Next meeting: Monday 18th August 6:30pm at the Community House.
- 4th August ORCA Meeting Minutes (please comment as you think fit)
- ORCA/Deakin Partnership Proposal
Coming events:
- August 12th 2008, 1pm-4pm: A Seminar-Workshop on Emissions Trading and Climate Change Meeting Room, Ground Floor, 60L Building, 60 Leicester St, Carlton
Presentations by the Climate Action Network Australia, Environment Victoria, the Australian Conservation Foundation, and the Brotherhood of St Laurence. - August 20th Media release for Human Sign at the Apollo Bay School. See also the pictures form the Melbourne Human Sign on 5th July.
- August 21st 2008 3:00-4:00pm Darren Cheeseman (Federal member for Corangamite) speaking on Gobal warming and its impact on Corangamite. Venue Collingwood St/Great Ocean Rd.
- September 13th – 14th Sustainable House Day
- October 4th 2008 Changing the Dream Symposium – Aireys Inlet
- October 17th Friday – Otway Ranges Climate Change Action Forum (planned)
- January 20th to February 20th 2009 CO-EDAPT
Perhaps of interest:
- Major discovery from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution Scientists mimic essence of plants’ energy storage system. By Anne Trafton, MIT News Office July 31, 2008
- ‘Middle of the road…towards a cliff’ by David Spratt …A final hurdle concerns targets. Garnaut has already said that the climate science demands emissions reduction rates much faster than the Government seems willing to contemplate…
- Guy Pearce in The Monthly, July 2008 “Throughout this period, while most Australians gave Rudd the benefit of the doubt, many environmentalists were suspicious. However, the green leadership was complacent, compliant and worryingly quiet on many of the issues that mattered most…”
- Environment Victoria submission to the Victorian Government’s “A Climate of Opportunity” Summit Paper [PDF 440KB]
- Climate Action Groups at Environment Victoria Meeting Minutes This meeting was held at Ross House on 26th July 2008.
- Transition Towns: This website is a WIKI for use by all the communities that have adopted the Transition Model for responding to the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change. [link provided by Fern]
- Transition Towns in N.S.W Assorted links to interviews etc [link provided by Fern]
- Future Scenarios around Peak Oil This site is arranged as an essay in Peak Oil broken into micro-chapters. [link provided by Fern]
Grants available
- Australia Post Community Development Grant – closing sept 19th Community groups can now apply for yearly grants of up to $3,300 (including GST) to help improve their local community and environment, through the Australia Post/Landcare Community Development Grants Program.
- Renewable Energy Support Fund The Renewable Energy Support Fund is a key initiative of the Victorian Climate Change Program and aims to facilitate and demonstrate innovative renewable energy projects that contribute to reducing Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions.
- Ecoliving Grant The EcoLiving Grant has been allocated by the Victorian Government from the Sustainability Fund, as an initiative of Our Environment Our Future Sustainability Action Statement 2006, to help Victorians reduce their impact on the environment. Through the EcoLiving Centre Grants program $3 million will be invested over four years for the establishment of EcoLiving Centres – a community building that demonstrates sustainability in action and provides learning and change programs for local communities.
- Mercy Foundation Environmental Grants for Schools – Closes September 1st The Foundation can be contacted at office@mercyfoundation.com.au or by phone on 61 02 9699 8726.
- Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal (FRRR) The Helping Hands Program is available to not-for-profit organisations for projects and activities that offer clear public benefit for communities living in small rural and remote locations in Australia, contributing to their development in social and community welfare, economic, environmental, health, education or cultural areas. Remaining grants have closing date of 27 October. To date FRRR has allocated $13 million to communities across the nation and has leveraged many millions more supporting projects that stimulate the renewal of whole communities.
Just some corrections to the Aug 4th minutes;
The CO-EDAPT project is starting in September (so, next month). Those interested in being involved please contact me for an expression of interest form.
Tony Webber gave the information about Darren Cheeseman’s upcoming visit (before he had to leave to go to the Ag meeting).
I suggested that it would be good for the group to outline what they would like to present/discuss with Darren Cheeseman. I also suggest that the meeting be an alliance of local organisations eg. ORCA, permaculture group, SOLN, Ag society etc. Earlier this year the permaculture group (Tony and myself) had a meeting with Darren Cheeseman with reps from Geelong Sustainability Group (Monica Winston) and Geelong Organic Gardners (Judy Cameron).
