Melton Sustainable Living Group

Being resilient is about being able to withstand a shock to the normal way of life.  Recently there has been a shock in the form of the Global Financial Crisis, however I believe that it was tame compared to what is about to come in the next decade. Two big issues come immediately to mind.  Climate Change and Peak Oil. You have probably heard about the concept of Climate Change, and we are already feeling the effects of extreme weather events in our part of the world.  Doesn't it seem strange that we are getting more and more '1 in 100 year events' closer together and they are becoming more like 1 in 10 year events?  Not strange, but normal according the climatologists.  Climate change means more extreme weather, not just getting a bit warmer. Of course the climate changes over time and has many times before in Earth's history, but not in a matter of years or decades, we are talking centuries for these events to occur naturally. You can't take millions of ...

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....

I came across this video on a fellow green bloggers website.  It is short, to the point, and has a big impact (well it did for me).  This is why I do what I do! Don’t forget that the next meeting is tomorrow at 2-4pm being held at Teresa & David’s house.  Contact me via  meltonsustainablelivinggroup@gmail.com for the address details if you don’t have them. Gavin