Stop compulsory acquisition in the Kimberley...

Just a quick note further to yesterday’s post about Colin Barnett’s land grab in the Kimberley region… GetUp are helping out Indigenous leaders with a petition to Premier Barnett, protesting his unconstitutional attempt to simply take privately owned land and give it to oil and gas companies. Please show your support for us here in the West by signing it and sending it on to people who you think would...

Now what?...

So what does it all this hung parliament stuff mean for those of us who care about the environment? As John Hepburn at Crikey points out, this was the second climate change election (after the 2007 effort) even though neither of the major parties wanted to address it. But the people wanted it on the agenda, and voted as if it had been. As I said yesterday, I think politicians don’t listen to us, and the media doesn’t...

How Jamie Oliver sways the naysayers...

I know a lot of you love Jamie Oliver’s take on seasonal food and the need to get people used to home cooking again. Last week Dave and I were watching his Food Revolution show, the one that’s similar to his previous UK shows School Dinners and Ministry of Food. In all three shows he tries to teach large groups of people how to cook and appreciate healthy food. The thing that struck us was how he dealt with...

Who else wants to stop oil drilling on our coasts?...

Last week, the Minister for Resources and Tourism, MP Martin Ferguson, approved an oil drilling plan for Margaret River in WA and Kangaroo Island in SA. I think this is a very foolish and underhanded decision, since those areas were both under consideration to be protected marine sanctuaries. Given that the possible consequences of this decision include a potential oil spill like the Deepwater Horizon in the USA, I can...

The coal industry’s death by a thousand cuts...

James Hansen and other scientists have figured out that if we want to get carbon dioxide emissions back to a safe level, we’ll need to stop using coal for electricity by the year 2030. This is a bit of a problem, given that in Australia 12 new coal plants have just been approved. I’ve been reading an article about how new coal projects have been slowed in the USA, called A messy but practical strategy for...

A lesson for the eco-friendly, learned from the Li...

I’ve been following the Liberal party’s meltdown about the emissions trading vote over the last week, mostly by following the #spill tag on Twitter and reading the updates at Larvatus Prodeo. It may end up having important consequences for Australia’s CPRS, but if not, it’s still revealed an interesting fact for those of us who care deeply about making a bright green future for Australia. The whole...

ReEnergise Australia...

Last night I went to a meeting of the Perth GetUp group, as part of their ReEnergise Australia campaign. It’s their latest effort to get cleaner energy happening in our country, as opposed to coal. The idea is to educate the public about how many jobs there are in emerging green industries, and campaign for our politicians to give more funding to renewable technologies, or even just cut all the coal subsidies so...

Kev’s Patch...

A couple of weeks back I posted about the Kev’s Patch campaign started by Darren at Green Change, which I heard about through Gavin. I thought it was a great idea and wrote an email to the Prime Minister about it, asking him to organise an organic vegie patch at his Canberra residence, The Lodge. Well, Darren and Gavin and I decided that if we wanted this campaign to take off, we’d need an official website....

Kev’s Patch...

Yesterday I read at Gavin’s blog about a push to get PM Kevin Rudd to start an organic vegie patch at The Lodge. I reckon this is a great idea! I’ve just sent Rudd an email to show my support for the plan. Gavin heard about the history of the idea from Darren at green-change.com. The first person to suggest it was Peter Cundall, the expert gardener from Gardening Australia. He came up with the idea before...

Earth Hour - cast your vote for Earth...

This year’s Earth Hour is being held at 8:30PM Saturday 28 March 2009. You can join in with people from 80 cities around the world just by turning your lights off for a single hour. The theme is “Vote Earth”. As the Earth Hour website says, for the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote. Switching off...