Green Vehicle Guide

Green Vehicle Guide is a great Australian Government website that allow you to determine how green your current vehicle or one your wishing to buy is. Great to see this useful site being put up by government.

It provides a green rating for most vehicles manufactured post 2000 including fuel efficiency and pollution ratings.

The good think about it, is that all tests are independant, so they are not fuel efficiency claim by the manufacturer, but rather ratings developed through accurate independant analysis. A must see site.

For overseas readers, the site is still very useful and includes many imported vehicles.

GoGet - Car Share Initiative

A great Australian site for Carshare. A government lead initiative provides care share reserved parking spots in many suburbs in most capital cities. Payment of a monthly fee and an hourly fee when a car is used still makes it both cheaper in many instances than buying and maintaining your own vehicle. Petrol, insurance and road side assistance is all included in the low monthly and hourly fee (only charged when the car is used).

For more information go to www.goget.com.au

Helping to make organic waste a thing of the past

Help make organic waste a thing of the past.

Here is great site that provides information into worm farming. Worm farming allows you to naturally decompose common household waste ranging from fruit and veges to vaccum cleaner waste. Its easy, safe and friendly to the environment.

It prevents organic waste from filling land fill and has the bonus of provifding you with free fertiliser for soils. Watch your plants grow!!!

Australian Community Foods

Australian Community Foods is a non-profit community service supporting organisations who work to increase our access to healthy, local food.

The main feature of this site is a geographic search and matching service. You can search for wholesome food near you by either browsing the State listings shown under each organisation, or use the geographic search form to find all listings near your particular location.

Home Delivered Organic Foods - to your doorstep

This is a great site for those wanting home delivered organic foods. The site itself could do with some work, but the staff at Doorstep are friendly and the produce of much better quality than what you will find anywhere else! Here is an excerpt from their site (by the way the "Mixed Boxes" are a must and best value way to buy vegetables and fruit)!:

Doorstep Organics is Australia's original online Organic Food Home Delivery Service. We deliver to all Sydney and Wollongong suburbs and continue our deliveries all the way down to Berry on the South Coast. We sell a complete range of Certified Organic groceries and stock a range of essential groceries for your convenience.

We believe our quality is unmatched as we source our fruit & vegetables from a variety of small organic farms around Australia. We are sure after you have tried us you will think so too!

We are so confident of our quality and service we offer you a 25% discount on any fresh produce purchased in your first order*. *not cumulative with any other offer or discount.

If you have any further questions about delivery, our range, service or just a question about organic food, please feel free to email us, or call us on 8399 1666

Events - Care of the Green Pages

Events

	Green TECH 3rd Australian International Trade Show and Conference More Information Green TECH 08 is proud to present its 3rd Australian International Trade Show and Conference, with a core focus on green building, sustainable design and clean technology. Friday 15 August to Sunday 17 August 2008
	Facing Waste: Australia at a crossroads More Information Australia's waste policies are at the crossroads. Friday 15 August 2008
	Live Green 2008 More Information For all the ideas you need to green your life, head to Live Green, a free event on Sunday 17 August from 10am – 4pm at Victoria Park in Camperdown. Sunday 17 August 2008
	SWAP MY STYLE - VIP Designer Swap-Shopping Night in Sydney More Information Swap My Style, the latest craze in “swap-shopping” is holding its very first VIP Designer Fashion Swap set to take place in Sydney on August 27th, 2008 at The Hilton Hotel’s chic Zeta Bar. Wednesday 27 August 2008
	Sustainable House Day 2008 More Information As part of the 7th annual Sustainable House Day, homes across the country will open so others can learn and experience the benefits of all aspects of sustainable living! Saturday 13 September to Sunday 14 September 2008
	Carbon Solutions Forum More Information Ethical Investor in partnership with WWF presents its 2nd annual conference and exhibition showcasing strategies and solutions for reducing business carbon intensity. Monday 22 September to Tuesday 23 September 2008
	Greenfest Southbank 2008 More Information Greenfest is Brisbane’s free green festival and a place for fresh energy, it is about full community participation in creativity, new ideas and working together to win the race against climate change . Dr Jane Goodall will open the festival on 10th Oct. Friday 10 October to Sunday 12 October 2008
	Save Water Save Energy Expo More Information Green building products, solar hws & heating, rain tanks, grey water systems, energy efficient appliances and lighting, water savers, and much more. Friday 17 October to Sunday 19 October 2008

Your Eco Handbook

Your Eco Handbook by Grahame Barrett, Paul Payten & Steve Goldsmith

Your Eco Handbook puts the commonsense back into the debate surrounding global warming and achieving a sustainable future.

