A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected. 
If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air. 
It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods — that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these record-breaking events are happening in such proximity — that is, why there have been unprecedented megafloods in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in the past year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. No, better to focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the news anchorman standing in his waders in the rising river as the water approaches his chest. 
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second hundred-year drought in the past five years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the past decade — well, you might have to ask other questions. Such as: Should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal mining? Should Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sign a permit this summer allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might also have to ask yourself: Do we have a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gasoline?
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.
Bill McKibben is founder of the global climate campaign 350.org and a distinguished scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont.

Washington Post - Published by Bill McKibben 23/May/2011

350.org - Because The World Needs to Know!

Chippendale have got its own garden shed!!

News! 
This Friday 13/May our new garden shed arrived.
It is in the yard of the Pine Street Creative Centre near the western boundary fence.
Any gardener will have access to it.
Now anyone will be able to get garden gear and garden at any time that suits them.
The Council officer who has made this happen, Russ Grayson, will get a lock for it and we can give the combination code to any gardener so they may gain access.
The manager of Pine Street, Jane Hooper, is getting one of the Centre’s tutors to design a garden themed mural for the shed – then get community volunteers to paint it – should look great!
The equipment bought for us by local businesses: wheelbarrows, shovels, spades, etc and the gear Council has given us – gloves, organic fertilizer, Roach Pruf, etc – can go into the shed.
We’ll need to organise this inside the shed; you know, everything in its place and a place for everything . . . . labels, notice board, contacts, etc. Time now for the artists, graphic designers, printers, etc among us to put your hands up to make the shed . . . . The Shed.

So, do come gardening with us on Fridays between 9 to 11 am to know more or use this space to ask questions!

Waste Not documentary Trailer

Funded by a City of Sydney Environment Grant, the film explores how recycling will play a big role in helping Australians move to a sustainable future and helps us understand what happens to the things we throw away, and how we can start reducing our waste.

For more info click here.

Update on 2011-05-16 01:12 by Thais

WASTE NOT, the Total Environment Centre amazing documentary on what it takes to keep a city like Sydney clean and sparkling, will be screening on the Pine Street Creative Arts Centre on Monday, the 30/May/2011. 

Watch this space for more details!

Update on 2011-05-23 06:35 by [Your Name Here]

Waste Not free screening will be happening on the 30/may/2011 at 6pm! Don't miss it!

For more details see here.

Update on 2011-06-15 10:32 by Thais

Did you miss the screening on the 30/May? here is your chance to see it!! 

What? Waste Not, Want Not - Film and Talk

When? Monday 27 June, 6.30pm - 8pm

Where? Eastern Hotel, 500 Oxford Street, Bondi Junction (Pacifica Bar, top floor)

Free with tasty snacks provided. RSVP's preferred but not essential - call 9369 8045 or email environment@waverley.nsw.gov.au.

This event is part of our Green Brains Series running during June and July.

Free Chippendale Weed Talk and Tour

Did you know chefs from Tetsuyas and other restaurants and cafes pick 'weeds' from our streets for simple, beautiful, healthy salads and soups and good tucker?

Come and see what these are:  Chickweed, Wood Sorrel, Nasturtium and much much more - there's a free supermarket on our streets and most of us have no idea of the bounties and tastes there.

Let Diego open our eyes.  Then you can pick the harvest, too.

Diego has already created a weed tour of Chippendale, while in residency at Frasers Studios, which can be accessed:

- Pine street self guided tour of the weeds, which he produced in 2007 for the Gang Festival, see leaflet here.

- See the self guided tour map here.

- Chippendale googlemap, which he produced during a residency at Fraser's Studios in 2008, see ChipWeeds.

What Diego will provide for Saturday 11th of June will be a revised version of that work, reprinting the flier and map and providing a walk through for a number of guests.  

What? Weed talk and tour by Diego Bonetto

When? Saturday 11 June 2011

          11:30am til 1pm

Where? Pine Street Creative Centre, 64 Pine St Chippendale then the weeds on the streets of Chippendale

How Much? Free!

