Environmentality, 21st August 2013

Hello Environmentality listeners,

We spoke to Ruchira Talukdar, Healthy Ecosystems Campaigner from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and our resident gardening expert, Jodie.

The ACF is a well respected environmental NGO, acknowledged for their work on national environmental matters. The ACF and other similar organisations have been critical in helping establishing national environmental actions and policies such as the sustainable plan for the Murray Darling Basin and the marine parks networks.

Courtesy of cpd.org.au

Australia has the world’s largest network of marine parks. Marine parks are vital as they offer protection of ocean treasures such as beaches, reefs, diving sites and ocean floors. Marine parks gives the marine ecosystem rest and respite, they allow for the ecosystems to recover from stressors and pollutions such as oil and gas exploration, over fishing, climate change and pollution from land. It is important that we protect the marine ecosystem as it not only provides a place of recreation (clean healthy beaches), but also a food source for us and other marine life. Supported by the major parties, the marine parks was finally passed in the federal parliament in June 2013, now becoming law.

Sustainable seafood is another way we can protect our oceans. Our current love of seafood has meant that many of the world’s fish stocks are increasingly diminishing. Using sustainable seafood program such as that of the ACF has created in partnership with the University of Technology Sydney, we can now be more aware of the seafood we consume and where it comes from. The sustainable seafood program works with local small scale commercial fishery to identify what part of their practices are sustainable, thus letting people know what fishes are sustainable and what to buy. General rule of thumb to buying seafood: ask where the seafood comes from, buy local and smaller is generally better.

Is there a need to reduce green tape (environmental regulation)? Ruchira explains that the move to reduce green tape has been directed by business in hopes to weaken national environmental law that protect places that we love. Weakening environmental laws, more specifically allowing states for final approval of developmental projects, may possibility lead to further environmental degradation; governments have proven incapable making decisions based on the protection environment and in the national interest. Rather Ruchira highlights that there is a need to strengthen environmental laws and that final approval of projects needs to remain with the federal government.

Jodie delighted us with preserves, as promised, Jodie treated with some things she has made at home. Although you can make preserves with any fruit or vegetable you like, Jodie recommends rhubarb as it contains its tartness when preserved.

Smokey sampling some of Jodie's produce at the studio

For Jodie’s rhubarb recipe, cut 1 kg of rhubarb into 2 cm pieces, place in a food grade bucket with 1 kg of sugar and leave overnight. This will allow the sugar to draw out the juice. Slice 1 lemon, add 1 cut of apple cider vinegar and 2 litres of water, cover and leave it for 2-4 days. Using an old soft drink bottle, store for 2 weeks after which you can start drinking. The screw top will allow you to release any excess carbon dioxide.

Jodie’s recipes for mother of vinegar: add cider vintager to wine, bacteria will then form a chain that will look like an opaque white jelly. Bacteria will consume the sugar in the wine. Jaime’s recipe: add the vinegar to red wine, keep in the dark but allow air for a few weeks.  Put the red wine vinegar into second container so you can start all over again.

But on an important note when preserving, we need to be mindful of food contamination thus always clean bottles and jars before storing your preserves. A good way to sterile jars and bottles is to heat them in the oven.

What about Jams? Use equal parts of fruit to sugar. Jodie usually makes 3 kg batches, adding 1 lemon or 2 limes. Jam Vs. marmalade, there is no real difference except that marmalade is made with citrus and the rind, making it a little bitter.   

Don't forget to listen to the show!

Tracks played:

Michelle Shocked– Anchorage

Boy and Bear- Southern Sun

Josh Pike- You don’t scare me

Environmentality, 14th August 2013

Hello Environmentality listeners,

Today Mr Kelvin Thomson MP joined us in our continuation of the 2013 federal election coverage. Kelvin is the federal member for Wills and the parliamentary secretary for schools.

Courtesy of alp.org.au

What are some of the main environmental challenges for Wills? Kelvin highlights the proposed East West Link and potential damage to the Moonee Ponds Creek and residents of Royal Park as a significant concern. Opposed to the project since 2007/08, Kelvin suggest that rather than spending money on transport infrastructure, we should be spending money on unmet public transport needs such as the rail line along the eastern freeway, rail link to Monash University and Melbourne airport, the Epping corridor and public transport connections.

