Why firms go to greener pastures

LAST week's collapse of Solar Systems, Australia's leading solar energy developer, reinforced an unwelcome truth: Australia may well boast a magnificent repository of technological innovation, but the lack of a large venture capital market and minimal government support means it is an inhospitable environment for such emerging technologies to flourish.

It was for this reason that David Mills chose to move his solar thermal company Ausra to the US nearly a decade ago, Dr Zhengrong Shi took what is now one the world's biggest solar PV (photovoltaic) firm Suntech to China, and for Martin Green and his partners to seek funding support for Pacific Solar in Germany. Others have taken a similar path to greener pastures, and more will surely follow.

Solar Systems elected to stay home. But last week, after a fruitless 12-month search for new investors and funding came to an end, directors were forced to call in administrators because the company had run out of cash.
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Climate Crisis 14 October

Ideal product for Islamic countries to save water

A Muslim has do a ritual washing before prayers and wastes quite a bit of water doing this. The Australian/Malasian company AACE WORLDWIDE PTY LTD in Victoria invented the Auto Wudu Washer a few years ago but this is the first time I come across it on a Dutch webpage I regularly read.

The Wudu Washer is the world’s first and only automatic pre-prayer personal washing system introduced to enable an individual to perform the Wudu ablution efficaciously in conformance to Quranic teachings. This is achieved by the use of a purpose built ear, mouth and facial washer unit, a forearm and elbow washing unit and a foot and ankle washing unit all of which are incorporated in a single system. The AWW© performs all these three Wudu functions hygienically, conveniently and efficiently without water spillage.

Copenhagen Green Drinks during climate conference

Copenhagen Green Drinks will be holding a Green Drinks to coincide with the Climate Change Conference, and they welcome any Green Drinkers and GD organisers who will be travelling there for the conference.

Please contact Anders Kildegaard Knudsen to get the final details of when and where.

WA COMMUNITY GARDENS FORUM 2009

Friday 18 Sept 5.15 — 7.30pm — Sundowner at City Farm opened by Hon Donna Faragher MLC; Minister for Environment; Youth. Hear from Rob Hopkins, co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network via video link, along with a video showcase of WA’s community gardens.
Free event. RSVP: by 11 September email or 1300 501 357

Saturday 19 Sept — Skill-Sharing Day at Piney Lakes Environment Centre. Choose 3 of 6 available workshops in the morning, and attend an Open Space gathering in the afternoon on the topic “Growing a strong community garden sector in WA”
Cost is $35/person and registrations close Friday 11th September.

Sunday 20 Sept 10am – 3pm — Bus Tour of Community Gardens. Starts in Fremantle, swings through Rockingham, West Leederville and finishes in Subiaco giving you a real taste of what is possible in community gardening.
Cost is $10/person and registrations close on Friday 11th September.
More info

'Stick-on' solar cells a ray of light for iPod generation

Solar energy stored in tiny plastic cells could soon be used to power homes, mobile phones and even iPods, courtesy of the latest solar energy research underway in Queensland.

The new generation solar cells - made from moulded plastics and far smaller and cheaper than the silicon panels fixed to rooftops - are now less than three years away.

According to the University of Queensland's principal researcher, Associate Professor Paul Meredith, there is no reason why the plastics which now cover many of today's electronic gadgets could not also provide the solar energy to power them.
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Sustainable September

Check the events for the coming weeks, there are plenty to chose from!
Click here

Fears for Rous Head as report reveals toxins

Groundwater and soil under dredged material which forms the reclaimed land at Rous Head contain excessive levels of contaminants such as copper and nickel, according to an internal Fremantle Ports report.

The report says contaminants are at levels nearly eight times acceptable marine water quality standards.

The revelation comes amid fears for marine life as the port prepares to dump one million cubic metres of dredged material 8km off the coast and a further two million into the Rous Head reclamation area.
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Want to go fishing there again?

Rudd hits Youtube with climate message

"It's time for Australia to act."

The scheme was voted down by the Senate last month, but in the clip Mr Rudd vows to try again later this year.

The Real State of WA: Resilience and Prosperity in an Uncertain World.

More information here

Also an amazing film, mentioned before on this blog, has nearly gone unnoticed in Perth:
"The Age of Stupid" is the new four-year epic from McLibel director Franny Armstrong. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?; they had a premier at Carousel cinema on Wed 19th Aug, it then ran in 4 Perth cinemas for 1 week and then stopped.
The global launch is on 21/22 Sept in the US and hopefully we will see the film again in WA cinemas; for more information see the website

Holly Pepper

The talk at the Perth Green Drinks today was on climate change and emerging designer/artist Holly Pepper was showing a movie in which she participated when she worked in Samoa. If you didn't had a chance to come to Perth Green Drinks, which was fully booked again, or want to see it again please have a look at the Oxfam website and click on the movie titled Coral currency takes a dive. (The other movies are also worhtwhile to check out)
For more information on what Holly is doing at the moment check her blog.

