Go Greener, Australia

On Friday night I went with some friends to the Sustainable Home Show at the convention centre. There were mostly the same exhibitors we saw last year, with a few new products and services. As always, the WA government’s Sustainable Energy Development Office booth was good, with free thermometers, magnets and compasses to give away.

The new product that caught my attention was an LED bulb to replace halogen lights. As you might already know, halogen bulbs aren’t that great for the environment: they’re low voltage, but that’s not the same as low-energy, and they waste most of that energy in heat instead of light. But compact fluorescents aren’t always a good replacement for them, as they don’t respond to dimmer switches as well, and have larger bulbs. This is where Bright Green come in - they offer LED bulbs that look and perform similarly to halogens, only much more efficiently. They are supposed to last at least 30 years!

I would love to see a larger show next year. The equivalent sustainability shows in Melbourne and Sydney seem to be much more varied than we get here.

In other product news, I also saw on the weekend that Target now has a GreenSource organic label, with t-shirts and jeans for men and women made from organic cotton. GreenSource is a US company with an established organic process. Each product has a number on it’s tag, which you can enter in their website to track where and how the cotton for that product was made. Each step of the production process is covered: growing, spinning, manufacturing and design. Target also has brochures explaining the process, and giving other tips on how to reduce the environmental impact of your clothes (washing, drying, recycling).

I didn’t buy anything from the range, because I didn’t like the women’s shirts on offer and don’t need new jeans at the moment (my organic cotton ones from Just Jeans are still going strong!). But the guys shirts were more appealing: I wanted to buy Dave the one that says “I (heart) tree-hugger chicks”. I didn’t see if there was anything for kids in the range. But I hope it’s a success and they continue it - having an open and accountable certification process is really something now that marketers have caught on to the possibilities of greenwash!

If you’ve bought either of these products, please give us a mini-review in the comments!

Hello again! I’m sorry I’ve been silent for so long - I’ve been having hosting and domain trouble, but it’s all better now. I’ve taken the time to do some research into environmental issues, catch up on some reading, and have a few new ideas for the blog. But for now, here’s a quick recap of what I’ve found interesting since the last time I posted:

The Budget
The Rudd government handed down it’s first budget, and it was certainly interesting. For us greenies it was a mixed bag: more money for renewable energy, and the development of a proper emissions trading scheme, but also more money for clean coal, introduced means-testing for the solar PV rebate, and all sorts of whining over petrol prices. Some comments on it from The Greens, Gavin from The Greening of Gavin, and an interesting discussion over at Larvatus Prodeo about the solar PV rebate.

Gunns Pulp Mill
Just in the last few days there’s been some interesting developments on the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania. The ANZ has decided not to lend Gunns the money for it; Premier Lennon has stepped down and been replaced by Bartlett, who says he won’t give public money to the water pipeline Gunns asked for; and GetUp has started a “Let’s pulp it” campaign to warn other investors off the project.

Other smaller items

• Tassie Devils and polar bears have both been placed on the endangered list.
• Tim Flannery has come out in favour of geo-engineering, saying that if things get very bad with climate change we may need to dump sulphur into the sky to keep out the sun’s rays. I’m not keen on this idea at all - it seems about as bright as releasing cane toads to get rid of pests. But if we don’t change our ways soon, we may not have a choice but to try it.
• A new brand of Australian organic wool has been released - good news for me, as I’m a knitter on the lookout for eco-friendly products.

And last, but not least… An Inconvenient Truth is going to be turned into an opera. Why? I have no idea. But why not, I suppose!

So what’s Al Gore been up to lately? One of the things he’s been doing is giving a presentation at one of the TED conferences: these bring together “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers” in the areas of technology, entertainment and design. Other speakers have included J.J. Abrams, the creator of TV’s Lost and Alias; entrepreneur Richard Branson; physicist Stephen Hawking; and biologist E.O. Wilson. Other speakers are not famous - they’ve simply done something extraordinary in their community and want to share their story. They’re all asked to spend about 18 minutes giving the talk of their life, something Gore is already familiar with.

Gore’s recent talk is an update on his famous slideshow that was made into the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. In it, he covers recent evidence for climate change, the fact that Australia has now signed Kyoto and how our drought affected public perception of climate issues, and the coverage (or lack thereof) of climate change in the current US presidential race. As always, he doesn’t shy away from the hard facts, but manages to be inspiring. He follows up with a Q&A session where some hard questions are asked of him.

You can watch the presentation on the website, or download a video or audio version here: New Thinking on Climate Change. His earlier (2006) talk can be found here: Averting the Climate Crisis (with a transcript so you can read it if you haven’t got time to watch it).