Another area of concern are public open spaces. There have been significant good work that has been done by friend’s groups in some of the parkways, these parkways can be used (if not already being used) as wildlife corridors. Planning so private open spaces do not disappear is also a concern. Smokey highlights an important aspect, does sustainability require higher density living? Not necessarily due to high eco footprint and lifestyles of those whom live in high-rises. Rather than focus on the lifestyle choices of high-rise dwellers compared to their suburban counterparts, Kelvin moves toward higher energy self-sufficiency in households.

Are we switching to a carbon trading scheme too soon? Kelvin doesn’t think so as being part of a scheme will mean that we have a greater capacity to reduce carbon and become more effective in cutting electricity consumption. Switching sooner will also provide better assistance to people in households and reduce the pressure of high energy prices. Smokey doesn’t necessarily agree Kelvin, highlighting the high cost of infrastructure as a major contributor to rising energy cost. What do you think?

What about the manufacturing future in Australia? Kelvin highlights that there needs to be a future in Australia for manufacturing, manufacturing provides steady and reliable jobs for the middle class. Manufacturing also brings about research and development, however there needs to be a shift in how we conduct our manufacturing business. We need to find new sources for their products or transiting to other areas of manufacturing with a strong local focus.

Despite the lack of environmental focus from both parties during this election, Kelvin highlights that there are still strong public interest in environmental issues and that climate change and renewable energy continues to be important issues. Kelvin notes that some of Labor’s environmental achievements to be carbon pricing, the renewable energy target, clean energy finance corporation, plans for water for the Murray Darling Basin, Marine national parks, blocking of the super trawler MV Margiris, and ongoing work with Tasmanian forest. 

Recently Abbott referred to the election as a referendum on the carbon tax, do you agree with this statement? Whether or not you agree, we at Environmentality share Kelvin’s sentiments that the results of this election will have serious consequences to not only whether Australia will continue to be one of the global players in climate change mitigation, but also existing environmental policies such as the marine sanctuaries.

It was a jam packed show with lots of topics discussed, we unfortunately could not cover it all in the blog but to hear more about Labor’s environmental policies including what we’ve blogged today, the national deposit scheme, high speed rail, planning and population growth, tune into the podcast.

  
Thanks to Kelvin for agreeing to come on the show!

Tracks player today:

Sam Buckingham- Shackled

Better than the Wizards- Coming back your way

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds- Into my arms

Environmentality, 7th August 2013

Hello Environmentality listeners,

Dr. Tim Read, Greens candidate for the seat of Wills, manage to find time between finalising his PhD and campaigning to speak to us. Tim is a physician, specialising in infections with a focus on sexually transmitted diseases. Health related issues initially drew Tim’s attention towards the Greens party.  

Courtesy of greens.org.au

Tim’s advocacy for climate change action was first sparked 8 years ago when he saw Al Gore’s movie an inconvenient truth. The melting of the permafrost has further driven the need for action, evidenced that the changes to climate predicted in an inconvenient truth are occurring. The impacts of climate change can not only be observed environmentally, but also for our health. Tim highlights that the rare hot days are getting hotter; we don’t need to look too far back to remember the heat wave of 2009 where more people died from the heat wave than the bush fires. People with heart and kidney failure are particularly vulnerable to the effects of extreme heat. Due to the lack of parkways and vegetation in Wills, the high temperatures are evident in cities due to the heat island effect, heat is retained overnight hence the higher temperatures remain overnight.     

What are the Green’s climate policy, stop fossil fuel subsidies and spend the money saved on job creation. The Greens would like to raise revenue for the renewable energy fund, the Greens want a $30 billion fund compared to Labor’s $10 billion. Renewable energy projects employs more people than gas power station hence we need to be investing in renewable technologies. The Greens would prefer for the carbon price to remain and for the carbon tax not be changed to the European Trading Scheme in order to maintain the fall in carbon emissions. It is important to keep the carbon price to not only reduce our own emissions, but also demonstrate global leadership in climate change as the world’s highest carbon emission polluter per capita.