Camp for Climate Action

The Camp for Climate Action will be an inspiring few days of workshops and grassroots direct action designed to stop coal mining and it’s use for energy production in the coal capital of WA, Collie, from the 17th of December to the 20th of December (dates may be subject of change).

We are seeking more people to get involved in the organizing of this camp, because we want this to happen but right now, we don’t have enough people to make it happen.

Our collective consists of people from a variety of ages and political leanings, and we want the space to be open for anyone who wants (radical) action on climate change.
More info here.

Sustainable House Day 13 September 2009

Houses open between 10am and 4pm

This is the 8th year of the successful Sustainable House Day – where houses across Australia are opened to show you how to live more sustainably.
And this year it’s FREE!Sustainable House Day major partner: Australian Government

“Almost 10 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from households. But every Australian can make a big difference to the environment and their wallets through simple, cost-effective, everyday actions. Visit an open home on Sustainable House Day and go to www.livinggreener.gov.au to find out the practical and often easy steps you can take to reduce your impact on the environment as well as your energy and water bills.”
More information here

Click here to find the houses you can visit in WA like this one in Hamilton Hill and this one in Gosnells.

Every tree saves $420 a year

Tree experts will be told today that the value of trees could increase substantially in the next decade because of the important role they play in tackling climate change.

The National Street Tree Symposium starts today at the National Wine Centre at a time when most of southeastern Australia's trees are struggling to survive in the drought.

The importance of keeping trees alive is the focus of most of the 13 presentations and four workshops by arborists, natural resource economists and environmentalists.
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Just a few weeks ago one of the appartment blocks on Shenton Road in Claremont cut five huge eucaliptus trees similar to these on the picture. I have no idea why they were cut and how they got approaval for it as the trees were not close to the appartments at all. The site looks horrible now and I miss the trees every time I walk past...

Carbon Neutral Expo Fremantle 1 October

The City of Fremantle has just become the first carbon neutral local government in the state and the second in the country! For over a decade the City has been making incremental reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of its corporate operations. With the growing awareness of the potential severity and urgency of climate change however, the City decided that more drastic action is needed. Resolving to become carbon neutral in March, the City become carbon neutral less than 4 months later.

Free Expo
There is a session open to the public from 10am-3pm. This will have stalls all day including: organic wine, local native plants, solar and wave power, free bike sharing and Living Smart. There will also be speakers from 12-2pm explaining the challenges of climate change and some of the responses that our society can make. Entry is free and there’s some great door prizes.

Special Evening Event
In the early evening from 4-6pm, there will also be another session for invited guests. This will have the same stalls, some different speakers (notably CUSP’s Peter Newman), some organic wine and food and local beer. Each invited guest will also have 1 tonne of CO2e offset on their behalf and will be able to take home a local native plant for their garden. You are obviously welcome at this session and I have attached a pdf invite for this. We need RSVPs (to the planning email address in the invite), so that we know how many offsets and trees to set aside and how many we need to cater for.
Freofocus

New website launched

Introducting Irvin The Green Tree Frog
He is your average Aussie Green Tree Frog, however, frogs are far from average; They are the worlds alarm mechanism predicting environmental disaster. Living in both water and on the land, with their permeable skin they are triple susceptible to toxins and other environmental influences making them a crucial first indicator of negative change.

These magnificent creatures saw the dinosaurs come and go, yet today 50% of the worlds 6000 frog species are declared endangered; with causes for this being imposed by various human influences.

So What Can You Do?
Check out this new website!

Perth leads the way in battery recycling

Perth households are now the first in Australia able to safely recycle common batteries.

A new recycling initiative involving all five of Perth's metropolitan regional councils aims to encourage residents to take their used batteries to one of 150 new drop-off recycling bin locations.

WA Environment Minister Donna Faragher said The Metropolitan Household Battery Recycling program was the first community-based program of its kind in Australia
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So far our council, Claremont, doesn't have any indication for a permanent drop-off bin, once a year you can bring your hazardous waste to a collection point, is all...
In most countries in Europe all shops who sell batteries have to take them back to recycle so on every counter you'll find a cardboard box to drop off your old batteries, how convenient is that?

Coles launches reusable bags rewards...

Only for the people who are still not using reusable bags yet... A bit crooked if you ask me. It would be more honest if they rewarded everyone who is not taking the plastic bags, not that I have FlyBuys... I would rather have a discount on my purchases or for every ten plastic bags I avoid an apple or so...

Coles Supermarkets is introducing a number of reusable plastic bags which customers can buy for 15 cents and 25 cents each.

Australia's second biggest supermarket group says free single-use checkout bags will still be available but customers who choose the recyclable bags will be rewarded with five bonus FlyBuys points until the end of the year.
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Sustainable Design Introduction

An introduction to sustainable design by designer and entrepreneur Tom Greenwood. The presentation was originally produced for a design lecture at Aston University. Visit website for more information.