WeedConnection.com

Update on 2011-06-05 01:14 by Thais

Join naturalist Diego Bonetto this weekend as he presents a 1 1/2 hour walk around Chippendale's urban wilderness. 

Chippendale Weed Tour will take audience along the edges, footpaths and in forgotten corners, presenting the botanical reality that surround us.

Learn about uses and abuses related to the most downtrodden of all species: weeds.

This is a family friendly event, all welcome, easy stroll around the streets of Chippendale.

BIO

Diego Bonetto is a multimedia artist living and practicing in Sydney.

For the past 7 years Diego has been working with WeedyConnection, an environmental art campaign. The project involves an online resource launched in 2006, short documentary films, various site-specific installations in the form of Self-Guided Tours,interactive games on mobile platforms and Facebook interventions.

-WeedyConnection has won Diego important scholarships and has been curated in various environmental art festivals and exhibitions. The project also took place in academic forums like the 2007 UTS Conference on Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, University of Technology, Sydney were Diego presented Weed gathering: ethnobotanical practices in a cosmopolitan society.

Most recently Diego presented a paper at the Weeds Society of Victoria symposium: Contentious perspectives on weeds. Diego is currently employed as research assistant to Professor Ross Gibson, University of Sydney, as part of the research project Tending: a garden experiment.

Update on 2011-06-20 03:34 by Thais

Help tackle illegal graffiti!

Graffiti Action Day kicks-off on Sunday 15 May and the City of Sydney has joined forces with Keep Australia Beautiful and the NSW Government.

Keep Australia Beautiful started Graffiti Action Day in 2010 because it’s a great way for local communities to take a very public and collective stand against illegal graffiti.

Graffiti Action Day 2011 will focus on cleaning, painting and preventing illegal graffiti.

To make this day a success the City of Sydney needs your help at its clean up site in Ultimo from 9am – 1pm. Just meet us at Wentworth Park Light Rail at 9am.

Not only will you remove graffiti, but you’ll also learn from experts about the best methods to remove it and how to avoid it altogether. This year’s activities will also focus on planting trees and other natives with Pyrmont Ultimo Landcare to create a barrier to deter graffiti.

To register your interest, please contact Brooke Lampard at the City of Sydney via email, call 8019 6944 or register online.

Light snacks will be provided.

Learn more about Graffiti Action Day here.

Chippendale Tree Veneration Project

Louise Fowler-Smith, director of Imaging the Land International Research Initiative (ILIRI ) is proposing a collaborative venture between Sydney Council and her institute  to celebrates the multi–cultural nature of our population, at the same time as raising awareness for our most important asset - the environment.

"If we are truly a multi - cultural city, then why not show this visibly. Can we bring some of the important rituals of our cross - cultural society to the fore?" Louise.

Here is what she has to say about it:

"My proposition explores a tradition/ritual that has occurred in Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and to some extent Muslim societies for centuries – the veneration of Trees.

I am presently writing a book on “Sacred Trees in India”, the research for which has enabled me to travel to India on numerous occasions and photograph hundreds of examples of how people decorate trees as an aspect of ritual or worship. In India trees are worshipped (to this day) by tribal animistic people and are considered the abode of the Gods by many other religions, especially Hinduism.

Over the decades this practice has effected cultural change. The tree is perceived differently, it is seen as a form that houses the sacred, thus is protected. Even the most rapacious Indian businessman would not dare to cut down the sacred tree, which is recognized through its adornment.

To walk through the natural environment and stumble across one of these transformed trees can be a profound experience for the beholder. Involving all the senses, it is a living art that is available for everyone, without the slightest sense of elitism.

Contemporary western society, however has tended to relate to the tree from either an economic or a conservationist perspective. Deforestation has been defended because it provides jobs and assists the economy.

What is needed is a change of consciousness towards our natural world, and perhaps we can learn from ancient cultures to enable this change.

How we perceive and contemplate the land affects how we treat the land. If we see the land as separate from ourselves we are less likely to honour and respect it. 

