Environmentality 11 March 2015, John Englart, Colleen Jones & Brian Bainbridge - Sustainable Fawkner and Climate Action Moreland

More and more I’m realising that real and important social and environmental change is driven by local community and eventually filters UP to local, state and federal governments rather than the other way around, especially in Australia given our governments’ lack of foresight, creativity and vision when it comes to planning Australia’s future. Volunteer run community groups give me great hope for our future and have led to movements such as Transition Towns, Landcare and many local climate change action groups including the very local (to us here at Environmentality) Climate Action Moreland.

Sustainable Fawkners Community Garden - The Dandelion Patch

This week on the program we spoke to Colleen Jones and Brian Bainbridge and John Englart from Sustainable Fawkner and John is also involved with Climate Action Moreland. Sustainable Fawkner was established with the principles of transition towns in mind and has since been successful in maintaining a regular food swap, community garden and craft workshop. These types of events and having a community garden may, at first, seem to be quite low impact in terms of making an environmental difference but in fact they are essential in developing relationships among neighbours and communities and provide a platform to discuss the important issues such as climate change and the shift towards a zero carbon economy. This point and many more were discussed on this week’s show so be sure to have a listen and leave a comment if you so desire. Keep up with Sustainable Fawkner and their events through their website as well as their Facebook page.

A Food Swap at Sustainable Fawkner

Climate Action Moreland is a non-profit group working locally to take action on climate change and John is one of their many members from the Brunswick, Coburg, Fawkner and Glenroy areas. If you are wanting to take action on climate change such as putting pressure on political leaders and promoting community education and awareness of climate change then get in contact with the group or perhaps another similar group that may be more local to where you are. Find Climate Action Moreland on twitter using @CAMoreland.

John Englart has been blogging about climate change for over 10 years now (takvera.blogspot.com.au) and contributes regularly to the Climate Action Moreland website as well as writing for nofibs.com.au. During our show this week John also mentioned a literature review he completed on climate change heatwaves and Melbourne so be sure to check that one out as well. John will be attending the UN climate talks in Paris in December this year to report directly on the negotiations and keep a specific eye on the negotiating positions and spin from the Australian Government so stay tuned to Environmentality as we hope to follow John’s reports and have him back on the show following his trip!

Next week on the program we have Jodi Jackson's My Everyday Garden answering all your questions. 
Music tracks from this week were selected by our guests, thank you:

Who’s Gonna Stand Up by Neil Young
The Commons by David Rovics
Shadows by Sirroco
Little Suitcase by Luluc