Adelaide shows the way

The southern Australian city of Adelaide is the target of many an unkind word from the mouths on the eastern seaboard, but I wish I could spend some time at Christie Walk and talk with the people behind its design.

Many aspects of sustainable living are reflected in this gorgeous building complex, from the use of natural light and ventilation to solar hot water heating to the rooftop gardens. I would love to live in a house that was something like this.

Weekly stats

Average daily electricity and water consumption figures for the past week:

267 litres of water (vs 368 last week and 423 last quarter);
7.5 kWh of electricity for general use (vs 8.7 last week and 8.7 last quarter);
6.3 kWh of electricity for heating water (vs 6.6 last week and 5.4 last quarter).

My Action Plan as of May 2007

Having spent a few months intensely considering the problems facing us and the options I have for responding to them, it seems like a good idea to put a one-page summary together to help me maintain my focus and make it easier to explain to others what I'm up to. Here's my first edition as of late May 2007. Remember that this is my personal plan and it will contain things which aren't relevant to you and will omit some great ideas which aren't relevant to me.


The Problems

1. Peak Oil. The modern world (that means you and I) literally cannot survive in its current form without crude oil, yet at the rate we're presently consuming it there'll be none left within a few decades. Global production may already have peaked which means that from here on the trend will be that oil becomes increasingly more scarce and more expensive.

2. Global Warming. Caused not just by our consumption of oil but also of natural gas and coal, and through activities such as deforestation and intensive livestock industries.

3. The Australian Drought. Water storages in my region are below 20% capacity. Some of the nation's major agricultural areas are bracing for the possibility of zero water allocations for irrigation this coming summer.

4. Energy Security. The three problems just described all have an impact on the future availability of electrical energy to power our society.

5. Ecological Concerns. Both for our own sake and as a matter of principle we need to halt or even reverse the global destruction of species and ecosystems.


My Responses

1. Use less oil for personal transport:

• Drive less. Plan ahead so that I can get more stuff done in a single trip. Refocus my social and recreation activities to be closer to home. Work from home instead of going to the office. Take public transport whenever possible. Ride my bike whenever possible.
• Drive more efficiently. Accelerate gently, coast down hills, anticipate slowing down and get the foot off the accelerator sooner. Use the trip computer to monitor efficiency and learn to go further on less fuel.
• Drive a more efficient car. Use the four-cylinder car instead of the six-cylinder one where possible. Replace the six-cylinder one with something more fuel-frugal ASAP.
• Make air travel an exception rather than a lifestyle. At the destination use trains or buses instead of taxis if practical.
  

2. Eat food which uses less oil for production and transportation:

• Establish a productive food garden at home. I would like to be able to supply a significant portion of our diet from our own backyard: vegetables, some fruits, maybe some macadamia nuts and even eggs with the help of a couple of chooks.
• When buying food is necessary, choose locally-grown produce as much as possible to reduce fuel requirements for transport. Ideally look for produce grown using sustainable practices which require a minimum of oil- or gas-derived fertilisers and pesticides.
• Eat more whole or unprocessed foods.
• Avoid "fast food" as much as possible.
  
• Avoid food packaging, especially plastic containers, bags and wraps.
• When buying meals away from home, "dine in" instead of "take away" to reduce plastic wastes.

3. Buy less manufactured stuff, and choose local goods where possible:

• Think twice before buying anything new. How much oil/energy/water was used to make this? Where was it made? Is it going to make a worthwhile contribution to my life? Where will it be in 2050? What will I do with the thing it's replacing? How much oil/energy/water does this use?
• Consider second-hand options for things I need to buy.
• Consider whether the thing I need could be borrowed or hired rather than purchased.

4. Reduce electrical consumption:

• Switch off as much as possible. Make the TV a special event instead of a lifestyle.
  
• Use the microwave and the electric frypan in preference to the stove or oven for cooking. Plan meals which require less cooking.
• Use the air conditioner as a last resort and even then only at a mild setting. (Insulation and external shade screens are already installed in the only air-conditioned room in the house.)
• Wear clothes longer in between washes.
• When major appliances require replacement make energy-efficiency a high priority.
• Sweep the tiled floor in preference to using the vacuum cleaner.
• Check the meters regularly to measure and manage usage.
  

