G-n-L Ganesh and Lauren

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Update on the 3 week challenge

Saturday, 24 October 2009

In the midst of recent excitement - Riding Around the Bay in a Day (the 100km challenge was a fabulous success), Ganesh's return from home and today's exciting 350.org protest - what do we want, climate action! When do we want it? NOW! - I have neglected to update you on the results of the 3 weeks to a better life challenge.

Health & fitness: I feel fitter and stronger - Around the Bay in a Day, Ride to Work day and other bicycle adventures are testimony to that. Moreover I now have no fear of hills! Even the steep steep hill near the Austin hospital! I haven't lost much weight though - just 1kg overall - but my diet has improved as well and I feel much healthier so I count this as a success!
Ideas & Business: Well the ideas side is certainly strong, however hiring is obviously a weak point of mine. No matter who I seem to hire, they are never as committed and seem never to be as skilled as if I just did the work myself. Unfortunately I don't have much time to do everything so I need to improve. I've already attempted to hire 3 separate people for trash2treasure.com - all unsuccessful! Clients are abundant though and new jobs are coming in for ecoIT which is positive.
Household Improvements: A big tick of approval. The home improvements look great - exactly as I anticipated! And there are lots more projects on the list to keep me busy.
Relationships: Mixed results here, but overall I've improved in my ability to be open, to converse with a range of people and to care more about the people I'm close to. Further work is required but I'm pleased by the progress made just by being more open to opportunities.

So you really can turn things around in a mere 3 weeks!

Labels: 350.org, climate change, new years resolutions

Disgruntled elves leave a christmas message for Rudd...

Friday, 26 December 2008

Disgruntled elves took time from their Christmas duties to leave a special message for Kevin Rudd at his Morningside office. The elves are angry about K Rudd's 5% care factor and 95% coal factor in dealing with Australia's climate change challenges... Turn up the sound for new lyrics to jingle bells....

A spokesperson for the elves said "the north pole is melting and we want K Rudd to know we're not happy. We want K Rudd to care more about Australia and the north pole than coal."

"The last thing K Rudd needs in these economic times is a bunch of homeless, unemployed and wet elves seeking refugee status due to climate change," the spokesperson said.

Labels: 5%, christmas, climate change, elves, Kevin Rudd

Where have all the protesters gone?

Wednesday, 17 December 2008

The protest today was very disappointing... Only a few members of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition showed up with banners to confront the first session leaving and the second session entering... I was shocked! Of all the insults to the climate movement this has got to be one of the biggest... I suppose many of the conservation groups were inside asking questions and obtaining details but they knew it was going to be a farce from the '5%' alone... Even the protesters themselves were a stark contrast to people in the session... Young girls outside - some as young as 16! And old men inside... Where has the passion gone?

All was not lost though... I met a few interesting people who told me about what they were doing in terms of climate change action... and on the way back to work I passed a beautiful shop on Lonsdale st (near the corner of exhibition st) called 'Art Life' that gave me lots of ideas about decorating the new house... Especially the old steel gazebo with exquisite pink curtains! I suppose I'll have to find a real second hand gazebo for environmental reasons though :-) I made 2 other detours on the way home... The bike shop - where I was informed that my desire for a cruiser was going to give me legs the size of tree trunks... and Famous Amos - to bring back cookies for everyone at work to lighten the mood... Things have been a little tense of late!

In health news - it's confirmed - I have really seriously low iron... Way below normal! I've never been unhealthy in my life... so something has got to change... My new diet includes daily sustainably fished sardine and hummus sandwiches... (i'm yet to try sardines but they are much much better for the environment than beef and a very good source of iron, as is hummus).

And Ganesh is starting the Microsoft Certified System Engineer course... I'm actually really interested to see what it will be like...

Hmmm... All of a sudden there is sepia tone through our back window... Amazing... Turning into a deep purple hue... Nature really surprises you sometimes!!

Labels: climate change, iron, nature, protest

5% target, 100% pathetic...

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

I feel betrayed... My vote went to the Greens, which in turn went straight to labor and helped Kevin Rudd become prime minister.... all because I believed strongly in climate change election promises. And now, crunch time, the Rudd Government's commitment to compensating and providing free permits to polluting industries is gambling with the lives and ecosystems of Australia and the world... "Peter Garrett, we cannot sleep while our planet is burning." There is no difference at all between the Rudd government and Howard's commitment to fossil fuel interests. At least Howard was honest!

While my application for the white paper public information session was rejected (apparently it was full) I read Anna Roses's overview from the session in Canberra... The so called 'gateway' of between 5 and 15% reduction actually means a 5% reduction because the carbon price ($25 per tonne) is based on this 5%. This is in the face of the CSIROs recommendations of a 60%-80% reduction. To make matters worse the emissions intensive trade exposed industries (the worst polluters of the lot) will basically having all their christmases at once. They will receive huge amounts of compensation (free permits) and the permits are tax deductible! If they buy their permits upfront they won't have to pay tax... The worst emitters get 90% of their permits for free... The second most polluting get 60% of their permits for free... so it makes more sense to increase pollution above thresholds to get more free permits... The carbon pollution REDUCTION scheme is an incentive to increase emissions!!!!!

Well I'm glad they didn't accept my application to attend the session... I'm going to the protest instead! I've also signed up for the climate action summit Jan 31st -> Feb 3rd in Canberra in 2009... This is pathetic.

Apart from that, not much other news... Lachie did well, and got into science at melbourne as planned... Echuca was very quaint and they had the most delicious lemon meringue fudge at Sharps old theatre and penny arcade.... The Murray looked particularly healthy and full after all that rain and there was an abundance of wildlife all along the rivers... The golden cow at Tongala was a definite let down though. For that many brown tourist signs, a mega car park, flags, banners, billboards and a giant building the greying-gold cow and the plastic sheet about tractors was rather confusing. Tongala itself was very cute though... And the Nestle factory held the promise of lots of chocolate and ice cream!

Labels: climate change, Kevin Rudd, pathetic