You Can Learn A Lot From A Cat

Dealing with the mess we've made feels overwhelming. Does swapping out your lightbulbs, writing your legislators, and sorting your trash really change anything? How can one person (or a cat) make a difference?

It turns out that our little actions, all added up together, do make a big difference.
Check out sustainable seafood

The 15 most toxic places to live

As the world's population balloons to almost 7.3 billion, it's become more difficult to find places on Earth unaffected by man-made pollution and development. Far too often it takes things going really wrong before people take action to keep our planet clean. Here's a list that might help to motivate: The 15 most polluted places in the world.
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Sharks and big corporations

But you are selling to farmers, is what he said. Farmers are the cornerstone of our food system, we need to protect them!
Not big corporations who create fake food and add a lot of dollar 'value' to a product to fill their pockets!
Well done Johnny!

Our Australian bush...

27 January 2015. Australians are destroying our backyard by dumping masses of illegal waste in our precious environment. Share this video please, to spread the word to our whole country. This is disgraceful. Steve Shotton

The Trans-Pacific Partnership - what's at stake?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: the dirtiest trade deal, you've never heard of.
The NOT so free 'free tradement agreement'

It's a deal, so shrouded in secrecy, even our own Parliament doesn't know the details. Watch the video below to find out why Prime Minister Abbott and Trade Minister Robb are so eager to keep this one under wraps.


For years, there's been talk of creating a new free trade deal that would span countries bordering the Asia-Pacific, including the US, Canada, New Zealand, as well as several countries in Latin America and Asia. The deal is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement – or "TPP" for short. 

The TPP agenda is being driven by big business, big pharmaceuticals and big tobacco – but the impacts will affect all Australians.
Between foreign corporations suing our governments over public health measures and environmental protection laws, higher pharmaceutical prices, and surveillance of Australians' internet usage, there's a lot for citizens to be concerned about – which is why Prime Minister Abbott and Trade Minister Robb are keeping it quiet. 

What we do know from leaked parts of the agreement is terrifying. But most Australians haven't even heard about the TPP. That's why we need to sound the alarm now, and sound it loudly. 

Sign the petition calling on our politicians not to sign our rights away here

And read more about it on Choice Australia

Yellow / White pages wasteful dump

Even though I've opted out to receive those big books years ago I still get them delivered every year. I haven't used them since the internet has a search engine and I guess most of the people who are computer savvy are with me.

But today I got angry again, someone had propped up a yellow pages book in my letterbox. Why??? Who is dumping this wasteful product in everyones home? Haven't they got the list that I have opted out years ago? And again last year?
Apperently not.

Where can I go to complain? Can I sue them for dumping valuable resources on my property, unasked for?
And who is still advertising in this kind of media??? Aimed at a dying breed. It is probably totally covered by the injury lawyers advertisement on the back, let's use them to sue the ones responsible for this littering.

Guess who that is? The Australian Government!
Claiming on page 2 that they are committed to minimising the environmental impact of their products...

Want to try to opt out, sign up here, wish you good luck.

Dr Jennifer Lavers (young Australian of the Year and marine biologist) at Plastic-Free Summer Festival, Fremantle Town Hall.

Having spent a lot of time in 40 remote islands studying animals, Dr Lavers reviews the health of these animals acts as an indicator of the health of our oceans and environment.

In this presentation, we have a brief history of the creation of plastic in a laboratory around 150 years ago. This has now become a global problem affecting seabird and marine species in all corners of the world. This is happening at an alarming rate more serious than sea level rising and global warming.

The plastics manufactured 50-70 years ago is still around sitting in landfill or drifting in the ocean. They have not disappeared but broken down into micro plastics attracting pollutants and heavy metals, then ingested by the smallest marine species entering the food web.

We have a throw away society. Single use plastic items are produced to suit our convenient lifestyle. These figures highlighting the extent of the pollution. 2.4 millions pieces of plastic enter the ocean every hour. 50,000 plastic bags in every square miles of the world's ocean. 1 million plastic cups used in US airline flights every 6 hours! 

http://jenniferlavers.org/

Food Rules for Healthy People and Planet

 In 2008, we grew enough food for 11 billion people. But half of that food went to feeding animals (so we could eat them). And a great deal also went to fueling cars.

