Help ORCA take action on Hazelwood: Tuesday 13th 3:30pm (market site)

ORCA has been asked to contribute a visible action to the switch off Hazelwood campaign.

You can help make a photo using the Switch off Hazelwood logo. We will meet at the Apollo Bay Market site on Tuesday 13th July at 3:30pm sharp. We may also be joined by Greens Candidate for Corangamite, Mike Lawrence, who is concerned that we promote the renewable alternatives to coal.

Don’t forget the launch of the Zero Carbon Stationary Energy Plan – 14th July

Questions? Ring Simon 0419575525.

ORCA eNews 9th September 2009

Meeting Minutes: 26th August 2009 Committee Meeting

Events

  1. September ORCA Committee Meeting, 30th September 6.30pm, Marrar Woorn Community House, Pengilly Ave Apollo Bay. All welcome.
  2. Household Energy Assessor Training, 22nd & 29th September 2-5pm, Colac Otway Shire Conference Room, 69-71 Nelson St Apollo Bay. Please RSVP to Anna at solnanna@vicnet.net.au / 52376904.
  3. Apollo Bay Community Bank Go-Green Challenge, get free replacement energy efficient globes throughout October!
  4. Friday 4th September: Climate Toolkit launch by Breeze 10:ooam – 3:00pm BEST Community Development, 28 Victoria St, Ballarat. RSVP to Sara Hill, (sara@breaze.org.au or 0421 335 965).
  5. Sat- Sun 12th-13th September: Switch off Hazelwood
  6. Wed 16th September: Help organise the Walk Against Warming Meeting on Wednesday at 6.00pm at the EV office at 60 Leicester St, Carlton.
  7. Sustainable House Day 2009

News Items

  1. A National network for community climate action groups around Australia has been proposed. You can vote online whether or not you think this is a good idea by following the link: National Community Climate Network voting link [PDF 93KB]. Such a network could act as a lobbying group for climate action, as advocating at the national level is very difficult for local community groups.
  2. Climate alarm: it’s now or never
  3. Helping Australian households live greener
  4. Electric Vehicle is on track by Dr Andrew Simpson, a senior research fellow at Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute. He has over 10 years experience in the hybrid/electric vehicle, electric power and renewable energy industries in Australia and North America, including two years most-recently at Tesla Motors in California.
  5. ABC Q & A 3rd Sep 09: Helen Liddell (British High Commissioner to Australia), Tony Burke (Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry), Bill Heffernan (senator), Anne Summers (author and feminist), and Tim Wilson (Director of the IP and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs) discuss Climate Change, ETS and energy security.
  6. Waterlog: Drought Proof your Garden
  7. Colac Herald: Group Pushing for Apollo Bay Turbine

ORCA News 30th July 2008

Next meeting: Monday 4th August 6:30pm at the Community House.

21st July ORCA meeting Minutes (please check these if you were present and comment as you think fit)

  1. Do we have the capacity to co-ordinate a Human Sign on August 20th?
  2. Should we move our public meeting date to the 17th October (speaker availability + clash on the 11th)?
  3. Fiona Nelson has had a great idea: A regular climate change action in AB Newsheet to keep it fresh in community’s mind. Community members could put in their climate change actions so every month/week it would appear in the newsheet. Perhaps we find a could sponser for a prize for the best Climate change Action.

Coming events:

  1. August 4th Discussion Group: Phil Hart speaks on Peak Oil and Climate Change
  2. August 12th 2008, 1pm-4pm: A Seminar-Workshop on Emissions Trading and Climate Change
  3. August 15th 2008 7:30pm Darren Cheeseman (Federal member for Corangamite) speaking on Gobal warming and its impact on Corangamite. Venue Uniting Church Queenscliffe. Gold coin admission. Supper provided. Organized by the Global Warming Group Queenscliffe. Enquiries Roel Wasterval 52582743
  4. August 20th Human Sign: Human Sign Updates
  5. September 13th – 14th Sustainable House Day
  6. October 4th 2008 Changing the Dream Symposium – Aireys Inlet
  7. October 18th- 19th – Otway Ranges Climate Change Action Forum (planned)
  8. January 20th to February 20th 2009 CO-EDAPT

How to make a human sign

HOW TO MAKE A HUMAN SIGN

5th July

Human signs are great fun, relatively easy to do if you are organised. They generate a lot of conversation about climate change, engage your local community and most importantly stimulate action. Clean Energy for Eternity have now organised 35 human signs. Some have been better than others, and we have learnt a lot.

Here are a few of the things that we have learnt about making human signs.

