From “Games for Change: An Interview with MiniMonos and a Look Back” by Amanda Reed:

Jeff Ramos of GameCulturalist.com recently interviewed Kaila Colbin from MiniMonos.com, which is a virtual world that encourages children and parents to practice sustainability, generosity and community. The game was developed by a group of New Zealanders who were trained by Al Gore to be Climate Ambassadors after The Inconvenient Truth came out.

Here is an excerpt from the interview in which Colbin talks about the real world projects the players of MiniMonos develop as a result of the game’s lessons:

What have you learned about gaming and social interaction because of MiniMonos?

We’ve learned that kids online will continually surprise and delight you. We’ve learned that kids are far more clued up about the environment than we had realized, and that they place far more explicit importance on it than we had realized. We’ve learned that they really appreciate being listened to, and the importance of a sense of belonging. We’ve also learned that they’ll go to astonishing lengths to get a rare virtual item!

We’ve been stunned and humbled by the many ways in which MiniMonos members have picked up the sustainability gauntlet and carried these messages into the real world. We’re seeing a generation of children who already care for the environment, who are tremendously generous, fun-loving, and supportive of each other.

We do everything we can to reinforce the need to take real-world action. We turned off the servers for Earth Hour, and every new membership provides clean drinking water for children in India…

Read the full interview and learn more about MiniMonos and the game developers.  As a relative newbie to Worldchanging and games for change, this interview inspired me to look into the Worldchanging archives to see what other games and virtual worlds had been written about in the past…the extensive collection of articles I found was stunning. If you’re interested in checking some or all of them out, the list has quotes from each piece.

Check out the list compiled by Amanda Reed on WorldChanging.

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From “Scaling Up Solar: The Global Implications of a New Study that Says Solar Power Is Cost Competitive with Nuclear Power” by Olivia Boyd:

The sunshine of North Carolina, a state on America’s Atlantic seaboard, has long been a draw for tourists seeking a little southern warmth on the region’s beaches. But holiday companies are not the only ones trumpeting a good local deal. The price of the state’s solar-generated electricity has fallen so far that it is now cheaper than new nuclear power, according to a report published in July by researchers at the state’s Duke University. The authors say their figures indicate a “historic crossover” that significantly strengthens the case for investment in renewable energy – and weakens the arguments for large-scale, international nuclear development.

Solar power is usually branded as a clean but expensive energy source, incapable of competing on economic grounds with more established alternatives, such as nuclear. The outspoken pro-nuclear stance adopted by a raft of iconic environmental figures – James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Patrick Moore – has helped to instill in policy making circles the sense that this is the only power source that can restructure our energy supply at the pace, scale and price required by the pressures of rapid climate change. This study, which was co-authored by former chair of Duke University’s economics department John Blackburn and commissioned by NC Warn, a clean-energy NGO with a firm anti-nuclear bent, challenges that view. “This report should end the argument for risking billions of public dollars on new nuclear projects,” says Jim Warren, NC Warn director.

The paper states that commercial-scale solar developers in North Carolina are already offering utilities electricity at 14 cents or less per kilowatt hour. Meanwhile, two power companies – Duke Energy and Progress Energy – are pushing ahead with plans for local nuclear plants that, at current estimates, would generate electricity at the higher rate of 14 to 18 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The “crossover” is largely thanks to a marked decline in the costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems seen over the past decade. The study cites figures [PDF] from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory indicating that the cost of solar PV fell from US$12 (81 yuan) per installed watt in 1998 to US$8 (54 yuan) in 2008, on average – a one third drop in 10 years. In 2008 and 2009, costs fell even more rapidly, bringing the 12-year fall to 50%. Meanwhile, the expense of nuclear has ballooned. The estimated cost of construction in the United States at the start of the nuclear renaissance was around US$2 billion (13.6 billion yuan) per reactor. It now stands at around US$10 billion (67.8 billion yuan).

The Duke University research is, of course, limited in geographical focus – the 14 cents figure, which is net of public subsidies, is specific to the North Carolinian regulatory context, where (as in many places) tax benefits and incentive payments for solar electricity help lower costs to customers. But the authors argue that solar is expected to be cost-competitive without subsidies within the decade. And their overall message – that solar and other renewables represent increasingly good value compared to alternatives – is not unique. Jeremy Leggett, the founder of the UK’s largest solar company, Solarcentury, predicts “even cloudy Britain” will reach residential grid parity between solar and fossil-fuel power within five years, while Google is claiming breakthroughs in its bid to make renewables cheaper than coal.

