Infographic: Putting a Price Tag on Carbon

Research commissioned by The Climate Institute, shows that in Country rankings of implied carbon price in the electricity sector, Australia is the second lowest of the 7 regions studied.

I love a good infographic.

The rankings are:
• UK: US$29.30
• China: US$14.20
• North East USA: US$9.50; USA overall US$5.10
• Japan: US$3.10
• Australia: US$1.70
• South Korea: US$0.70

The Institute's media release concludes with this statement by The Climate Institute’s Deputy CEO Erwin Jackson:

“The test for both the leadership and effectiveness of this Parliament is whether it can put real limits and a price tag on pollution that reverses Australia’s still rising pollution levels by 2013 and enables significant reductions by 2020."

“It will also be a test of the extent to which this Parliament is willing to make the necessary decisions today to equip and strengthen Australia’s economy for the low pollution opportunities of today and tomorrow.”

“Alongside a price tag on pollution, urgent measures are needed to make clean energy cheaper, reduce energy bills and improve energy productivity.”

The Climate Institute has published a media release online, along with the policy brief, the complete report and a full size version of the infographic for download - so you can see the fine print and detail in all their 'glory'.
You can also get it from their flickr stream.

Greening Your Parents

Image: takepart.com

My grandparents lived through the depression and understood how to be frugal with resources. They saved, reused, recycled. Those habits passed on, in some ways, to my parents.

Typical among their parental don’t-do-this, don't-do-that, chants were such familiar old standards like "Don't stand with the fridge door open," "Turn the lights off when you leave the room," and "Don't waste electricity." Burned forever into my memory.

But that "waste not want not" mantra didn't translate to everything, since the life of a baby boomer in the western world was generally one of plenty and abundance. What was now considered the scrimping, miserly ways of the depression - that just happened to be environmentally friendly - were cast aside in the generation of plenty - in the late 20th century.

It became infra dig to be seen as anything other than wasteful and over-consuming. It was a sign of wealth and status to own lots, use lots and basically do the opposite to what one's depression era forebears did.

And so - those great habits of my grandparents managed to skip a generation or two.

I say 'skip' because thankfully they're coming back, and now it's the other way round. Green My Parents is an environmental Youth movement "to seed the green economy & save the Planet". It's all about getting kids to teach their parents and peers how to leave a smaller and greener footprint on the planet.

And it uses money as the great motivator that we know it to be - especially in this age of global financial meltdown (who knew there could be an upside?).

By using less resources, households save money and save the planet at the same time – all through simple, everyday actions.

For example, here's what one sixteen year old GMP member has achieved.
• Switching to an energy efficient light bulb saves $40 and uses 75% less energy
• Riding his bike 5 miles to school saves his mom $16.45 a week - that's $164.50 a year - on petrol.
• To save paper he reads the news online and reminds his family to use reusable bags.

The GMP kids are then encouraged to spread their successes across social networking sites, to get their friends to change their habits too.

It's a pretty neat idea and I hope it spreads right across to other countries.

You can read more about it here at takepart.com.
And on the official greenmyparents website.

Kids are the future, after all. They're the ones who really care what sort of world they're going to have to be living in 50 years from now.

So it makes sense that they'll be the drivers, setting the good example and encouraging the olds to join in.... for their kids' sake.

Keeping it Wheel on Sunday Oct 10th

On Sunday 10th October, I was proud to join a working party for the 10:10 global day of climate solutions organised by 350.org.

The streets of Sydney were filled with bike love, thanks to an amazing turn out for the Keep it Wheel ride. Our aim was to celebrate the city’s new cycleways. And if you've ever cycled around Sydney, you'll understand that these are indeed cause for celebration.

Huge thanks to Digital Eskimo for organising it, for arranging these speccy photos and for connecting me with a bunch of calm and friendly cyclists who bike around just for the love of it -- and for the love of the planet.

