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"On 9 May 2013 The National Sustainability Council presented Sustainable Australia Report 2013 to Minister Burke. The report provides a picture of Australia - what we look like and who we are. It tells the story of how we have changed as a nation over the last 30 years. We have made great progress in many areas. Australians are living longer, our health and levels of educational attainment have improved. We have benefited from a strong economy, with low unemployment and increasing incomes. However, inequality has increased and the health of our natural environment has continued to decline in some key areas. The report provides an evidence base for decision-making and planning about the future. It highlights a number of trends in Australia and the world that are set to have a significant impact on the next generation of Australians. We need to plan for an ageing population, rising health costs, growing cities and changes in traditional work and family roles. The National Sustainability Council intends to use the report, the first of its kind in Australia, as a starting point for a national conversation about our future."

"The 'Pathways to Deep Decarbonisation in 2050: How Australia can prosper in a low carbon world' report, released 23 September 2014, presents an illustrative deep decarbonisation pathway for Australia - just one of many possible pathways - developed using a combination of well-established modelling tools to identify feasible and least-cost options.  This work finds that Australia can achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and live within its recommended carbon budget, using technologies that exist today, while maintaining economic prosperity. Major technological transitions are needed in some industries and many activities, but no fundamental change to Australia's economy is required. The technologies required for decarbonisation are currently available or under development. The analysis shows that deep decarbonisation requires neither substantial lifestyle changes nor large changes in Australia's economic structure."

"The "sunburnt country" of Australia has now passed the milestone of having a substantial 3 gigawatts of solar power installed, RenewEconomy has reported. That amounts to over 1.1 million (1,157,000) solar systems installed nationwide, on 14% of all dwellings. In the state of South Australia, 25% of households have solar installed. In the very sunny northern state of Queensland, solar has reached the 1 gigawatt mark, which amounts to 22% of dwellings."

Australia has one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world with latest data showing that 63% of the 7.5 million households own a pet. As the dog population in Australia continues to grow, so will the issue of dog 'waste' disposal in a waste management system of increasing urbanisation, a limited amount of suitable park spaces and shrinking landfill sites. On average, a dog produces 0.34 kilograms (kg) of feces per day. Consequently, there is approximately 1,400 tonnes (t) of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia; 490,000 tonnes (t) per year. Therefore we want to build an anaerobic methane digester to process the dog waste (and other appropriate wastes) to create a biogas that can serve as renewable energy source to super-power your dog parks. 

The 2013 Students of Sustainability Conference, is a national wide conference being held at the Launceston Campus of the University of Tasmania from the 5th to 9th of July. The 5 day conference brings together speakers from around Australia, to present on various sustainability initatives with talks ranging from Concentrated Solar Thermal uses in Australia through to Permaculture and plant foraging. This years action packed conference has over 100 speakers over the five days and is sure to be an exciting conference for all those who attend.

"Climate change in Australia provides essential tools for government, industry and the community to understand the likely magnitude of climate change in Australia and the possible impacts." It studies Temperature, Rainfall, Humidity, Sea surface Temperature, Wind speed, Potential evapotranspiration, Downward solar radiation

"Global warming's maths means Australia really counts It's simple maths: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming - anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they're planning to burn it all - unless we rise up to stop them."

"Now you can skip the long wait for solar to pay for itself and leapfrog straight to lower electricity bills from day 1, and all without any up-front investment. Sungevity Australia is an innovative solar provider that's making clean energy simple and affordable for homeowners across Australia. There's never been a better time to join the Rooftop Revolution."

Social Traders is a small nonprofit organisation established in 2008 to support and encourage the establishment of commercially viable social enterprises throughout Australia. Working with government, community, business and research partners, we aim to: * Raise awareness about social enterprise and demonstrate its benefits * Open up markets for social enterprise products and services * Increase finance available to start and develop social enterprises * Build capacity of social enterprises to trade successfully * Support the coordination of social enterprise development in Australia.

"Clean Energy Regulator data has been analysed by solar lobby group 100% renewable energy to show the breakdown of home solar installations by electorate in Australia, with estimates for capacity, dollars saved off power bills, and cost of installation. Explore the distribution of solar with this interactive map - use the drop-down menu to change between total and proportion, or click on an electorate for more detailed information."

"By Giles Parkinson on 20 April 2012 California-based Sungevity is set to become the first solar company in Australia to offer zero-cost rooftop solar, teaming up with local company Nickel Energy to offer pay-as-you-go leasing deals that have proved enormously popular in the US."

