Sustainability Victoria, Australia - You Have the Power. Save Energy.

The TV spot they have to highlight this campaign is very well done. I recommend everyone taking a look at it.

Sustainability Victoria - You Have the Power. Save Energy.:

"Climate change is happening now and you can do something about it.

The You have the power. Save Energy campaign is encouraging all Victorians to save energy at home to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the impact of climate change.

You may have seen the balloons featured in the campaign. Each represents 50 grams of greenhouse gas. Every Victorian household produces over 12 tonnes (240,000 balloons) of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

On this site you'll find lots of practical advice about ways you can cut energy use while keeping your home comfortable all year round."

Public Dreams: Parade of Lost Souls

I went to this event last night. It was great experience. There is magic
in events that bring a diverse community together for nothing
more than a good time.

Here are some pictures.
Flickr: Photos tagged with publicdreams
I took none of them.

Worldchanging Tour: Vancouver 05Nov06

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Worldchanging Tour: Vancouver

We often show our love for Vancouver in posts on Worldchanging, but now we can show it in person. Please join us for an evening of big ideas and fun people on November 5 at Workspace.

Here are the details:

November 5th: VANCOUVER
at Workspace
6:00-8:30pm
400 – 21 Water St.
Vancouver BC, V6B 1A1

North Korea's nuclear test caught live on Canada's Earthquake Seismic Network

It is real. It happened. Here's the evidence [click for larger image]:


Original source: http://tinyurl.com/ofv4l

News and info here

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Technorati Tags: north, korea, nuclear, test, seismic, data, eathquake, canada, October, 2006

Sustainable and Ethical purchasing position restored at City of Vancouver

Background below:

Dear Friend of Ethical Purchasing,

Success! I am very happy to report that Council reinstated the full time
contracting specialist position to the end of 2008, in the Materials
Management department to develop and implement a comprehensive Sustainable and Ethical Purchasing Policy that incorporates broader environmental and social objectives as Phase II, and to provide support to all City departments and boards in administering the Ethical Purchasing Policy.

Vision Vancouver councillors, with your tremendous help was able to convince
the Mayor and the NPA that their previous action in the elimination of the
staff person was a mistake.

I am also happy to report that there was no amendment to the Ethical
Purchasing Policy that would have weakened it.

There is however the challenge of the current Park Board as they have
weakened their policy. I would be please to work with all of you to
convince them the error of their ways. Please let me know if I can be of
help in the future.

Thank you again for speaking out as I know that it had a great effect.

Sincerely,
Raymond Louie
Councillor, City of Vancouver
Former Co-chair of the COV Ethical Purchasing Policy Task Force
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April 17, 2006

City of Vancouver cuts funds to implement their Ethical Purchasing Program
http://www.torontothebetter.net/event-060424.htm

Just over a year ago the City of Vancouver became the first Canadian city to
approve an Ethical Purchasing Policy to ensure that city apparel is produced
under fair working conditions. The City assigned one full-time staff person
to enforce the policy. The Vancouver policy is seen as a model by other
cities and No Sweat activists across Canada.

A few days ago, Vancouver’s new City Council gutted the landmark Ethical
Purchasing Policy. Even though a report by staff indicated that the City had
actually saved money on apparel purchases since the policy was adopted, the
Council voted to leave the policy guidelines in place, but cut the necessary
funding for a staff member to enforce the policy.
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No Sweat Update

February 22, 2005

http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/nosweat/news/nosweat_update_feb2205.htm

On February 17, the City of Vancouver formally adopted an Ethical Purchasing
Policy and Supplier Code of Conduct for apparel and agricultural goods being
purchased by the City. Thanks to the hard work of No Sweat activists in
British Columbia, Vancouver is now the first Canadian municipality to fully
adopt a set of No Sweat standards for its purchases.

The final version of Vancouver’s Ethical Purchasing Policy can be found at:

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20050217/cs7AppendixA.htm

The final version of Vancouver’s Supplier Code of Conduct can be found at:
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20050217/cs7AppendixB.htm

The City staff report on the policy can be found at:
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20050217/cs7.htm

Minutes of the February 17, 2005 Vancouver City Council meeting are
available at:
http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20050217/csmin.htm

The BC Ethical Purchasing Group, who led the campaign for Vancouver’s
policy, is a local coalition including Oxfam Canada, the Maquila Solidarity
Network, UNITE HERE, the Vancouver and New Westminister labour councils and
the west coast offices of the Canadian Labour Congress, as well as student
groups at SFU, UBC and Capilano College and interested individuals.

Whats It Mean To Be Green (from York Press)

Article from York, UK about how someone used bokashi for composting.

Whats It Mean To Be Green (from York Press):

"It made a significant impact on how much rubbish we threw away. But I was still concerned about all the cooked food, dairy products and leftover meat and fish that went in with the regular rubbish. These can't be composted because of the smells and the vermin they would attract.

That's now changed, thanks to the Kitchen Composters or Bokashis I have been trialling for York Rotters. They are squat lidded bins (you need two) which, together with a special compost activator, effectively neutralise odours and make it possible to safely compost all food scraps and leftovers, prepared foods, stale bread and even meat bones.

