Waterworks Valley » activism

Peak oil workshop

chris-195 — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:00:43 +0000

This is your invitation to a very timely Saturday workshop on September 18.

Energy prices are due to rocket within 5 years and this will place immense hardships on not only the Tasmanian economy, but on communities and individuals. Simply put: We Are Not Ready!

With this in mind, Waterworks community members are invited to a stimulating workshop to explore this theme – with people from other sustainable communities.

Please do join us. Download flyer HERE for details and how to register. And please do pass on to others who may be interested.

You are invited to…

dorka-101 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 06:40:48 +0000

A ’street wall chalk painting’

When: 25th of July (last Sunday of this month), 1.30pm.
Where: In front of Dorka’s house, 101 Waterworks Road
What: Turn the wall into a colorful space around the theme “the street is there for everyone to share”

Bring your whole family, friends, children…chalk will be provided for a gold coin donation or alternatively bring your own.

No artistic skills required. Just come along, have some fun and get to know your neighbours!

If you are more ambitious and have a design in mind, sketch it on paper and put a grid over it (using rectangles 2cm by 4 cm) as the wall provides a natural grid with the bricks being 20cm by 40cm each. That way it is pretty easy to transfer a design to the wall.

We can start with the wall in front of our house and depending on how many enthusiastic hands turn up we can expand to the huge stretch of wall along Waterworks 109 walking towards the WW Reserve.

What’s the idea?

The inspiration for a street wall painting day came from a book I read, from David Engwicht “street reclaiming, creating livable and vibrant communities” .

He describes how once the street used to be more of a shared space to meet, to play and to celebrate. It was used by people, children, bikes, horses, cars alike. Nowadays streets are considered to be a space for cars only and a dangerous place for everyone else including animals. Climate change being the main challenge of our times, many people aim to reduce their use of cars, walk more, bike more and focus more on local community life. The street is becoming more of a shared space again.

A shift in our awareness needs to happen, to make the street a safer, more inviting space for everyone again, where we consider others and where we meet, play and experience community. In his book he calls this process “psychological reclaiming of the street”. The book is worth reading, available at the state library and full of great, fun ideas. Painting the walls can be one little step to build that awareness as well as building community.

Please don’t feel you have to share the above views to come along. Just wanting to have some fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon is all that is needed. Hope to see many faces (new and old).

Dorka @ 101

Tread Lightly Festival

chris-195 — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:21:40 +0000

If not us, then who?
If not here, then where?
If not now, then when?

Over the last two years in the middle of winter, thousands of Tasmanians chose to spend a day outside learning more about how to live a sustainable life.

This is a very popular event. It’s on again on June 6th, so put it in your diary now.

Click HERE to see details.

Transition Tasmania – a new website

chris-195 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:54:53 +0000

Our local community is part of something much bigger – a rapidly growing worldwide movement. It’s an energetic people’s response to peak oil and climate change, springing up all over the planet.

And throughout Tasmania Transition Communities like ours are emerging all over the place. To give this movement visibility there’s a bright new website – Transition Tasmania.

Check it out now HERE. See what other community groups are doing. You can even join Transition Tasmania as an active participant.

Copenhagen and us

chris-195 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:53:39 +0000

Copenhagen approaches… and it will probably determine the fate of human civilisation.

For our little bit, we have an opportunity to participate in the Walk Against Warming in December

(Click on the graphic to enlarge it).

Climate Action Hobart is keen for us to gather a group of Waterworks concerned residents to take a mini bus ride to go on the walk. Cathryn and Daniel are the contacts for this, lease let them know if yo would like to join in. Phone: 0415 696 323. Cost is only $15.

This year’s Walk Against Warming will be held in the Upper Florentine Valley. The day will be action packed with speakers from across the Tasmanian community music, guided educational tours of the forest, stalls and other activities. To find out more about activities or transport options please call Jess Wright from Environment Tasmania on 0428 274 280.

Climate change is happening much faster than predicted. In December 2009, Governments of the world will meet in Copenhagen to decide a new global climate treaty. This Climate Summit is the world’s best chance to avoid catastrophic climate change. It requires global and national leaders to take strong and urgent action.

On 12 December 2009, mid-way through the Copenhagen meeting, there will be a global day of climate action where people all over the world take to the streets to urge world leaders to cut greenhouse pollution. In Australia, concerned community members will join in at Walk Against Warming events across the country.

In a global first, Tasmania’s 2009 Walk will be held in the forest, in the Florentine Valley, to draw attention to the role that forests play in storing carbon and mitigating climate change, and to encourage our national representatives to take a strong position in the negotiations for the protection of the world’s forests. We will also be highlighting other actions that can be taken, such as leading an urgent transition towards renewable energy, putting plans in place to reduce energy demand and expanding public transport. We will be showing how a climate action plan can create jobs, improve our economy and improve our communities.

So come along with your family and friends to enjoy a day of speeches, tour guided walks in the forest, music, stalls and activities.

For more information, or to book your seat on a bus or carpool please call Jess Wright on 0428 274 280 or email climate@et.org.au.

Looking for 350 people

chris-195 — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:08:16 +0000

October 24 will see a huge global initiative to make people aware of 350 – the most important number on Earth. [350.org]

350 parts per million is the maximum amount of carbon in the atmosphere we must achieve to maintain our ecological balance on Earth. We are already at 390 parts per million.

With people all around the world participating in all sorts of different ways we can reach this target.