The TED conferences have had quite a few talks on environmental issues, which you can see listed here: A Greener Future? The talks that I particularly liked apart from Gore’s were Majora Carter’s “Greening the Ghetto” and William McDonough on “The Wisdom of Designing Cradle to Cradle”, but I haven’t watched them all yet. The non-environment talks are well worth checking out too - philosophers, entertainers and scientists all speaking about whatever makes them passionate. I don’t always agree with them, but they present a challenge to us all to think creatively when trying to solve complex problems.

It’s been two years since Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was released in cinemas, and I decided to watch it again to see how it holds up. I bought the DVD, which has environmentally-friendly packaging: a slim cardboard sleeve instead of a hard plastic case, and the wrapper was biodegradable. Apparently a tree will be planted for each DVD sold, although I didn’t look into the details of that.

If you missed it first time around, I really recommend giving it a look. When I first saw it I was already interested in climate change as an issue (saw it at an ACF fund-raiser), but Gore’s presentation really clarified what the problem was, and what it’s consequences are likely to be. He uses clear and powerful graphics and photographs to explain what’s going on, and shows a wry sense of humour in his delivery. The director also decided it would be helpful to see how a man like Gore went from Vice-President of the USA to presenting slideshows to community groups, so we see an outline of Gore’s life and he explains his motivations. Altogether, it’s a very inspiring package - even if you were already convinced of the importance of the issue, Gore’s can-do attitude will give you a motivational boost.

The DVD also includes two commentaries which I haven’t listened to yet, plus an update from Gore on the evidence shown in the movie. The update presents more recent (2007) details of ice-cap melting, drought, flooding, and the impact on the oceans, again with powerful photographs to really bring home the consequences. It’s a bit more scary than the movie! Gore also recently gave an updated talk at the TED conference - more links and details on that soon, as I think it’s worthy of it’s own post.

What critics said

At the time, critics said the movie was preaching to the converted. It’s true that climate-change deniers won’t be convinced by the evidence on show here, since they’re not really interested in evidence anyway. But I don’t think this documentary is aimed at ‘the converted’ either. I think it’s more for the 80% of people (well, that’s a rough guess for Australia) who report in surveys that they care about the environment, but haven’t participated in any direct action or made changes to their lifestyle. Gore wants them to realise the urgency of the issue and take action, especially political action. As Gore found out, few politicians will do anything unless there’s votes in it, so he’s asking us to put it on the table as something we want addressed.

Climate-change deniers also came up with lists of supposed errors in the information presented. These have all been debunked, and most are based on willful misinterpretation of the movie. Actual climate scientists were only critical of the documentary in that Gore presents the average scenario, rather than the worst possibilities. This raises the question of how best to present important information, but I think they’d be satisfied with the update in the DVD extras.

We already have the solutions

What I get from An Inconvenient Truth is a reinforcement of the idea that we already have the tools to fix climate change. We don’t need to sit around waiting for new technology or a silver bullet solution. Gore illustrates the concept of stabilisation wedges very well: if we need to make 50% reductions in carbon emissions, then 10 different solutions that each achieve a 5% cut will work just as well as one magic 50% reduction. This applies when we’re working on reducing carbon emissions from our home: energy efficient appliances, plus turning them off at the wall, plus a solar hot water system, plus using Green Power sources will get us a pretty significant reduction in emissions. The same approach will work on a national and global level, if we get off our butts and make it happen.

And now that I’ve said I approve of making multiple small changes, I’m going to be inconsistent and quibble about the “what you can do” recommendations shown during the movie credits. Switching lightbulbs really is important: it’s an easy first step that lets people dip their toes in the water and see that it’s fine. But after someone has just shown you ice-shelves collapsing and climate-change refugees in distress, it doesn’t *feel* like enough. Later in the credits, vague suggestions about political action are given, but I think more specific ones would match the impact of the movie better.

Perhaps this just feels inadequate because the public has moved on a bit since the movie was released. But I credit a lot of that shift in public perception to key figures in the media (Kochie on Sunrise, Margaret and David on the movie show, etc) seeing the movie and using their influence to promote it and push the issue as one of importance, so there you go. I bet Gore would be love his movie to be successful enough that one day it becomes hopelessly outdated as we all move towards a bright green future. Already we’ve got a lot of people making small changes in their homes to ‘help the environment’, and it was definitely a political issue in the federal election last year. An Inconvenient Truth got the ball rolling, but now it’s up to Aussie environmentalists to keep the momentum going.

PS: I haven’t done movie reviews before, but I’d like to do more this year. If there’s a movie with an environmental theme that you’re interested in, but aren’t sure if it’s worth spending your time on, leave a comment with it’s title. I’ll take the hit for the team then report back if it’s any good If you’ve seen one you think is great, leave a comment too and I’ll add it to my list.