5. Take responsibility for personal carbon emissions

• Pay the premium for renewable electricity generation.
  
• Buy in to greenhouse gas offset schemes for vehicle and air travel emissions.
  

6. Reduce water consumption / increase water use efficiency:

• All the usual stuff... Australians are pretty aware these days of how to use water efficiently around the home.
• Go the extra mile: "If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown then flush it down."
• Check the meter regularly to measure and manage usage.

7. Make use of the sunshine and the rain:

• Convert to solar hot water heating ASAP.
• Investigate skylights for kitchen, dining room and study.
• Install rainwater tanks to irrigate gardens and reduce dependence on town water for clothes washing and toilet flushing.
• Consider pros and cons of solar panels for electricity production.

8. Minimise all forms of waste:

• Convert kitchen scraps to compost.
• Avoid disposable packaging. (This one is really tough in a "developed" society.)
  
• Try to provide the kids with toys that are durable, non-plastic and in some way recyclable.
• Be strict about recycling as much as possible. Follow council guidelines carefully to ensure that the material isn't contaminated and consequently wasted.
• Spend some time considering McDonough's "waste equals food" principle. (His book is on its way to me in the post as I write this.) Look for opportunities to embrace it.

9. Become an active participant in my local community and broader society:

• Well there's this blog, for starters. It helps me to clarify my thoughts and gives me a kind of reference point to compare whatever state I find myself in with where I've been in the past. But hopefully it'll also be valuable for others - just as blogs like the ones I've linked to have been so helpful to me.
• Seek out people who are further along the sustainability track (generally speaking) than I am. Support them and learn from them.
• Speak out - but avoid being arrogant or obnoxious. Look for opportunities at a personal and political level to involve people in the discussion of how we're going to survive (dare we hope to prosper?) in the post-oil greenhouse-affected forseeable future.

10. Make sure to actually live and enjoy life along the way.

Offline and on track

I mentioned that in order to reduce electricity consumption I was planning to decommission the server which I've been running at home for the past three years. With a bit of help from Iain and Google Mail, that's now been accomplished.

That's permanently removed a couple of power supplies from 24hr duty: a 45W (for the PowerBook G4 which was the server) and a 15W or so (for the D-Link router). During the day we'll still have the cable modem and the wireless base station running, but now these can also be switched off overnight or any time we're not using them and our email will still get through.

It's not a huge saving, I know. But along with switching to CF light bulbs and not over-filling the kettle it's still a small step in the right direction.

Down days

I had been wondering what would happen when my initial burst of enthusiasm for sustainability inevitably lost a little of the excitement that comes from starting a new project. Well now I know.

Have had a couple of down days. Haven't read my meters (though I'm still watching the Centameter and aggressively turning things off), have slacked off with the composting, have been using the car a little more than is really necessary, have been indulging in slightly longer showers... and haven't posted anything here.

There are a few things which I can think of which might have contributed to the slump. The biggest one is probably just the feeling of being overwhelmed: the challenges are so huge and I feel so impotent when literally everywhere I turn and in just about everything I do I see our utter dependence on crude oil.

I also come across analysis and predictions from various sources which make it sound like another dark age for humanity is all but inevitable. It's hard to maintain focus and discipline when somebody's telling you it's probably all for nothing.

What I want to hear from people - backed up by reasonable logic and solid data - is that there is a chance to maintain some of what I consider the best and most noble parts of our modern world. Coal and oil have provided the fuel for advances in so many areas: obvious ones like science and technology as well as indirect ones like allowing more time in billions of lives for education, art and social development.

As I look towards 2050 I want to be assured that the vast wealth of knowledge that is a defining characteristic of the current era will be available to all the way it is today - through the continued evolution of the Internet. I want to believe that we can apply our knowledge of natural sciences (with a healthy dose of wisdom from our forebears) to turn our backyards into thriving food gardens without sacrificing the opportunity for education, art and social development of each person. I want to know that my children will have access to at least the same level of health care that has literally saved my life several times over in the past 30 years.

So, after a couple of days of doing nothing terribly worthwhile, I'm going to try and pull myself together tomorrow. Meter readings, composting, disciplined consumption and working for the future... with a good bit of time set aside for fun with the kids, talking with Michelle, reading a book, listening to some music or chatting with the neighbours.

