Review: The World Without Us...

I’ve been reading The World Without Us, a book by Alan Wiseman which asks the question: what happens to the earth if human beings were to disappear? He starts small, looking at how long it would take for a house to decompose into it’s parts. It’s much shorter than you might realise! Although if you think about how much time we spend cleaning and maintaining our homes, maybe we get an idea of how much effort...

Review: Plan B 4.0 - how to save civilization...

Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown is just what I needed to read right now - everyone is talking about how our environment won’t survive if we continue with business as usual, but Brown is one of the few people talking about what we might do instead to create a sustainable future. He wants to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, and he’s got a plan… Brown is a respected, long-term member of the environmental...

Review: Ian McEwan’s Solar...

I recently finished reading Ian McEwan’s Solar, a novel about a Nobel prize-winning scientist who might just have the secret to abundant, clean energy for the world. I picked it up because it was highly recommended by a few people, but it turned out to not be my cup of tea. Ian McEwan writes literary novels, not sci-fi or action thrillers. Solar is a really well-written satire, with plenty of character development...

Review: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian...

I’m not a vegetarian, but I’ve been cutting back on the amount of meat I eat lately. As in my previous post on 6 ways to eat less meat, I like to have meat-free months or weeks to push me to learn new recipes. I’ve got a couple of specialty vegetarian cookbooks, but I’m at the stage now where I’ve tried everything in them that doesn’t seem too wacky. I’m ready to move on to something...

Review: Making Animals Happy...

I picked up “Making Animals Happy” by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson based on a review by Tim Flannery. It’s about the mental health of the animals we have in our lives, and what we can do to make sure they’re being treated well. You might have heard of Temple Grandin before: she’s an autistic woman who has pioneered research in animal behavior and farming. This book is written from...

Coal - a dirty business...

Did you see last night’s Four Corners episode, A Dirty Business, about coal mining in the Hunter Valley? If you missed it, it’s well worth chasing it up on their website or watching it on ABC’s iView. It was about the terrible health problems faced by people in the Hunter Valley who have gradually had coal mines surround their towns. Doctors have noticed that respiratory disease in the area is well above...

Green iPhone apps...

Photo credit: Yoink Not everyone has an iPhone or an iTouch, but if you do, you might not have realised that it can be quite helpful with your eco-friendly activities. At the moment, I’ve got 5 applications I use and enjoy that are better than the standard “get a green tip everyday” fluff. The bonus is that none of them rely on the iPhone - they have websites free for everyone to use if you like. 1....

Plantation toxins in Tasmania...

A scene from Something In The Water Did anyone else watch Australian Story on Monday night? It was about an alliance between a GP, a group of oyster farmers and a Sydney scientist, investigating water quality issues in Tasmania’s George River. The oyster farmers found that their business was suffering because of toxins in the water. A local GP believes there is a cancer cluster in the region her patients are from....

Review: No Impact Man by Colin Beavan...

You’ve probably heard of No Impact Man before - he’s the guy who spent a year trying to get his environmental footprint down to zero, and blogged about it. Some people reckon it’s all just a cheap stunt, others think it’s the way of the future. Now you can read his book (or see the documentary about him) and see if you think he’s on the right track or not, because in it he explains exactly...

Review: Avatar...

Like so many people, I went to see Avatar over the Christmas break. The plot was (overly?) simple, but it was a very pretty movie and kept me entertained for 3 hours. It could have done with being maybe 2 hours, but I guess that since James Cameron had worked so hard to make it look good, he didn’t want to miss any opportunity to show us the world he’d created! In case you haven’t already heard, the...