A Greener Heart for Adelaide

Reposted in full from The Adelaide Review, November 2009

'How serious are the government and developers of Adelaide about creating a sustainable city?

Amanda Ward spoke to several experts who would like to see a greener heart in Adelaide.

The Adelaide Central Market is an icon for locals and tourists alike, not so much for its built form but for the cornucopia of fresh produce that is contained within its heaving halls on market days.

However, viewed from above, the picture is a stark one. Acres of corrugated iron roof stretch over the building from the redbrick arches on Grote Street to the Gouger Street frontage, absorbing heat and mercilessly reflecting it back into the city environment.

It seems a shame that a building that has an internal focus on the fruits of the earth cannot have a “greener” exterior. Although the structure of the building would not support a green roof development in its current form, both final year landscape architecture student Claire Bottrall and Ben Willsmore, landscape architect and Associate at Hassell can envisage a market that is as green on the outside as it is on the inside.

Claire says her studies revealed many social, environmental and economic benefits to creating elevated landscapes within the CBD. Her final submission says that “the Central Markets provide an opportunity to develop a rooftop garden … that is centrally located, easily accessible, open to the public and already a pivotal element of Adelaide culture.”

Ben Willsmore, Associate at Hassell, prefers the term “Living Roof” rather than green roof, explaining that building owners stand to benefit from choosing this alternative style of roof through economic savings associated with reduced heating and cooling requirements, water cleansing and a reduction of pressure on the stormwater system, not forgetting the “feel good factor” for employees working in the building.

Amy Reed, a horticulturist at Hassell, adds building owners must consider what they want to achieve before embarking on what is a significant investment, albeit one that will ultimately pay for itself in energy savings and environmental benefits.

“Stormwater runoff can be mitigated by holding water in the soil profile and in the plants themselves rather than seeing the water lost to stormwater and water quality coming from the roof will also be improved.

“A green roof can contribute to reducing the heat island effect by cooling what is otherwise a harsh and hot environment. Air quality is also improved by the transpiration of the plants.

“Creating natural habitats in the “concrete jungle” will increase biodiversity in the city and specific species can be attracted by planting for certain habitat requirements. Roof gardens can also provide havens for people or be used to grow productive plants on a residential or commercial scale.”

Not only people who use a green roof building benefit from it. Occupants of buildings overlooking a roof garden enjoy a calming aesthetic far more pleasing to contemplate than the usual bristle of air-conditioning towers and expanses of tar. The plants can even reduce sound reflection and transmission from the building, lowering the volume of hubbub in a city.

Ideally, a number of these criteria can be combined and the benefits naturally follow. Structurally speaking, the decision on what sort of living roof to build will affect design choices regarding the substrate type and depth, plant choice and design. Issues such as wind strength and direction must also be taken into account as they can be amplified on a roof.

Adelaide will get its first serious look at a green roof in December when the Adelaide Zoo opens the new entrance precinct and panda development which features three green roofs and two green walls. Melbourne already has several examples of green walls and roofs including the green wall in the foyer of the Lend Lease building and the walls and roof on the CH2 building.

Overseas, the city of Portland, Oregon has embraced the green roof principle along with cities in Germany, Switzerland and Canada. Could it be possible that one day when you go to buy a lettuce at the Central Market you’ll be asked to wait while the greengrocer pops upstairs to pick it?'

Addiction to Growth Economics

Excerpt from Montreal Gazette via Canada.com, 10 February 2008

'Picture a drunk so far gone that he's bent on drinking himself sober.

It's much like the behaviour of governments and central banks in Canada and the U.S. in the face of a looming North American recession, suggests Robert Costanza.

In response to an economic downturn caused by excesses of debt run up in pursuit of over-consumption, the banks have slashed interest rates and governments have cut sales taxes and offered tax rebates in hopes that people will spend more on stuff and services and thereby boost the economy back to full-throttle growth. Heaven forbid they should invest it in savings; it would be the ruination of the whole scheme.

"It's crazy, insanity," said Costanza, who is director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. "Insanity means doing the same things and expecting a different result."

It would seem not the best of times to be pushing the cause of ecological economics, of which Costanza is a prime mover.

He and his eco-economist cohorts preach against the classic doctrine of the dismal science. It disputes the long-standing assumption that the measure of a nation's economic health and well-being of its society is a steadily growing gross national product. They argue that traditional economic accounting doesn't factor in the cost of resource depletion and environmental damage involved in sustaining a perpetually burgeoning GNP.