I have to admit, I was sceptical at first. Bunging in a chicken carcass, some festering Feta, toast crusts, soggy cereal, uneaten spaghetti and mashed potato, as well as the usual vegetable peelings and apple cores that I'd collected in my kitchen caddy, I didn't see how this lot could not whiff after a fortnight.

To this I added two scoops of Bokashi bran as instructed, sprinkling it over the entire surface so that all the food was covered. The bran is the magic ingredient. Bokashi is a Japanese term meaning 'fermented organic matter', but the bran looks just like regular bran except that it contains friendly bacteria called EM or effective micro-organisms that aid fermentation.

It's important to squash the material down as far as it will go, because the system is anaerobic - the opposite of normal composting - and you need to get as much air out as possible. Once you've done that, the lid goes on and you can leave it in the kitchen or wherever is convenient. A full bin needs to stand for a further two weeks to allow fermentation, during which time you can start filling your second bucket.

You also need to drain off excess liquid produced by using the tap at the bottom. This can be collected in an old jug or plastic milk carton. I made the mistake of leaving it a bit too long - about 10 days - before collecting it, with the result that I drained off half a litre of straw-coloured liquid that smelled like - well, not to put too fine a point on it, baby sick. If you do it more regularly it doesn't pong, it just smells a bit cheesy.

This liquid is highly nutritious and can be used in a variety of ways, either diluted as plant food or down drains and toilets to prevent algae build up and control odours. I was dubious that pouring it down the loo would actually improve things, but the kitchen sink is definitely less whiffy and my house plants are lovin' it.

After the kitchen waste had fermented for a fortnight, I opened the Bokashi bucket with trepidation. There was white mould on top, which is normal, but no maggots or nasty surprises. Moreover, it really didn't smell. Amazing.

You can dispose of the contents in your regular garden composter, or even bury it in the garden if you like digging. I put it into our Dalek compost bin (a 330-litre Compost Converter), forking it in and covering each couple of forkfuls with drier material. It came out in a sort of wodge, which needed breaking up and spreading around a bit. There is no point in being squeamish about this; com-posting has its yucky side, you just have to get used to it.

The benefits have been two-fold. My Compost Converter is now working extra-efficiently due to the [friendly microbe] bacteria, which carry on the fermenting process in your bin. Not only has it dramatically speeded up the composting rate but there are no flies, either. This is a major triumph: last October it was a stinky, fly-blown mess!

Best of all, by composting all of our kitchen waste, as well as our regular recycling, we've reduced our rubbish to one (often only half-full) bin bag a week.

A year on from the beginning of my composting experiment, my bin is producing sweet-smelling, crumbly compost, just like it should. I'm inordinately, ridiculously proud, but I think the Bokashis should take the credit.
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Technorati Tags: compost, composting, biosa, bokashi, fermentation, bran, greatday

8pm PDT - 15min: Native American Ceremony for the Earth - Global Consciousness Project event

I received this email today:

From: "Roger D. Nelson"
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 5:51 AM
Subject: Native American Ceremony for the Earth

I would like to let you know about an opportunity to join
with people all around the world later today at 11:00 PM
Eastern Daylight Time for a 15 minute ceremony honoring
the Earth. Native Americans are asking all people to join
in a vision to help protect our environment. This will be a
global event in the GCP/EGG hypothesis test series.

The website URL below tells the story of a Native American
ceremony that will be performed on October the 6, 2006 at
11:00 PM. Eastern Daylight Time in the U.S.A. At that time
they invite the world's inhabitants to participate in the
ceremony in an effort to protect the environment from man's
intervention. They do not ask for any contributions and they
are not selling anything. All they are asking is for 15 min.
of your time to think about what you can do to help save us
from ourselves.

http://www.regp.com/nativeamerican/index.html

You can find your local time corresponding to 23:00 EDT at

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

--

Roger D. Nelson
Director, Global Consciousness Project
rdnelson@princeton.edu http://noosphere.princeton.edu


I've been watching the activities of the Global Consciousness Project
http://noosphere.princeton.edu
for a number of years now:

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is an international effort involving researchers from several institutions and countries, designed to explore whether the construct of interconnected consciousness can be scientifically validated through objective measurement. The project builds on excellent experiments conducted over the past 35 years at a number of laboratories, demonstrating that human consciousness interacts with random event generators (REGs), apparently "causing" them to produce non-random patterns. A description of the technical implementation is given under procedures.

They been working with data since 1999 and the observations and analysis
from 9/11 are very striking:
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html#variance



Full disclosure: I have made predictions that the GCP has measured. They are
listed on the "Current Results" page.
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Technorati Tags: global, consciousness, project, roger, nelson, rdnelson, random, event, generator, cosmic, unconsciousness, EGG, Project, noosphere, princeton, Donald, Loock, Gray, Hawk

Google Calendar

Public events in Vancouver and BC about food security, food supply, gardening, sustainability, composting and more. Some Canadian and international events included.