Bathurst Community Climate Action Network

Well, it looks like Kevin Rudd has been scared off his own Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). The scheme, once Labor's flagship policy, has been scrapped for now, overtaken by a heavy dose of Realpolitik. The scrapping of the scheme will save the government a couple of billion and it will stop the Coalition running a scare campaign over rising electricity prices and job losses.

The CPRS, in its most recent incarnation, was enormously flawed, and many environmentalists felt we'd be better of with nothing than with a scheme that would lock in massive compensation for carbon emitters. However, by planning for a national scheme to tackle climate change, Australia, the world's worst per-capita emitter, was signalling that it was prepared to take the bull by the horns. Now, the world will be looking on as Rudd turns tail and runs out of the arena.

In scrapping the scheme until at least 2013, Kevin Rudd has announced the government will hold off until it sees what other countries do. The fact is that many other countries – lower per capita emitters than us - are doing a lot. Even China, often considered a barrier to change, is taking dramatic steps.

Greg Walker, the Treasurer of the Bathurst Community Climate Action Network, is now in Kunming, China, for work. As he read the news on ABC Online, he had the China Daily open on his hotel table. In an email home, he noted that the China Daily has "a special back page feature lauding the progress that Shandong Province is making with renewable energy projects including a item about a Sino-German conference on Friday that is focused on new energy and sustainability."

Another report in the China Daily describes how investors around the world are rushing "to pump money into the new energy sector in east China's Shandong province. The province had approved 40 new energy projects by end of March, with a total investment of $2.39 billion, of which $680 million was from abroad…"

By putting it off, we're deciding to take our pain later, rather than earlier. The problem is that the pain – not just for future generations, but for an economy that is slow to adjust to new world realities – will get worse the longer we leave it.
 

The pile of books under the lamp in the living room is growing ever higher. I suspect every one of them contains a little world I'd enjoy sinking into for an hour… but it's been a long day and I think I'll just see what's on the television.

Ironically, one of the books in my pile is Dr Bruce Fell's Television and Climate Change. Bruce is a lecturer in screen and media at Charles Sturt University. His book, written for his PhD thesis, talks about how television - the soundtrack and wallpaper of our lives - normalises a way of life that is quite simply unsustainable. He gives the example of a scene in which two Americans sit in a snug café, snow swirling outside, eating a green salad. The salad is simply a prop on the table, not meant to be an object of interest in itself. But Bruce puts the "pause" button on that scene and invites us to think about it. He invites us to think about the miles – probably by air – that those delicate green leaves have travelled to get from the place they were grown to the snug café in the snowbound city. It is because the salad isn't "noticeable" in the scene that it is all the more powerful. It just seems normal, unremarkable.

At a climate change discussion night held at Café Kai in George Street recently, Bruce said today's generation absorbs a constant drip of images like these, imbibing them from the very beginning, along with mother's milk. He said that creating different, more sustainable images in the media – for  example, a character that chooses to drink tap water rather than a fizzy drink – was enormously challenging because of the commercial interests at play. However, he said that one way to tackle the issue is by direct appeals to celebrities to model healthier and more sustainable choices. For fruit-and-veg challenged children, there could be great power in seeing a much-loved television figure simply eating an apple.

Well, the book is still in my "to read" pile but at least I had the chance to listen to Bruce in person during the discussion in the café organised by Bathurst Community Climate Action Network. If you're interested in future such discussions, stay tuned, or join BCCAN and start getting the newsletter.

