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Upcoming Events

WASEA
Hon Paul Llewellyn and WA SEA present a breakfast with Hans-Josef Fell, German Member of Parliament.
Date: Saturday 17th May 2008, 8:45am - 10:30am
Location: Fraser's, Kings Park
More info click here

Concervation Council
World Environment Day
A selection of Perth's top comedians and special guests.
Date: Thursday 5 June - 8-10pm
Location: Charles Hotel - North Perth
More info click here

Water forever
Options Workshop
Date: Wednesday 11 June 2008
Location: Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre
More info click here

Climate change action belies fears

AUSTRALIANS see climate change as the nation's biggest problem but appear unwilling to change their lives to reduce their large environmental footprint, an international survey has found.

Roughly a third of Australian consumers surveyed had nine rooms or more in their homes and most had air conditioning (70 per cent).

More than 90 per cent had one or more vehicles per household, second only to US consumers, and six out of 10 drove alone daily.

Australians ranked among the lowest in using public transport, with only 22 per cent catching a bus or train at least once a week.

Australians were among the least likely of the nations surveyed to believe global warming would worsen their own way of life (18 per cent), had low levels of guilt about their own environmental impact (nine per cent), and rated average in their belief that people need to consume a lot less to improve the environment for future generations (29 per cent).
Read all

The Designers Accord: A conversation with Valerie Casey

The Designers Accord is a grassroots movement aiming to integrate sustainable thinking into design practice.
Core77's Allan Chochinov invited Valerie Casey, founder of the Accord, to discuss the initiative, how it got started, and how it all might end. (Well, in a good way.)

"My argument was that as designers, we are driven culturally and economically to make radical change, but much of the necessary work in the green movement is based on incremental improvements".

Read the interview here.

Couch surfing

Yesterday evening I met some interesting people during the Green Drinks at Claremont Hotel and we even got a few visitors from the Seatle (US) Green Drinks group. One of the interesting people I met was Jon who told me about couch surfing and send me the link to this fenominous website which distracted me from work for the last couple of hours... It's amazing to see a world wide network sharing hospitality!

CouchSurfing is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit.
Check it out!

Regulation of all green claims

How is it possible that manufacturers can call their products 'green' while they are far from it???

CONSUMER advocates are calling for mandatory regulation of all green claims made for household cleaning items, paper and tissue products after an investigation revealed that current standards for environmental marketing were largely ignored.

A nationwide consumer education program and website should also be established to help shoppers determine what green labels could be trusted.

An investigation by consumer advocate Choice of non-food supermarket items found that there were more than 630 green claims ranging from "natural" to "biodegradable" on 185 items including paper and cleaners.

"The majority of those items had claims that were vague, poorly explained or unsubstantiated," Choice chief executive Peter Kell said. "The two biggest problem areas emerged as household cleaning products and paper/tissue products."

Only 3 of the 185 products claimed to meet the voluntary Australian Standard for Environmental Labelling.

Mr Kell said the voluntary standard for labelling was largely ignored and should be made mandatory. "It's ignored by big brands, small players and even supermarkets with their own label brands," he said.

Investigations by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have already accused Origin Energy, Energy Australia and Saab of greenwashing.

Info from The Age 7 May More examples here and here

Milan 2008 - Salone Del Mobile - The Lab - Tuttobene

Perth Green Drinks - 6 May

You are invited for the Perth Green Drinks on 6 May 2008 for the fifth Green Drinks in Perth.

Green Drinks is for anyone involved in the environment and related fields. Green groups / NGOs, Freelancers and consultants, Companies, Students, Academics, Government departments, Local Authorities, Younger as well as older people so please forward this invitation to anyone you think might be interested in meeting other people related to sustainability.

Green Drinks is a self-organizing network of professionals, students and enthusiasts working in sustainability who meet up in cities around the world for drinks once a month, or every second month in Perth. Everyone is invited to come and have fun, make contacts, get ideas, share information, find inspiration, and of course, to drink! And, no, the cocktails aren't green, though if someone wants to come up with a recipe...

Green Drinks is GLOBAL: active in 349 cities worldwide! UK - USA - Canada - Australia -Germany - Sweden - The Netherlands - Argentina - Belgium - Brazil - Chile - China - Czech Republic - Denmark - Finland - France - Hong Kong - India - Ireland - Italy - Japan - Malta - Mexico - New Zealand - Poland - Puerto Rico - Singapore - South Africa - Switzerland

When: Tuesday 6 May from 6.00 pm

Where: At the Claremont Pub, they are happy to fence of the lounge area for us and they will even put the fire on when it's cold.

How: Drinks are on your own expense and when getting hungry next doors Bellisimo is serving pizza's in the pub. The first hour they have drink specials.

Bus and train station are in front of the pub and there is plenty of free parking in the area.

What: Network, interact, talk, laugh, debate, drink, have fun!

Hope to see you there!

Wilma van Boxtel
02 liaison Western Australia
o2 global network for sustainable design

Green is the New Black - Comedy

Click on picture to get a larger version.

Misguided policies cause food crisis

A BIOFUELS frenzy and other misguided policies have led to the global food crisis in which prices have soared and rice consumption is outpacing production, threatening a billion people with malnutrition, experts said.