In other words, the production of ever more "goods" is actually not a good thing. At worst, it's said, it could ultimately lead to the end of the world as we know it

One of those saying it is Richard Heinberg, whose book Peak Everything is a recent addition to the growing bookshelf of eco-economic treatises: "We in the industrial world have gradually accustomed ourselves to a way of life that appears to be leading toward a universal biological holocaust. The question is, shall we choose to gradually accustom ourselves to another way of life - one that more successfully integrates human purpose with ecological imperatives - or shall we cling to our present choices to the bitter end?"

And yet the measures invoked by authorities in response to the recent economic turbulence are depressingly old school, and precisely the kind of thing that's driving us toward a bitter end, said Costanza.

He maintains that the general quality of life hasn't significantly improved over recent decades of GNP growth during which only the relatively few really rich got a whole lot richer and the rich-poor gap steadily widened.

"In that sense, you could argue we've been in a recession since 1975 in terms of real quality of life and real general welfare. What we need is a quality of life stimulus package, not an economic growth stimulus package."...

"What we're getting is, let's spend more, let's get more money back to people so they can spend it to buy more stuff, stuff that in a lot of cases they don't really need," said Costanza.

Ecological economists readily admit that they have no instant solutions to offer and generally agree that the transition to an economy in sustainable harmony with the environment would have to be a gradual process involving profound changes in public attitudes as well as government policies and industry standards.

What frustrates them is that the current economic reflex is to go for the quick conventional fix: pump up the economy by getting people to buy more stuff. At times like this, environmental considerations tend to get shorter shrift, said Kent Gustafson, a Nova Scotia environmental consultant and president of the Canadian Society for Environmental Economics.

"When times get tough, people tend to get more short-sighted and take a conservative approach. In good times, when people have money, they're more inclined to environmental protection. When things go bad, that traditionally goes by the wayside."

The temptation to inject a faltering economy with a shot of conventional growth stimulant is hard to resist, said York University economist Peter Victor, another contributor to the eco-economics library with a new book called Managing Without Growth.

"It's a bit like a drug addict who needs a fix. The short-term problem for drug addicts is they need more of what they're addicted to, even though it's what's killing them in the long run. But it's hard to hold it back from them because it's the obvious short-term cure.

"We do have to attend to the short-term crises because people's lives are really hurt by these downturns. But it's also reasonable to say that fixing them through the traditional measures of just stimulating more economic growth is going to exacerbate other problems which might be even more difficult to solve in the future."...

Gustafson says he finds that the eco-economic message is getting across, however gradually, both with governments and the greater public. He notes that federal and provincial environment departments are strongly represented at his society's conferences and that the bulk of his professional work consists of pure ecological economic consulting for governments.

"I find people are getting away from consumption for consumption's sake and looking more to the quality of what they're consuming. We've made strong inroads into natural resources and environment departments, and we're seeing an ever-increasing demand for our services."
He and others of the ecological economics school suggest that an economic downturn could actually be helpful to the movement if it serves as a wake-up call that the system in its present configuration is broke and needs a different kind of fixing than has traditionally been administered.

"On the bright side, often it takes a major shakeup like this before alternatives really get full consideration," said Costanza.

"I don't want to have another Great Depression, but if we can learn from more minor shocks to move the system to a more sustainable form, then so much the better. The best-case scenario would be a period of mild disruption where there's enough disruption for people to see that things are really not working and that it could all fall apart."

Even so, what change there is in the direction of ecological economic policy and action is painfully slow in coming, said Victor.

"There are lots of good ideas around, but the speed at which they're picked up and acted on is depressingly slow..."'

Explorations of the Localisation of Money

Short course essay by Sophia van Ruth of the Schumacher College [and my friend!], UK, February 2008

http://animatearts.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/localisation-of-money.pdf [218 kb]

The Technological Mind

Excerpt from Culture Change, 13 November 2009; my emphasis in bold

'The driving force behind the anthropogenic destruction of Planet Earth is locked inside our skulls. Neuroscientists are just beginning to identify the neural networks of the Technological Mind, but one thing is certain: the irresistible impulse to use tools is the product of natural selection over the last 1.5 million years, and so it is probably more deeply ingrained than even our impulse to use language. Our most tool-savvy ancestors were the ones who best survived the daily threat of predators and who were able to exploit food resources that were out of reach for their hapless untooled neighbors. A feedback loop between tool use, survival, and reproduction drove the evolution of the species in the direction of complete dependence on technology. As descendants of those clever animals, our evolved brains find it difficult even to imagine life without technology.

