Geelong Sustainability

"Sustainability and Heritage Guidance Sheets: Improving the efficiency of heritage houses"

"The troubles of electric-car-maker Fisker Automotive have fueled another round of debate about whether plug-ins can live up to their promises. The California start-up, which had already halted production and laid off most of its employees, missed a federal loan paymentMonday and told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that it may not be able to avoid bankruptcy. This is probably the end of the road for Fisker. But definitely not for electric cars. Let me dispel some of the myths."

"Good News Friday, April 25 {Solar Power, Extreme Green Buildings, Growth of Renewables}"

"Many Australians are happy to declare their interest in sustainability, to reducing their environmental impact. But how many of them are prepared to reduce the amount they actually consume?"

"Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown,' said Reuters. But warming is speeding up, and scientists can explain it"

"GoodFishBadFish is a website passionate about sustainable seafood.  It's a place for consumers to visit for up-to-date and interesting information on the area of sustainable seafood."

EVs and solar power - go together like a horse and carriage : Renew Economy

"Low cost, high grade sustainable fuel oil from algae"

"The significance of having a carbon budget should not be underestimated. International studies, such as those by the International Energy Agency, say the global budget (and by inference national budgets) could be rapidly exhausted unless the scale of action is increased. They generally agree that to meet the science, between two-thirds and four-fifths of the world's fossil fuel reserves will need to be left in the ground."

"Gadgets get discarded at ever faster rates and account for millions of tons of consumer electronic waste every year. To feed production, more and more resources are claimed and we are beginning to suffer from the immense burden on the natural and social environment. What is the purpose of driving the technological advancement? Does it help us create something that will last? Where are we going so fast? We don't know. Or do we?"

"Due to Sweden's innovative waste-to-energy program and highly efficient recycling habits, the Scandinavian nation faces an interesting dilemma. They have run out of trash."

"Demand on wireless networks is climbing as more and more people use their mobile devices to access applications like email and Twitter. It might seem like a carbon neutral activity but Australian researchers estimate that the global energy consumption by wireless networks will grow by 460 per cent over the next two years. In emissions terms, that's the equivalent of 4.9 million extra cars on the road. Professor Rod Tucker is the director of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Energy Efficient Telecommunications, and he explained the impact of the shift to Lexi Metherell."

"Simply put, as we evolve towards individuals accessing cloud services via wireless, cloud services will not be the energy savers they were once promoted to be."

"It is important to distinguish between genuine local concerns and the increasingly professional anti-wind activists whose strategy seems designed to confuse and inflame the debate on wind energy. In Australia, some anti-wind groups promote bogus science, claiming a litany of medical ailments attributable to turbines. "

The Educator Toolkit for Using Technology to Connect Students & the Environment includes activities and resources at all grade levels from the US National Environment Education Week. - See more at: http://eeweek.org/#sthash.78U9pAw6.dpuf

"The first online learning course on Climate Change for the Secondary Teachers is now available. This innovative training kit, entitled UNESCO Course for Secondary Teachers on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) is designed to give teachers confidence, through a series of six-day programmes, to help young people understand the causes and consequences of climate change today."

Australian politicians are displaying a discernible lack of courage in dealing with the threats of climate change, University of Melbourne researchers are warning. 

An infographic showing how a world composed of 100 people would be constituted around various themes including nutrition, water, gender and more

Check out this PDF from the UK's Agency of Design, entitled Designing with Energy. It provides real learning tools and perspectives that I suspect students would find engaging. It asks, and addresses, questions about our energy lives that we don't even know to ask, like do you know how much energy went into making the chair you're sitting on? The authors of this publication look to improvements in design and manufacturing to reduce the amount of energy embedded in our stuff.

Also the chart below taken from a Climate Spectator article by Dr Jenny Riesz is one of the most illuminating. It shows the cross-over point between the cost of wind and a gas combined-cycle power plant depending on gas and carbon prices. While it is slightly out of date with the cross-over between wind and gas now about $1 per GJ lower than indicated, it still provides a good illustration of how gas and the carbon price influence the economics between wind versus gas.