Every day we shape our planet's future when we make small life decisions - what we buy, what we eat, how we travel. The future of the planet is in our hands; the future is man-made. And we are all "Futuremakers". If we choose to live sustainably, we can assure a future for all living things. And we can have some fun doing it too!
This site, created by WWF-Australia, is a place where you can share ideas with other Futuremakers so that we can live more sustainably. We hope the tips and stories here will be useful for you. (More about this site)
To browse the ideas on this site by category or difficulty, click on the icons below.
The CityFarm Chronicles blog has a post entitled Musings on water where the author outlines “a vision of how things could be done differently. A few of these are top down approaches, some are bottom-up approaches. Some are tongue-in-cheek but it’s up to you to decide which ones!”
Check it out - and feel free to leave your thoughts over there (or on this post if you’re so inclined)…
Melissa over at ActNow! has a great interview with Michael Mobbs who created a sustainable house in inner-city Sydney.
This month’s lead Futuremakers story focuses on desalination’s impact on our environment. WWF’s June report on the issue was met with significant support from people in areas where desalination plants are being implemented.
Many of you wrote in to express your disappointment and concern over the elected government’s decision to progress local desalination plans without community consultation, against environmental groups’ legitimate concerns, and governments’ own coastal planning guidelines.
You can take action to stop the construction of desalination plants in coastal communities. If you are concerned about desalination and the impact on the environment, take steps to write to your local MP (if you’re not sure of your electorate, you can find it here) or State premier, or to the Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Ask that priority be given to safe alternatives to desalination. Such alternatives include localised water collection such as rainwater tanks, water efficiency projects, demand management and leakage reduction.
Photo: re_birf @ flickr
I’ve mentioned previously that Apple Australia has been lagging behind its U.S.-based parent in providing recycling for it’s products.
So I was glad to read that they’ve now launched a local program.
As far as I can tell it’s for a limited time and only available in Sydney and Melbourne. I’m not sure if the program will be extended, or future dates will be announced. For a limited time they are extending the offer for computers and peripherals from other manufacturers, not just Apple products.
It’s a good start - but hopefully the program will be extended into the future, and perhaps not be limited to specific dates.
If you live in Sydney you may want to check out the Live Green festival which is happening at Victoria Park, Camperdown on 25 August.
The blurb for the event says:
Green city living made easy…. Showcasing information and practical ways to lead a more sustainable lifestyle in an urban environment.
With green shopping, talks & seminars, and music. Celeb chef Kylie Kwong is getting behind the festival as well - no doubt lending her skills to the cooking activities that are listed on the event site.
The event is just down the road from where I live so I’m hoping to catch it. Drop a comment if you’re heading along - mebbe we can arrange a Futuremakers meetup or sumtin?
GreenerComputing reports that the recent announcement from Apple regarding its environmental policies has placed it in the top ten green electronics manufacturers in a report released by Greenpeace.
Previously Apple placed last - in part because Apple’s policy was to not disclose any environmental information about their products. Steve Jobs’ recent letter pretty much changed that, resulting in the change of placing for Apple.
The report is a good resource if you want to check out which manufacturers are the greenest. Of course all electronic equipment uses resources, produces waste and consumes energy, both in manufacture and in use - I’ve thrown together a quick checklist when buying electronic equipment if you are concerned about the environmental impact of your purchase:
Google are installing a whole bunch of solar panels to create an estimated 1600 kilowatts of power. They’re about 90% there so far, and they’ve created a page where you can check out how much power the site has generated in the past 24 hours or 7 days. Very cool… [via Make blog]
Sometimes trying to live sustainably can be a lonely thing - sometimes it’s great to be able to catch up with people to compare notes, ask questions or just simply not to feel alone.
Part of our hope for this blog is that it can become a place for those kind of connections to be made - a place for sharing ideas and connecting with like-minded folks who have faced or wrestling with the same sort of challenges.
Terry, who writes the 2050 Vision: Sustainable Civilisation blog that I follow, recently posted about “backsliding” and mentioned that part of the reason is feeling demotivated if when “going it alone”.
I know I’ve been there before, and it was through reading other people’s blogs and meeting a few folks in “real life” that helped me keep on at it. With that in mind I thought it’d be nice to give Terry a shout-out of support - and (perhaps cheekily) suggest that if there are any Futuremakers up Brisbane way, drop Terry a quick comment to let him know he’s not alone 
GreenerComputing News reports:
Nearly half of all corporate PCs in the US are not regularly switched off at night, costing US businesses $1.72 billion in energy and causing emissions of 14.4 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to recently released PC Energy Awareness report.
That’s an amazing statistic! You’ve heard the “Reduce, Renew, Offset” mantra here before - but it’s reports like this that demonstrate why the “Reduce” component is so important - and it’s reasonably easy to do.
In the comments of our Get off standby action I did the math to work out how much more power is used in sleep mode than when turned off overnight (and then rebooted in the morning) and it’s more than 20 times the electricity required.
So that 14.4 million tons could be reduced dramatically if this simple measure becomes commonplace. How awesome!
So how can we make it happen? What are the barriers to businesses turning off their computers at night and how can they be overcome?
If you have any ideas, leave a comment…
In Sydney the last few weeks have been wet ones - and thankfully some of the rain made it into the catchment… this time.
Regardless it seems a shame to see all that water here in the city go to waste, so I love Trina’s idea of getting a water tank.
…the next big ticket item I plan to strike off my wish list is a water tank. I would like to get as large a one as possible. And a tank that hooks up to the toilet and washing machine would also be ideal but it does depend on cost. State governments do offer some rebates but they differ depending on the tank and its functions.
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