And so our Technological Minds drive us daily to use tools to do virtually everything we want to do, often to the point of pathological compulsion and environmental devastation. When a large proportion of 7 billion Technological Minds has access to vast tool kits of energy-guzzling, polluting, and dangerous technologies, it is entirely predictable that the nest will sooner or later become fouled. That fouling is abundantly evident today in the form of global warming and climate change, habitat loss, species extinction, and the poisoning of the soil, water, and air—all products of the technological way of life.

An interesting thing about the human mind, though, is that it is capable of astonishing flexibility. Even the relentless Technological Mind must have some room for alternative decision-making and action. This raises the question of whether there are people who intentionally resist the tidal wave of technotoys that floods our lives, or whether just about everyone is mesmerized by the junk technology of our times...'

The Incredible Edible Wall

Reposted in full from 12 Degrees of Freedom [and New York Times], 19 November 2009

'In most ways, the Barthelmes Manufacturing Company is a typical sheet metal fabricator. Five days a week, machines here stamp out thousands of computer cases, electrical patch panels and other items for companies like United Technologies.

Yet a growing part of the company’s business is being devoted to something decidedly unindustrial: edible walls — metal panels filled with soil and seeds and hung vertically.

They may sound like a piece of Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory. In fact, they are the latest development in green roof technology. Like green roofs, edible walls include a thick layer of vegetation on the outside of buildings to provide insulation and reduce heating and electricity costs.

But unlike green roofs — and their vertical cousins, green walls — edible walls also produce fruit, vegetables and herbs in far less space than typical gardens. That’s why advocates of urban farming have embraced them as a way to lower food costs, increase nutritional quality and cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions by using fewer delivery trucks.

“The traditional metal fabrication industry is shrinking, and green is an emerging area,” said Larry Lehning, the chief executive at Barthelmes, whose sales of green products have doubled this year and make up 15 percent of the company’s revenue. Edible walls — descendants of espalier, or trees grown against walls that were popular during the Middle Ages in Europe — are just one small attempt to grow food in cities. For instance, Valcent Products builds greenhouses filled with hundreds of trays of hydroponic vegetables stacked on conveyor belts. Sky Vegetables hopes to build commercial farms on the flat roofs of hospitals, schools and food banks.

Dickson D. Despommier, the director of the Vertical Farm Project at Columbia University, envisions entire skyscrapers turned into indoor farms capable of growing 100 different crops.
All of these solutions, though, require large investments and considerable technology. Edible walls, by contrast, can be built for a fraction of the cost, do not need computers or greenhouses and require far less maintenance.

The leader in this niche area is Green Living Technologies, another company in Rochester that has built edible walls here, in New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit and elsewhere.

“Instead of bringing food to the city, we’re bringing the whole farm,” said George Irwin, the chief executive and founder of the company. “What we’re implementing is back to basics.”

The idea for the edible wall, which is often portable and hung from a structural wall, was inspired by Mr. Irwin’s young son and daughter about five years ago. Mr. Irwin, who was installing green roofs and green walls, was asked by his children if they could plant some lettuce seeds in a wall. Not expecting much, Mr. Irwin plopped the seeds into the soil in a panel that he was using for a sloped green roof. A few days later, they sprouted.

Mr. Irwin saw the potential for these vertical planters in cities where space is tight and food costs high. They can be hung in backyards, parking lots and other spots. He has sold them mostly to homeowners and schools, but he hopes to persuade restaurants and supermarkets to buy them so customers can pick their own food.

Uninterested in being a manufacturer, Mr. Irwin has contracted with Barthelmes and other companies for 2-foot-by-2-foot stainless steel and aluminum panels and other products.
The panels have intersecting slats inside that create 24 cells for seeds to be planted. The slats have long holes in them so roots can migrate between the cells, strengthening the soil and plants.