The federal budget has been proclaimed and the opposition has predictably poored scorn on it.
Mr. Rudd does not seem to have been given the bounce from it he may have hoped and he is still being roundly criticised for his abandoning of the government's proposes Emissions Trading Scheme.  Having trumpeted so loudly that this was the great moral challenge of our time and then to have been so critical of the opposition for not embracing it - nay it was an act of political cowardice to do so, he then so glibly walked away from it himself.
True, the opposition saw to its demise in the Senate, true, no international concensus of any weight was reached at Copenhagen and it is true also that the public support for action on climate change was dropping too, but still ,in the public's imagination, he has appeared to give in too easily. Not even waiting until the outcome of the next election might yield a more favourable Senate or not.
Rather than the issue just going away for him, it has in fact given more traction to the opposition claims that he is a hollow man, standing for  nothing.
I  had lived with the optomistic hope that he had a trick up  his sleeve in the budget with a ramping up of renewable energy. He forshadowed this with his usual hyperbole, that he was going to annnounce the biggest increase in renewable energy projects this country has ever seen.
What we were given in the budget is something just over $800 million dollars, which is so petty given the rate of increase in fossil fuel technology and projects planned in the near term.
The planned revenue gained from increasing the tax on smoking will yield over twice that amount.
We will run out of coal in 60 - 90 years, which is certainly a long time in the politicians  yard stick, but it stands to reason that a society should be planning a transition now.
Of course in this country it is very difficult for a politician to oppose coal. Coal to a large extent is a cash cow to our coffers. It will be largely responsible ( along with iron ore) to returning our budget to surplus and it becomes very hard for a politician to be actively planning its very demise.
Politicians have long been caught in the same grip by taxes imposed on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling. All elements known to be toxic to society and individuals but politicians in our name seem happy to enjoy the windfall gains  from the taxation and turn a blind eye to the harm they cause.
As readers will know, I am very busy promoting the Bathurst Becoming Cycle Friendly in our region.  When one looks at the ecenomic and health benefits of a cycle friendly city, such as a net profit of $0.26 for every km cycled against a net loss of $0.13 for every km driven by a car, and the fact that a person cycling to work has a 30% lower mortality rate than all others who are similar in all other respects, it is hard to  imagine a government, local, state or national who wouldn't be doing their best to bring about the implementation of cycle friendly policies.
Yet I suspect our love affair with cars, and the lobbying of motoring organisations and manufacturers and unions will be lining  up to assure the car's dominance in our civic space.
I was reminded of this self interest after a report coming to light last week highlighting the parlace state of the wetlands and forests in the Murray Darling and the authors pleading that the environment needed to be watered at least equally to irrigation.  The irrigators response was the irrigation was more important than nature. Their voices in the corridors of power carry a lot more weight than a dying tree in the Barmah forest or a lizard faced with extinction.
Rather than despair as I often do, a new web site has been linked by a favourite of BCCAN, Lis Bastion, in her new role as the Climate Adaption Officer for the Central West Councils. At that web site, you are invited to make a comment on her blog, called My Shiny Halo and can be reached at:
centroc.com.au/shinyhalo/
Lis invites you to submit an action you are personally undertaking to be more sustainable in a social, environmental or economic sense. By sharing it with others, you may give encouragement and ideas so that this will spread beneficially throughout our communities. In doing this Lis will organise the planting of a  tree on your behalf at the location you choose.
By taking action ourselves we are doing something positive whereas it is all too easy to be downcast by events around us. We all need to feel better for our personal sustainability.
Give it a go!
Finally a reminder that this month's "Chew" will be held on Wednesday evening the 26th May at Cafe Kai in George Street, Bathurst. Our guest will be Dr. Andrew Rawson, a scientist involving in measuring many of the facets of our environment such as water, soil carbon and so on. He would particularly like to invite those who may be sceptical of the scientific evidence in the climate change debate. Please come - rsvp so we can be sure of catering requirements
mailto:pforman@csu.edu.au