And the pace of development on the ground is startling. At the end of 2009, total worldwide solar installations passed the 22,000-megawatt mark. During that year, more than 7,000 megawatts of solar-generating capacity had been built globally, half of which was in Germany.

“When you begin seeing solar production on this level, it starts making a significant difference. It’s no longer a niche thing,” says Antony Froggatt, senior research fellow in the energy, environment and development program at UK think-tank Chatham House. “It’s very clear that the learning curve for solar is very fast. We are seeing very, very rapid production and economy of scale is clearly crucial.”

Blackburn and his co-author, Sam Cunningham, argue that the strengthening renewables sector, combined with the perceived financial risks of new nuclear, is influencing investor behaviour: “Very few other states [American states other than North Carolina] are still seriously considering new nuclear plants. Some have canceled projects, citing continually rising costs with little sign of progress toward commencing construction. Many states with competitive electricity markets are developing their clean energy systems as rapidly as possible.”

Read the full article by Olivia Boyd.

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Regular Springwise readers are already familiar with transumers and the many ways in which they share and exchange goods without ever having to own them. The Mesh Directory is an online network that attempts to encapsulate that trend, aggregating all the many companies that now “create, share and use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright,” in the site’s own words.

Mesh Directory provides a freely searchable index of some 1,500 companies that are helping to enable the new sharing economy. Designed as a companion site to a forthcoming book on the same topic, the directory allows users to browse alphabetically or by category as well; among the categories included are transportation, fashion, food, real estate, travel, finance and entertainment. Provided for each company on the list are its URL and contact information along with a description of its offerings; there’s also an option for companies not already on the list to request to be added.

Read about it on Springwise.

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From “Ecocide: making environmental destruction a criminal offence” by David Hawkins:

Lawyer Polly Higgins is spearheading a campaign to have ‘ecocide’ recognised by the UN as an international crime against peace. But how will this work in practice?

Ecocide has always been a moral crime, but British lawyer Polly Higgins sees it differently: ‘until it is legally a crime it’s not going to be thought of as wrong. Banks are willing to put our money – public money – into some of the most destructive practices on the planet because they see nothing wrong with it.’  Higgins is leading a new campaign to have ecocide recognised by the United Nations as an international crime against peace. She defines ecocide as ‘the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.’  With population growth and climate change, ecocide is increasingly likely to lead to resource wars. Hence, Higgins argues, it is a potential crime against peace and requires international action because of its capacity to be, in legalese, ‘trans-boundary and multi-jurisdictional’.

Among current examples of ecocide are the Alberta tar sands, Amazonian logging, oceanic plastic pollution, damage from oil extraction in the Niger Delta, the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah and so on, along with more dispersed problems such as polluted waters, which Higgins claims ‘account for the death of more people than all forms of violence including war’. Ecocide is now going on all over the world on an unprecedented scale.  Luckily, she says, many of the tools needed to prosecute such cases are already in existence. ‘The International Criminal Court (ICC) was formed in 2002 to prosecute individuals for breaches of four Crimes Against Peace. They are: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression.’ A case can begin from something as small as a letter from a community or individual.

If ecocide laws are passed by the UN there will be many ramifications. The complementarity principle means that ‘once something is put in as an international law, then each member state should put in their own national law to comply with it’. The ICC will step in if there is an inability or failure (individual countries may not want to challenge their extractive industries) to implement legislation on a national level. ‘This sends a strong message that you can’t lobby your way out of the situation,’ says Higgins.  As well as the legal machinery, Higgins points to existing information-gathering networks in the form of NGOs, many of which are specialised to study and campaign on specific ecosystems. Working together they will be able to present comprehensive damage reports.

[...]

On the journey to becoming law, one of the biggest obstacles an ecocide declaration will face is the corporate lobby. Everything possible will be done to persuade world leaders that criminalising ecocide will be seriously bad for business. But Higgins maintains that there is more positive opportunity ahead than anything else. She cites the abolition of slavery as a scenario where – despite vehement opposition – radical change was enforced and most businesses did not in fact collapse but began trading in less brutal commodities or became ‘the police of the seas’. She observes that destructive corporations tend to reinvent themselves as ‘restoration corporations’.

