Melton Sustainable Living Group

The group had a stall yesterday at the Djerrawarrah Festival, which is the main event of the year in our town.  Our stall had display boards, educational pamphlets, drought tolerant succulents, vegetable seedlings, and buckets and buckets of sheep poo.  Everyone who volunteered had a great time telling people about the sort of things they can do at home to grow their own food, save energy and money, and to green up their lifestyles.  We even had about 6 people express interest in joining the group, which is a fantastic outcome.  Hopefully they will join our merry band of environmentally aware citizens. Here are some photos and commentary from throughout the day. David, Jonathan, Caroline, and Amy David and Renata, The growing section of the stall The undercover educational display boards and pamphlets Gavin holding up the tent, looking friendly in an attempt to entice the crowds in to the display. Jake manning the displays Jake, Gavin, Rick and...

As discussed at the last meeting, here is some more information about campaigns in our local area.  Click on the links for more information. The Big Picture hosted by BREAZE in Ballarat. ATA's 350 Photo Challenge .  Danni, and I have already submitted photos to this campaign. and finally, on Friday 23rd October, MGC Pedal Powered Launch Party .  They are powering the event using Future Spark to generate enough electricity into the grid to power the show.  Comedian Rod Quantock will MC the entertainment and perform his show, “Bugger the Polar Bears, this is serious” starting at 7pm.  I wrote about Rod Quantocks show on a post called " Rod Quantock's Guide to Climate Change ".  As for our own campaign, I am all ears, but we will need to act fast!  Post ideas for a local Melton event via comments so that we can organise something quickly, or if we can't organise quickly enough then I can contact the Melbourne Girls College for tickets to the sh...

I recently received an email from Rodney Dekker, a local Melton resident who is married to Desrae, one of the friends of the MSLG. He is a freelance photo journalist focused on climate change storytelling. He has travelled to Bangladesh and made a story board for Oxfam about the effects of a cyclone that occurred in 2007 that killed tens of thousands of people in low laying areas of the country.  Here is a video of what he saw.  It is quite powerful and eye opening. Eyewitness Climate Change: Bangladesh from Oxfam Australia on Vimeo . The images he took are a timely reminder of why the up-coming negotiations at Copenhagen in December are so important, and this may be the last chance we have to set realistic targets that reverse or at least stabilise the climate before the human race creates climate chaos by our own negligence.  I for one feel ashamed that our country has the dubious honour of over taking the USA as the worst polluters per capita in the world....

If Barack Obama can have a veggie patch, why can't Kevin Rudd! It took a lot of campaigning by many concerned citizens who voiced their opinion at EatTheView.org. They made such an impact that Michelle Obama actually turned over the first sod in the garden herself. Many American families are following suit and have begun to plant ' Recession Gardens '. The First Lady even appeared on Oprah to tout the benefits of growing your own organic vegetables. Now that the President of the USA and family has an organic supply of yummy vegetables in the Whitehouse's yard, there should be no reason why our Kev can't rip up some of the lawn at the Lodge (the official residence of the Prime Minister of Australia), and put in a veggie patch just like the one that Peter Cundall made at the Royal Botanical Garden in Hobart. After all, the upkeep of the Lodge is paid for by Australian taxpayers dollars, so technically it belongs to all Australians. Just look at all that potential ve...