Mr. Irwin, who has an online column as the Green Wall editor, holds two-day seminars where landscape designers pay $800 to learn how to install products made by Green Living Technologies. One of the nearly 500 resellers is Kari Elwell Katzander, a landscape designer in New York City. She comes up with designs for her customers and then calls Plant Connection, another of Mr. Irwin’s partners, which recommends plants to grow and then cultivates them for two to five months at its nursery on Long Island.

In early November, Ms. Katzander installed three panels, each four inches deep, for Brad Zizmor, who has a backyard deck at his first-floor apartment in Manhattan.

Ms. Katzander and Plant Connection decided on 10 plants, including strawberries, lettuce, chives, oregano, parsley, rosemary and thyme. The panels, which weigh about 50 pounds each when filled, were hung on a wooden wall that surrounds the deck.

To irrigate the plants, a quarter-inch hose with tiny holes was draped across the top of the panels and attached to a larger hose. Ms. Katzander figured out how often to feed the plants to avoid runoff and to ensure that the plants would not be too dry or wet.

“What’s nice is you can be surrounded by the food you’re eating,” Mr. Zizmor said.

Mr. Zizmor is considering whether to keep several panels cultivating on Long Island so he can swap them out each season.

At about $125 a square foot, or $500 per planted panel, plus more for design, delivery and maintenance, edible walls do not make sense for every home, or even cities where there is open land.

Still, Mr. Irwin has shown that edible walls can work on a larger scale. At four locations in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, there are walls with more than 4,000 plants growing: tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, spinach, leeks, even baby watermelon. At one location, a homeless shelter, residents tend to a six-foot-high, 30-foot-long wall, eating some food they harvest and selling the rest.

The project, urban farming advocates say, is just the start of something larger.

“We have 30 miles of rooftop in New York City and maybe 3,000 miles of walls,” said Paul Mankiewicz, the executive director of the Gaia Institute in New York. “It’s basically about maximizing the productivity per square foot.”'

Personal Action, Political Action

Spotted in the most recent Urban Ecology Australia newsletter...

'The frequent reduction of sustainability to worthshile instrumental actions - like stormwater management, organic farming or recycling - is doing "the cause" harm.

Such actions reduce sustainability to 'off-the-shelf' simple solutions and technofixes, and while they may be worthwhile acts of damage limitation and may deliver useful knowledge, they are not securing the ability to sustain.'

Tony Fry, EcoDesign Foundation, 2001

Wildcat Strike 27-28 November

Excerpt from Adbusters, 29 October 2009

'Buy Nothing Day was a radical concept when we first introduced it 20 years ago. It struck a blow against the very heart of our consumer culture. For the first decade of its existence it had a profound and sweeping effect, shining a light on the dark side of consumerism at a time when the world was largely oblivious to its insidious effects. Year after year it fired up the world’s imagination – inspiring its fair share of sympathy and solidarity, resistance and mockery. I remember people laughing their heads off at the sight of my BND button. But somehow, as the years wore on (and despite the fact that last year it was celebrated in 65 countries around the world), the day seems to be losing its edge. Now, as humanity faces crises of ecology, psychology and faith, the time has come to rethink the day, to reanimate it with new intensity, purpose and scale.

This year we’re calling for a wildcat general strike. On November 27/28 we’re asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding – if only momentary – halt. We want you to shut off your lights, your televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off your computer for the day. We’re calling for a Ramadan-like fast. From sunrise to sunset, we abstain en masse. Not only from shopping but from all the temptations of our five-planet lifestyles.

Instead we’ll feed our spirits and minds with a feast of subversive activities: pranks, shenanigans, credit card cut-ups, bicycle swarms, mall invasions and all manner of culture jams and creative détournements … and some of us will take things even further with sit-ins, demonstrations, passive resistance and acts of nonviolent defiance, anarchy and civil disobedience...'

The Money Fix

From The Money Fix

'Money is at the intersection of nearly every aspect of modern life. Most of us take the monetary system for granted, but it has a profound and largely misunderstood influence on our lives. THE MONEY FIX is a feature-length documentary exploring our society’s relationship with the almighty dollar.

THE MONEY FIX examines economic patterning in both the human and the natural worlds, and through this lens we learn how we can empower ourselves by redesigning the lifeblood of the economy at the community level. The film documents three types of alternative money systems, all of which help solve economic problems for the communities in which they operate.'

Hurry Up and Slow Down!

Speed yoga?! What is the world coming to! Road runner living; marinated in the culture of speed; living the fast life, not the good life - brilliant phrases!