International agriculture researchers warned that farmers will need to double global food production by 2030 to meet rising demand, and said countries should impose a moratorium on grain-based ethanol and biodiesel to rein in skyrocketing prices for corn, rice, soybeans and wheat.

A key blunder was the ill-conceived response to high energy prices by promoting biofuels, experts said.
Read all. And more. And more...

Growing plants for biodegradable plastics, fuel, wheat board, flowers or even a park will be soon history if we are going to need all the land for food because the population is growing like a bunch of rabbits... Can't we stop that instead of killing every bit of nature what's left...?

GM plants to provide plastic alternative

Researchers at the CSIRO are using oil from plants to make plastics, paints and cosmetics.

The team at the CSIRO's Plant Industry division has genetically engineered a plant to produce an unusual fatty acid that is typically sourced from petrochemicals.

The scientists have been presenting their research at a Biotechnology Conference in Chicago today. Read on or listen to the interview.

'Urban miners' look for precious metals in mobile phones

Before throwing out your old mobile phone, maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics - many of which are enjoying near-record prices.

It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold. Read all

Design for the other 90%

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

Open your eyes and have a look at the "other90" website

Crops more vital than forests, says expert

A conference has been warned of worldwide food shortages unless more land is cleared for agriculture.

French hydrologist Emeritus Professor Ghislain de Marsily has told an international water conference in Adelaide that the world population is likely to increase to nine billion by 2050, but the current rate of food production will not be enough.

He says if production were to stop, the world would only have two months of food supply available. Read on

Finally, a definition of globalisation I can understand and to which I can relate.

Question : What is the truest definition of Globalisation?

Answer : Princes Diana's death.

Question : How come?

Answer :

An English princess with

an Egyptian boyfriend

crashes in a French tunnel,

driving a German car

with a Dutch engine,

driven by a Belgian

who was drunk on Scottish whisky,

followed closely by Italian Paparazzi,

on Japanese motorcycles;

treated by an American doctor, using

Brazilian medicines.

This is sent to you by a New Zealander,

using Bill Gates's technology,

and you're probably reading this on your computer,

that uses Taiwanese chips,

and a Korean monitor,

assembled by Bangladeshi workers

in a Singapore plant,

transported by Indian lorry-drivers,

hijacked by Indonesians,

unloaded by Maltese wharfies,

and trucked to you by a fleet of Pakistani drivers

fueled by the Netherlands,

wearing safety clothing made in China.

That, my friends, is Globalisation

Are we building the 'buzz'?

Click here for more info

Space debris

Between the launch of Sputnik on 4 October 1957 and 1 January 2008, approximately 4600 launches have placed some 6000 satellites into orbit, of which about 400 are travelling beyond geostationary orbit or on interplanetary trajectories.

Today, it is estimated that only 800 satellites are operational - roughly 45 percent of these are both in LEO and GEO. Space debris comprise the ever-increasing amount of inactive space hardware in orbit around the Earth as well as fragments of spacecraft that have broken up, exploded or otherwise become abandoned. About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).

More info

Hi there fellow West Australian.

We are the Department of Environment and Conservation and would like to work with you to tackle climate change.

To do this we are proposing to coordinate a 2-3 month long community wide climate change initiative in late 2008 that aims to reduce household climate change emissions across the community.

To help get as many West Australians opinions as possible we would appreciate your input into this our second community survey that aims to find out what actions you are most likely to adopt in your household and how we can assist you in adopting them.

It should only require 6 minutes of your time click here.

This survey is only being distributed by email so could you please forward it to 5 or more of your friends from as broad background and age as possible.

The first survey received nearly 2000 responses in two weeks – this time we would like to reach at least 10 000 before the survey closes on the 9th of May.

To show our appreciation for your efforts we are again offering 10 double movie passes to be drawn in mid May from those who successfully complete the survey.

Thank you in advance for your help completing and distributing this survey.

Kind Regards

Julian Ilich

Program Manager – 2009 ‘ACT NOW’ Climate Change Initiative
(for the Office of Climate Change)
Department of Environment and Conservation

$18bn later, Beijing still lies shrouded in smog

BEIJING'S unveiling of drastic measures, including a two-month freeze on all construction, is an admission that despite spending about $A18.3 billion in the past decade to reduce smog, the Chinese capital's air quality remains a formidable challenge.
..
All construction in Beijing, which covers 100 square kilometres, must stop from July 20 to September 20, when both the Olympic and Paralympic Games will have finished.
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Four surrounding provinces and the municipality of Tianjin will also announce factory closures and other measures to make sure that their pollution does not blow into Beijing. Read all

China now world's biggest CO2 emitter
CHINA has already overtaken the United States as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, a new report to be published next month says.
..
Until now, it had been generally believed that the US remained the world's number one polluter. Read all

Bush 'can't support' climate bills in Congress

US President George Bush is opposed to legislation being discussed in Congress to cap greenhouse gas emissions because the proposals would hurt the economy, his spokeswoman said.... read on

Update:
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, said the proposal announced by Mr Bush was a step backwards for US climate policy.

"In 2002 the Administration laid out a plan that allowed US emissions to grow until 2012 - the current proposal will allow our emissions to grow until 2025," she said. Read on