Category: Climate Change
Seeking sustainable homes to open for Sustainable House Day
FREE EDO WORKSHOP: How to Have Your Say: NSW Coastal Management reforms
Caldera Environment Centre will host a free EDO NSW workshop in Cabarita to explain the new draft framework for coastal management for NSW and how the community can have their say and respond to the reforms.
Late last year the NSW Government released the coastal management reforms package proposing new laws and significant changes to the way NSW coastal areas will be managed. A draft Coastal Management Bill, Explanation of Intended Effect from the proposed new Coastal Management State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP), and key elements of a draft coastal management manual are currently on public exhibition until 29 February 2016.
The workshop will address what the reforms mean for the coastal environment and how the community can get involved.
World Climate Change Rally
CEC on Geo-Engineering, Fluoride, EMR, nano-particles etc
The Caldera Environment Centre
The CEC is a serious environmental organisation and is concerned with tangible environmental issues such as land-clearance, illegal development, and enforcement of environmental regulation. The current energy being devoted to issues such as geo-engineering, chem-trails, fluoride and other conspiracy theories is not something we support in any way at all. The CEC was embarrassed to learn that our latest World Environment Day event we had people promoting these ideas, they were not invited and applied under false pretences and will be excluded from future events.
Ultimately, the issues of fluoride, vaccines and geo-engineering are a DISTRACTION and saps the energy of people on the left. If we united behind a common cause and became motivated we can move mountains. We proved this with the anti-CSG campaign. However, while we chase red-herrings with issues like Fluoride as a collective movement we will achieve nothing but ridicule.
Time to get the economics of environment right
Ross Gittins
You get the feeling Tony Abbott doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about what our economic activity is doing to our natural environment.
In which case, those of us who do care about ecological sustainability – including many Coalition voters and, in all probability, Abbott’s successor, whether Liberal or Labor – will have a lot of catching up to do.
The market isn’t capable of ensuring we don’t stuff the environment and thereby stuff the economy.
This looks like being true of our excessive contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions. But it also applies to the more mundane problems of protecting and restoring our degraded land, water systems and native flora and fauna.
A Win for The Environment in Hague Court
Marjan Minnesma, Director of Dutch NGO Urgenda.
Just under a month ago, Marjan Minnesma stood weeping with joy in a Dutch courtroom, as three judges handed her and nearly 900 co-plaintiffs a resounding victory in their battle to force the Netherlands government to adopt more stringent climate action targets.
Now she is in Australia with a simple message: the courts might be able to deliver citizens what intransigent politics cannot.
Her legal victory is garnering interest around the globe, with “a wide variety of people in Australia contacting me for help”, she says.
“Hopefully our case will give people courage to do something similar; those three judges deserve the Nobel prize because they did something that is going to make a difference – they knew it would be a landmark case all over the world.”
Reduce Energy Use in the Home
By Andy Yeomans (from his presentation at the W.E.D Festival June 7 2015)
Whilst renewable power generation and storage are rapidly becoming cheaper in dollar terms, they still require significant resources. We should not be wasting any resource so energy efficiency is still very important.
Two main aspects of this are:
Lighting & Appliance Efficiency and
Passive Solar Design or what I prefer to think of as ‘working with nature for building comfort’.
Most of you probably have some awareness of appliance efficiency.
With lighting, halogen is marginally better than the old globe, florescent much better and LED by far the best and getting better.
Danish climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg’s “Consensus Centre”
The University of Western Australia announced last Friday that it would no longer house
Danish climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg’s “Consensus Centre” – a fantastic outcome for science.
Unfortunately, Lomborg’s Centre is still trying to establish itself in Australia, and this is deeply troubling. We’re concerned that the Centre would be focused on spreading misinformation presented as fact. This article http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/the-low-down-on-lomborg outlines those concerns and we invite you to share it with your networks.
Organic Farming Changes Agriculture from a Huge Carbon Source to a Carbon-DESTROYER
Posted on April 30, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog
From Source of 35% of All Carbon Worldwide to Carbon Sink
Science China Press reports (via the American Association for the Advancement of Science):
Approximately 35% of global greenhouse gases (GHGs) come from agriculture. Some argues that human can reverse global worming by sequestering several hundred billion tons of excess CO2 through regenerative, organic farming, ranching and land use. Increasing the soil’s organic content will not only fix carbon and reduce emissions, it will also improve the soil’s ability to retain water and nutrients and resist pests and droughts.
To mitigate GHG emissions and retain soil fertility, organic agriculture might be a wise choice for decreasing the intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, protecting environments, and further improving crop yields. Recent research showed that replacing chemical fertilizer with organic manure significantly decreased the emission of GHGs. Organic farming can reverse the agriculture ecosystem from a carbon source to a carbon sink. [i.e. organic farming ties up and binds or “sequesters” carbon, instead of emitting any carbon. In other words, organic farming pulls carbon out of the environment and locks it in the soil.]
Shutting off Tap Water: Revenge of the Rainforest
by Robert Hunziker / February 27th, 2015
From Dissident Voice
Imagine this scenario: The following is a Public Service Announcement by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Water, July 4, 2015: Because of low water levels in state reservoirs, the Division of Water proclaims a statewide water-rationing program. Starting next month, on August 1st, 2015, water service will turn off at 1:00 P.M. on a daily basis for an indeterminate period of time. Service will return the following morning.
Now, imagine a city the size of the State of New York with its 20 million people subjected to the same water-rationing plan. As it happens, São Paulo, capital city of Brazil, home to 20 million, is such a city. The water is turned off every day at 1:00 P.M., as reported by Donna Bowater.1
Building Resilience and Limits To Growth: Nicole Foss
We are approaching many limits to growth over the next decades: Economic contraction, peak energy and geopolitical stress. Nicole Foss explains how the deflationary dynamics that always follow finance and property bubbles will rapidly impact individuals and communities, while the longer acting forces of peak oil and climate change will limit the nature of any economic recovery. So how can we adapt?
Climate Change in the Tweed- Greg Reid
Message From Yasser at: TweedCAN <info@tweedcan.org.au>
Date: Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 12:31 PM
Tweed Climate Action Now member Greg Reid sent us a report he compiled on the impact climate change has had on the Tweed Shire in the last 5 decades.
I’ve included it below, and as an attachment. It’s well worth reading.
[See pdf: Climate-Change-in-the-Tweed_GregReid ]Please consider doing something about climate change. Here are two simple things you can do: