One big climate COP-out

The United Nations Secretary-General set the tone for the 27th annual COP climate conference by saying the world was “on the highway to climate hell”. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg no doubt agreed, earlier describing the two-week climate conference in Egypt as an exercise in ‘green-washing’. Fair to say the representatives of 198 nations who gathered in Glasgow last year for COP26 have not done as much about climate change mitigation as we’d all hoped….

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Australians buy 56 clothing items a year

I know what you’re thinking – Crikey, someone’s buying my clothing share! That was my immediate response to a new report from the Australian Fashion Council. My trusty proof-reader, She Who Buys Quality Clothes and Keeps Them for Decades, asked: “Does that include bras and undies?” The Clothing Data report concludes that a lot of the clothing Australians buy every year ultimately ends up in landfill. As the report shows, 62% of global clothing is…

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Confessions of a Tree Hugger

Our whistle-stop tour of Tasmania (18 days) reminded me much of my teenage years in New Zealand as a fledgling Tree Hugger. Tasmania itself reminds Kiwis of the home country, with its hilly roads, sparse population and evidence of man’s attempts to harness the wilderness. Tassie’s north-west coast in particular looks like the rugged beech forests of the South Island’s west coast. (Photo: tall timbers at Heritage Point on the Gordon River.) There are other…

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Heatwaves and the Winter Solstice

As the Winter Solstice came and went and our wood heater consumed the last of 2020’s firewood, the US mid-west was  sweltering through an early summer heatwave. Australia is, hopefully, at least five months away from its first hot spell. But in the US mid-west states, which have been in the grip of the worst drought in 20 years, the mercury is rising. Cue Martha and the Vandellas.. Canadian relatives had already been posting photos…

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