Here’s a range of news items related to the cascading effects of rising oil prices around the world: Degraded land, unsustainable agriculture and unaffordable fuel prices are devastating ordinary people in Lesotho, a small, mountainous African nation. How are ordinary families feeding themselves? Click on this link to read this special BBC News report about…
Category: Climate
Any Suggestions For Reducing Our Larder’s Ecological Footprint?
I’m looking for simple suggestions as to how I could further reduce our larder’s ecological footprint, reducing food miles, greenhouse emissions and making Bellis more sustainable. The cost of food is intimately linked to the cost of oil so prices are rising and I have a tight budget. Last month I listed all the products…
Open Letter To The Climate Change Minister: How Effective Carbon Sequestration Offers A Healthy Economy
An organically farmed Australia could naturally sequester almost 70% of national Greenhouse Gas emissions. The amount of CO2 sequestered is based on achievements through current low-till, sustainable farming practices. “This is not a theoretical estimate as in some of the tree plantation models, or unproven like the millions of dollars being spent on clean coal or mechanical…
Using Every Drop More Than Once
The last thing we want is for any water to go down the drain. By mid-morning today, heavy showers filled our 21,000 litre rainwater tank. It’s starting to overflow into our network of drainage pipes, which soak the soil deeply from 70 cm down and below. When this network has done its job the subsoil…
Climate Change Flora For Brisbane
This stocktake was completed two days ago and it helps me answer some of your FAQ’s:
International Compost Awareness Week
International Compost Awareness Week started on Sunday and today I installed a new compost bin from Aerobin. It took an hour:
Real Carbon Capture And Sequestration
While Australian governments state and federal, past and present, throw vast amounts of money at unproven ‘clean coal’ technology they are ignoring a proven method of pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it. A thirty year scientific trial by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania (USA) placed conventional, industrial farming systems and organic systems…
Bellis On The BBC’s Radio 4
An interview will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 next week discussing the water saving aspects of ‘Bellis’. Jeff is particularly pleased as Radio 4 is the home of such favourite cultural icons as the Shipping Forecast and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…Yes, he can be quite strange at times. The Sunparched Country website…
Level 6 Watering Restrictions
The Queensland government, and the Water Commission in particular, continue as the state’s arch water wasters… People who grow food at home are not exempt from watering restrictions. Some of us do this to save money so we can repay our mortgages.
Gardening In ‘New Summer’
October 2007 is the month that Tim Flannery, Australian of the Year, advised that in 2005 the concentration of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere passed 450 ppm. Also this month a German study revealed that we passed Peak Oil in 2006. I can think of few more momentous happenings for human civilisation. Certainly for human…
Driving To The Grocery Store Brings Famine To Your Neighbour
Suddenly the UN, which has spent years warning world leaders that we would reach Peak Food early this century, are being listened to. The UN has accurately described how, where and who would be hit by famine. I recently wrote a piece in The Organic Gardener about this topic because home food gardeners have role…
Open Day
Last weekend we opened our place as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme. I chose August to open because that’s when our Phillip Island Hibiscus hedge, Hibiscus insularis, is in flower. Well, in the end it didn’t because the recent frost set it back a fortnight. I also chose this time because right now,…
Jerry Coleby-Williams 