Stuck in fast forward? Slowing down in a world built for speed - TED Talk by Carl Honore



Excerpt from Care2, 22 November 2009

'...Around the world, groups are organizing around taking a slower, more conscious approach to food, to community, to living. The Slow Movement began in 1989 in Italy as a a reaction to the fast pace and disconnectedness of modern life. The movement espouses conscious, connecting action in all areas, including: Travel, Schools, Food, Books, Living and Money. Best known is the Slow Food movement, which promotes whole food, locally grown, cooked from scratch and enjoyed at leisure, as an antidote to our modern life disease of "hurry up-itis". This is a very appropriate wish, given the marathon dinner that many of us will sit down to on Thursday.

Out of Slow Food grew the Slow City movement. Last July, scenic Cowichan Bay in British Columbia was named the first official Slow City in North America. What's a Slow City? From the Slow City (aka Citta Slow) website, to become fully accredited: "No town or city with more than 50,000 residents may apply to be called a Slow City. The Slow City manifesto contains 55 pledges or criteria, grouped into six categories upon which cities are assessed; environmental policy, infrastructure, quality of urban fabric, encouragement of local produce and products, hospitality and community and Citta Slow awareness." The Slow Cowichan website puts it best: "While many cities focus on creating bigger, faster, newer, shinier and sexier infrastructure..a cittaslow community focuses on quality of life for its neighbourhoods, people and environment." Good local food, pedestrian-friendliness, and community spirit, support for local businesses: how strange that these qualities are not at the heart of all cities and towns.

There are 'certified' slow cities in 16 countries, from South Korea to Turkey to the Netherlands; larger cities, which do not qualify for the label, are also looking at these quality of life issues...'

Real Simple Economics

Common Security Clubs helping people to reconnect after a time of 'you're on your own' economics...

Excerpt from The Nation, 18 November 2009

'Chuck Collins, co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, describes the difference between this financial crisis and those of the past.

"The risk of this economic crisis is that people stay isolated, hunkered down and afraid," Collins says. "What's different from the serious economic crises of the past is the much greater potential for fragmentation and isolation - because we've lived through a couple generations of 'you are on your own' economics. So the idea that we can trust any kind of shared response is broken."

That's why in January 2009 the Institute for Policy Studies piloted Common Security Clubs to break through the isolation, and bring people together to learn, help one another increase their economic security, and ultimately take political action. The clubs are not an effort to turn away from government, in fact they are in part an effort to develop the skills and solidarity needed to advocate for a government that work for the common good.

"It's a way to organize the vast, anxious, unconnected public," Collins says. "It's really important to get people together, away from their isolation, and the sense that they should figure this out on their own. Learning together--people learn the economy is not a weathered event here, people caused this economic crisis, this could have been prevented. Now we have to get active to make sure this doesn't happen again."

There are now over one hundred clubs, averaging fifteen to twenty people, across the nation - with clusters in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Over 900 groups or individuals have requested the facilitator guide and other club materials but IPS doesn't have the resources to track everyone. Some religious and community groups have used the materials to go in their own direction.

"It's sort of taken off and has a life of it's own," Collins says.

The clubs are all founded on three key principles: learning together, mutual aid, and social action. Every two weeks a round-up of good learning resources is circulated to participating clubs. It might include anything from a good Bill Moyers' interview or a Jonathan Schell piece in The Nation, to a story of a rent party with a band or an effort to weatherize one another's homes to cut fuel costs, to ideas for political action. Members have helped one another network for jobs, strategize personal budgets, and find ways to be more frugal. They barter services - for example, swapping yard work for childcare or computer skills for language lessons. They have lobbied Congress on legislation to stop foreclosures, protect consumers, and rein in Wall Street...

It's that combination of radical simplicity that is so appealing. And as radical as it might seem first glance, it does have roots in our recent history. Certainly our ancestors, and immigrants, have relied on helping one another, building community, in order to lead productive, secure lives. Collins also speaks of the Depression, when people formed sewing circles, threw rent parties, started soup kitchens.

"Now, more people are disconnected," he says. "We don't live near each other, the exurban community - there is a foreclosed house, next to a house where people are doubled, tripled up in it, next to another foreclosed house. People are at home watching TV. There used to be more connection between people - our mutual aid muscles are a little out of shape. We need to get them back in shape. It's a necessary precondition for a healthy democracy."...

