Green Ideas and Drinks - Sept 2nd at the Apple Tree

Hi everyone, a reminder for Green Ideas and Drinks on Thursday Sept 2nd.

Its a a lovely informal way to hear what others might be doing, share an idea, be inspired and to meet people interested in sustainability.
Invite you neighbours and friends for a chat, a coffee or drink and something to eat, perhaps after they have done their shopping or are on their way home from work.

Meet you at The Apple Tree
2060 Moggill Rd
Kenmore
From 6:30pm

Mitigation, adaptation and misery

Facing climate change we have a choice between mitigation, adaptation and misery. Mitigation is cheaper than adaptation, which is preferable to misery. Likelihood is we’ll get all three but the ratios are for us to decide.

In our lives we are happy to pay for mitigation, we try to prevent fires with smoke alarms and ceiling sprinklers and if your house catches on fire you call the fire brigade who, funded by your taxes, puts out the fire, that’s mitigation. Adaptation would be to let the fire burn, hope you can adapt to the outcome and rebuild from the wreckage. Misery is when you can’t afford to rebuild and have to live in the wreckage.

Right now the world is smouldering and a fire has broken out in the arctic, the attic of the world. If you set your attic on fire, you wouldn’t say, “hey don’t worry it’s still nice and cool in the basement”. Nor would you say “well fires have occurred naturally in the past so even if I did cause this one it’s nothing to worry about”, you’d call the fire engines. It’s time we did the same for the planet.

With thanks to John Holdren science advisor to Pres Obama and Dr Jeff Masters who had these ideas first

The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers

The Australian Academy of Science is a prestigious body of Australia's most outstanding scientists. They have just released a short booklet on the science of climate change written by some of Australia's top climate scientists.
Scientific Academies tend to be quite conservative, so when they release reports like this you can be confident it is based on well established, consensus science. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about the science of climate change.

Download the pdf of view the booklet online here.

UQ Sustainability Week

Next week UQ Climate for Change are running Sustainability week at UQ, there's lots of good stuff on, so if you are at UQ make sure you check out some of the events.


(Click to see large flier)

'The Last Hurrah' Ryan Candidates Forum - Wed 18th August

On Saturday August the 21st the nation will vote.

On Wednesday August 18th you have one of the last opportunities to meet your local candidates and hear their views on issues important to you. Ryan is one of the most marginal seats in the country and it is important to know the person behind the 30 second sound-bite who will be representing you in Canberra.

Who are the 'Real' candidates?
What personally drives their vision for our electorate and the nation?"

We have asked the candidates to address the following;
Local issues of concern such as *transport *overcrowded schools *support for adaption of businesses to cleaner, greener practices
National issue: what do they see as the environmental, social and economic strategies needed address climate change and create a Sustainable Australia?.

Each candidate will have 10 mins to concisely state their position then the floor will be open to your questions.

Don't miss this opportunity to see your local candidates;
Steven Miles - Labour,
Sandra Bayley - Greens,
Michael Johnson - Independent

(Jane Prentice- Liberal, still to advise).

When: Wednesday August 18th 7:30pm
Where: Uniting Church hall
982 Moggill Rd Kenmore

Local power's bulk solar panel buying group is back

Local Power, a not for profit group based in Brisbane have a new Solar Panel (PV) buying group going.
After over 400 homes and 600kW of power installed in buying groups 1-4, buying group number 5 is now open.

The Local Power model is to get a big bunch of householders together and then buy the solar panels and inverters in bulk to keep the costs down. Prices for a 1.5Kw scheme start at around $3700. So if you are interested take a look at there website, where all the information and costs are laid out.
Also they generally fill their buying groups pretty quickly, so if you are interested, don't muck around and get in touch with them.

Ten climate policy ideas Julia or Tony could steal

Did you know that India has a tax on coal burning? No, neither did I. Thankfully Graham Readfearn's on the case and has an article on the ABC called "Ten climate policy ideas Julia or Tony could steal" where he investigates policies being used overseas to cut carbon emissions, including carbon taxes, electric car rebates, green roofs, solar hot water mandates and the rather intriguing Carbon Points rewards scheme in Korea.

Perhaps most surprising is the fact that India, a developing country, has introduced an (admittedly small) tax on burning coal which will go towards installing solar power, something that a rich country like Australia has been unable to achieve.

Check out the article.

Ryan election forum Aug 18th - hosted by Transition Kenmore

Our local seat of Ryan is shaping up to be one of the most interesting contests in the federal election. Taking in much of Brisbane westerns suburbs and stretching along the Brisbane river from Milton to Karana Downs but also over Mt Coot-tha to include suburbs like The Gap the race in Ryan looks tight.

Transition Kenmore's monthly meeting next Wednesday 18th will be a candidates forum where everyone is welcome to come and hear from the candidates and ask questions on a range of topics.

Already confirmed are:
Sandra Bayley - candidate for The Greens
Michael Johnson - Indepedenant and current member for Ryan
Steven Miles - candidate for the ALP

Jane Prentice and the Family First candidate have also been invited.

Transition Towns Kenmore Election forum
Wednesday 18 August 19:30
Uniting Church hall,
982 Moggill Road, Kenmore

All are welcome, see you there.