This idea of ‘restorative justice’ is key to her plan of how we can move forward into a more mature relationship with the earth, recognising our interdependence with our planet. The inadequacy of financial penalties as a deterrent against megapolluters like BP has already been reported. As with carbon credits, monetary reparations serve to abstract the problem and distract from what actually needs to be done. Restorative justice means that the perpetrators of environmental crimes would have to make amends for those crimes directly themselves.  For example, oil companies would have to reconstruct the Niger delta piece by piece after decades of abuse. Soil, vegetation, watercourses, air quality, fauna – all aspects of the depleted ecosystem would have to be addressed. What we would have is a sort of global community service.

‘This is really about shifting the emphasis away from corporate interests to the community realm. If you think you can just get away with it by paying a fine then that’s what you do – you don’t take responsibility for it; but if in fact you’re going to have to spend an awful lot of time and effort and energy in putting things right then that becomes a major headache’.  So fundamental is this shift to restorative justice that Higgins suggests that anything that attracts a fine for damage to the environment should have restorative justice measures attached to it too, not just ecocide.

Ecocide has an advantage over human rights abuse claims in that it’s often easier to prove. If a soil or water sample is contaminated then it’s an immediate victory for planetary rights. With ecocide the ‘burden of proof’ would be on corporations to show that they haven’t damaged a given ecosystem.

So how would the new ecocide laws be applied? First, we would have a transition period for a shift to new methods. This should be as short as possible (Higgins thinks two years would be sufficient). Subsidies propping up damaging practices would be pulled, and new subsidies encouraging good practice and innovation would be offered. (Slavery was similarly heavily subsidised – the subsidies were removed and businesses were given new subsidies to do new things.)

After the transition period, businesses that have failed to modernise will be shut down. States may allow a certain amount to remain in operation through necessity (for example, a few old-fashioned power plants if not enough clean energy is yet available to match demand). It would then be legally untenable for corporations to continue business-as-once-usual. The approach offers the stick of criminality and carrot of opportunity.

So will all mining and deforestation wind down and ultimately stop with the criminalisation of ecocide? It needn’t necessarily, says Higgins – it all depends on your approach. ‘For example, if you’re mining, but at the same time restoring the land that you’re mining out of, it will push for new processes to be invented that are less destructive,’ she says. ‘The question is: “how do we create an extractive industry that isn’t damaging or destructive or that causes loss of ecosystems?” I bet you it can be done.’

The text for ecocide will be presented to the UN next January. It needs a two-thirds majority vote to be passed. Send a letter to your political representative requesting that ecocide be made a crime.

Read the full article by David Hawkins.

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From “Sustainable solutions that make good business sense” by Martin Wright:

In a small farm on the hills above Nairobi, a slender woman in a flower-patterned headscarf is gently, politely shattering myths. Standing among the fruit trees on her shamba (smallholding), Mary Waringa Nguku dispels two of the most common clichés trotted out about the developing world. First, that people in Africa and elsewhere are too busy worrying about day-to-day life to share the West’s obsession with forest loss or climate change. “We cannot trust the weather any more”, she tells me. “It doesn’t rain like it used to, and the rivers are drying out. We do not always have the water we need… The forests are less, so we are going short of wood and it is more expensive. That is why, when I saw the biogas at my brother’s farm, and he told me how much money he was saving, I really wanted to give it a try.”

That last remark gives the lie to the second myth: that sustainable solutions always cost more than unsustainable ones. Mary is among over 200 customers of Skylink Innovators, a local Kenyan company which is installing biogas energy plants in the nation’s schools and even two of its prisons. The plants use a mixture of cow dung and human waste to produce cooking fuel via a process of anaerobic digestion (AD). It’s a well-established technology which tackles several problems at once: it provides clean fuel in place of smoky firewood for cooking; it helps to reduce pressure on dwindling forests and cuts out the greenhouse emissions from burning wood; and it saves people money. Once the biogas plant is in place, there’s no need for firewood. Many farmers save at least as much again on chemical fertiliser, too, as the nutrient-rich residue from the digester does the job just as well. Most plants pay for themselves in a couple of years. All of which makes it a sound business prospect for the likes of Skylink’s founder, Samwel Kinoti. “My father was a pioneer of biogas on his farm, so I grew up with it. I saw the beauty of it, and I knew others would, too.”

It’s this combination of entrepreneurship and environmental good sense which has won Skylink one of the 2010 Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, presented by David Attenborough at a ceremony in London. The Ashden Awards celebrate local sustainable energy success stories in both developing countries and the UK. In doing so, they echo and amplify Mary Waringa’s mythbusting, turning the pursuit of sustainability from something worthy into pure common sense.

Read the rest of this article by Martin Wright on Green Futures for more about biogas, solar energy systems and community empowerment.