Local community member and national theatre director Neil Cameron is planning an arts event so we in Hobart can participate in this world-wide programme. You can join in by simply emailing here: hobart350project@gmail.com to register your name.

Click here to download the details.

Launch of our climate project

chris-195 — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:30:11 +0000

Many thanks to Claudia and Jason and family for use of their home for the belated formal launch of our climate project on Sunday (August 30).

We were blessed with a brief break in the continuous wet weather (as NSW sizzles in mid-Summer temperatures, breaking all records for August).

Here is a replica of the little garden signs that participating households will be displaying in their front yards.

This comes with a commitment: to reduce the household’s carbon footprint by 5% minimum per year. We aim to do everything we can to ensure that this commitment can be easily met, and that task will keep us very busy for the coming year!

And thanks too to Nel Smit, a community representative on Tasmania’s Climate Action Council, who launched the project for us on Sunday.

These, slightly larger Climate Friendly – Street signs will be placed in strategic locations.

As the media release below suggest – we would love to see this signage take off and become replicated throughout the state as communities become empowered to turn their lives around for the sake of their children’s future.

MEDIA RELEASE

“Yes we can!” – Tasmanian Climate Challenge

A southern Tasmania community is challenging all Tasmanian householders to beat soaring energy costs by slashing their energy consumption.

Launching its state government funded ‘climate connect’ project, the Waterworks Valley Community says all householders can rise to the challenge and they can do it with a sense of fun.

Project coordinator Mr Chris Harries said rather than view the climate change crisis with despondency, Tasmanians should see the creation of a low-energy future as a living adventure and a personal challenge.

“Street-by-street, community-by-community, suburb-by-suburb members of the public can challenge each other to outperform everyone else. We have already seen some outstanding examples in every corner of our state.”

“Tasmanians can defy rising energy costs whilst helping the state reduce its carbon footprint”, Mr Harries said

The Waterworks community, working alongside business group EcoTasmania Inc, is conducting the pilot project in the South Hobart / Dynnyrne area to find out how households can overcome the barriers that prevent them from reducing their carbon footprints.

“We know that over 90 percent of the population is very concerned about climate change, but householders find themselves confronted by a range of psychological, practical and other barriers.”

Mr Harries said the Australian public is being inundated with well-intentioned advice on how to save energy but much of this effort is of little value because it has not taken into account the ‘drivers’ that motivate people to act on their concerns.

The project aims to use the information to assist communities throughout Tasmania overcome barriers to shrinking their collective carbon footprint.

Speed humps saga

chris-195 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:30:34 +0000

3.20 pm on a Saturday afternoon. Speeding car, out of control, hits curb, tyre bursts, careens down the wrong-side-of-road on its wheel rim. An all too familiar story.

Blue line follows trajectory, car travelling this way.
[caption id="attachment_601" align="aligncenter" width="227" caption="The offending car, 100 metres on."][/caption]

Had it been a week day at that time there would have been an entourage of kids walking / cycling home just at that time.

To defend itself against a possible fatal calamity, the community has decided to take action. Keep tuned.

Transition Towns – a discussion night

chris-195 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:32:44 +0000

Creating sustainable communities beyond oil dependency
An information / discussion night with local community groups (South Hobart Sustainable Community, West Hobart Environment Network and Waterworks Valley Community).

7pm
Tuesday, 7 April
At 71 Murray Street (above EcoHaven)
All welcome

What’s it all about?
The Transition Towns initiative began in the UK and has spread rapidly around the world. The aim of the project is to equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil.

Margaret and Lissa, from Sustainable Living Tasmania, recently attended a Transition Training Session in Victoria with about 40 other SE Australians eager to learn more and start implementing Transition in their towns.

We are planning to help with the launch of Transition Tasmania and would like to gauge interest within our local communities in the Transition Model.

Contact Lissa for more info on lissa@sustainablelivingtasmania.org.au or call 6234 5566. Below is some information pinched from the WIKI site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns) :

The main aim of the project generally, and echoed by the Towns locally, is to raise awareness of sustainable living and build local resilience in the near future. Communities are encouraged to seek out methods for reducing energy usage as well as increasing their own self reliance—a slogan of the movement is “Food feet, not food miles!” Initiatives so far have included creating community gardens to grow food; business waste exchange, which seeks to match the waste of one industry with another industry that uses this waste; and even simply repairing old items rather than throwing them away.

While the focus and aims remain the same, the methods used to achieve these vary. For example, the township of Totnes has introduced its own local currency, the Totnes pound, which is redeemable in local shops and businesses helping to reduce food miles while also supporting local firms. This idea is also planned to be introduced in three Welsh transition towns.

Central to the Transition Town movement is the idea that a life without oil could in fact be far more enjoyable and fulfulling than the present “by shifting our mind-set we can actually recognise the coming post-cheap oil era as an opportunity rather than a threat, and design the future low carbon age to be thriving, resilient and abundant – somewhere much better to live than our current alienated consumer culture based on greed, war and the myth of perpetual growth.”

Young people taking action

sam-104 — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:50:29 +0000

G’day all! Just heard a couple of Sydney uni students interviewed about their recent year-long bike-ride around Oz promoting sustainable living.

Their website (Everybody Has Power) is particularly good, especially for younger people and includes Facebook links.

The site includes a set of interesting ‘personal sustainability challenges’. Worth a peek!

Sam at 104