Several women lived through the Depression," he says. "They have all kinds of skills that the younger people in our group are hungry for - how to preserve food, how to do canning, how to mend clothing, and prepare simple, low-cost meals that are healthful. They have all kinds of domestic arts skills that society stopped valuing. Our younger people are excited to learn from them..."

Stuff-a-lanche! Time for a Cultural Diet

You HAVE to read this! I defy anyone to not recognise at least part of themselves here! I too have the long list of books on the 'to read' list...a very witty, but also very insightful post.

Reposted in full from The Guardian, 5 October 2009

'I'm fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain. I can't possibly read all these pages, watch all these movies, before the grim reaper comes knocking. The bastard things are going to outlive me. It's not fair. They can't even breathe.

The other day I bought a DVD boxset of Carl Sagan's astronomy epic Cosmos: by all accounts, one of the best documentary series ever made. On my way home, I made the mistake of carefully reading the back of the box, where I discovered it has a running time of 780 minutes. Thirteen hours. It's against my religion to only watch part of it – it's all or nothing. But 13 hours? That's almost a marriage. The sheer weight of commitment is daunting. So it sits on the shelf, beside similarly unwrapped and unwatched obelisks. I'm not buying these things for myself any more. I'm hoarding them for future generations.

DVD and book purchases fall into two main categories: the ones you buy because you really want to watch them, and the ones you buy because you vaguely think you should. Two years ago I bought Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, partly because I'd heard it was a good book and an easy read, but mainly because I figured reading it would make me cleverer – or at the very least, make me seem a bit cleverer to anyone sitting opposite me on the tube. I never read it. A few months ago, having forgotten I already owned a copy, I bought it again. This means I haven't read it twice.

And I haven't read it (twice) because it's got too much competition from all the other books I've bought but never read. Popular science books. Biographies. Classic works of fiction. Cult sci-fi and horror stories. Reference works. How-to guides. Graphic novels. I can't buy one book at a time: I have to buy at least four. Which makes it exponentially trickier to single out one to actually read. When I buy books, all I'm really doing is buying wall insulation, like a blackbird gathering twigs to make a nest.

Ditto DVDs. Scenes From a Marriage and The Seventh Seal – two well-regarded Ingmar Bergman films I bought during a short-lived fit of self-improvement. I should have thrown them in a bin on my way home from the shop. It's hard enough to choose between the two: am I in the mood for a lyrical 92-minute meditation on death, or an unflinching three-hour portrayal of a dysfunctional relationship? Neither, as it turns out. They'd only be interrupted by emails and texts anyway. Perhaps something more lightweight? They're sitting on the shelf in-between JCVD (a post-modern Jean-Claude Van Damme film) and season two of Entourage. I've never seen those either – partly because I feel guilty about not having watched the Bergman films first. Somehow I've purchased my way into a no-win situation.

Clearly, some sort of cull is in order. It's me or them. I pick them. My options need limiting. Last week I watched the first part of Electric Dreams, the 1900 House-style TV show where a family lives with old technology for several weeks. For episode one, they were stranded in the 1970s, with no internet, no DVDs or videos, and only three channels on the TV. It's fair to say the kids weren't massively impressed. It was all a bit Guantánamo for their liking. But to me the limited options looked blissful. You couldn't lose yourself online, so if you didn't want to watch Summertime Special or World in Action, you had to read a book, go for a walk, or in extreme circumstances, strike up a conversation with a fellow human being.

But it wasn't just the limitations of the media themselves that appealed. This was 30 years ago. Fewer things had been created for them. Every day we humans gleefully churn out yet more books and films and TV shows and videogames and websites and magazine articles and blog posts and emails and text messages, all of it hanging around, competing for attention. Without leaving my seat I can access virtually any piece of music ever recorded, download any film ever made, order any book ever written. And the end result is that I hardly experience any of it. It's too much. I've had it with choice. It makes my head spin.

Here's what I want: I want to be told what to read, watch and listen to. I want my hands tied. I want a cultural diet. I want a government employee to turn up on my doorstep once a month, carrying a single book for me to read. I want all my TV channels removed and replaced by a single electro-pipe delivering one programme or movie a day. If I don't watch it, it gets replaced by the following day's selection. I want all my MP3s deleted and replaced with one unskippable radio station playing one song after the other. And every time I think about complaining, I want a minotaur to punch me in the kidneys and remind me how it was before.