Australia: Infigen to build PV integrated energy storage demonstration project. Infigen has begun work on a one MW photovoltaic and energy storage plant in Australia's New South Wales. A first for both the company and the country, the demonstration project aims to pave the way for future utility-scale projects.

"We've been witnessing a quiet revolution in the wind turbine field with the unveiling at Geelong, in Victoria, of the first Eco Whisper wind turbine, developed by Queensland based company, Renewable Energy Solutions Australia (RESA). The unveiling in Geelong, yesterday, was particularly significant as the major Victorian regional city is making a big play to become a centre for renewable energy in Australia."

"The integration of wind energy generation into the electricity grid in South Australia is a success story. The gross statistic often quoted is the total electricity produced as a percentage of the supply. In the year to June 2012, the electricity generated by wind farms in SA amounted to 3,349 GWh, or 26% of the total supply. This was behind the 50% supplied by natural gas and ahead of coal's 24%."

"THE frequency of tropical cyclones is at its lowest level in 1500 years in Western Australia and the lowest in 550 years in Queensland, a team of researchers has found. The new study also shows the number of cyclones lashing Australia has dropped greatly since the industrial revolution, suggesting that global warming might be causing a decline in the extreme events sooner than expected. A team of scientists led by Jordahna Haig, of James Cook University in Queensland, will publish their results in the British journal Nature today"

"As much of inland and eastern Australia sweats through its first heatwave of the summer, a new interactive website has been launched to track where the heat is coming from and to map past heatwaves across the country. Extreme heat has killed more Australians than any other natural hazard in the past 200 years. For example, more people died during the 2009 Victorian heatwave than the Black Saturday bushfires. But as scorcher.org.au explains, a heatwave is more than just one hot day. "

""The world is making policy decisions which mean that coal usage, in my view, will progressively decline. It's a long-term structural change and that should not be dismissed as something that is purely cyclical." (Colin Barnett, West Australian Premier. 29 July 2013) Something deep and long-lasting is changing the thermal coal market, and the effects are already evident in Australia. Reportedly, over the last 12 months, 10,000 jobs have been cut in the coal industry, even though production has increased. Why? Because miners are desperate to staunch their losses as the price they're getting for their coal has plunged by around 40%."

"A new report released today into Australians' attitudes to mobile phone usage and recycling shows that there are now 23 million old mobiles in Australia ready to be recycled - one for every person - and this number is expected to increase. 'Mobile Australia: A report into how we use and recycle our mobiles' developed by not-for-profit recycler, MobileMuster, is the first time a report of this nature has been publicly released, showing that Australians are more aware than ever of mobile phone recycling but are holding onto their old mobiles for range of reasons [1]." http://www.mobilemuster.com.au/media/39176/mobilemuster_annualreport_2013_lr.pdf

Right now Australia faces a choice: we can continue our dependence on fossil fuels, keep mining and burning coal, keep polluting our air and water. We can keep damaging our farmland and heath, be left behind the rest of the world on investment and face an uncertain future with an unstable climate. Or we can make the switch to 100% clean renewable energy, creating a safer, healthier happier future for all.  Join us to ensure Australia makes this choice to help the turn the vision of a 100% Renewable future into a reality.

Renew Geelong's air, spirit and economy with renewable energy - Sign this petition! 48-hour petition - until Tuesday. Share on Facebook and Twitter. Forward this e-mail.  ________________________________________________________   We're hoping the citizens of Geelong will speak up and take a stand in this wind farm drama about community backing.  Let Hydro Tasmania know that there are community groups who object to these secretly funded anti-wind campaigners who allegedly have no worries about climate change. Support Hydro Tasmania in their $2 billion plan to combat carbon emissions and global warming - and to boost sustainability in Victoria.  The petition started today and closes on Tuesday 25 June. (Sign the petition and send a personal comment to the board of Hydro Tasmania:  https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/board-of-hydro-tasmania-renew-geelong-s-air-spirit-and-economy-with-renewable-energy ________________________________________________________ Comments to Hydro Tasmania from the first signatories: "Geelong has relied to long on out dated technology and fossil fuels, renewables energy is our future."(~ Katharine Drummond-Gillett   "Renewable energy projects would revitalise Geelong's economy." (~ Vicki Perrett   "The Geelong and broader regional community are committed to moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle, evident through community actions, changes in manufacturing sectors, the Cleantech Innovations Geelong supported by Geelong Manufacturing, the City of Greater Geelong and community to transition to a renewable energy economy."(~ Suzette Jackson ________________________________________________________ This petition is organised by Parents for Climate Safety More information about the petition: www.climatesafety.info/?p=2970 ________________________________________________________

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