Australia’s rising solar power ‘revolution’

Australian researchers broke the world's solar power efficiency record last month with their design of a novel commercial energy system, raising hopes the fossil-fuel dominated country may someday switch off its reliance on coal.

A team at the University of New South Wales led by professor Martin Green worked with a local company to create a highly efficient solar energy system that uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a central solar panel to generate electricity.

This kind of innovation has become the hallmark of the solar energy industry, and it is only going to grow, according to Green.

"What's happening now is that photovoltaics has improved so much recently that it is better at producing electricity than using hot steam," he said. "Solar will become the cheapest way to generate electricity at any scale. The transition is going to occur where it becomes cheaper to use solar than coal."
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Symphony of the soil

Symphony of the Soil is a 104-minute documentary feature film that explores the complexity and mystery of soil. Filmed on four continents and sharing the voices of some of the world's most esteemed soil scientists, farmers and activists, the film portrays soil as a protagonist of our planetary story. Using a captivating mix of art and science, the film shows that soil is a complex living organism, the foundation of life on earth. Yet most people are soil-blind and "treat soil like dirt." Through the knowledge and wisdom revealed in this film, we can come to respect, even revere, this miraculous substance, and appreciate that treating the soil right can help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems.
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Sand wars

To most of us, sand is simply the stuff that we find on the beach when we go on holiday. We take its presence for granted, but are we right to do so? Denis Delestrac's film suggests otherwise.

Sand is one of the most consumed natural resources on the planet. As a raw material, it is of huge importance to the building and construction industry -- indeed, houses, skyscrapers, bridges, airports, and pavements are all partially composed of sand.

Melted and transformed into glass, it features in every window. It is also the source of silicon dioxide, a mineral found in our wines, cleaning products, cosmetics and an astounding variety of other products that we use on a daily basis.

As demand rises in an increasingly industrialised world, however, the planet's reserves of sand are coming under threat. It is estimated that three quarters of the world's beaches are in decline and likely to disappear. Such is the demand for the material that sand has even attracted the attention of the criminal fraternity, who have taken to plundering beaches and rivers for what is becoming a prized commodity. So what does the future hold as we continue to extract huge quantities of a natural resource that we seem to consider inexhaustible, and what will be the consequences for the environment?

This film asks some troubling questions and we may not like the answers.
More info here

Denis Delestrac made his debut in non-fiction filmmaking in 2001 and signed a number of hits including IMAX blockbuster "Mystery of the Nile" and "Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space", his first feature documentary. His latest feature documentary, "Sand Wars" is an epic eco-thriller that takes the audience around the globe to unveil a new gold rush and a disturbing fact: we are running out of sand!

In his talk he explains us where sand comes from and where it ends up. Our perception is that the resource sand will always be available for us but thanks to his investigations we realize that this is not true and that sooner or later we will be running out of sand - and consequently won´t have beaches anymore.

Wake Up Call

This Little Video Will Make You Question Consumerism Like Never Before!

Rubbish volumes in Australia rise by 30%.

The average Australian is buying 16 gifts during this time and spending around $475 in the process. Most of the items we buy will be packed in unnecessary amounts of plastic, cardboard and foam, held in place with plastic or metal ties.

Over-consumption and waste in our throwaway society are placing an intolerable strain on the planet’s natural resources. Over 4 trillion kilograms of waste is sent to landfill each year in Australia, with climate change a devastating symptom of the problem. It’s not just Australians; Americans throw away 25% more rubbish during the festive season.

If we reduced our holiday landfill by just 1 kilogram per person, we can make a real difference. Imagine if a million people did that, we could save approximately 10 billion litres of water waste (that’s 4000 Olympic swimming pools), prevent 8 million kgs of carbon dioxide pollution (growing a forest of approx. 45,000 trees) … and we would collectively save millions of dollars!

Check out the 1 Million Women website and commit to a no waste festive season. 

