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!

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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.

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Environmentality 27 April 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,
Today Jaime conducted our environmental quiz challenge asking Smokey and Peter a range of questions about climate change issues.
Smokey managed again to mention the desalination plant and at the end of the quiz pipped Peter at the post to win the competition scoring 11.5 to Peters 9.5.

Download the quiz!

Smokey provided another great selection of music. You heard;

1. Village green preservation society by The Kinks
2. Lover of a gentle kind by Country Town Collective
3. If white America told the truth for one day its world would fall apart by Manic Street Preachers.
4. War by Rats vs Possum
5. Do you realise? by Flaming Lips
6. Derwent river star by The Paradise Hotel

Another entertaining and informative show.

Listen to the show.

Environmentality 20 April 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

Today we spoke to Jacinta Cleary who is the editor of the Alternative Technology Associations ReNew magazine and Jim Green anti-nuclear campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

Jacinta gave us some general information about the ReNew magazine and also provided details about some of the articles in the current edition. ReNew has been published since 1980 and is a great resource of articles about making your home more sustainable. There are four issues per year and additional online information. ATA members are also able to download all 115 ReNew editions. The ATA also publishes the Sanctuary magazine which is about sustainable building design.

Jaime asked Jacinta about a competition being run in the April June edition where ideas are sought from readers about how to recycle TVs, e.g. as a fish bowl! We also heard about the church converting to solar. While the article “Getting the dope on hemp building” resulted in humorous comments about smoking your house we also gained an appreciation of hemp as a building material. Some interesting tips on maintaining your renewable systems in poor weather conditions; and looking after yourself. The Eco-Cubby project by regional Arts Victoria teaches kids about sustainable building design. The final article discussed was about double glazing and the benefits it provides in maintaining the temperature and energy efficiency of the home. Jacinta provided us with a great insight into the ReNew magazine highlighting its excellence as a source of information about renewable energy technologies, and sustainable systems.

Jim Green our second guest brought us up to date with developments after the Fukushima nuclear accident. There has generally been a cessation of radiation leakage from the plant. TEPCO the plant operator has outlined its immediate plans to contain the plant and then begin decommissioning which could take decades and billions of dollars. Jim felt the Fukushima accident probably means nuclear power is off the agenda in Australia for many years. Nuclear and renewable powers are of comparable price but more expensive than coal so that if we are going to decarbonise our economy, given the problems of nuclear we are better of going for renewable. Given the costs involved it is likely that the Fukushima clean-up costs will be carried by the government. Friends of the Earth are campaigning to highlight Australian mining companies’ culpability in supplying TEPCO and in the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation. After the Fukushima site is cleaned up local fishing and agricultural industries will be affected for many years.

Smokey gave us a great selection of music, we got to hear;

1. She kissed me (It felt like a hit) by Spiritualized
2. Life on Mars by Neil Hannon and Yann Tiersen
3. A Forest (acoustic version) by The Cure
4. All tomorrow's parties by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
5. Help! by The Damned

Listen to the show!

Environmentality 13 April 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,
The team went into panic mode today as we arrived at the studio to find it locked, running on auto pilot because Barry the previous presenter was away. Environmentality just made it to air on time after frantic efforts to get the keys to unlock the studio and retrieve alarm security codes.
This week as we had no guests on the show we discussed some environmentally themed articles from the media. And there is no shortage of them at the moment particularly around climate change and the carbon tax.
Jaime first brought us up to date with the escalation of the Fukushima disaster with an article from The Age, Disaster at Fukushima now as bad as Chernobyl. The article follows Japan increasing its assessment of the accident at the No. 1 nuclear power plant from a rating of 5 to the worst rating of 7. It is felt this will have consequences for the global nuclear industry showing that current safety standards may be inadequate.
In a second article Labor to ease carbon squeeze from the Weekly times Jaime described how the Government plans to compensate households for the carbon tax. Our general consensus was that it is important that compensation does not remove the price signal from power bills to reduce consumption.
Peter presented another article from The Age; Climate change link to earthquakes. The article suggests long-term climate change could be responsible for moving the Earth’s tectonic plates and may influence earthquakes. Scientists have found that as monsoons in the area of the Indian tectonic plate increased the plate moved by almost one centimetre a year. The scientists are studying what caused plate motions to change and which regions are more prone to large earthquakes. This observation means that the scientists may also need to consider climate over the last million years.
The final media article discussed was from the ABC Lateline program; Woodside signals war over carbon tax. The panel discussed the problems of lobbying in our political decision making process as recently demonstrated by the mining industry and the super profits tax. In this case Woodside are claiming that gas is a clean energy source and should not be penalised by a carbon tax. Smokey pointed out that a carbon tax would give LNG a competitive advantage over coal. On the Landline program Piers Verstegen from the Conservation Council of WA pointed out that on a life cycle basis after accounting for the high energy requirements to liquefy natural gas LNG is not much cleaner than coal.


Smokey again presented a great selection of music despite our rushed commencement to the show and raiding of the stations music library. We got to hear;
1. The full version of our Environmentality theme song, the theme from Get Carter by Stereolab.
2. Strawberry Fields Forever (Love Remix) by The Beatles
3. Sao Paulo by Morcheeba
4. Karmacoma by Massive Attack
5. Happy City by Steve Cummings.
The program stimulated some interesting discussions about carbon tax, political lobbying, and our impact on the environment.
Next week we have two guests; Jim Green anti-nuclear campaigner from Friends of the Earth, and Jacinta Cleary ReNew magazine editor from the Alternative Technology Association.

Listen to the show!

Environmentality 6 April 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners.

It would be fair to say that today's was one of our better shows so far, we had the pleasure of speaking to two top-quality guests: the first one was Peter Lazarus, a Banksia Gardens volunteer who has recently travelled to Antarctica. We were also lucky to be able to interview the Honourable Lisa Neville, Victorian State Labor member for Bellarine and Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change and Shadow Minister for the Arts.


Peter described his recent trip to Antarctica and gave us an insight into the Earth's most southern continent. He explained how his trip was shortened considerably by flying first to South America before embarking on a two day boat trip to the Antarctic Peninsula from Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world. This was followed by another 10 days cruising exploring the Antarctic environment. Peter has provided us with a link to photos of his trip where you will see some of the sights and wildlife Peter observed on his trip.

Lisa Neville spoke about environmental issues facing the state including the global issue of climate change, alpine grazing, logging, desalination and public transport. She mentioned that in government Labor committed to a 20% reduction of climate change emissions by 2020 but is concerned that the current state government although agreeing to the target is not following through with actions to meet the target and seems to think this is a Federal responsibility.

There was a lively discussion of desalination after a question from Smokey. Lisa reminded us of the precarious levels water storage's had reached when the desalination project was commenced.

Hopefully we will be able to complete this round of interviews of state politicians with a representative from the Liberal Party.

And courtesy of Smokey once more, we got to hear:

1. Bouncing Babies by Teardrop Explodes
2. Speed Reaction by Spirea X
3. Hold on My Heart by Sarah Blasko
4. Seagreen Serenades by Silver Apples
5. While you wait for the others by Grizzly Bear.

Overall an interesting and informative show if we say so ourselves :).

Listen now!