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This article from Worldchanging provides a good insight and relevant links into the growing (sorry) Guerilla Gardening Movement, particularly in the USA:

The popularity of guerrilla gardening is growing. National Public Radio recently covered two stories on the subject, one on American seed bombing and another on night-time planting in London. We’ve covered guerrilla gardening at Worldchanging before (as well as the related topic of public food foraging and mapping), so we thought you might be interested to know about a new guerrilla gardening tool: tech savvy seed bombs that use biodegradable casings and are available at Etsy shops, ice cream trucks, grocery stores, and even vending machines! You can find seed bombs with local varietals categorized by geographic regions in the U.S. at Visualingual’s Etsy shop and at Anthropologie.

Common Studio founders Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud have given new life to Karlsrud’s father’s old gumball machines and turned them into seed bomb dispensaries in a project they call Greenaid. For a quarter and a turn, the Greenaid vending machines dispense seed bombs made up of clay, compost and seeds to guerrilla gardeners in California, Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina.

[...]

Read the full article by My Tam Nguyen and Amanda Reed.

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From Reigniting an Interest in Local Food by Danielle Nierenberg:

After journalism school in Senegal, Seck Madieng worked for the government. But he wanted to do “something real. I didn’t want to be a bureaucrat.” He left his job and started AgriInfos, the only Senegalese newspaper to focus entirely on agriculture, food, and healthy diets. “I’m interested in going into villages, talking to farmers, seeing how they work, how they eat. I’m trying to understand why they are poor and why they are hungry,” says Madieng.

In 2007, Madieng, along with local chef Bineta Diallo, started the Mangeons Local (Eat Locally) project in two schools in Dakar. Their goals? To teach students how foods were made and who grew and prepared them. Most urban residents in Dakar depend on foods made not in Senegal, but from Europe.
But their lessons aren’t just theoretical, they also teach students how to cook. According to Diallo, for many students it’s the first time some students have ever prepared or cooked food. Instead of baguettes and imported canned foods, the children are learning how to cook cereals and grains, including local rice varieties, fonio (a small grain typically used in couscous), millet, and sorghum. And rather than drinking milk out of boxes imported from Amsterdam, they’re learning how good local milk can taste, as well as all of the things that can be made from dairy products, including crème, cheese, and butter.

Children are the best communication vehicles to parents, according to Madieng and Diallo. They bring the skills they learn at school home, helping to improve their families’ diets. Mangeons Local also celebrates at the end of the school year with a big party highlighting local foods that parents, students, teachers, and the community can all attend. In addition to local food and juices, they play music from Senegalese musicians and singers, including Grammy winner Youssou N’Dour and Ismael Lo, and Bill Yiakhou, who all sing about agriculture.

Mangeons Local gets some support from Slow Food International, but all the staff are volunteers, which limits the number of schools who can participate in the program.

Original article by Danielle Nierenberg.

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Green Cross CEO Mara Bun interviewed Beth Galante, Director of Global Green, to discuss the prospects for a sustainable recovery in America’s climate change impact hot spot – find out more about why community-grounded optimism persists through the nightmare of mega environmental disasters.

MB – How does the oil spill feel on the ground?

It’s been a punch in the gut – earth shattering at the community and personal level.  Not a single person was untouched by Katrina. But after a few months, it was clear where the damage was done and people started to move back. Recovery began, first in discrete areas. There has been no shortage of setbacks over the past five years. But the community was truly inspired to put this magical place back together. And it’s come together so much better! With heart, with passion. There is so much to celebrate.  But then came the spill.

MB – Let’s get back to the oil spill – but first can you share your reasons for celebrating the recovery?

Sure – some great things come to mind.  New Orleans is becoming a model coastal city – resilient, designed to adjust to climate change. The community has embraced sustainability at every level. All levels of government encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy. Awareness about the need to withstand wind and water stresses is massive. We are building to prepare for future hurricanes, so sustainability goes hand in hand with resilience at the neighbourhood and policy level.

The next real accomplishment has been in the public education system. New Orleans had a very poorly performing education system when compared to other parts of the US or other developed nations. Our schools were rock bottom before Katrina. The storm destroyed the school system overnight. The rebirth has been awesome. We now have a decentralized, entrepreneurial school system with all kinds of new models emerging (some private, some traditional public, some supported by Universities). Student test scores have improved every year after Katrina.

