Fresh green links

Traditional owners take nuke dump fight to court – people from Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory are having a nuclear waste dump forced on their land, but are fighting back every way they can. If you’d like to give them some support, check out the ACF’s Dump the Dump campaign.

The Plastiki arrived in Sydney this week – after sailing from the US to Sydney via the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This Lateline report has a video interview with the crew. The boat is in the National Maritime Museum now, if anyone goes to see it let us know what it’s like.

Kimberley gas rig operator to drill without spill plans – utter madness. Does Premier Barnett *want* to spend months cleaning oil off of turtles and water birds and whales? Once again he shows that he thinks WA is nothing more than a quarry. If you’d like to help prevent this, Save Our Marine Life has the details.

Bike repair vending machines – what a great idea! Bits and bobs for patching tires and so on, easily accessible to people while they’re out and about.

The first digital map of all the world’s fresh water – amazing stuff, you can select whether you want to see glacial systems, rivers, wetlands, etc. The professor who set it up hopes it’ll be used to get a better idea of the impacts of how we treat our river systems (via Worldchanging).

Swapping songs in the night – we’ve talked about clothes swaps before, but how about CD swaps?

Greenpeace activists shut down dozens of BP fuel stations in London – they locked off the petrol pumps and put signs up saying the station had “moved beyond petroleum”.

Back soon

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve been very busy, and also my internet connection has been shaped so I’m not spending as much time online (the horror!). I’ll be back with more posts next week – I hope you’re all doing well, I’m looking forward to chatting again soon

Green news/events blogs?

Can you help me? I’m trying to make a list of regional eco-news or events websites across Australia, and would love to hear about any that you read, or that you write for yourself.

For example, O2WA is Wilma’s blog and among other information about sustainable design, she posts about any environmental issues that are specific to WA. Plus she runs the Perth Green Drinks, and lets us know about any other green events that are happening.

Everyday Eco in the ACT is a similar blog run by Dixiebelle, who you might know from her Eat At Dixiebelle’s blog. It covers things that are happening in Canberra that anyone with an interest in green living might want to go to, as well as eco-friendly places you might like to visit.

Are there any others that you know of? I’m not looking for blogs or websites where people give tips or stories, or websites for a specific issue or campaign. It’s the local news and events side that I’m particularly trying to find today.

It’d be great if we could find at least one per state and territory, and even better if there were one for each of the regional areas as well as the capital cities. And obviously, the more the merrier! I’ve been searching for them, but it’s harder to look for stuff when I don’t know the area as well as I do my own.

Fresh green links

Climate spending promises: beware of cashed up politicians – a look at what’s happened to previous clean energy and climate research programs this decade. Often a lot of money is allocated to programs that then don’t spend it, and they eventually disappear. PM Gillard is releasing Labor’s revamped climate policy today – I’m not sure what’s in it yet, but I’ll take a look at the competing climate policies next week to see how they measure up.

Coles no longer accepts pork from producers who use sow stalls – this ban doesn’t extend to ham and bacon products, but I’m hoping this intermediate step leads to more action in the future. If you’ve not seen a sow stall before, there’s a picture in the article, or you can check out Save Babe.com.

Prioritising plastics: the key to kicking the oil addiction – Treehugger.com says that although we really need to stop using disposable plastic stuff ASAP, the durability and longevity of plastic can help in other cases. For example, the part-plastic hippo water roller has helped women in Africa get their daily water more easily and safely, bringing them out of poverty because they’ve got more time to do something else. A good rule of thumb is given at the end of the article. An interesting take and one I agree with.

Rivers of Ice – amazing photographs and videos of glaciers in the Himalayas. There are interactive versions where you can compare old photographs of the same area to the ones taken for this exhibition. Via Metafilter.

Bike branding moves to the mainstream – US group People for Bikes asked a marketing group to help them come up with some ads and a logo that would show that cycling isn’t just for the lycra warriors. I really like the ads, nice to see marketers using their powers for good, not evil!

What if David Attenborough was your grandfather? – a funny song over at Ecorazzi by British comedian Doc Brown. It’s called “Grandpa Dave” and is about how cool it would be if Attenborough was your grandad.

And finally another funny bit from Ecorazzi – this Tesla (electric car) licence plate says it all.

Where to find secondhand furniture

Last week I asked about how to find secondhand furniture and a bunch of you gave me some really good answers and tips. I really didn’t expect as much of a response as I got, thanks so much!

You might have skipped the post if you (like me) didn’t know anything about the best way to get some furniture the eco-friendly secondhand way. So I’ve summarised the info here because I think it’s really useful. I was only thinking about op-shops, but there are lots of other options too.

• Linda and Jane recommended looking at garage sales. They said to get up early, and keep an eye out for sales that are by people moving interstate or overseas, because they’re more likely to be selling perfectly fine furniture that they just don’t want to move a long way.
• Reyna and Jane suggested eBay.com.au as well. I didn’t know this, but you can set up a permanent search so that you get an email when something you’re looking for pops up in the listings – that way you don’t have to be checking every single day. Very handy!
• Nikki suggested Gumtree.com.au as another option. It turns out they have a homeware/furniture/outdoor category, and you can search by your city area. Just looking at my area now I’m seeing dining tables, beds, coffee tables and lots of good stuff. You can sell on there as well if you’re getting rid of something.
• Tanya is brave enough to go looking at the tip. We all know that people throw away perfectly fine stuff, and sometimes local councils send them stuff from the verge collections if they don’t know what to do with it. I might keep an eye out next time we’re there for other reasons.
• Wilma gets in before the local councils and checks out the verge collections in her area when they’re on. She’s found some good stuff this way for free, which is a price you just can’t beat.

Thanks again to everyone who commented. I really value the little community we have here of people sharing their knowledge – it’s fun to see people pipe up about their area of expertise