Blog Action Day: Water

When I was young I used to brush my teeth in the shower. Somehow my teenage mind figured it was more efficient to combine showering with brushing. Bizarre but true. I'm almost ashamed to admit it now. This was back in the day when it was normal to leave the tap running while we brushed our teeth over the sink; when dad hosed down his car on his concrete driveway every single morning; when, in suburban Sydney, when water was ubiquitous, abundant and to be taken for granted.

Then came the drought - and water rationing. I learned all sorts of miserly habits with my water usage. I stopped washing the car and the one time I tried - using a bucket of recycled water - a passing motorist screamed out "Don't waste water!" I learned to get by with a lot less.

But it's all relative, isn't it. I once saw a film about a family living on the steppes in one of the Stans (Uzbekistan? Kazakhstan?) These people had nothing but a few camels, their home was a dry, barren plain and the scene from the film that is etched in my mind is of the mother cleaning up after their evening meal. The father and sons had each had a small bowl of rice. When they'd finished eating, the mother allowed herself to eat what was left over, and washing up consisted of her scraping each bowl clean with her fingers and licking off every last grain of food. That was her meal. The bowls were finally washed with a teaspoon-sized amount of something that had once been water.

I think of that woman every time I'm "making do" with my measly one inch of washing up water, and thinking about how to siphon it out afterwards to throw on the garden. I think about the women and children in Africa who's entire day's work is devoted to walking miles and miles to a well, collecting water and then slogging it back home again. They're risking their lives and their health for water that isn't even safe to drink, while I only need to walk as far as the sink. And I am reminded - to steal a phrase I read somewhere - of the lottery that is birth.

I will leave you with a link to a video for Unicef's Tap Project - Dirty Water vending machines. A smart campaign to demonstrate just how poor the water is for a large proportion of the world's population.

And this link to oxfam's Water for Life project:
http://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/water-sanitation-and-hygiene/features/water-for-life
This water themed post is a part of Blog Action Day 2010.

Weird Day

Some days have their own peculiar character, and I saw this one coming.

I woke up suddenly, worried that I'd overslept again and missed yoga again, while the memories of my dreams leaked away. Dreams are weird, by nature, but these dreams were so far removed from things I know or think that it was like someone else's brain had dreamed them. They were not happy dreams in which things were going well.

I got up and felt that twinge in my hip -- that old pain that I thought had gone away, but today it was back -- just as I heard the cat peeing on the rug. Bad cat. After I’d cleaned the rug and scrubbed the floor, there was the sound of cat fight outside, then cat belting back into apartment, back up and tail at full fluff. Just as I was about to leave the house, she threw up next to the bed.

On the car radio I heard a news report about a death of a man after a fairly routine drunken fight and arrest at the club of the rugby team that all my facebook friends were talking about this morning. I remembered that last night my usually quiet neighbours had had a loud, drunken row as I was trying to get to sleep.

I arrived at yoga to find my favourite teacher absent and my least favourite teacher in her place. I spent the class worrying about how to answer the email I'd read this morning.

Yep - the signs are all here.

A few weeks ago I'd had a day that started out badly. I was mentally listing each of the signs and telling myself "This is going to be a bad day". Then, realising that I was creating a truth for myself with this mindset, decided to set superstition against superstition and turn the day around. I took the sighting of a very cute ginger cat and the jovial helpfulness of a man in a motorcycle shop as good signs. The day was back in balance.

This day however, I'm not so sure I will beat. Not being a 9-5 office worker, I don't really get the concepts of holidays and weekends, but today the Public Holiday-ness of this Monday is palpable. Its drifting rudderlessness, and the echo of thousands of hangovers -- after two "Saturday nights" in a row -- seems to permeate the atmosphere. My whole city feels hungover. The sky is grey and weighty, rainy at times. Even when a bit of sun breaks through it feels oppressive and indecisive.

It seems as good a day as any to do the dreaded housework, while I observe and note and see what unfolds.

I also remember the wisdom last night of Steven Fry on telly describing depression. It's like the weather. Some days are rainy. You can't do anything about that. But even though it feels like forever, the rain will stop and the sun will come out.

Everything has its cycles.