After all, there's not much point worrying about 2050 if I can't enjoy any of the days between now and then.

Which way to bet

Pulling back my vision to around 2037 or so, if the modern world hasn't crashed by then and I'm still alive, I'll probably need to have some decent savings behind me to help sustain Michelle and I through our later years. That's the conventional economic wisdom which leads to superannuation and other financial investment schemes.

On the other hand, the combined pressures of climate change, peak oil, peak soil, overpopulation and so on could conceivably bring the global economy to its knees and effectively wipe out any such investment. It could be argued that it would be far wiser to invest in a parcel of productive land and work to establish sustainable food, shelter and energy resources there.

Of course it's not a black and white decision - there's a whole world of choices in between the two extremes.

So what do you think? What would be the smartest things to invest in today? Perhaps there's a sensible minimum level of both those kinds of "wealth" I should be aiming towards: part practical self-sustainability and part abstract financial portfolio.

Either way, success depends on factors well outside my personal control. I suspect I'm going to end up betting both ways.

0.31kW and steady as she goes

I knew when I started this eco-trip that it would be important to find other people in my local community who shared similar concerns and were responding in similar ways. Ideally some of them would be old hands at it with plenty of wisdom to share.

So I was very pleased to discover that one of the other dads from my daughter's school is also keen on sustainable living, and he's a fair way further down the track than I am. He's also a nice guy. Since I haven't spoken with him about my blogging habit I'm going to just refer to him as "Mr S" for now.

Mr S had mentioned a gadget which measures your instantaneous electrical consumption and transmits the data wirelessly to a battery-powered LCD display screen. I looked it up on Google and emailed one of the suggested retailers to request a price. No reply came.

Then Mrs S mentioned that Mr S was a qualified electrician, so yesterday I gave Mr S a call to see if he knew the price of these things. He did - but better than that he offered to loan me his for a while so I could track down the energy-guzzlers that have taken up residence at my place.

This afternoon he came over and spent a few minutes hooking up the transmitter. The initial figures (including the fridge, my cable modem and network gear, my server, a few power transformers around the house and a digital clock) came in at just over 300W.

Those are the things which run 24 hours a day, and at that rate they'd account for 7.2kWh of energy - a sizeable chunk of the 8.3kWh we've averaged each day for the past two weeks. The extra 1.1kWh would have to cover all our lighting, cooking, dishwasher and washing machine... which sounds a bit low to me. Might be some room for calibration.

Even so, it immediately suggests some areas where I could reduce my consumption. For starters: I really have no need keep a server running here at home. I've embarked on a small project to host my email somewhere else so that I can shut the server down permanently and switch off the networking gear at night when I'm not using it.

The fridge is a big challenge... not sure what to think about that one.

For now, huge thanks to Mr S. I hear good things about his vege garden too. That might be the inspiration for another post sometime.

Really freaky fluoros

I thought the tiny flickers of light from my switched-off CF bulbs were worth mentioning. But they pale in comparison to this!

Aluminium might be the transport fuel of the future

Just quickly, and with as little techno-speak as possible...

We need to find a fuel to replace the oil which is running out.
Growing crops to produce oils or ethanol doesn't scale well enough.
Hydrogen works well in engines or in fuel cells but is a pain to store and transport.
Purely electric cars are great except for the batteries.

Well some smart people at Purdue University have stumbled across a chemical reaction which might allow a transport fuel cycle that goes like this:

• Generate electricity (from wind, solar, nuclear, whatever)
• Capture and concentrate most of this energy by using it to convert aluminium oxide into aluminium metal in an alloy with gallium
• Put pellets of the energy-containing alloy into a car's fuel tank
• Add water, which reacts with the alloy to produce hydrogen gas (with most of the energy in it) and aluminium oxide
• Use a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen back to water, with the energy extracted as electricity to power a motor
• Send the spent alloy back to the factory for "recharging"

Notice that there's no oil or biofuels involved anywhere in that entire cycle, and no emissions of any kind from the cars either. Fuel cell technology still has a long way to develop before it could be usable on the scale of our present-day transportation. And we still have to produce large amounts of electrical energy in the first place to charge up the fuel.

But it's at least a possibility, and the more possibilities we have the better.

