News out today is that Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong is wanting a post-2012 international climate change agreement “to include forests in some way”.

Trouble is that the Australian Government will be lobbying hard for the inclusion of forests in ‘developing countries like Indonesia’, while continuing to turn a blind eye to the deforestation of some of our most precious natural native forests back home.

Some research has indicated that if all scheduled logging of Australia’s natural forests (as opposed to plantation native forests) ceased and instead these forests were conserved, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions could fall by around 10%. Now must be the time for a real cost/benefit analysis of logging Australia’s natural forests. Continue Reading

Honeybee

The decline in bee populations the world over has worried me for some time and I’m not alone. Bees are vital pollinators, but the use of pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as well as mites and disease are blamed for an alarming decline in their numbers. The US and Europe are both experiencing declines that have decision makers worried. The website peopleandplanet.net describes the situation in Europe and Advocacy for Animals has an indepth article on what they bill the ‘honeybee crisis’.

One thing’s for sure, we are messing with this planet big time. In fact, I am often surprised at the resilience of nature, given how much we are punching and kicking and actively destroying it. Resilient in some ways, yet incredibly fragile in others.

Back home in Australia, there is concern about the impact of imported honeybees on our native bee populations, though they haven’t seemed to have suffered the same as their US or European counterparts yet.

The NSW Government says it’s ‘really important’ that a ‘big statement is made with Earth Hour‘ in the lead-up to Copenhagen. They say our commitment to Earth Hour will ‘send a strong message’ to world leaders that they must act together to ‘take real action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions’.

Real action and big statements on climate change are at the Government’s fingertips, yet they’re not pushing any buttons. One of the strongest messages world leaders could receive in Copenhagen is that a country such as Australia is leading the way when it comes to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Continue Reading

The vast majority, if not the total majority, of governments around the world have got it wrong when it comes to deciding what levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are ‘safe’.

The Rudd Government is actively contemplating targets that would see the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (CO2 equivalent) in our atmosphere rise to at least 450 ppm, most probably 550 ppm. See the Climate Code Red blog for an explanation of why it is vital that the levels of CO2-e our governments aim for are levels that will keep our climate safe.

Climate action groups around the country have endorsed 300 ppm as the safe level of CO2-e. Yes, we are already at 382 ppm. I will post more on what we all need to do to save us and our children from a climate (read global) catastrophe. But, believe me, the way we have been campaigning to date has not been sufficient. We must build a people’s movement of momentous proportions around the globe if we are to see the transformations that are required. And we must start now.

I cleaned our bathroom last weekend. We have tiles that have been there for some time, long before we moved in – like possibly a couple of decades. And they’re white. Which means they require a bit of elbow grease to get them really clean.

And as I’m there bending over scrubbing and scrubbing I thought why am I spending twice the effort when I could just splash copious amounts of king white bleach over it and be done with it?

Because of course I was using a more expensive, environmentally-friendly type of cleaner. But if only, say, 10% of people are bothering to use alternatives to bleach and phosphates is it really worth our effort?

Bringing in stricter regulations on what chemicals we can buy is long overdue. This issue doesn’t get nearly enough attention from our politicians but is building up in our environment, our wildlife, particularly marine and those animals that eat fish like polar bears. Not to mention ourselves and our children.

Voluntary acts do make some difference, but unless we get the bad stuff off the market the majority of people will always go with what’s cheaper and more convenient. Because it no doubt would have taken me less time to scrub the tiles with nasty bleach, but what’s another 20 minutes every few weeks for the planet?

See the organic food garden site for tips on how to make your own natural cleaning products.

See here for more information on toxic chemicals and the harm they are doing.

On 3 February this year, I attended an action organised by Climate Action Groups around Australia for the day after their three-day long Climate Action Summit at which more than 550 people attended.

The action was incredibly inspiring with enough people from all across the country attending to be able link arms around the entire Parliament House perimeter – that’s a long way. I appear alongside some very inspiring climate activists as well as NSW Greens MLC John Kaye on this video we made and posted on youtube.

Check out some photos from the action below:

Great Image for a critical message

Taking part in the Protest

Passionate people demanding real action on climate

On Message