An expression of unknown origins to me, but I have always liked it - "chewing the fat". It brings to mind satisfying dinners and satisfying conversations during and after, where consulting adults enjoyed the fruits of intercourse - stimulating intellectual intercourse that is.
A convivial society is one which encourages its members to converse and discuss matters which concern those citizens. As we retreat into our "shells" at home and in the car, we often let that conversation be carried by experts we have no choice  but to passively listen to. It is a totally different experience to be actively engaged in  both listening and discussing the issues of the day.As the weather cools down, it takes a lot to get people to leave their own bubbles of comfort and warm fires to engage with others.
However, the experience of the first "Chewing the Fat at Cafe Kai" might herald a new attempt to do just that.
An encouraging attendance of 20 people turned up to eat a Chinese banquet and listen to two guests share their expertise with us. The guests were, Dr. Bruce Fell, a lecturer in Communications at Charles Sturt University and Dr. Andrew Rawson, a geomorphologise, employed by the Department of Environment and Climate Change, who also lectures at the Orange campus of CSU. As it turned out, Andrew agreed to postpone his presentation to a later date due to the animated discussion which followed Bruce's presentation.
Hopefully Andrew will be available to be our guest at the May "Chew" as I know his expertise in carbon sequestration, ground water retention and the modelling behind climate predictions will be of interest to many in our community.
Bruce offered to share with us his research for his doctorate which culminated in the publishing of a book titled, "Television and Climate Change". I don' t think any of us expected the damning picture which television has played in shaping our values from the very first days of producing drama on television.
Perhaps in those early days if the viewing public could be induced to become consumers, then such consumption could be viewed in the national interest if that nation needed to expand business in a post war world. Now, that producers have witnessed the power of placing products within the drama itself and the commercial advantage of such placements, it has reached "plague" proportions. Bruce told us that often the script is not written for a drama series until the products placements are organised.
In a television commercial we are able to keep our antennae focussed and may be able to reduce the impact of the attack, but when it is intimately entwined in the plot, how many people will notice that they are being seduced?
For many people these drama series play an important part of their lives. Television has always been intimately in their lives from birth and the characters like members of their own families. If a chatacter espouses unsustainable behaviour then that behaviour is normalised. Converlely if a character models sustainable  behaviour then that behaviour is normalised.
Some activists have leaped onto this opportunity to influence public sentiment by an "adopt a soap star" campaigne to try and induce stars to model sustainable practices in their acting.
However this too is laced with ethical time bombs and sniffs suspiciously like socail engineering to me.
At our "Chew" we were fortunate to have a participant who was a wild outlier of the over 50 demographic of BCCAN members, in fact she was under 20! For our education it was explained that to go to school without intimate knowledge of the previous evenings adventures in "Big Brother" and home and away was to be an outsider in the social pecking order at school.
Perhaps because for most in the audience found this such a foreign concept that our own values were challenged and our "outsiderness" sharply contrasted. The questions and debate that followed was very lively and when it was finally time to head home, most of us felt we had participated in something very worthwhile.
In the months to come there are many such topics which will hopefully bring our fellow citizens out of their cozy "bubbles" to join with us in conversation. Topics to come will include  electric cars, renewable energy, sustainable housing, carbon farming, reclaiming viable waterways, making a cycle friendly city.
There are many possible topics, why don't you tell us what you would like to discuss and we can add that to our proposed "chews".  "Chewing the Cud and Cafe Kai", is for all sections of the community and not just for BCCAN members.
Lively comminity conversation adding up to a convivial society is the only aim of this project.

What a lovely surprise it was to see Bernard Vance's plans for the
old Crago Mill! I had been cast into a slough of despond over the
second McDonalds restaurant complex planned for Kelso, but the
proposed developments for Crago Mill have helped me climb back out.
The Crago Mill ideas tick all my personal "like" boxes. Having a
space to buy and sell fresh local food is just perfect. And it is
also fantastic that there might be spaces for the arts - studio
space, perhaps, and a gallery or two. I remember the discussions
about the Crago Mill from my Arts OutWest days: the building had been
earmarkd for redevelopment as an arts space for many years. But it
- Hide quoted text -
 
was starting to look a bit grim, with the cost of renovation
 
seemingly overwhelming.
 
If Crago Mill gets up and running, it will be a great "balancer" to
 
the new development at Kelso. It will be an example of how we can
 
work with the heritage of the past to create green and creative
 
spaces that look to the future. There could be a sign-posted walking
 
trail from the train station to the Mill, bringing the whole
 
development into the Keppel Street/railway station precinct. We would
 
then be expanding our "foot friendly" precinct, encouraging people to
 
get out of their cars and enjoy the unique beauty of Bathurst.
 