Weekly stats

Average daily electricity and water consumption figures for the past week:

368 litres of water (vs 339 last week and 423 last quarter);
8.7 kWh of electricity for general use (vs 8.0 last week and 8.7 last quarter);
6.6 kWh of electricity for heating water (vs 6.8 last week and 5.4 last quarter).

We have had a couple of extra guests over the weekend which explains a little of the increase. As of this morning we go back to being a 2 adult household so there's a chance for some improvement over the week to come.

My real-life hero?

Am experiencing an unfamiliar feeling.

Obviously the term "hero" is nothing new to me. But I don't think I've ever experienced an emotional response to the words or actions of another person such that I would consider them to be my hero. Until perhaps now.

One of the documentaries I mentioned in the previous post was "Waste Equals Food", which featured the ideas and achievements of William McDonough. It was his book, "Cradle to Cradle", which I ordered after watching the film. (Which was at least partly the aim of the film, I'm quite sure.)

And just now I've come across this speech from almost exactly ten years ago.

It's inspirational reading. Mr McDonough might just have become "my" very first hero. Will let you know what I think of the book.

Back to reality - whatever that is now

For the past two weeks I've been on leave from work following the birth of my new baby daughter. Having a new child in the home is a normal time for disruption and change, and taking a rare break from work amplifies the effect.

As a result I've spent two weeks intensely considering the way my life is lived. I've read dozens of blogs, scientific reports and other websites about a variety of technological and social ideas for reshaping the modern world. I've watched a number of documentaries along the same lines and ordered a book as a result of one of them. I've borrowed a book on composting from a garden-loving neighbour and have taken early steps towards establishing a sustainable organic garden to grow vegetables, fruits and nuts.

I have written to my local state government representative to register my opposition to the idea of mandatory ethanol blending in petrol. I've made phone calls to the University of Sydney and the CSIRO to inquire about progress in the development of new energy technologies. I've even exchanged emails with ANSTO.

I've made brief contact with a local group whose members are working towards sustainable local production of food and other goods and services on the Sunshine Coast.

It was just on two weeks ago that I started reading my own electricity and water meters each morning to get an clear picture of my household's consumption and the effects of our conservation efforts.

And tomorrow... I have to get back to "work".

From a commercial perspective my job boils down to one thing: persuade people to buy more of the company's products. To consume more. Hmmm. And in order to do that I generally need to drive (or fly) all over the place. Double hmmm.

On the plus side my part in being persuasive generally relates to the improvements in creativity, productivity and efficiency which can result from the use of our technology. Our products tend to have a longer useful lifespan than those of our competitors. And the company is pursuing improvements in important areas like reducing the use of toxic materials, design for recycling and other "green" considerations.

But I still wonder whether, in the face of peak oil and the likelihood of forced localisation, my current employment can be sustained in the longer term. As with just about everything else I'm discussing on this blog, I guess I'll just have to do what's possible today and try to prepare as best I can for tomorrow.

Council responds re fluoro disposal

I mentioned recently that I'd received inconsistent advice from Brisbane City Council regarding the proper disposal of compact fluorescent light bulbs, which contain small amounts of mercury.

Here's the latest word from them on that subject:

Dear Mr Brady,

Thanks for your enquiry - we are aware of the new requirements for the safe disposal of fluorescent light bulbs and we have been investigating a number of options to address recycling of fluorescent tubes and globes. However, because there are are no cost effective fluorescent recycling opportunities in Brisbane, it will take some time to establish one.

Until a recycling service is organised, you should place the globe/tube in your general waste bin. Brisbane's engineered landfill has the capacity to accept the minute quantities of phosfor and mercury and mitigate environmental harm.

We will amend the detail on the website until a recycling service is organised.

Global warming myth busting

Wanted to point out a great article at the New Scientist website which addresses 26 of the most popular myths and misconceptions about global warming.

Bottom line: climate behaviour is bewilderingly complex and it's great that global warming research is being subjected to intense scrutiny, but it really does seem likely that humans are having a major influence on the climate and this could have disastrous consequences unless we sort it out in a big hurry.

You can read the article here.

Withdrawal symptoms and other downers

Today was the first day of my self-imposed Level 1 Ice Break Restrictions and it wasn't my best day ever.

I've been restless and lethargic. How's that even possible? A bit moody and glum. Didn't have much patience for the kids' stuffing around this evening. And most telling: working hard to come up with something to write here.

