Driving less to reduce carbon emissions
By James Sloan Whatever “net zero” carbon emissions really means and whether we can achieve it and keep global warming to 1.5° by 2050, depends to a large extent on individuals in wealthy countries like Australia making sacrifices to the way we live. Threatened by global warming, most of us agree on the importance of …
Pond life
By Bruce Key Sometimes we come across a story with a message. Here is one such story. The story is about a large pond, about the size of a farm dam. On day one, a microscopic weed blows into the pond. The weed is very vigorous, and every day it doubles in extent as it …
Keeping ahead of climate change
By Charles Robinson After noticing the increasing intensity of summer downpours on our property over a ten-year period, I decided to take decisive action. Heavy rainfall would often result in water lapping at our doorstep and it would only be a matter of time before extreme rains would force this water inside. Accordingly, I contracted …
Decarbonising our transport
By David Coleman For Albury to play its part in combatting climate change, supporting clean and green transport throughout the community offers the best ‘bang for buck’ actions Council can take. Everyone’s health and prosperity will improve enormously if we slash the harm transport causes. The transport sector contributes 21% of New South Wales greenhouse …
Life. Be In It
By Kirsten Coates A generation ago, our public service campaigns were about “Slip, Slop, Slap”, “Keep Australia Beautiful” and “Life. Be in it”. Looking back nostalgically at this time is like comfort food; simple, palatable and easy to digest. How much more difficult is it now to consume the messages about climate change, refugee crises …
Knitting Nannas for Renewables
By Liz Hammond I’m retired, a grandmother, and I worry about our future on a warming planet. I’m a sometimes member of the local branch of climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) and for the past four years I’ve been a member of Albury Wodonga Knitting Nannas for Renewables. XR is a global environmental movement …
Generating electricity
By Bruce Key, member of Wodonga Albury Towards Climate Health (WATCH) It is common to hear wind turbines described as blots on the landscape. In addition, solar farms are often criticised for taking up large areas of agricultural land, implying that the land is taken out of production. These criticisms have some validity, but to …
When many small contributions add up to large change
By Lauriston Muirhead Let’s deal with one of the more transparent fig leaves that our government uses to try to hide an appalling record on emissions reduction and effective climate action. I mean that tired old chestnut trotted out by politicians to excuse their pathetic efforts – “but we only emit 1.2% of the world’s …
How things have changed
By Libby Rouse Back in the 80’s I was fortunate to have winter holidays at Mt Buffalo Chalet. Run by Vic Rail, it was a quirky and wonderful place. Porters were there year on year, carrying bags, stoking fires, providing supper. The entertainment crew, always the same, would double as ski instructors. They organised games …
A tale for our times
By Lauriston Muirhead On the planet Erath, there lived a dragon. Over hundreds of millions of years it sometimes slept and sometimes caused death and destruction. Many different things made the dragon angry or sleepy. When the dragon had been sleeping for a long time, people were able to plant their crops and raise …
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About Living Lightly …
Living Lightly is a column in the Border Mail newspaper on Wednesdays featuring local stories about sustainable living.
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