,,,
 
Meanwhile, water prices have gone up. While it might be causing some
 
angst to those facing higher bills, I can't say it's a bad thing. As
 
we are slowly coming to realise, water isn't "free". It's precious
 
stuff and has been undervalued for far too long. Meanwhile, I noticed
 
the council's sprinklers sending up sprays of water in the middle of
 
the rain on Thursday morning. Perhaps automatic sprinklers need to be
 
replaced by moisture probes that only set the water off when the
 
earth reaches a certain level of dryness (these do exist).
 
,,,
 
A small but enthusiastic group of Bathurst Community Climate Action
 
Network members supported the national launch of the 100 Percent
 
Renewables campaign last weekend by gathering near the visitor's
 
centre for a photo opportunity. The photo was sent off to join a
 
montage of photos from around the country. You can find out more at

http://www.100percent.org.au/

Maths has never been my strong point, so I have sat on the sidelines over the past couple of weeks as the sums and trigonometry have gradually come together to produce a picture of our planned solar panels. We're going to get 12 solar panels to produce a 2 kilowatt system, which will give us approximately 65 per cent of our annual power usage. With the gross feed-in tariff that is now available, the system will pay for itself in about four years. After that, we'll actually make a profit of about $900 a year until the end of 2016, when the gross feed in tariff scheme ends. After that, if nothing else changes, we'll be at least be producing 65 per cent of our power (more if we bring in some household efficiencies). The total initial cost of set-up will be less than $4000. The panels won't fit on our roof, so they'll probably sit on the shed out the back, feeding power to the house through an underground cable.

It is very satisfying to know that through our renovations we have not only rehabilitated an old workers' cottage in desperate need of TLC, but we have given it a green, future-friendly power source. If you are lucky enough to have enough money to invest in solar panels, right now is probably the best time to act because the longer they are up before the end of the gross feed-in tariff scheme, the more financially worth-while it will be.

,,,
As Neil Armstrong said, it's only one small step. But the good news – despite all the bad news out there – is that small steps are being taken almost everywhere you look. I teach at Charles Sturt University a couple of days a week, where they are taking great strides in energy and water efficiency. William Adlong from the university's CSU Green project notes that while new buildings added about 16 per cent to the floor area from 2006 to 2009, emissions from energy use increased only 1.3 per cent in that time. Water use across the university has dropped by 32 per cent since 2006. The CSU's transport fleet, which now includes more fuel efficient, hybrid or diesel vehicles, shows a reduction of nearly 20 per cent in fuel use per kilometre in 2009 compared to 2008. Well done!

 I am watching "Burn Up"  ABC Sunday night (April 25).  What a crock of oily green rubbish.  I was about to switch it off when they brought the Tar Sands into the plot.
 
I have a certain nostalgic fondness for the ole Tar Sands.  I worked in the (Great Canadian Oil Sands) mines over two long university breaks. Six day week, ten hour day.  Great Canadian Oil Money!  Oil definitely paid my way through university. Oh, how I loved the smell of oil in the morning.
 
Even back then - mid 1960s - the scale of the oil reserves was known to be staggering.  To quote from an article I wrote on the oil/tar sands forty years ago, it was calculated there was sufficient oil in the sands to meet the needs of North America (read USA) for one hundred years.  It's only been in the last ten or so years that production has been ramped up to commercial levels.  So, lots of oil there still for Yank Tanks.
 
This silly TV programme is correct in saying it is demanding in energy to produce petroleum from the sands.  The extraction process is environmentally nasty.  It  involves strip mining  that makes Hunter Valley coal mining look like a kiddies' sandbox.  The waste products are highly toxic - and there is no where safe to put them.    You can never rehabilitate the land mined to anything even barely resembling its original form (muskeg).  And then you have to produce a synthetic petroleum from the tar extracted, basically this involves adding hydrogen atoms to the molecules. Hence it is called "synthetic crude".  That takes energy.  Lots of energy.  It is an environmental, carbon making disaster - before you put the petrol in your tank.
 
