A filip for the soul - 8 April 2010
I've had the flu over the past couple of weeks. I've been coughing my lungs out and have just about lost my voice. So this week, I'm going to hand over to BCCAN member Patrick Forman, who offers these thoughts:
Feeling a tad exhausted after just having pedaled in from Lithgow, against a stiffening breeze, a friendly face approached the cafe where I was carbohydrate loading and liquid replenishing. It was none other than Lis Bastian, who many will know from the various presentations she has given in Bathurst around the topic of climate change [and before that, the friendly face of Arts OutWest!]. Lis has worn out much shoe leather across the length and breadth of the Central West and beyond, imparting her passion and informing and cajoling us to make the effort to stem the tide of global warming.
Lis was on her way to Orange to run a course in permaculture. She is indeed a muti-talented human being - writer, artist, cook, grower, preserver, mother, partner and community galvaniser just to name a few. It was a fairly rushed conversation as she was just pausing to fill up on delicious Legall pastries, but that short conversation really made my day. Lis has recently taken on a new job as the Climate Adaptation Officer of Central NSW Councils (CENTROC). She is very upbeat about the roles councils are filling in the vacuum left by our state and federal legislatures.
I had become a bit down after the failure of Australia to adopt even the very timid emissions trading scheme put forward by the Rudd government and then the failure of world leaders to agree on specific and binding targets for emissions reduction at the Copenhagen conference.
Lis was having none of that negativity and indeed, I too immediately felt up-lifted by her enthusiasm of what councils are doing and planning.
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Okay, back to me now. The above is a slightly edited version of Patrick Forman's blog on the BCCAN website. The website is chock-full of interesting local discussions about climate change. It will be further enriched the more we participate in it, becoming a storehouse of information on issues such as gardening, solar panels and environmental activism.