I propose forming a group of artists who will select “special” trees in Sydney and, with the permission of Council, decorate them with an array of natural pigments, ribbons, cloth, bells and various other paraphernalia - making the tree visibly special. I have spoken with arboriculturists to ensure any materials used would not hurt the tree, and in fact would be interested in collaborating with Environmental Services to find pigments that would actually enrich the tree, at the same time as looking beautiful.

A small plaque could be left at the base of the tree that explains the cross- cultural practice at the same time as drawing people’s attention to the importance of the tree to our survival.

Materials used could be sourced from places like ‘reverse garbage’- and would all be recycled.

The decoration of a tree can really enliven a place, so Council could chose specific sites that perhaps are underprivileged visually for artistic enhancement, in the first instance. The group could ultimately have decorated trees dotted strategically all over Sydney – so that each time people see one of these venerated trees they begin to associate differently with them. How they think about the tree would be enhanced by the information on the accompanying plaque.

I envisage these sites becoming meeting places and areas of contemplation, as they are in India. They could also become collaborative, with the local environment contributing a specific form of decoration (decided by the artistic group) after making a wish. This is also a practice that occurs widely in India-called wish fulfilling trees.

Apart from enabling a cultural shift in how our society perceives the natural world, this practice could also help to break down barriers between different cultural groups, offering an insight to Hindu culture at the very minimum.

It may also bring a sense of ritual -something that Australians sadly have not grown up with - to our city.

Because we know that the planting, and more importantly the retention of trees is essential to climate change- my proposal would address two of the “challenges” for the focus areas of Sustainable Sydney 2030

1) How should the Sydney community respond to Climate Change?

2) How best can Sydney celebrate its cultural vitality, creativity and diversity?"

Decorated Trees at Louise's backyard:

 

Update on 2011-06-22 10:15 by [Your Name Here]

Community get together to celebrate the recent decorating of the beautiful Jacaranda tree in the grounds of Pine Street Creative Arts Centre, 64 Pine St, Chippendale this Sunday 26/June at 1:30pm!

Louise is a teacher at COFA and has been bringing a group of her students to Pine Street to decorate (or venerate) our tree. It will be completed this week! Advice and approval was sought from the Manager of the City of Sydney's Parks and Trees Facilities prior to the work commencing.

The group call themselves "The Decorators Branch of the Tree Veneration Society". Their aim is to celebrate multicultural values, by using a technique used in many other (mainly Hindu) countries, as well as to draw people's attention to the environmental value of trees. In short, to encourage respect of trees. This is the first tree in Sydney to be venerated - and it is in our own backyard!

The eventual aim is to have a venerated tree in each street of Chippendale. Input from the local community is vital to the project - each street could, in essence, 'vote' for their favorite tree, and Louise's team would decorate it (with help from locals more than welcome).

"These tree could act like meeting places for every street - but we want the community to be involved" says Louise.

How cool is that?

Wanna know what are the environmental implications of Coal Seam Gas?

Public Forum at Sydney Uni on the 16/May/2011!

The Great Food Crisis of 2011

As the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high in the United Kingdom. Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18-percent annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive quantities of wheat and corn. The Mexican government is buying corn futures to avoid unmanageable tortilla price rises. And on January 5, the U.N. Food and Agricultural organization announced that its food price index for December hit an all-time high.

But whereas in years past, it's been weather that has caused a spike in commodities prices, now it's trends on both sides of the food supply/demand equation that are driving up prices. On the demand side, the culprits are population growth, rising affluence, and the use of grain to fuel cars. On the supply side: soil erosion, aquifer depletion, the loss of cropland to nonfarm uses, the diversion of irrigation water to cities, the plateauing of crop yields in agriculturally advanced countries, and -- due to climate change -- crop-withering heat waves and melting mountain glaciers and ice sheets. These climate-related trends seem destined to take a far greater toll in the future. Read the full article.

Indian City Farming

Dr. R T Doshi speaks about his methods for farming in terraces, balconies, etc.

www.cityfarming.in