The World's Best Worst

Cricket, swimming, tennis, music, fashion, design. Whatever activity your country can do, Australia can do it better. I wouldn't call it nationalism, but the flexing of our toned competitive muscles.

And so it was really no surprise to read this morning that Australia has the world's highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions from energy use.

Go Aussies, go!

You think your country likes burning coal and filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide? Get in line!

On the CO2 Energy Emissions Index, Canada has come in third, while Australia has overtaken the US - responsible for 19.78 tonnes per head - as the worst per capita emitter.

The risk assessment company who conducted the study found Australia's overwhelmingly coal-based electricity supply meant the average person emitted 20.58 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

20.58 tonnes baby!!

Plastic bags? We love them! Water bottled in plastic and transported in big trucks around the country? Oh yeah! Solar panels and wind turbines? For losers!

A spokeswoman for our Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said:

"As one of the hottest and driest continents on earth, Australia will be among the hardest and fastest-hit by climate change if we don't act now."

But why would we bother to act at all? Global warming and peak oil? bring it on! Environmentalism and eco-consciousness is for sissies.

Environmental Parties

Today marks the end of National Recycling Week. 

From Farmdoc:

Thomas L Friedman, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, labels events such as National Recycling Week, Walk Against Warming, and Earth Hour, as environmental parties – whereas what is really needed, what is essential and critical and vital, he says, is an environmental revolution.

In our household we are big recyclers, though it's not something we are huge advocates for. We believe more so in reducing our waste output. Living in the country our options are limited for things such as bulk buying and public transport, but we do our best.

Our best is not the best, but we are on our way. As is energy economist Joan Pick who has been on her way – only on foot – since 1973.

Since then she has run or walked approximately 217,929 kilometers - the equivalent of nearly five and a half times round the world.

She said: "Some people criticise me by saying I ought to get out more but that's one thing you can't say about me - I'm out all the time!"

Seed Hunter

Last night we watched Seed Hunter, the fantastic ABC doco about the Australian scientist, Ken Street. Street is charming and candid and oh so likable as we follow him and his team on their noble crusade.

The spiel:

As Australia and much of the world wrestles with hotter weather and a dwindling water supply, mass starvation at a global scale is on the cards if we can’t find ways to improve crop resilience. Scientists are exploring many solutions to adapt our food supply, including going back to mother nature herself to locate the genes that can withstand our changing climate; genes that, thanks to a high yielding monoculture, have almost disappeared. Australian scientist, Dr Ken Street, aka the ‘Seed Hunter’, spends his life searching for the tiny seed that could play a role in helping food producers around the world.

Two and half months ago I wrote about the harvesting of the first GM canola crops since the GM ban was lifted. Then yesterday I read that this harvested canola is now on its way to our grocery shelves.

We might think we can avoid GM ingredients if we want, but we can't. How can we when the canola oil that's being sold to us as cooking oil is not labelled as being GM? How can we when this oil is being mixed into our processed foods, and the leftover meal fed to our livestock?

While biotech giants such as Monsanto are racing towards their desired 100% seed ownership, Ken Street and his crew are scouring the globe in search of ancient seeds that will help ensure the survival of all Earthlings. There's no question as to whose team I'd rather be on.

Blazing Blazey

This is the book I bought PJ for his birthday. It's written and signed by our hero, Clive Blazey, founder of The Digger's Club, where we buy the majority of our seeds. 

Here is his introduction from the Digger's Winter Garden 2008 catalogue:

Dear Minister

We would like to see a government supported campaign to encourage the growing of fruit and vegetables in Australian back yards. When we grow our own food at home we cut our greenhouse emissions by 25-30% because we don't rely on commercial crops which:

• Consume non-renewable oil to till the soil, plant the seed, weed the crop, harvest the crop and transport it to the silo or market.
  
• Consume electricity to process the crop, package the crop, refrigerate the crop and finally to provide lighting at the supermarket.
  
• Consume oil which is the main ingredient of nitrogen fertilisers, weedkillers and pesticides that grow the crop.
  
• Consume electricity used to pump the water for irrigation.
  
• Finally the consumer drives by car to the market to pick up the food and bring it back - using non-renewable oil.
  

When gardeners grow their own food at home they eliminate all these steps and from day one, meet half our 2050 Kyoto target of 60% reduction 42 years early!

Gardeners are the largest group of people bringing CO2 back to earth. A campaign encouraging food gardeners will reach 3-4 million households.

• Growing lawns, trees and flowers brings CO2 back to earth. By composting and recycling green waste at home we are sequestering carbon in the soil. 
  
• Gardening being a home based activity means gardeners drive less, buy less, and consume less than other groups. It is pedantic to say gardening is "green," but it is "greener" than any other activity.

30% of Diggers staff have cut their CO2 emissions by 60% today – 42 years ahead of target. They have done this by: 

• Growing their own food – a 25-30% saving
  
• Buying carbon offsets for their cars
  
• Switching to renewable energy
• Installing solar hot water, riding bikes etc.
• Growing plants instead of laying concrete and paving
• Composting and recycling

When we grow our own we use less land and less water to produce our food than commercial growers. Diggers research shows gardeners who grow their own food cut water use by 66%.

Not all gardening activity brings CO2 down to earth, particularly the modern fad for paving and flaxes which minimises bio mass and photosynthesis. For this reason we believe the campaign should be focused on growing food rather than just supporting gardening in general. 

Yours,

Clive Blazey, The Diggers Club

Let Me Count the Ways

When new emissions regulations forced the village of Kamikatsu, in south-west Japan, to shut down its two incinerators, it had to change the way it managed its waste.

"We were no longer able to burn our rubbish, so we thought the best policy was not to produce any in the first place," said Sonoe Fujii of the village's Zero Waste Academy.

In 2003, the villagers made a declaration that their town would be Japan's first zero waste community.

In Kamikatsu, household waste must be separated into no fewer than 34 categories before being taken to a recycling centre where volunteers administer firm, but polite, reprimands to anyone who forgets to remove the lid from a plastic bottle or rinse out an empty beer can.

"We're still some way from reaching our zero waste goal, but the difference is amazing compared with a few years ago," said Yasuo Goto, a 75-year-old retired farmer who works part-time as a caretaker at the centre.

You can read more here, if you like. (Thanks for the link, Ian!)

What I Didn't See

During my lunch break, while I was working in Melbourne, I went down to Degraves Street to get a bite to eat.

There are so many choices, so many options, so much to do and see.

There's so much excitement, so many possibilities, down every laneway.

All the shiny shops with their shiny things to buy.