Sustainability has been a big factor in this equation. Global Green has led a green school infrastructure project – funded by the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund – that has delivered six new LEED accredited schools [LEED accreditation is similar to Australia's Green Star Ratings]. One of these is Louisiana’s first LEED Gold school. We are really proud of that – and now green schools are embedded in the system. By legislation, all new schools and school renovations in New Orleans must reach at least “LEED Silver” standard. That’s a nation-leading accomplishment.  And it’s no surprise that test scores have improved because worldwide studies show that students have better results if they study in places with better light, better air, and lower toxic and other environmental impacts.

The other cause for optimism is governance. Before Katrina, New Orleans and the State as a whole experienced a never-ending stream of corruption enquiries. Our new Mayor has an overwhelming mandate – from black, white, rich and poor residents. We are in a new era of transparent, good local government that has not been seen for generations.  Much of this has been citizen-driven. New Orleans has some of the best local community groups in America, and now finally the government is following the community’s lead. For example, a task force including community and local business groups has out forward thirty recommendations for sustainability, and many of these wonderful citizen projects are being supported.  But the best cause for optimism – for sure – was when the Saints won the Superbowl!

MB – So bearing all of that good news in mind – lets go back to the oil spill. How is the community responding?

This is a different kind of disaster. One that does not end. You can’t respond by rebuilding a house – there’s a feeling of impotence. What do you do as a citizen, as a human being?  New Orleans is not experiencing the brunt of this – but we are connected to coastal neighbourhoods experiencing existential crisis.  The conversation is shifting towards oil independence. How can renewable energy and energy efficiency wean us off America’s oil addiction? But the conversation is very challenging, because Louisiana has limited economic diversity. Elected officials are influenced by the oil industry which is hostile towards energy alternatives. There has been limited meaningful exploration of alternatives at the State level – there’s a lot of “O-Bashing” (Obama bashing) especially in challenging the moratorium on offshore drilling.

A partisan cloud is descending – just like with the Katrina response. The Bush-bashing back then was not helpful either.  And then on the ground where families confront the oil at the coalface, there’s a lot of confusion about what’s happening with the clean up, and what the future looks like.  New leaders such as Kindra Arnesen are emerging. Kindra is the Erin Brockovich of the Gulf. She fears a cover up is underway, and that apparent clean up actions are not real. The community is worried about healthy breathing and healthy ecosystems – not to mention the clamp down on tourism and fishing.

MB – How is Global Green – a national environment group with the largest office in New Orleans (and the only one dedicated to green building/climate change) responding?

On the fourth of July 2010, our Independence Day, Global Green and 65 local business, academic and community groups forming a “Green Collaborative” launched a Declaration of Energy Independence. This addresses the need to transition America’s energy mix, shaping clean energy as a viable economic model as opposed to hand-outs to renewable industries.  In addition to playing our part in the clean energy conversation and rebuilding a sustainable and resilient New Orleans, Global Green is taking on four challenges that we think can deliver the most value on the ground right now, working with local community networks:

1. Providing humanitarian aid on the ground – using our fundraising to fill gaps such as funding dental care for coastal residents who are severely stressed and are experiencing high levels of broken teeth, and helping families to buy school uniforms.

2. Documenting impacts – bringing Hollywood celebrities to document interviews with residents that bring out personal stories – human and wildlife impacts – that can be shared over social media.

3. Community empowerment responses – including support for enacting the “Citizen’s Advisory Council” provisions of the Offshore Petroleum Act (or OPA). The OPA came into effect after the Exxon Valdez Spill after it became clear that community organizations needed funding support to empower effective community responses. Global Green is supporting a call for $2.5 billion in funding to nurture and empower Gulf community organisations which will to bolster long term responses to the spill. We see this as a moral imperative that will enable the community to shape its future.

4. Focus on wildlife destruction – The biodiversity outlook is scary for the Gulf. The sea turtle situation is especially horrific, with people across the world watching incinerated animals as BP burned the oil. It costs $10,000 to rescue, clean and release a sea turtle, and the Kemps Ridley sea turtle is particularly endangered . This is an ancient, magnificent creature, and America’s oil addiction could destroy them. Global Green is exploring the potential to partner with high quality educational tourism operators to foster a values shift towards protecting the nesting ground and ocean ecosystems where the sea turtles thrive.