This no-nonsense guide is practical and easy to follow, offering realistic solutions to how we can all make changes - at home and in the office - to help save our planet.

From cars to home heating, appliances, ethical investments, water, waste and even your wellbeing, learn how changing the simple things in your life can make a difference.

About the authors

Grahame Barrett is a consultant and mentor, with special interests in sustainability, leadership, strategy facilitation, human, organisational and relationship capital management, change management and mentoring.

Paul Payten is an associate of the national consultancy EcoSTEPS - Sustainability Partner, and in his own business GEENI (Global Ecology and Educational Networking Interface). His focus is on effectively relating to others while working with government, corporate and community environments.

Steve Goldsmith is a graphic designer with a background in architecture. A qualified psychotherapist, he also supports green projects and is assisting two organisations that offer leadership training and conflict resolution work in Africa.

Sponsored by PKF Chartered Accountants & Business Advisers, the book is available from all good bookstores. RRP $19.95.

Order direct from the Herald on 1300 656 059 or click here.

Common Myths About Climate Change

The world has been cooling since 1998.

Temperatures have been going up and down slightly, but the clear trend is upwards. Since regular temperature records began in 1850, 12 of the past

13 years have been the hottest on record. Air samples from bubbles trapped in ancient ice, and cross-checked with other samples, show temperatures are rising faster than at any time since modern humans appeared.

The world is getting warmer but we don't know the real cause.

The causes of global warming are not absolutely certain, but the overwhelming majority of researchers, working independently in different parts of the world and using different models, have been coming to the same conclusions for two decades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reached the conclusion that it is "very likely" that human activity is the main cause of climate change; that is, there is a certainty "greater than 90 per cent". Few scientific theories approach that level of certainty.

Climate change is caused by solar activity.

Changes in radiation from the sun affect Earth's climate, as do oscillations in the Earth's orbit. But since the 1970s, when temperatures increasingly rose beyond norms, both the sun's energy output and the Earth's orbit have been stable. In any case, solar activity is included in climate models.

There is no consensus among scientists.

There is clear and growing consensus in the world scientific community, and in Australia, that human activity is the main driver of climate change, and that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the only way of slowing it. This is now the view of all the world's leading national science academies and institutes. This does not constitute a unanimous view, however, with a small minority of scientists in relevant fields believing it is too early to be sure.

Why believe long-term predictions when meteorologists cannot even say if it will rain next week?

Climatology takes a step back from day-to-day weather prediction and looks at longer-term patterns. Numerous independent studies have concluded that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases put into the atmosphere by humans are the new variable causing climate change. Climate models have been repeatedly tested and shown to accurately simulate climate scenarios.

Human emissions are smaller than natural emissions, so cannot be blamed for climate change.

Rotting vegetation releases far more greenhouse gases than does human activity, but those emissions are absorbed by an equal amount of growing vegetation and by the oceans. The new element in this closed system is the extra carbon humans are removing from underground coal, oil and gas reserves and putting into the atmosphere.

Scientists are worried about losing funding, so they toe the government line.

There is no evidence that undertaking research on climate change leads to government funding being cut or boosted. In Australia, the system is relatively transparent, with public funding for climate-change work being assessed alongside all other research work, and grants made based on quality of research, not on conclusions. When research is funded by private industry, the process can be less transparent. Much university research does not receive any outside funding.

Climate sceptics are being silenced.

Advocates of this claim are yet to come up with evidence. Many Australian scientific researchers on climate change have told the Herald that the views of "climate sceptics" are given more prominence in the media than their numbers and arguments merit.

Global warming scepticism

Global warming scepticism is being manipulated by tactics reminiscient of an earlier campaign of denial, writes David McKnight.

When the tobacco industry was feeling the heat from scientists who showed smoking caused cancer, it took decisive action, engaging in a decades-long public relations campaign to undermine the medical research and discredit the scientists.

The aim was not to prove tobacco harmless but to cast doubt on the science. In the space provided by doubt, billions of dollars in sales could continue. Delay and doubt were crucial products of its PR campaign.

In May, the multibillion-dollar oil giant Exxon Mobil acknowledged it had been doing something similar. It said it would cease funding nine groups that had fuelled a global campaign to deny climate change.