In short: I've tried more. It's awful. I want less, and I want it now.'

Sad or Cute? Hermit Crab Makes Home in Broken Bottle

Excerpt from Good.is 19 November 2009, via TreeHugger:

'We aren’t sure if this is in the wild, or someone’s pet crab to whom the owner gave an offering of a broken bottle as shelter. Either way, it’s kinda cute and kinda frightening...'

Where is Future Growth in GDP Going to Come From?

Excerpt from Geoff Garver's EcoBlog 29 October 2009

'Most forecasts for the world economy, world energy supply and demand, climate change and the economy and so on assume that economic growth will march on. The Stern report on climate change and the economy said it would “not be unreasonable” to assume the world economy will grow by 2% to 3% this century, based on historical growth. So, what does this growth look like?

... if the economy is going to go from $61 trillion in GWP in 2009 to somewhere between $450 and $1100 trillion in GWP in 2100, what kind of energy and material throughput are we talking about? What kind of ecological footprint, if we are already overconsuming the Earth by 20%? For anyone who thinks runaway banks and credit derivative swaps are the major problem facing the world (and that kind of financial shenaniganism is a HUGE problem, yes), take a close look at these graphs. They tell the story of the real crisis we are facing.'

The Weight of a Polar Bear

Good for shock value - not sure this is the right approach for engaging people. I was repelled by how graphic this is, and can't imagine what this will do to people who are becoming aware, or to younger viewers.

An Economy Fit for a Low Carbon World - The Pre-COP Earthcast

3.30am Oz time, unfortunately...

From Earthscan, 20 November 2009

Wednesday 25 November 2009
5.00pm GMT, 9.00am PST, 12.00pm EST

>> Can economies be redesigned for a low-carbon future?
>> What opportunities does the financial crisis present?
>> Is a constructive agreement likely at Copenhagen?

Tim Jackson developed the first Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare for the UK (a ‘green GDP’) in the 1990s, and is now one of the most influential advocates of worldwide economic reform.

Focusing on climate change mitigation and happiness as measures of economic success, his recent book Prosperity Without Growth ‘has already begun to redefine the debate about how to achieve a future of human and planetary well-being’ (Juliet Schor, Boston College) and we are thrilled to provide you with this opportunity to debate the issues online.

In this special pre-Copenhagen Earthcast the expert panel will examine the challenges that lie ahead if current economic systems are to support the development of a low carbon future, and will be answering your questions submitted during the event.

Tim Jackson will be joined by Robert Costanza, contributor to the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2010 and ecological economist Peter Victor for a debate that will explore ways of reorganising economies so that emissions reductions and well-being are prioritised.

Tim Jackson is Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission, Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the ESRC Research Group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE).

Robert Costanza is the Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, USA.

Peter Victor is an ecological economist, author of Managing without Growth, and Professor in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada.'

Viral Marketing Success Story‏

Alright - this is both goofy and GODDAMN annoying!



BUT - its been effective in terms of viral [pardon the pun!] marketing - nearly one million hits in six months!!!!

Anyone who is working to be a 'meme engineer' or change agent or influencer should be dissecting these kinds of things and using the criteria eg.

1. uses existing cultural reference [the song]
2. rhymes and mantras [word 'riffs']
3. goofy and annoying!
4. new perspective [from the pigs]

Investment In Ecosystems Will Reap Rewards: UNEP

The Ecological Society of America and CSIRO were doing work on this ten or more years ago!

Still concerned about REDD/carbon/forests/applying market principles to a situation where it is the system conditions that need to change/how this plays out for developing nations...

Reposted in full from Planet Ark, 20 November 2009

'Nations that take into account natural resources in their investment strategies will have higher rates of return and stronger economies, a report backed by the United Nations' Environment Programme said on Friday.

With less than one month until a UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the report urges policymakers to reform their economic policies to stop the destruction of natural resources such as forests and oceans.

"Repairing the ecosystem by replanting forests, restoring mangroves along coastlines or rebuilding coral reefs are very smart ways of doing adaptation. People going into Copenhagen are not necessarily aware of these things," Pavan Sukhdev, the leader of the study prepared by UNEP's Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Initiative, told Reuters.

For example, planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves in Vietnam costs over $1 million but it saves over $7 million in dyke maintenance expenditure.

