Queensland floods

Most Fridays I post links to interesting green things I’ve read during the week, but this week I’ve been glued to the news coming out of Queensland. It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal amounts: so much damage and loss, but so much courage and strength as well.

My understanding is that the floods are a semi-predictable occurance, caused by the La Nina weather pattern. Normally, the weather cell travels across the Pacific Ocean, picking up water, which is then dumped in rainfall when it gets over the Queensland coast. However, hot air can carry more water than cold air, so higher temperatures in and above the ocean mean that more water was dumped than we’ve gotten in the past. You can find out more from ABC’s Eye of the Storm program, which is available on iView still.

I’m really touched by donations coming from all over the world to help our Queenslanders, even from places dealing with their own burdens – Indonesia sent a million dollars, Sri Lanka has floods right now as well, but has sent us tea! Just goes to show that a sense of community and compassion still exists on the grand scale as well as locally.

Some of the most interesting things I’ve been reading about the floods are:

• Flood – written in Brisbane on an iPad by the light of a candle! This long blog entry from an architect doesn’t just talk about the events, it also discusses what it means to build a resilient city able to cope with disasters. Greenies often talk about resilience in terms of self-sufficiency and small communities – but we need to think bigger than that.
• Has Brisbane forgotten to build for The Wet? – population increase and short-sighted development have led to cookie-cutter development instead of building to the features that make Brisbane unique.
• Building codes and protecting your home from flood damage – a video interview with some useful tips for the future.

Mostly I’m reminded of the Green Cross’s Build It Back Green project that started after the devastating bushfires there. The cost and effort of rebuilding so much of Queensland will be huge – but it’s also an opportunity for people to build to suit the hot weather and occasional massive water dumps, instead of generic homes that are only designed to give more money to property developers.

Best of luck to everyone affected by these devastating floods. If you haven’t donated to help them out already, please visit the Flood Relief Appeal site and chip in whatever you can.

Make your stimulus payment greener

Over the next three weeks, most Australians will be getting a $900 stimulus payment from the government. The idea is to keep the economy from stagnating as we all buckle down to save money during the recession.

Personally, I think the money would have been better spent on infrastructure like renewable energy, public transport, hospitals and education. But since the household payments are going to happen, it’s a good opportunity to look at how you can spend windfall money in the most useful way.

For a lot of people, the money will go straight to paying the bills, credit cards and mortgage. You can’t go wrong with that!

But if you’ve got your regular budget all sorted, consider spending your stimulus payment in a way that helps green your life and boost the green jobs sector.

The Greens MPs blog has a post from Senator Scott Ludlum on eco-friendly ideas for spending the money, along with the rebates for eco-friendly equipment you can buy. For example, once you take the rebates into account, a Western Australian can get a mid-sized solar hot water system installed with their $900. The end of the post has lists of rebates in other states.

Other ideas include:

• a new bike
• insulation for your house
• some eco-friendly fashion
• a complete vegie garden
• a rain-water tank
• a small greywater system
• an electricity-use meter

For myself, I’m not sure yet if I’m going to spend it on roof repairs (so we can get a solar hot water system up there safely), a dual-flush toilet (our house didn’t have one when we bought it) or waterwise fittings for all our taps and the shower.

How about you? Got any green plans for your free money? What eco-friendly improvements haven’t you made because you couldn’t afford them before? Leave a comment with your ideas!

Quick bit of news

Just thought I’d mention another project I’m working on now: I’m blogging for G Magazine! Each month G Magazine has an eco-challenge for all their readers: things like not using takeaway coffee cups or bottled water. They’ve asked me to write about how I’m going with the challenge a couple of times a week.

I’ll still be posting here twice a week, but if you want to join in the G Challenge, please come on over to the newly re-designed G Magazine website and look me up! There’s other blogs there too, about science, home and garden, travel, etc, all with an environmentally-friendly perspective. Their new site also has news and longer feature articles, and looks pretty spiffy!

Meanwhile, in more national news, PM Rudd has gone on the record saying that reaching 450ppm of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is necessary to stabilise our climate. This brings him in line with many environmental groups (I’d still like to see 350ppm though!). It’s particularly good since Garnaut seems to think that only 550ppm is politically achievable. Rudd knows that 450ppm is necessary, and is on the record about it – that gives us something to hold him to when the details of his ETS come out.

Quick links

So, what’s been going on in the last week?

Online:

PM Rudd has signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea, partnering up to reduce deforestation. I found out about this via Larvatus Prodeo, an Aussie political blog. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, give LP a look. They do semi-regular posts on environmental issues in Australia, have knowledgeable commenters and links to good resources. There’s a fair bit of funny snarking involved, too.

Treehugger has put out another of their excellent How-to guides: How to Green Your Rental. I know that before I bought my own home, it was hard to figure out what I could do since things like solar panels and greywater systems were out of the question. Treehugger has 10 ideas plus plenty of resources for anyone who hasn’t gotten sucked into the mortgage trap.

Offline:

The latest issue of G Magazine is out: articles on green home renovations, cosmetics and what the world would be like without oil. I’m going to pass it on to my sisters so they can read the article on having greener kids’ birthday parties, and there’s some good competitions and interviews as well.

I also picked up the autumn issue of GreenPages magazine. GreenPages is a directory of green products and services in Australia, available in print as well. I expected the magazine to be a bit light on articles and heavy on the ads, but there were good interviews and some good recipes too. Hard-core greenies will find it a bit light, but people newer to eco-friendliness will get a lot out of it.

Live Earth, Sydney

[Note: it seems like some subscribers to this blog are receiving repeats of old posts - sorry! I'm working on fixing it asap.]

Live Earth concerts are happening around the world today. The Australian one is in Sydney, featuring the John Butler Trio, Crowded House, Missy Higgins, Wolfmother and other music acts (news.com.au has the entire line-up online).

G Magazine interviewed some of the artists appearing: some told about what they were doing to make their tours greener (Missy Higgins buys green power for the venues and uses hybrid vehicles); others said that they hadn’t previously done much for the environment but saw this as an opportunity to change the way they usually worked (Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil and the Ghostwriters, Neil Finn from Crowded House).

The Sydney event has hired a green consultant, Michael Molitor, who is working with the ACF, WWF, Greenpeace, Origin Energy and Ticketek to create new environmental standards and guidelines for mass events.

The Sydney event asks people to sign a 7-point pledge, which includes:

• asking politicians to join international treaties to stop climate change;
• taking personal action to reduce their own CO2 emissions;
• calling for a moratorium on new coal plants that don’t have capture technology;
• working to get greater energy efficiency in all products;
• asking for laws and policies that support renewable energy while reducing support for fossil fuels;
• planting new trees and protecting existing forests;  and
• buying from environmentally-friendly and humane businesses.

The pledge is wider-ranging than I expected – I thought it would be more of the usual “change a light-bulb” stuff.  I’d like to know if the pledges are different in different countries, as European countries have already signed Kyoto, and I imagine the average person in Brazil has less to do to reduce their carbon emissions, but maybe more to worry about from the destruction of the Amazon rainforests.

The concerts are being shown on cable tv today, but I’m not sure if any of it will be shown on free-to-air channels.