Expert cycling advice from the Netherlands

An Australian delegation has taken part in a cycling tour of the Netherlands, to learn from one of the world’s best cycling systems. The tour was arranged by the Cycling Promotion Fund and the Netherlands Government through the Dutch Embassy in Sydney.

The delegation consisted of a range of transport professionals and advocates, including the Department of Transport’s Network Planning Director Craig Wooldridge.

Mr Wooldridge said the tour was a perfect opportunity for the State Government to learn from the Netherland’s passion to drive innovation in active transport in the short, medium and long term. 

“The tour consisted of a mix of presentations by Dutch experts from regional and local government, the private sector and advocacy groups along with practical cycling and walking experiences,”

“While the Netherlands approach to urban and transport planning is vastly different to Australia’s, due to very high urban densities, the advice I have been given is that there are some key learnings that could be explored,”

“These include looking at greater separation for cyclists on high volume arterial roads, creating lower speed environments on local roads and different options for end of trip facilities and bike education in schools,” Mr Wooldridge said.

Dutch planning and design experts will visit Australia in March next year to run a one day workshop with representatives from state and local government, the private sector, advocacy groups and interstate experts.

Mr Wooldridge said these new opportunities tie in with the key initiatives in the Western Australian Bicycle Network Plan (WABN) 2014-2031 which has seen $39.95 million allocated by the State Government to cycling infrastructure from 2014/15 to 2017/18.

A report summarising the trip and key learnings can be found on the 2014 Netherlands cycling study tour page.

Uruguay Takes on London Bankers, Marlboro Mad Men and the TPP

"From the bankers' perspective, Uruguay is setting a bad example by taking care of their people instead of catering to global financial speculators".

"The fact that a sovereign nation trying to protect the health of its people is being forced to defend itself in expensive litigation against the profiteering of a multinational corporation in front of a supranational World Bank tribunal is already far down the wrong path".

I think we can learn something from this South American country!

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Factory farming - The Secrets of Food Marketing

Think you aren't being fooled by advertising tricks?

We only get away with it because everyone is prepared to look the other way...

Take a look at this so-called expert revealing food marketing's secret weapon.
No amount of marketing makes factory farming acceptable but not all farming is factory farming either!

Do your homework, research where your food comes from!

Think before you buy a trinket...

Either we come together now to make these the last days of ivory-funded terrorism or we witness the last days of elephants in the wild.Created by Director Kathryn Bigelow, Writer Scott Z. Burns and Annapurna Pictures and in collaboration with WildAid.

Take action! 

Defendant 5: Opening Shot

Defendant 5 is the personal story of one young woman who learnt that fighting for what she believed in had repercussions beyond her wildest nightmares.

Young filmmaker Heidi Lee Douglas goes to Tasmania to make a film about the effect of logging on the community. She discovers that one company is profiting most from the logging of the old growth forests, Gunns Ltd, the biggest wood chipper in the Southern Hemisphere.

As the campaign to protect the old growth forests escalates, Heidi takes more risks and crosses the line from filmmaker to activist. Community support to protect Tasmania’s forests spreads across Australia and around the world. But the issue is divisive, with timber workers, many of whom work for Gunns, believing their futures are at stake.

Without warning, Heidi and 19 other critics are sued by Gunns for .4 million dollars for allegedly conspiring to harm the company's business. The defendants are a disparate group - elected politicians, campaigners, a doctor, a dentist, an author and students. Together they become known as the Gunns 20. 

Heidi discovers Gunns wants to use her footage as evidence of its allegation of conspiracy. She faces a crisis of conscience as the footage she had been gathering to help the community now threatens to harm them. She is asked to stop filming independent protests because it’s believed she is under surveillance. With her privacy and rights under question, Heidi turns the camera on herself.

Click here to watch on ABC Iview until 7 January 2015

Do not idle your car!

WHAT'S POSSIBLE: The U.N. Climate Summit Film

Presented to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in September 2014, this short inspirational film shows that climate change is solvable. We have the technology to harness nature sustainably for a clean, prosperous energy future, but only if we act now. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it calls on the people of the world to insist leaders get on the path of a livable climate and future for humankind.