Environmentality 25 May

Dear Environmentality listeners.

Today we had a conversation with Nina Bailey who is one of the Sustainable Living project managers at Victoria’s peak non-profit environmental organisation Environment Victoria, not to be confused with the Victorian Government's department Sustainability Victoria.

Environment Victoria represents environmental groups in the state such as friends groups and other grassroots organisations. Their aim is to reach all 5 million Victorians engaging everyone to help protect the environment.

After a brief introduction about the organisation, Nina spoke to us about the GreenTown program, an initiative that reaches out to different cultural groups in the community to inform and educate their members about sustainable living. Nina was telling us that in the process, very often they find that many people in these groups also have much to contribute from their own cultural experience to sustainable living.

Smokey played more great music including a track selected by Nina. You got to hear;

1. The most beautiful girl I the room (live) by Flight of the Concords.
2. A century of fakers by Belle and Sebastian
3. Hold on my heart by Sarah Blasko
4. Elephant Gun by Beirut (Nina’s selection)
5. Celia Ann by the Pixies.

We found ourselves quickly running out of time for this show as Nina proved to be another truly fantastic guest!

Listen to the show!

Environmentality 18 May 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

Today we spoke to Jenen Taylor who is the Media Officer at the E. W. Tipping Foundation. The foundation is a prominent service provider in disability, children, youth, families and aged across Victoria. The foundation has taken significant steps to improve its environmental footprint by reducing its water energy and waste impacts through the implementation of its SustainAbility project. The organisation has been nominated for the 2011 Premiers Sustainability awards in the Community Sector.

The foundation is working with people it supports and staff to save water, energy and waste in its group homes which showed consumption figures up to three times the Victorian average. As part of the program the foundation developed a SustainAbility Star-ter Kit which is a complete tool kit of information, activities, and resources for people with disability living in group homes, and their support staff and service providers, to implement household sustainability.

An important feature of the program has been the 6 Star Accreditation Program where a house is awarded a star for signing up for the program and a star each for committing to achieve improvements in the areas of Energy, Water, Waste and Shopping, Transport and Community Involvement.

Unfortunately we did not receive an SMS answer to our listener question for the day; “What award has the E. W. Tipping Foundation been nominated this year”? So listeners stay tuned next week as there may be another question so that we can give away our remaining box of chocolates! Remember, our SMS number for questions, comments during the show is 0447 777 989.

To complete the show Jaime presented a range of interesting articles from the latest CSIRO magazine ECOS which can be viewed on the magazines website. Some of the articles mentioned included; Greenland, Antarctic ice sheets melting faster than predicted, Towards baseload solar thermal power, and Rising CO2 plants and biodiversity.

As usual Smokey presented an eclectic selection of music for the show. You got to hear;

1. Business time by Flight of the Concords
2. Alright by Supergrass
3. Do you want to by Franz Ferdinand
4. Common people by Pulp
5. Roxanne by Katie Noonan and Kerin Schaupp
6. There she goes by The LA’s
7. I’m a believer by the Monkees

Next week we hope to play our guest Jenen Taylors request, something from Lady Gaga!

Listen to the show!

Environmentality 4 May 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

Today we decided to take advantage of a great article in the New Internationalist Magazine and we went through a number of myths and misconceptions that are often used by Climate Change deniers to argue their case. Smokey was put on the spot and he definitely rose to the challenge by providing eloquent arguments to counter these myths, and Jaime added a few additional facts from the article.

Some of the myths questioned were;

• CO2 is not a greenhouse gas
• Warming increases before CO2 increases
• Some scientists do not agree with the scientific consensus
• Arctic North West passage now navigable
• The world isn’t really warming
• The world cooled between 1940 and 1970
• Climate change data has been manipulated
• Our winters are colder
• There are other effects greater than humans
• Climate change caused by the sun
• Climate change can have good effects

We were also happy to hear from Helen, a listener from Craigieburn who responded to our challenge and came up with an artist who has gone better solo than with a music group. Helen will receive a box of chocolates in the next few days.

Remember listeners that you can send SMS questions or comments while the show is on air to 0447 777 989, at the cost of a normal SMS.

So all in all, it was nother chilled out show with music selected by Smokey. You got to hear;

1. There is a light that never goes out by The Smiths
2. Radio by Teenage Fanclub
3. Imitation of Life by REM
4. Wonderwall by Oasis.

Listen to the show!