If you want to make a human sign at school, three quarters of the work is already done. The most difficult thing about a human sign is advertising, generating the enthusiasm and getting the people there. To do a human sign in school hours means that you have a captive crowd on site with built in enthusiasm, in a safe monitored environment. All that remains is to decide what you are going to say, a group of helpers to spend 3 hours approx marking out the sign, approval from your principal, and a non political message.

You probably need at least 50 people per letter, so you should be able to work out how many letters you will be able to make for your word(s). 50 people standing in single file close together can make a very readable letter that is about 10 m high and 4 m wide. A gap of about 2m between each letter looks pretty good, and a gap of 10m between words is very readable. My advice would be to use block upper case letters and as the plane is taking its footage make the people, who are able too, crouch down for a more defined letter (this is especially important if you are located in tricky spots like the cross bar of an ‘A’). Smaller groups will have to use their ingenuity, one for example is providing an exclamation mark for its contribution as it has only 15 people total.

How to mark out the sign?

The first thing to do is to have a plan or map of the word(s) to spell out. Have all the dimensions carefully marked out. When you draw it to scale, you will get a pretty good idea of what it will look like from the air. The obvious place for a school sign would be on the school oval, or the closest safe open area available to the school.
In marking out the letters, the first thing to do is mark out the parallel tram tracks which can be done using a string line. If your letters are 10m high, make 2 parallel string lines on the oval 10 m apart. Then work out the centre point, and then mark out the letters, moving from the centre outwards. This will ensure that your sign is square and central within the oval. The easiest way to mark out the sign is with spray paint, the type builders use to mark out trenches etc (you use the can upside down). Dots of spray paint reasonably close together would not interfere with sports games the following weekend, and you will find that the paint will be gone in a few days or after the next mowing. The alternative is to use a lime marker, this also disappears in a day or 2, but is more difficult and time consuming to apply.

How to get people evenly spread throughout the sign?

You don’t want some letters thicker than others. Divide up the school population by the number of letters and this will give you an idea about how many students per letter. I would say that the best way for a school to form a sign would be to simply start at one end, and when each letter is tightly filled in single file, move onto the next letter. When you get to the end, you can distribute the remaining students into the sparser areas. Alternatively, you could assign different letters to different classes.

How to photograph the sign?

The only way to do this is from the air. The plane needs to have a high wing (ie a Cessna) and preferably fly with the door off, as this makes photography much easier. I would recommend both a still and video photographer, and the video camera should be broadcast quality (3 chip) so the sign can get on the TV. The camera needs to be high quality digital so the shot can get into the papers. The key with the photo (particularly if multiple signs are going to be pasted together to form a sentence) is to get the shot square, and from as close to directly above as possible. If multiple signs are being photographed, they should all be imaged (shot) from the same altitude. This is all relatively easy to organise, but CEFE can certainly help out if need be. We certainly have contacts ( after 5 signs) with aircraft pilots and photographers, if schools need help.

With multiple signs in a particular region, the cost of the plane could be shared between the schools involved. I would imagine that to film 4 schools from the air would cost about $300. That’s less than $100 per school. I am sure that a coin donation from the students involved would cover this cost. Check with us and other schools in the area to find out who is participating, co-ordinating exact times for the aerial shots is critical, you do not want to have your students waiting for too long.

Remember to video and photograph your sign taking shape from the ground, we have learnt that recording these signs provides a great source of footage for future use. You may decide as a school to put together a DVD of the event, I have watched dozens of times the DVD’s CEFE produced and still find my self looking for my kids and discovering people I did not know were involved.

It would be good to alert the media as soon as you have decided to participate, a short press release emailed and a few follow up phone calls has worked well for us. You never know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ABC or other sent down their helicopter for the day. I would get onto Canberra times, Sydney Morning Herald, Illawarra Mercury, The Age, Win TV, etc and all the local papers. CEFE can help with contacts if you need help.

One final piece of advice. Someone will always be critical of the sign being filmed from the air ( as planes produce CO2). The way to pre-empt that criticism is to ‘offset’ the carbon emissions (CO2) for the flight. That is fairly easy to do. For 4 schools, a Cessna will burn approximately 40 litres of aviation fuel. There are several web sites that will be able to tell you how many trees need to be planted to offset the CO2 from the flight. It would probably amount to 1 or 2 trees being planted. Too easy. I would plant the tree(s) before the flight, and you then negate any potential criticism. The alternative is to pay for the offset in dollars, this would equate roughly to no more than $50 per flight max.

This is a great opportunity, will be good fun, will require a fair amount of work on the day, and will be a powerful statement. This will generate tens of thousands of discussions about climate change, and when people get talking, solutions start appearing. Your students will be proud to participate and add their voice to the growing concern for climate change.

Good luck
Matthew Nott
Clean Energy For Eternity