Thanks everyone for being patient while I sorted out my blog hosting. Sorry, subscribers: I think you got a test post that Wordpress sends out automatically upon install. Anyway, on with the new content…

The other day Wilma from O2 mentioned that The Australian Consumers’ Association is starting a campaign against greenwashing in our supermarkets, and you can help by letting them know of any bad examples you’ve seen.

Choice Magazine, which is run by the ACA, checked the environmental claims made on 185 products found in supermarkets. They compared them to this list from TerraChoice about the different ways companies can try to make their products seem greener than they actually are. You can read their report here: Green claims on supermarket labels.

Luckily, only a small percentage of them actually lied on their products. However, many of them are making vague, unsupported claims that don’t amount to much more than a way to make us feel all warm and fuzzy when doing our shopping. They don’t break the rules, they just hope that we aren’t doing our homework. This leads to a perception that we’re doing a lot to help the environment, when maybe all we’re doing is lining the pockets of marketers. Meanwhile, companies going to a lot of trouble to do the right thing will get lost in a crowd of pretenders.

Choice is starting the Green Watch campaign to make the standard for ’self-declared environmental claims’ applicable to all green claims instead of only being voluntary. They also want the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to get tough when enforcing the Trade Practices Act for green claims, and for the government to get their legislation up to date with the newer phrases being used (like sustainable or greywater-safe).

Right now they’re just gathering data - so take their Green Claims Survey to let them know of anything you’ve seen that you think is an example of greenwashing. You can also let them know if you’ve seen any eco-claims that you thought were actually useful and set a good example for other companies.

Over the next few days I’ll be switching my web hosting to another company. There may be a few days where you can’t access the site or the blog, but I’ll be posting again next week.

Cheers,

Julie

While I’m away, I thought I’d just link to a cartoon by Tom Toles that appeared in the Washington Post just over a year ago. Not much has changed since then, but it still made me smile a bit at human nature.

In Case Of Global Warming

I’ll be back later this week, see you then!

The Redefining Progress environmental footprint calculator has been updated: it now takes into account more recent information about local averages and new options like hybrid cars and water-saving devices. You might like to give it a whirl to see what it’s like.

Footprint calculators are a way to get a rough idea of how you’re doing with your environmental impact. They estimate the area of land and ocean needed to provide your food, goods, services, housing, and energy as well as absorbing your wastes. They’re not perfect by a long shot, but they can help people understand the consequences of their choices. The Redefining Progress one can also compare your impact to the averages for your own country (you can read more about how RP calculates their figures here: FAQ).

My footprint is much smaller than the Aussie average in greenhouse gas emissions, and a bit smaller than average for food, goods and services, and housing. Even so, if everyone lived the way I do, we’d still need more than 2 planets to provide for us all. Luckily, I’m not done yet with improving my house and food, and I’m finding more and more eco-friendly shops for when I do need to replace things.

You might have noticed that I’ve added a new blogroll to the sidebar of this site, showing the Australian environmental websites I regularly read. I thought you might like to see what else is going on for greenies in Australia.

• Greenfoot - Trina is living sustainably in Sydney, and is always up to date with green news and events
• The Greening of Gavin - Gavin discusses the whys and hows of living a more sustainable life
• O2 WA - Wilma runs the Perth branch of the O2 network for sustainable design, and organises the Perth Green Drinks every second month (next drinks are in May!)
• Ockham’s Razor - Clare knows heaps about green gardening, and native flora and fauna

Other Aussie blogs I like that aren’t specifically about the environment, but do cover environmental issues:

• Larvatus Prodeo - a politics blog with frequent posts about environmental issues in Australia
• Cosmos magazine - science news including biodiversity, pollution, climate science and so on among the rest.

If you’ve got a favourite green blog or website, please share it with us in the comments

I’m off to Melbourne this week for work, so I won’t be able to respond to comments as usual. However, I’ve pre-posted a couple of entries to keep you entertained while I’m away. Have fun everyone!

Are you conserving water?

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

Given that I haven’t done anything about water efficiency in our house, even though I made a resolution about it, I thought it was time to come up with a plan of action. I’ve had a look at the usual water-saving websites and come up with a series of things I can do, roughly in order of difficulty.

1. Find out total water use for 2007, so we can tell when we’ve actually made a significant change.
2. Check for leaks and fix them.
3. Check how we use water: this means going down the lists of water-efficiency steps like shorter showers, only running the washing-machine on full, etc and making sure that we actually do them.
4. Get flow aerators or something similar for our taps.
5. Get a shower-head with at least a 3-star water-efficiency rating.
6. Change our toilet to a dual-flush.
7. See if it’s worth upgrading our washing-machine to a more efficient model or not.
8. Make the garden more water-efficient. We already mulch and only water on our scheduled days, but I’d like to look into rainwater tanks, greywater systems and so on.

Tips, recommendations and suggestions are all welcome! Let us all know if you’ve got some good water-saving advice.