Go Greener, Australia

The winning ad in the Oz in 30 Seconds competition has been announced: This is what we Australi-ARE. It’s about what Australians are and hope to be, and it includes “clean and green” as one of our aspirations, with an image of wind-farms in the background.

When I saw the finalists, I thought this one was a strong contender for first place. I like it - it’s simple, but clear in it’s statement of what we should be thinking of when we vote later this year. Take a look at it on the site, so that when you see it on TV later this year you can tell everyone you saw it online first

Last night the ABC aired The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary that claims nature, not humans, is causing climate change. ABC Science Online has a debunking at The-Great-Global-Warming-Swindle Swindle which explains the science in layman’s terms. If you really want to nerd it up, you can see more details at RealClimate.org and the Australian Science Media Centre.

I’m not sure why the ABC aired such an out-of-date documentary: Tim Flannery suggested it’s for ratings, while Crikey.com.au believes it’s due to political pressure.

Studio Debate
I was more interested in the studio debate after the documentary was aired. Tony Jones hosted a panel of scientists, industry leaders and media people. They covered the science, the UK response to the doco, and the business response to global warming.

Prof. David Karoly (climate scientist) and Prof. Bob Carter (geologist, denialist) had most of the discussion, arguing over statistics and data. Karoly had a lot of energy and evidence, while Carter repeated points from the film which were easily rebutted. Ray Evans (Lavoisier Group, denialist) ranted about how pathetic the coal industry is to cave in to the environmentalists - Dr Nikki Williams, representing coal interests, gave him a killer look at that point! She’s in favour of preventing global warming, but her main aim was good PR for the coal industry.

Then it was time for questions from the audience. Unfortunately, many of the people in the studio weren’t there to debate or ask questions, they just wanted to air their own kooky theories (Larvatus Prodeo has the YouTube video of it). There were rambling statements about carbon-14 isotopes from a creationist; and a few people saying that all environmentalists are into eugenics - I’m told they’re followers of a guy called Larouche. My favourite was the student (of astrophysics, music and “physical economics”, another Larouche-ian) who rambled incoherently about Johannes Kepler and Plato. The more sensible audience members asked panelists to clarify things they’d said earlier, or made statements about how they’re not scientists but they believe the planet is getting warmer and they’d like someone to fix it, please.

After the debate, Lateline interviewed Dr Carl Wunsch, a scientist who says the documentary misrepresented him. He had his comments cut from the film, and has threatened legal action against Durkin. I think he was naive to not check what he was contributing to before being interviewed, because Durkin already has a reputation for dodgy “science” and misrepresenting people on film. Wunsch is certainly wiser now.

It was an interesting night of tv, but I don’t know that it’s had any benefit for the Australian public. The denialists are still convinced there’s a left-wing conspiracy, and those of us who are more sensible will still be switching our light-bulbs and recycling our rubbish.

Are you sick of the negative campaigns run by politicians during election season? If so, you’ve got something in common with the members of GetUp!.org.au. They decided that this year the public should have their own political ads describing what they want for Australia’s future. They’re running a competition called Oz in 30 Seconds, where people make their own 30-second advertisements about political issues (campaigning for specific parties was not allowed). The winning video will be shown on tv in Australia during the election campaign.

It’s too late to submit your own entry, but there’s still time for you to rate any of the videos now up on their site. The 8 highest-rated and the 2 most-viewed videos become the shortlist of 10 advertisements which will be judged by a panel. The winning video will be announced on 1st August, so make sure you get your votes in before then.

There are plenty of ads about the environment and climate change. Other topics include the Iraq war, WorkChoices, housing affordability and social justice issues. Most of the ads are of good quality, and some are pretty funny. Check out the videos and let Oz in 30 Seconds know which ones you like best using the “Watch and Vote” page.

Some of the environmental ones I like so far are Seeds of Tomorrow, One Does, and They’ll be stuffed, featuring some cute stuffed animals. If you find any environment ones you like, why not leave me a comment with a link to it?

Carbon Cops is a new show on the ABC at 8pm on Tuesdays. I thought it might be too similar to SBS’s Eco-House Challenge, but it has a different format, more like “Green Eye for the Carbon Guy” than the long-term challenge of the SBS show. The show sends in two “Carbon Cops” to audit a family’s energy use, help them make their house more efficient, then challenge them to cut their carbon emissions by 50%.

This week’s family, the Barries, thought their emissions would be average, or better than average, but found out that they create more than 4 times the emissions from an average Australian family. They switched their lights, made their fans more efficient, used a compost bin instead of the “insinkerator” (what the kids call the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink), walked to school and shopped locally. I thought the father didn’t change much of his lifestyle - I would have liked them to recommend teleconferencing or video-conferencing to him. But maybe his job wouldn’t allow it.

They found they weren’t going to meet their challenge target because of the father’s previous air-travel - but they got around this by using carbon offsets for his travel and car. I’m a little concerned that they just bought their way out of that problem, but it would have been a disappointing show if they hadn’t met their targets! They also switched to GreenPower, which is a great move. At the end of the show little graphs show the reductions of emissions and the money savings.

I thought the show was more serious than Eco-House Challenge, possibly because they don’t show the personalities of the family since there’s a new one each week. If that’s the case, maybe the presenters will grow on the audience. The website is pretty good, with fact-sheets for each episode, a carbon-emissions calculator, a quiz and summaries of each episode.