Exxon's decision came after a shareholder revolt by members of the Rockefeller family and big superannuation funds to get the company to take climate change more seriously. Exxon (once Standard Oil) was founded by John D. Rockefeller.

Brad Miller, chairman of the US House of Representatives oversight committee on science and technology, last year said Exxon's support for sceptics "appears to be an effort to distort public discussion". The funding of an array of think tanks and institutes which house climate sceptics and deniers also worried Britain's premier scientific body, the Royal Society. It found that in 2005, Exxon distributed nearly $3 million to 39 groups which "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change". Its protests helped force Exxon's recent retreat.

The chief scientist at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Dr Jim Salinger, knows all about misrepresentation. Two months ago, an Exxon-funded group, the Heartland Institute, said his work undermined the theory that burning carbon was a cause of global warming.

The Heartland Institute - essentially a free-market lobby group - emphasises "the climate is always changing". It is a theme common to many climate change deniers who talk about a so-called Little Ice Age (1300-1900) and Medieval Warm Period (800-1200). Salinger's research studied variation in climate, so it was enrolled in the denial campaign.

Climate variations were normal, Salinger said, but this did not weaken conclusions about the dangers of burning oil and coal. "Global warming is real," he said, and demanded reference to his work be removed. The institute refused. The Heartland Institute received almost $800,000 from Exxon, according to Greenpeace research based on Exxon's corporate donation disclosures.

Another regular of the PR campaign is the Oregon Petition, which urges US rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and claims there is "no convincing scientific evidence" for global warming. It has been cited by climate sceptics such as the Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt among others. It is said to be signed by 31,000 graduates most of whom appear to have nothing to do with climate science.

The petition originated in 1998 with Frederick Seitz, a 1960s president of the US National Academy of Sciences (and a 1970s tobacco consultant) and was accompanied by a purported review of the science co-published by the George C Marshall Institute. This institute received at least $715,000 from Exxon Mobil over the past 10 years.

Claims about the world cooling, not warming, are common in the world of deniers. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, referred to this possibility recently. In his book Heat, George Monbiot gives the example of the TV presenter and botanist, David Bellamy, who is also a climate sceptic. He told the New Scientist in 2005 that most glaciers in the world were growing, not shrinking. He said his evidence came from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland, a reputable body. When Monbiot checked the service, they said Bellamy's claim was "complete bullshit". The world's glaciers are retreating.

When pressed, Bellamy pointed to a website, iceagenow.com, which claims we are heading for a new ice age. Last week, it published an article that stated that last month, the American Physical Society had "reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming". This is stunning. Global warming is all about physics and the society is the premier body of US physicists. A check with its website showed the opposite. Prominent was a press release reaffirming that the evidence for global warming was "incontrovertible". Once again, a sceptic website was simply lying.

In Australia, the main body trying to undermine the science of global warming is the Lavoisier Group. It maintains a website with links to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (more than $2 million from Exxon), the Science and Environmental Policy Project ($20,000) and the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide (at least $100,000). The Competitive Enterprise Institute returns the compliment to Lavoisier in its publication, which praised the group for its work in defeating the Kyoto protocol. Lavoisier, it said, "provides the principal intellectual and organisational opposition in Australia to Kyoto". Its sources of funding are not public.

The Lavoisier group is certainly influential in the Federal Opposition. During the Howard years, a senior figure in the group told Guy Pearse, author of High & Dry, a study of climate policy in Australia, there was "an understanding in cabinet that all the science is crap".

The Lavoisier board includes former mining executives Ray Evans and Ian Webber, the latter a former chief executive of Mitsubishi, and Harold Clough, whose companies include a provider of services to the oil and gas industries. Its president is the former Labor finance minister Peter Walsh.

There are at least three other reasons the oil companies' PR campaign has had success for climate change deniers. First, the implications of the science are frightening. Shifting to renewable energy will be costly and disruptive. Second, doubt is an easy product to sell. Climate denial tells us what we all secretly want to hear. Third, science is portrayed as political orthodoxy rather than objective knowledge, a curiously postmodern argument.

The tide slowly turned on tobacco denial and the science finally was accepted. Some people still choose to smoke and some pay a price for it.

But climate is different. There are no "smoke-free areas" on the planet. Climate denial may turn out to be the world's most deadly PR campaign.

David McKnight is an associate professor at the University of NSW. He researches media, including public relations, and is the author of Beyond Right And Left: New Politics And The Culture Wars.

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