Fresh green links...

So what’s been on my radar this week? I know a lot of you are interested in solar power feed-in tariffs, so you should probably get on over to feedintariff.com.au and sign their petition to replace the individual state tariffs (which are pretty random) with a proper national system. Their aim is to create a simple system that will encourage more people to go solar. I’ve signed up already, having heard about...

How much room do we really need?...

Last week I read a great post by Megan at Before Our Time: When parents didn’t need retreats. Megan wants to renovate her house (originally built in 1919), but everyone wants to sell her extra bedrooms and home theatres, which she doesn’t want. Megan looks into what a typical older house was like, and how they started getting bigger. But I agree with her - surely there’s got to be a limit to how much...

Save an Aussie Battler...

This Australia Day, WWF Australia is announcing its own Australia Day Honours list - the top ten Aussie Battlers of 2008. Australia has over 300 animal species threatened with extinction, and over 1200 plant species facing the same problem. And half of the animals that have gone extinct in the world over the last 200 years have been Australian. Here’s the WWF’s list - check out the link above for more info...

Fresh green links...

I’ve got more links than usual today, to keep you going over the long weekend: Firstly, there’s an interview with Stephen Chu, Obama’s new energy secretary, on the Science Show from Radio National. It’s available as an mp3 you can listen to, or a transcript you can read. Chu looks like an exciting pick for the new President’s team - he’s a Nobel Prize winner who says in the interview...

How to beat the heat without relying on air-con...

On Monday we talked about keeping our houses cool so we didn’t have to turn on the air-conditioning so often. When we do turn it on, it’s recommended to keep it at about 24 degrees so we’re not using extra power to turn our houses into fridges. But Australia is just a very hot place, so we’re going to have to come up with alternatives if we are going to try to reduce our reliance on air-con. Here’s...

How to keep your house cool in this heat...

At the moment most Australians are suffering through a heatwave. It’s a typical Aussie summer, with very little relief expected until March! These days I wouldn’t dream of going through summer without air-conditioning. We do need it sometimes, but anyone who was a kid in the 70s or earlier knows that we used to cope without it just fine. And in some places we’re relying on our air-con so heavily that...

Fresh green links...

A few things I found interesting this week: John Quiggin responds to the idea (most recently floated by Sen. Barnaby Joyce) that Australia’s emissions are only 2% of the world total, so why bother doing anything about it. Quiggin calls this the litterbug argument, where some people feel ok dropping chip packets on the ground because it ‘won’t make any difference’. Quiggin also points out that if...

The home planet...

Earthrise from Apollo 8, via wwwworks at Flickr Many astronauts have commented on how seeing our planet from a distance made them feel differently about the environment, poverty and war on Earth. I find their thoughts inspiring and thought-provoking. A quote I came across recently: After eighteen days of a space mission I was convinced that all visible space—the black emptiness, the white, unblinking stars and planets—was...

8 ways to stop impulse spending...

Impulse buys: we all do it, and we all know we shouldn’t. Our quality of life is so much better when we only buy useful, beautiful things that we value, instead of whatever’s cheap and convenient. Think about it: we’ll save money and time if we stop buying things without thinking it through. Good-quality items will last forever instead of breaking right away. And it’ll help the environment if we...

Fresh green links...

So what’s new in the world of environmental action this week? Take a look: How cute! Endangered fairy penguins are being guarded by sheepdogs off the south coast of WA, to protect them from foxes and wild dogs. You can read or listen to a radio segment Dogs Take Vow To Serve and Herd from NPR too. (Any particular reason this wasn’t reported much in Australia? I reckon it’d be a great feel-good story...