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 it from Green Living Tips.

With the financial crisis affecting our economy, it might be worth taking a look at the Fast Company’s list of Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade. It’s definitely something all teenagers making training and study decisions should be thinking about.

And on Australia Day, Sydney and Brisbane joined the UN’s Climate Neutral Network. They’ll be implementing a range of actions to reduce their carbon emissions and create green jobs. Since our federal government is taking the laziest possible climate action, I think it’s going to be up to our state and local governments to pick up the slack. Well done, Sydney and Brisbane!

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 house you need?

The average Aussie household only has 2.5 people living in it. But when I look in the new homes sections of the weekend paper, all I see are plans for homes with 4 bedrooms, a study, a home theatre, an outside kitchen and a pool room. There’s rarely a verandah, or even any eaves, so the sun just beats down onto our windows and makes our houses hotter while we turn up the air-con.

Block sizes are getting smaller, while houses are getting bigger. If you’re in a new suburb, there’s no room for a garden anymore, no room to grow any vegies or let the kids run around.

I’ve got a little 3-bedroom unit with a bit of garden. And yet cleaning it seems to be a never-ending chore (possibly because I am a slacker). The thought of having more rooms to clean, to keep cool in hot weather, to heat in cold weather, to make repairs to and decorate seems less like luxury and more like hard work!

It’s not very good for the environment: more roofs instead of lawn, more materials used to build, more cleaning products, more electricity to keep them the right temperature. I think we can do better. Since Australia has decided that smaller block sizes are the way to go with urban planning, why aren’t we going for the benefits of downsizing our houses too?

We need to rethink our ideas of what a happy home is, and what luxury really means. For me, it’s having a snug little place with enough room to cook a nice meal, put my feet up while I watch a bit of tv, and have a vegie patch. Anything more is a pain in the arse How about you? What’s your idea of a well-sized house?

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 on where they live and what’s got them in trouble:

1. Green and gold frog
2. Cassowary
3. Green sawfish
4. Yellow-footed rock wallaby
5. Red-tailed black cockatoo
6. Yellow-snouted gecko
7. Swift parrot
8. Golden sun moth
9. Woolly wattle
10. Bridled nailtail wallaby

Surely we can do a better job of taking care of our country? Find out more about these animals at the WWF site above – if there’s any near where you live, see if you can do something to give them a hand.

Image credit: Boaz Wibowo

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 that his goal is to save the world!

Honda has told the Rudd government that they should give better support to homeowners with solar panels, in the form of better feed-in tariffs. Meanwhile, Holden has announced that with federal support they’ll be opening a new factory to make fuel-efficient cars – diesels, small cars, and hybrids. This is good, in that it’s another 1200 jobs at a time when we really need them. But it’s slightly annoying that Holden is getting handouts for something Honda did all by itself a decade ago! (via)

As you know, I’m not keen on bottled water. However, if you’re in a situation where you must buy it, try to find some One water, which is a new ethical brand. 100% of their profits go to providing water to developing countries. This is a great cause, and hopefully One will be available widely soon. (via)

On Australia Day, you might like to join the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Save Our Icons BBQ campaign – the idea is that you have a bbq with your friends, and take a photo of you all holding a sign showing that you want to save the Great Barrier Reef, or Kakadu, or your own backyard, from the effects of climate change. Then you send it to the ACF, and they make sure that politicians get a copy of everyone’s pics.

Next week, Germany is hosting IRENA, a conference with the aim of transitioning countries to renewable energy as quickly as possible. Countries can sign a treaty outlining their obligations, but will then also be able to get help from other countries who have signed on. Since a quarter of a million jobs have already been created in Germany’s renewable energy sector, I think it’s silly for Australia not to get involved asap – but I can’t find any mention in the news of Australia signing up, or even attending the conference.

Finally, you might like to use this HDTV energy efficiency chart to see if your tv is an energy hog. Models from 2006 – 2008 are listed for you to compare. (hat-tip to Rick)

Have a great long-weekend! Don’t get sunburned!

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 a few suggestions:

• Ceiling fans and pedestal fans help cool you down by moving the air around. If you have one, you can use it instead of air-conditioning, as it’s less power-hungry. Try putting a bowl of iced water in front of a pedestal fan to give it an extra chill.
• Another pedestal fan trick is to use it to get rid of hot air trapped inside your house. The air is pulled from the back of the fan to the front, so if you need to vent in a hurry, point it towards an open window.
• Keep a little spray bottle filled with water in the fridge, and use it on yourself to cool down when you get home, or before you go to sleep.
• Eat a curry or something with a lot of chillies! They make you sweat, which cools you down. It’s worked for people in India and South-East Asia for centuries. Also make sure you’re drinking plenty of water to keep hydrated.
• Sleep in the backyard, if there’s a breeze. We loved doing this when we were kids – sleeping bags on the lawn, stars above.
• Take a cool or lukewarm bath or shower: very relaxing after a long day.

Have you got any other ideas? What did you used to do when you were younger, or what have you seen in other countries where it gets too hot?