About Beth Galante

Beth Galante is a leading voice for Gulf Coast sustainability in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and now the BP oil spill. Beth has lived in New Orleans for most of her life. She is Director of the Global Green (Green Cross’ US affiliate) New Orleans Office, and she is overseeing Global Green’s various projects to rebuild New Orleans as a sustainable model including a Green Resource Centre, the exemplar Holy Cross Project, the Built It Back Green program which gives technical advice and workshops for residents trying to green their homes, and other green rebuilding initiatives including green affordable homes, schools, and neighbourhoods.

Beth was formerly an Assistant D.A. in New Orleans and she taught at Tulane Law School, as the former Deputy Director of the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. She has been National Law Journal’s Runner Up Lawyer of the Year, for groundbreaking work in the field of Environmental Justice. Beth has a Masters of Environmental & Energy Law and J.D. from Tulane Law School. She is currently an Aspen Institute Fellow in its Henry Crown leadership program.

Read the full interview by Mara Bun.

From “Build It Back Green: A Global Movement“:

“Build it back green” (BIBG) is a new global movement which recognises that scientific predictions of more intense severe weather are becoming a reality.  Each major event offers the opportunity to break the greenhouse emissions cycle if we rebuild with a reduced carbon footprint.

Katrina provides the wake-up call

The BIBG movement started in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina which the world watched in horror.  Green Cross’s US affiliate Global Green catalysed a major green rebuilding effort in New Orleans supported by Brad Pitt, Habitat for Humanity and dozens of business and community groups who share the vision. This effort is now delivering thousands of green homes and neighborhoods are being transformed.

Greensburg Kansas follows the example

Greensburg Kansas is a conservative midwest US town which was devastated by a 2007 tornado.  The entire town is rebuilding with sustainability and community development in mind, and has captured the imagination of the American public. Watch their progress on YouTube.

Flowerdale follows suit after the horror of Black Saturday

Right now Australia is joining the BIBG movement, finding hope in the aftermath of the horrors of Black Saturday Victorian bushfires which destroyed more than 2,000 homes and 3,500 structures in total. Flowerdale is an inspiring example of a Victorian community pulling together to rebuild their lives, homes, community centres and schools in a more sustainable way.  Green Cross Australia and its partners – Australian Conservation Foundation, Alternative Technology Association, Habitat for Humanity Australia, and Green Building Council of Australia – are determined to support Black Saturday affected communities with green rebuilding tools from a base in Flowerdale, a town determined to create a sustainable future out of a tragic episode.

Queensland prepares to rebuild green after its next major weather event

The Queensland government recognises its growing exposure to severe weather as the planet warms. Green Cross Australia has been selected as the Q2 Environment Foundation Partner of the Bligh Government, and BIBG will underpin our efforts to support reduced household emissions right across the State.  Together with our BIBG partners and Queensland government agencies, Green Cross is preparing to BIBG after Queensland’s next cyclone or major flood or fire.

Visit the Green Cross Australia website for more information.

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Image: petrr via flickr CC

From I got them to switch the heating off! by Sylvia Sunshine:

My office is over 70 square foot in size, but only half of the space is ever being used at one time. The other half lies empty.  The organisation that pays my wage rents a large office space and sublets out to two other companies. However, my company has been unable to sublet the remaining space on the floor.  According to research by the property agent NB Real Estate, there is now over 10 million square foot of office space lying empty in London alone, up from 7.8 million in 2008. The capital has been left with over 10 per cent of its offices empty, with the situation at its most drastic in the West End (where I’m based).  And of course, with this waste comes the predictable onslaught of environmental damage.

Because there are so few people in the space I’m in, it takes more energy to heat, in both real and relative terms. Furthermore, in the empty office adjacent to my office, we heat the entire space day and night, even though it lies vacant (and has done for nearly a year).

The next morning I approach the company head honcho about the empty space in our office.  ‘No one wants to buy at the moment,’ he says. ‘We’ve tried to lower to price too, but nothing seems to work’.

‘Can we switch off the heating in there?’ I murmur, head hanging low over a bowl of organic museli.  My boss looks at me carefully. I can see the cogs turning as he remembers previous conversations. As time stands still I think he’s about to upbraid me for being too much of a goody (non-leather) two shoes. But instead of attacking me – as has become par for the course – he glances over to Jill and squawks: ‘Can we get building services to switch off the heating in the other offices? Rooms 2a and 2b? They’re not being used at the moment, are they?’

‘Sure,’ Jill shouts back across the empty office, ‘I’ll email the landlord now’.

‘Wow,’ I think. No qualms, no questions and no awkward silences. Just action. Maybe my technique is improving? Or maybe some kind of sea change is underway?

Read more about Sylvia Sunshine’s efforts.

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