Why hasn’t environmental issues featured in the election? Tim cheekily suggest that perhaps it’s because the election occurs in late winter, early spring instead of February or March when the temperatures would be higher. Despite the lack of political coverage of environmental issues, the environment is still a concern for many people. A few years ago people were going to the Great Barrier Reef to see its natural beauty, people are now going to see it before it disappears. Tim highlights that the Greens are sneaking it into the agenda with their assessment of high speed rail.

The Greens are opposed to the east-west tunnel because will divert too much money from public transport to roads, furthermore encouraging the subsiding of cars and fossil fuel use. Rather than using the $9 billion to build the tunnel, it can be used instead for the Doncaster rail and Melbourne airport rail with change for extra trains. The pro-car lobby economically doesn’t stack up, rather than reducing the bottle neck going into the city by linking the to the city link, Smokey highlights that we will be just creating more bottlenecks in the tunnel. The bottom line: improving public transport improves congestion, improving roads moves congestion.

In our urban lifestyles, we are no longer connecting with the environment, we are no longer spending time exploring the bush or our forest and ecosystems. The bush and farms are evermore dependent on the climate and we need to develop love for the biodiversity that we have in order to connect with it and understand this dependency on climate; childhood experiences are critical for this development.

So if there’s one thing to take away from the show, no matter who you decide to vote for on Saturday the 7^th, is that the balance of power in the senate is critical to the not only the environmental actions, but future policies.  

To hear more from Tim, listen to the show.

You can also follow us on twitter @enviro_pod

Tracks played:

Stereo Love- super electric

Boy and Bear- Southern Suns

Josh Pyke- Just noise 

Environmentality, 31st July 2013

Hello Environmentality Listeners,

Apologies that the show did not air this week. 

Courtesy of  www.urf.com

Environmentality, 24th July 2013

 Hello Environmentality listeners,

This week our friend, Robert Bender, returned to talk all about fungi. Strange but true fact, the fungus is the largest living organism on Earth!

Jaime, Robert and Smokey at the studio

Fungi are commonly classified as a plant, however as Robert explains, fungi is not a plant as it does not photosynthesize. Rather fungi is classified as a separate kingdom. Most of the fungi living matter can be found underground. Mushrooms are the ‘fruit’ of fungi and are akin to pimples on us! The role of the mushroom is to spread spores through air or water. The body of the fungi is a thin material that propagates through the soil, logs and living wood. Fungi are made up of 96% of water; they will only pop out during wet periods.

Fungi has been around for the past 400-450 million years, its essential function is to rot wood, extracting nutrients from dead or living wood. Fungi has a symbiotic relationship with vascular plants such as trees, grasses and herbs. Vascular plants do not extract nitrogen from the ground well; fungi do not have the ability to make their own foods. Vascular plants and fungi partner together that is mutually beneficial to both, vascular plants obtain their nitrogen from fungi in exchange from nutrients extracted from the vascular plants. About 97% of Australian vascular plants use fungi to absorb nitrogen.   

Previously we didn’t know very much about Australian fungi, it was estimated that there are 10,000 species of fungi. The Fungimap project started to map the different species of fungus. Starting with 100 species 15 years ago, there has been 10,000 citing of fungi by volunteers. Volunteers have taken photos of fungi and sent them into fungimap. Fungimap 2 with 100 species have started, to learn about mapping fungi in your area, view their website.   

If you plan on going on a mushroom hunt, field mushrooms are edible. However the Yellow Strainer is a native species that looks just like a field mushroom except when it is bruised, it turns sulfuric yellow. Death Caps also look similar to field mushrooms that are commonly found in domestic gardens. Mushrooms have been known to cause serious illness and even death, thus before eating wild mushrooms, make sure you know it’s not poisonous.  

The Yellow Strainer, courtesy of ausphotography.net.au

Fungi come into all different shapes, colours and sizes. To learn more about fungi and truffles (yes truffles is a fungi!), look up Fungi down under and tune into the podcast

Tracks played today:

Stereo Love

Desafinado

Lisa Miller- It will never happen again

Get back again- Kutcha Edwards

Battleships- Bernard Fanning. 