Other upcoming forums include:

ACF/WWF/GetUp hosted forum
Thursday 12 August 18:30 - 21:30
Peter Doherty Theatre, Indooroopilly State High School,
107 Ward St, Indooroopilly

Will global warming be good for us?

One argument made by some climate contrarians is that we shouldn't worry too much about global warming because a warmer world with high C02 will be good for us. John Cook over at Skeptical Science shows that this view is not supported by the evidence and realistically it's hard to put a positive spin on melting glaciers, rising sea levels, ocean acidification and species extinction.

But what about the predictions that rising temperatures will be good for countries like Russia and increase their agricultural output? Unfortunately global warming doesn't just mean more winter bbq's it also means more extreme heat with more frequent and more severe heat waves and in some places more drought. This isn't a future prediction, it's already being observed, as the IPCC found:

"Since 1950, the number of heat waves has increased........The extent of regions affected by droughts has also increased as precipitation over land has marginally decreased while evaporation has increased due to warmer conditions".

So what about Russia? Large parts of western Russia are currently in the grips of an unprecedented two month long heat wave that has shattered temperature records. The death rate in Moscow has soared. The record heat combined with drought has lead to thousands of wildfires breaking out with loss of life, villages and air thick with smog. Heat and drought has also lead to the loss of millions of acres of wheat (leading a ban on wheat exports for the rest of the year and spike in world prices).

So yes, while in some years Russia may benefit from longer growing seasons it will also have more years like 2010 (currently the hottest year on record worldwide) with extreme heat and heatwaves, which if anything like this year, won't be good at all. And of course it's worth mentioning that global warming has only really just begun, currently temperatures are up ~0.65 dC and our most optimistic proposals are generally to attempt to hold warming below 2 dC, better get to work.

Green Ideas and Drinks - August 5th at The Apple Tree

A reminder this Thursday (the 5th) is our monthly Green Ideas and Drinks get-together.
It is a great opportunity to get to know new people, hear what others are doing, and be inspired!
See you there for a Sip and Chatter about all things Green.

When: Thursday 5th August....from 6:30pm
Where: The Apple Tree
The Courtyard: 2060 Moggill Rd Kenmore

Green Ideas and Drinks is a relaxed way to introduce your friends and neighbours to the ideas of transitioning to a lower carbon lifestyle.
Green Ideas and Drinks occurs on the first Thursday of each month. So come down, say Hi and share you Green Ideas.

The Symposium - Awakening the dreamer - Sunday the 8th of Aug

This coming Sunday 8th of August Transition Kenmore will be hosting The Awakening the Dreamer symposium at the Brookfield Centre, 139 Brookfield Rd.

If you are like me and find the idea of "awakening in the dreamer" a little hard to define, then it might be easier to think of the event as more "the future of our community" both locally and worldwide.
The symposium will trace how "we" have got ourselves into a number of environmental and social predicaments, but also encourage us to look for and work towards solutions. If we want to transition to a more sustainable community and a more sustainable world we'll need to be working towards solutions right here in Kenmore/ South West Brisbane, hence my thinking along the lines of "the future of our community".

Over time these symposium's, which are held worldwide, aim to redefine the way we look at the world, or as the website puts it:

Our mission is bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Planet Earth

You can watch the trailer for the symposium here.

Sunday 8th August
The Brookfield Centre,
139 Brookfield Rd
Kenmore Hills
Cost: $20 maximum, $50 per family

RSVP to our email: transitionkenmore(at)gmail.com
Hope to see you there

Support our Farmers and Protect our Climate. This Wednesday Lunchtime

Our Water, Our Land, Our Future. Only 3 days to go!

Support our farmers and protect our climate at this parliamentary protest.
When: this Wednesday 4th of Aug, lunchtime 12-1pm.
Where: State Parliament House, George St, Brisbane

Fossil fuel extraction is exploding in Queensland to the detriment of our climate, our farmers, rural communities and groundwater. At lunchtime this Wednesday over 100 farmers will descend on Parliament House to call for protection of our cropping land from coal and coal seam gas extraction and they need your support.

A list of excellent speakers from across the Darling Downs and from conservation and climate groups will take the message to our politicians that real climate action begins in our own backyard.

Both the Liberal-National Party and the Greens have confirmed that they will respond to our demands on the day, with the Government as yet unconfirmed.


Come along and hear from:
----------------------------------------
Ruth Armstrong from Cecil Plains on behalf of Save our Darling Downs
Rob McCreath from Felton on behalf of Friends of Felton
Scott Collins from Tara on behalf of the Western Downs Alliance
Toby Hutcheon from Queensland Conservation
Drew Hutton and Hannah Elvery from Six Degrees, Friends of the Earth, Brisbane
Jo-Anne Bragg from the Environmental Defenders Office

Politicians speaking on the day include:
The Queensland LNP (speaker to be advised)
Larissa Waters - The Greens lead senate candidate


RSVP on facebook.

For more information, or to join the farmers for morning tea or lunch, please contact Brad on 0413280006 or at bradley.smith@foe.org.au or go to sixdegrees.org.au

This is a cross post from the CCNQ