The report estimates that investment in mangrove and woodland restoration could achieve rates of return up to 40 percent, tropical forest investment up to 50 percent and grassland investment 79 percent.

"We studied the economics of using nature better - through adaptation and restoration. In each case we found the benefits exceed the cost, typically between 3 and 75 times," Sukhdev said.
Brazil, India and Indonesia emerged as leaders in leveraging natural capital, while Korea has also got good plans, Sukhdev added.

"Governments need to pay attention to this report and start looking at nature in a more holistic way," WWF director Gordon Shepherd said. "With smarter approaches to economics this can change but right now we are paying for their ignorance."

The report also calls for reform to subsidies which harm the environment. The worst subsidies are for fossil fuels, which total between $240 billion and $300 billion a year globally.

Global fishery subsidies, which amount to $34 billion out of a $90 billion market, should also be reformed to prevent the collapse of fisheries around the world.

Measures to combat deforestation, which accounts for almost 20 percent of current greenhouse gas emissions, should also be given priority.

Under a UN-market based forestry scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), rich countries reward developing nations for preserving forests to prevent emissions through the use of an expanded carbon market.

REDD+ expands the idea to protection, restoration and sustainable management of forests.
Several nations want to see REDD incorporated into a new global climate agreement.

"REDD+, as well as ecological restoration, need to be given a bit of a fillet through the Copenhagen process. These are the first two steps on the ladder. When these get going then a lot else will fall in place," Sukhdev said.'

Bystanders or Upstanders?

...also applicable to sustainability!

Are you a bystander, or an upstander?

From The Word Spy, 20 November 2009

n. A person who takes action, particularly when the easiest or most acceptable course is to do nothing. [Cf. bystander.]

The examples of local "upstanders" (as opposed to bystanders) lead to exhibits that explore larger, history-making conflicts and the consequences of the action, or inaction, that followed. The result is a powerful, 90-minute tour of what it means to be a positive member of a multicultural society. —Robert L. Smith, "Exhibit on diversity shows there's work to do: Global Village," Plain Dealer, October 22, 2009

Related Words:
actorvist community animator condo commando lactivist upshifter

Australian Heatwave In Carbon Trade Battle

Excerpt from Planet Ark, 20 November 2009

'Australia's government demanded on Thursday that conservative rivals stop opposing carbon trade laws, citing a heatwave searing the country's biggest cities as evidence of Australia's vulnerability to climate change.

With Australia on bushfire alert, the government said record temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) across three states this week showed the need to act urgently against climate change.

"November this year has seen a long and intense heatwave across much of southern and eastern Australia. The trend is absolutely clear, the climate is warming," Assistant Climate Change Minister Greg Combet told parliament.

The opposition is negotiating changes to the government's carbon trade laws, which will be voted on next week in parliament's upper house Senate, but some opposition members are not convinced that human activity is driving climate change.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said negotiating with the opposition was like dealing with a mediaeval court.

"It is as if we are back into the trial of Galileo or something and they are simply arguing somehow that the science is fiction and that they alone, in their own prejudiced universe, occupy fact," Rudd told parliament.

The government wants carbon trading to start in July 2011, covering 75 percent of emissions in what could become the second domestic trading platform outside of Europe.

The ETS legislation was rejected by the Senate in an earlier vote this year and a second defeat would give Rudd a trigger for a snap election.

Senior conservative lawmaker Ian Macfarlane said he expected a deal with the government by next week, despite up to 30 rebel opposition MPs promising to vote against the scheme.

"I'm negotiating on the basis that by the time the Senate rises at the end of next week, he (Rudd) will have what he is demanding, but it will be on our terms," Macfarlane told radio.

The government, short of a majority in the Senate, has been negotiating changes with the main conservative opposition bloc to secure seven extra votes needed to pass the carbon laws.

The government has already bowed to a key opposition demand to permanently exclude agriculture, which accounts for around 16 percent of Australian emissions, but the opposition also wants more concessions for coal miners...'

Chinese Taxis

The scale of China is mind boggling...

From Planet Ark, 20 November 2009

'Taxis line up to get their tanks filled on a viaduct in Chongqing municipality November 19, 2009.

A gas shortage that has hit central and eastern Chinese provinces will give a small boost to gasoline sales by China's oil duopoly, as slower gas supplies force taxis to gas stations, industry officials said on Thursday.'