But it can be done.  It is being done.  And it will be done. Mr Obama has said as much.
 
Oil people get things done.  Perhaps not nicely, perhaps even nastily.  But done.
 
Perhaps that's the plot line in Burn Up.  I bet the oil executive that is now shagging the greenie on my screen  is going to defect to the greens and help lead their campaign against the oil industry.
 
It's called fantasy, I think.  Good (bad) TV.  But not real life.  If this programme is where ABC is in terms of developing public awareness in climate change issues, I can't say I am much impressed.
 
What about you?  
 
 
 
 
 
 

This image was uploaded with the post Let's Keep Talking.

Last Wednesday evening, BCCAN held function which might turn into a regular event.
The occasion had two guests to entertain us with presentations. Dr. Bruce Fell, a lecturer from the School of Communications at Charles Sturt University and Dr. Andrew Rawson, who also lectureres at Charles Sturt University, at the Orange Campus.
As it turned out, Bruce's talk generated such interest amongst the 20 or so attendees, that Andrew, generously offered to deter his presentation till another date. That will be much looked forward to as Andrew is a geomorphologist and has many valuable insights into the current plight facing the world with water and that is a topic of great interest to our community. Andrew also has vast knowledge and experience of the science behind the debate in climate change and that is something every concerned citizen needs to examine closely.
The reason Bruce Fell's talk captured our imagination was that it caught us by surprise. Bruce's topic, reflecting the title of his recently published book, "Television and Climate Change". I don't think any of us expected to have our preconceptions juggled.

A couple of points will give you a gist of his thesis. 

• Product placement has been happening since the dawn of television.
• Product placement is a more powerful inducement to consume than the actual advertisemtns themselves.
• Contemporary tv series have contracts signed for product placement in the series prior to writing the script.
• For an activist it is far more effective to pursuade a "star" to act "green" on television than lobbying a politician or company CEO.
• For a great many of the voting public, the "actors" in soaps become a member of their family and the television is always in.
• For people in their twenties, the vast majority will not remember when they first saw television or saw a computer screen - it has been part of their world when they first opened their eyes after birth.
• Young people are seriously disadvantaged in their social networks if they are not up to date whith what is happening in the latest screening of a reality tv show or soap series.

This was a shock because as a general rule,  BCCAN members come from a quite different demographich, in age and in tv viewing habits.
We all had plenty of questions to ask Bruce and when it was time to go, the discussion was still alive.
In some ways it was a difficult medicine to swallow as our assumption had been that if we were able to influence politicians with our blinding logic of the solid science we knew to be dripping like acid onto metal, corroding our very world.
On the other hand, it was an exhilarating experience to be part of a discussion where nearly eveyone in the room had made a contribution. The feedback I got from those persent was that it was a very enjoyable evening and the format is one they would like to participate in again.
We are hoping that we can get Dr. Andrew Rawson back again later in May and as soon as that has been settled, I will let readers know here and in other media outlets. We are certainly hoping that we can reach out to others in our community to come along to these events and be part of the discussion which could shape our community in the future.
A silly name I came up with without a great deal of pondering for these nights is, "Chewing the Fat at Cafe Kai" - if you can come up with a better on, let me know via the comments to this blog.
Other topics which we could broach in future "Chews" could be;

• Electric Cars
• Renewable Energy
• Food Scarcity
• Water Crisis
•  Bathurst a Bicycle Friendly City
• 50,000 people in Bathurst
• Rehabilitation of our creeks and streams
• Restoration for a Future

Let us know your topics and we will add them to the list, but most of all let us know of your interest and we can put you on a mailing list to let you know of each event as it approaches.
The format will be that we share a meal together first and then after dinner we allow our guest to inspire, beguile, antagonise us and then the floor is open for discussion, questions and observations.
This will  be the public's chance to have a say and what better way can we have of reinforcing democracy.