30 Apr 2015

Make it - Take it

Packaging waste, meet your maker...
Much of our packaging is designed to be thrown away, it's not sustainable if it's garbage!
Producer responsibility (EPR) policies, make companies responsible for recycling their packages when consumers are finished with them!




More information on the website http://makeittakeit.net/

27 Apr 2015

SolarPuff: A Unique Little Solar Light




Now on Kickstarter
Worthwhile checking this simple but very interesting pop-up light with heaps of possibilities to improve the quality of life, not only in countries without electricity but also for the western world, to take camping for example. 


                 

Who exactly is Bjorn Lomborg?




Yes, let's ask a rich Danish guy, he for sure knows what poor people need and how to keep the planet sane!

23 Apr 2015

A think tank created by the "sceptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg

The government will provide $4 million over four years to bring Dr Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus Centre methodology to Australia at a new centre within the University of Western Australia (UWA) business school.
In an email to supporters of the Climate Council on Friday, former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery said it was "extraordinary" that the government had abolished the Climate Commission "which was composed of Australia's best climate scientists, economists and energy experts" on the basis of lack of funding only to find the money to "import a politically-motivated think tank to work in the same space."
"Mr Lomborg's views have no credibility in the scientific community," Professor Flannery wrote. 
"His message hasn't varied at all in the last decade and he still believes we shouldn't take any steps to mitigate climate change. When someone is unwilling to adapt their view on the basis of new science or information, it's usually a sign those views are politically motivated."Read article

Abbott government gives $4m to help climate contrarian set up Australian centre
The Abbott government found $4m for the climate contrarian Bjørn Lomborg to establish his “consensus centre” at an Australian university, even as it struggled to impose deep spending cuts on the higher education sector.

As Lomborg explained 
in a Freakonomics podcast last year, his consensus centre was defunded by the centre-left Danish government in 2012 and he was searching for a long-term funding solution. In the meantime his centre had moved to the US and was relying on private donations for a budget of about US$1m a year.

Labor’s environment spokesman, Mark Butler, said Abbott was “using scarce public funds to help legitimise his climate scepticism”.


“Tony Abbott has deputised one of the world’s most well-known renewable energy sceptics to continue his climate change denial and attacks on renewable energy,” Butler said on Friday.


14 Apr 2015

A healthy economy and jobs or your health?

What is fracking doing to our healht? 
Not only in America this is a huge problem, also here in Australia there are more and more areas opened up for fracking. Check out Frackman the movie;
Frackman tells the story of accidental activist Dayne Pratzky and his struggle against international gas companies.
Australia will soon become the world’s biggest gas exporter as more than 30,000 wells are sunk in the state of Queensland where Dayne lives, with many requiring controversial “fracking”.
He and his neighbours have unwittingly become the centre of a massive industrial landscape and they have no legal right to stop mining on their land.
Dayne embarks on a journey that transforms him from conservative pig-shooter to sophisticated global activist as the Frackman. He meets the people drawn into a battle that is crossing the ideological divide, bringing together a peculiar alliance of farmers, activists and political conservatives. Along the way Dayne encounters love, tragedy and triumph.

This video examines the impact of oil and gas development on the health of people living it. Using a FLIR (infrared) camera designed to detect normally invisible, sometimes toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) a group of chemicals, including acetone, benzene, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, and others. They're in everyday household products, in small amounts. They're what makes that "new car smell" and what makes you get high off glue..

12 Apr 2015

Good news! Mitchell Plateau finally secure


After decades of hard work, the Mitchell Plateau is on track to become part of Australia’s largest national park.

7 Apr 2015

Unknown fields


The Unknown Fields Division is a nomadic design research studio that ventures out on expeditions to the ends of the earth to bear witness to alternative worlds, alien landscapes, industrial ecologies and precarious wilderness. 

The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust

Hidden in an unknown corner of Inner Mongolia is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, consumer gadgets and green tech, discovers Tim Maughan.

"
From where I'm standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge."

"
Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. I'm here with a group of architects and designers called the Unknown Fields Division, and this is the final stop on a three-week-long journey up the global supply chain, tracing back the route consumer goods take from China to our shops and homes, via container ships and factories."

Read the full story