume that if I gave them up I'd have to buy garbage bags which are surely just as bad.

I do realise i don't need a liner and could just wash the bin but with kids it the house there isn't a lot of time to leave a bin out to dry.

Im interested to hear others thoughts.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 2 replies

From the 2020 Summit

2008-04-29T05:20:22Z

The ACF perspective

Obviously we still have heaps of work to do...

http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1724

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 1 reply

"Let's build more roads !"

2008-04-29T03:28:13Z

"Let's build more roads !" ...

hardly seems the right answer to congestion on our roads... not from a practical view (roads will just choke again as the population expands), not from a economic one (costs of parking, petrol, cars, maintenance, insurance, etc) and certainly not from an environmental perspective..

The extension of the Eastern Freeway is well underway http://www.seita.com.au/pages-support/videos/flyo_0803_800.htm but will it put more people on the road ? Where will all the extra people park in the city ? What will it do to the environment ?

Whenever I used to drive up the Eastern from Doncaster Road to the City I used to look at the huge median strip and think one thing. Train. The land is there.. and just before the Hoddle St exit there is even the rail bridge that you could connect it to.. is anyone thinking beyond buses in Melbourne ? And the light rails out to Vermont and also Mill Park is great - but they lack the speed and capacity of train .. they seem a little tokenistic and short sighted.. but better than nothing. One thing about people - is they like convenience.. and a train up the Eastern Freeway would work on so many levels. Convenience. The Environment. Cost of Travel to commuters..

What do you think of this ?

Do you have any brainwaves on public transport and general urban design to make our city more livable ?

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 7 replies

Saving water @ home

2008-04-26T11:31:10Z

What do you do? I reckon Melbournians and Australians have become very clever at saving water... what do you do?

I have a shower timer..
Put the plug in the shower and collect the water and put it on the garden...
Ye old favourite... when its yellow let it mellow, if its brown flush it down....
I have a special sink bucket in the kitchen for collecting the water when I wash vegies..
I put the rinse water from my washing machine on the garden.. (a full load is ten buckets!!!! Can you believe it! Good for my arm muscles) I used to do no rinsing, coz I use bio-degradable stuff.. but it wasnt good for the garden nor my skin... I need to get some wash balls again...

http://www.laundryball.com.au/ and a review of them... http://www.grownupgreen.org.uk/features/?id=802

I dont have a tank
Or a composting toilet.. (this is my ultimate goal http://www.biolytix.com/index.php)

Ive seen some other cool things at the enviro shop www.theenvironmentshop.com.au (I dont think this link it working) but they are in high street Thornbury/Croxton.... like big rubbish bins that have been turned into portable tanks...

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 9 replies

Renewable energy news

2008-04-26T09:50:35Z

http://www.energytoday.com.au

just one website I found.

Im really interested in the feed in tarrifs that SA are bringing in/ have bought in?? Similar to that in Germany where energy producers are obliged to buy energy generated by individuals at a set price, guaranteed for the next 20 years or something like that. This means that people are able to apply for loans to put in renewable energy generators because there is a guaranteed price, so more and more people, like farmers are going into business. I have seen some that generate methane from their cow shite and others who build solar energy farms etc. It has seen a huge expansion of especially solar energy generation in Germany... does anyone know anything about the SA model?

http://www.energy-business-review.com/article_feature.asp?guid=DB45E64D-EC78-41AD-9633-70209DECFA6E

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Melbourne Green Underbelly

2008-04-26T08:28:30Z

http://www.eco-shout.org/

Their catch cry.. "The Planet Needs You to Give a Shit'

GET INFORMED
issues
community action
green directory
green maps
green wash
GET A JOB
jobs
volunteer
education and training
GET ACTIVE
events
housing
hitch a ride
swap ya

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Environmental Jobs

2008-04-25T23:11:06Z

http://www.environmentaljobs.com.au/

this is where I found my last job.... took me ages but! (not sure the link is working at the moment)

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Bore Water Craziness

2008-04-25T23:08:52Z

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21189653-661,00.html

Wealthy bore round restrictions

Danny Buttler and Kate Rose

February 08, 2007 12:00am

MELBOURNE'S richest residents are dodging water restrictions by sinking bores in their gardens.
While most gardens are turning brown, those who can afford it are watering their lawns and topping up swimming pools from private bores.

But the move has caused tension within the blue-blood neighbourhoods, with some residents accusing bore-water users of selfishly exploiting Melbourne's dwindling water reserves.

And they are not the only ones worried.

Scientists have warned unregulated use of bores could result in permanent environmental damage.

A record number of bores have been drilled in recent months, with Toorak and Portsea among the hot spots.

More than 900 applications for new bores have been submitted since October, a huge rise from the yearly average of 12.

A Herald Sun investigation has found:

WATER restrictions could be expanded to include Melbourne's bore water users.

GROUND water use rose more than 200 per cent even before the drought.

EXPERTS have warned that unregulated use of bore water could deplete reserves and cause land subsidence.

BASS Strait oil rigs are depleting aquifers needed by Gippsland farmers.

Driller Mark McPherson, who is sinking a bore in Hopetoun Rd, Toorak, said he was booked up until Christmas, with most of his clients coming from Melbourne's wealthiest suburbs.

"We're flat out. There's a few in this street and in the area," Mr McPherson said.

"Toorak's very popular. There's money around."

The property owner, who did not want to be named, said keeping the pool full and the garden green was a priority.

"I want to save my garden," he said. "You can't stand around with a hose on a property like this."

Neighbour Don Maddocks said using bore water was not cheating.

"It seems a tragedy not to use it," Mr Maddocks said. "If we lose all the valuable trees and gardens in Toorak it would be a tragedy."

But across the road, resident Boyd Fraser was outraged at what he called short-sighted and selfish behaviour.

"What are people in the poorer suburbs thinking if they see Toorak residents with their lush gardens . . . it's not just his water, it's yours and mine," he said.

"There's thousands of residents in Toorak who have the financial resources to do this. Wow, what's going to happen if they all have bores?"

Top businessman Ron Walker confirmed he was among the elite to have drilled for water.

Southern Rural Water, which controls Melbourne's aquifers, said it had asked the Bracks Government to consider extending restrictions as a way of preserving precious underground supplies.

"The potential for ground water to be further explored and used as a resources is an active question under consideration," spokesman Graham Hawke said.

"The question we posed is whether there should be an extension of permanent water restrictions for all uses of water."

Mr Hawke said bores would create tension among the haves and have-nots of water use.

Flinders University hydrogeologist Craig Simmons said the impact of drilling bores may not become apparent until after damage had been done.

"No hydrogeologist could stand up in a court of law, put their hand on that book and say they are sure, we just don't know," Pro Simmons said.

Environment Victoria spokesman Paul Sinclair said the lack of regulation could lead to problems.

Water Minister John Thwaites approved bore water use in Melbourne, claiming it could ease pressure on dwindling drinking reserves.

"Those people who can afford to access bore water in these areas can do so," Mr Thwaites said. "In general we welcome use of alternative sources to take pressure off Melbourne's drinking supplies.

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Green Finance Markets

2008-04-25T22:54:49Z

http://gmarkets.wordpress.com/

This one is interesting... all about green financial market stuff..

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies

Greenpages

2008-04-25T22:44:55Z

http://www.thegreenpages.com.au

all manner of things to find here...

I just discovered Im a green collar worker.. Yippeee. That's so cool

posted in Aussie Sustainable Community - 0 replies