“The dirt on farmer John” is a documentary (DVD) that I think is available from the local video store (well, someone told me that it is).
It would be great to screen relevant DVD’s, like “The dirt on Farmer john” (maybe at Marrar Woorn?). The permaculture group own quite a few (and I’m going to ask if we can purchase some more). What do others have? I’m looking at getting “What a way to go”, Robert Newman’s “History of Oil”, “Crude Awakening”, “How to save the world”
see you all soon!
*Fern
PS. the recording of David Holmgren’s talk in Apollo Bay in October 2007 is available on DVD to borrow from the permaculture group to whoever wishes to borrow it. Please note; that the recording is very dark, but the audio is fine.
a good discussion forum is the PIL listserv
go to:
http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania
to join or look at the archives
recent topics have been on:
SWEET PITTOSPORUM:- Opportunistic but Useful Local Rainforest Pioneer Plant or Alien Invasive Weed?
Fire ecology – mulch vs fire – to burn or not to burn
Future Scenarios
Use of menstral blood in agriculture
Mulchers
Jean Pain system
Plant breeders rights (history of Phoenix seed company)
ATA (Alternative Technology Association) are asking for anyone who has used greywater to water their plants, and what detergents they have found to be okay for their plants. If they could contact the association with their information.
In relation to the first item of interest “Major discovery of MIT…” please read this article;
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4378#more
these are very worthwhile sites:
http://www.theoildrum.com
http://www.energybulletin.net
I emailed this to Simon last week, along with the grant info and websites (it looks like it’s been missed);
The Sahel Regreening Initiative.
Speaker: Chris Reij
Venue: The Green Building, 60 Leicester St, Carlton
Date: Tuesday 12th August, 2008.
Time: 10.00 am – 12.30 pm.
About the Speaker
Chris Reij is a human geographer by training, who began working in the Sahel in 1978 as a regional planner. Since 1982 he has been with the Center for International Cooperation of VU University Amsterdam. He has been involved in numerous consultancies for multilateral and bilateral agencies (World Bank, IFAD, UNSO, OECD/Club du Sahel, EU/CTA) as well as for NGOs mainly in, but also outside, Africa.
In the last 10 years Chris has been coordinating research programs on indigenous soil and water conservation practices in Africa (13 countries), on farmer innovation in Africa (7 countries) and on long-term trends in agriculture and environment, as well as impacts of investments in natural resource management (4 countries). These research programs have led to a number of publications.
Topic: Re-greening the Sahel.
Chris will speak about positive vegetation changes in Niger Republic, a country generally considered to be beyond repair due to the advance of the Sahara desert. Over the last 20 years, Niger has experienced a net gain in tree cover, despite being one of the poorest and most drought prone countries in the world. Chris will share how this occurred in the absence of any significant government or foreign aid interventions in the forestry sector.
Chris is coordinator of the Sahel Re-Greening Initiative, a coalition of about 10 NGOs which is promoting revegetation (initially) in four Sahelian countries (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad) based on the successful Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration model which has spread throughout the Niger Republic. Chris share about the formation and progress of this initiative
http://www.tripmeeter.org is the carpooling site for the Bega Valley area
Perhaps we could set up a similiar site for our area?
the future scenarios website;
http://www.futurescenarios.org
maps the cultural implications of climate change and peak oil.
When these two intertwined issues can be seen as two aspects of the same problem, we can then work towards building community resilience plus cutting carbon emissions through;
- Planned relocalisation
- Tradable energy quotas
- Decentralised energy infrastructure
- Re-skilling
- Local food production
- Energy descent planning
- Local currencies
- Local medicinal capacity
*Fern
here’s a carpooling site that’s free to join and worldwide;
http://www.eRideShare.com
We could encourage everyone who’s interested in carpooling to join this site. We can also create a local group for our area on this site.
There are other carpooling sites, such as http://www.carpool-it.com but they are subscription sites.
I’ve just found a better carpooling site that’s Australian, also free and includes school carpooling.
http://www.thecarpool.com.au
I think I prefer this one
the website for the relocalisation network is http://www.relocalize.net
There was a great conference in Brisbane in May this year called “Go Local”. Russ Grayson has written up a paper about the conference that’s on the website. ORCA could join the relocasation network.