Environmentality, 10th July 2013

Hello Environmentality listeners,

Jaime, Ahmed and Fola chatted to Cintia Gonzalez about upcycling. Cintia comes from a crafty family and has learnt how to sew and knit from her mother. Cintia has been blogging for the past 5 years.

Courtesy of  mypoppet.com.au

Upcycling is when something new is made from something old or something that might have been thrown away. Although its roots may have come from thriftiness, upcycling not only benefits your hip pocket but also the environment. By choosing to reuse, we are diverting waste from landfill and saving the water, energy and resources that would have gone into making new products.  

Upcycling is also great to develop and learn new skills. By creating your own products, you will be more likely to appreciate the time and skill required to make the product, hence more likely to value it and less likely to throw it away. You don’t need to have formal training to start, just interest! Start small and build up your skill set with each project. A good project to start with is decorating old jars and shoe boxes for storing things. Pinterest is great if you’re stuck for ideas as we were! You-tube is also fantastic if you’re looking to up-skill.

One of Cintia’s projects is a braided carpet made from 13 old t-shirts that have been worn out. Cut into strips, the t-shirts were braided and sew together. One of Cintia’s better known projects is the cross stitch chair that was fixed and covered in wool cross stitch pattern. The chair has been featured in international design websites and magazines.

Braided T-Shirt Rug, Courtesy of mypoppet.com.au

For other projects and photo step to step guides, check out Cintia’s blog. You can also follow Cintia on twitter @mypoppetshop and instagram  

The joy Cintia attains from creating her own products is infectious and Cintia’s enthusiasm can clearly be shown through her work. To hear more about Cintia’s blog, her other projects, yoghurt container curtains and catch some of Cintia’s enthusiasm, listen to the podcast.

For more information about the Broadmeadows Bicycle Hub, click on Banksia Garden’s website.

The Environmental champions monthly social catch up meets the second Wednesday of every month from 6:30pm till 9pm at the Hume Global Learning Centre. For bookings and other events, go to http://www.livegreenhume.eventbrite.com.au or call 9205 2310 

Tracks played:

What are friends for- Gabriel Lynch

Waking up is hard to do- Go You Huskies

Lights down- Go You Huskies

Environmentality, 3rd July 2013

Hello Environmentality listeners,

Jaime, Fola, Ahmed and Smokey spoke to Beth Askham from the Alternative Technology Association (ATA) about the September issue of ReNew magazine. The ATA is member organization which provides information and resources to member about how to improve the sustainability of their homes.

 

Courtesy of the ATA

Learn about how to make your own biochar from a modified drum in the latest issue. Biochar is clean charcoal made from burning organic matter through pyrolysis; the organic matter is burnt cleanly so there is no smoke produced. Biochar is great for the soil nutrients and for holding carbon in the soil.

Beth also talks about some of the appliances that can be used to monitor the energy use at home. Monitoring the energy use is a good way to understand where and when you’re using the most amount of energy. Some of these appliances tap into the smart meters. For more a guide to smart meters, you can go to the ATA website.

The recent Electric Vehicle Expo brought together electrical vehicles such as bikes, skates and cars. Although several years ago the only way to have an electric car was to make your own, it has now become more affordable. Despite Victoria coal driven electricity, electric cars can still be environmental friendly with solar PV roofs, solar recharge station such as at CERES and high levels of efficiency.

The University of Wollongong has retrofitted a fibro shack and entered in the Solar Decathlon competition. Using sustainable technology and green design, the house has been designed to be energy neutral; creating all the energy the house needs. To learn more about the project, visit their website:  http://www.illawarraflame.com.au/

                                                                           

Courtesy of UOW’s Illawarra Flame

To learn more about the petition set up government grants to help start community owned energy projects such as energy and solar go to the website www.fundcommunityenergy.org  

The ATA has also started selling accredited green power through the Community Climate Chest. We can now buy green power from community groups and NGOS rather than the retailers. 

We then further chatted about Soccer, politics, the East-West Tunnel, and the carbon tax and emissions trading scheme. Tune into the podcast to hear more about the ATA and Smokey’s views the East-West tunnel and the carbon tax.      

Tracks played:

Wolf Mother- White Unicorn

The Pixies- Here Comes Your Man

Tim Buckley- Chase the Blues Away