Not that I can blame it all on Ice Break withdrawals. My energy saving measures aren't having as much impact as I'd like and I'm a bit overwhelmed by how much time and effort it's likely to take to establish a productive and sustainable vegetable garden here at home.

So much to do. Looking forward to the Sustainable Living Fair in a couple of weeks. Should be some good inspiration to draw on there.

For now I'm going to curl up with a nice thick sustainable reusable low-energy sci-fi novel and pretend for a bit that it's the aliens which threaten our extinction rather than worrying about us taking care of that for ourselves.

Time for a Break

(To anybody who thinks I'm going to slow down on the blogging - ha! No way, check out the length of this post!)

You know about my long hot showers. You know about my three-thousand-litres-of-fuel-a-year car. And now it's time for me to 'fess up to another unsustainable aspect of my life...

"My name is Terry, and I'm an Ice Break-oholic."

My Ice Break addiction started in about 1995. Michelle was living adjacent to a cluster of small shops which included a Brumby's bakery and a Night Owl convenience store. We'd long known about the delights of fresh Brumby's blueberry muffins with a coffee as breakfast on a clear Brisbane morning. But this fateful day I was in the mood for a coffee-flavoured milk drink instead of a hot beverage, and an odd-looking brown plastic bottle caught my eye from the shelf adjacent to the usual tetra pack flavoured milk varieties.

Real filtered coffee in a cold milk drink instead of the usual powdered stuff? Yeah, I'd give that a try.

It's hard to say for sure, but since that day I have probably consumed something like five thousand bottles of the stuff. It could easily be more. With the smallest package size being 500ml, we're talking about at least two and a half thousand litres of milk. And well over ten thousand dollars.

Well hey, how I choose to spend my money is mostly my own business. But in the context of sustainable consumption there are some serious problems here. Let's start with the obvious ones.

Firstly there's the milk. Between 500ml and a litre (occasionally, but not often more) of milk each day is probably a lot more than the average. It's generally considered healthy to have some dairy foods in your diet for the sake of calcium, and in fact those of us with European ancestry may owe our existence to the genetic mutation which first allowed people to digest the nutrition in cow's milk. But cows are not native to Australia. Cattle cause substantial damage to our native landscape, and the dairy industry is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

The second problem is the packaging. Five thousand plastic bottles, all of them produced from oil, all of them requiring energy for production and again for recycling.

Then there's the transport. It's a fresh milk product, which means it has a very short lifetime in which to travel from the milking shed to my lips. Inevitably this means oil-consuming road transport. Not to mention the coffee, which was itself probably sourced from overseas. (I don't know, I'm just guessing about that.)

Fresh milk also requires constant refridgeration - again using significant amounts of energy which were largely provided by burning coal.

And if that doesn't sound like an inefficient, unsustainable practice... I hang my head in shame to recall the period during which I would drive my car (yes, the six-cylinder one) the kilometer or so down the road to the local shop - every morning! - to purchase the sweet, slightly-caffeinated elixir of life without which my day could start only one way: badly.

Thankfully, that particular practice has been stopped. Shortly after I realised the insanity of what I was doing, I enjoyed a week or so where I would put Josh in the seat on the back of my bike and pedal off to the shop with Caitlin beside me each morning to buy a 750ml bottle which would be my ration for the day. As a family time it was great.

But once I'd started this train of thought I discovered the rails went a lot further than I'd realised. All these bottles... such waste... and so I started planning a little ahead and buying the two litre variety from the supermarket (without making any special trips to do so) and restricting my consumption to the same 750ml per day maximum. The larger bottles are more efficient in several respects including the amount of plastic used, the amount of transport fuel required (they stack more densely than the smaller cylindrical bottles) and of course their impact on my wallet!

Still, by the measuring stick of sustainability, it's much too much. I've tried going cold-turkey a few times in the past. Think I lasted a week once. It wasn't pretty. But I have to do something.

So... (Terry takes a deep breath)... here's my next step: starting tomorrow I'm going to reduce my typical Ice Break consumption by half. Unless I'm out of town, a single 375ml glass per day is my quota. When away from home a single 500ml bottle per day is all that's allowed.

Michelle will be sure to let me know if she sees me failing to adhere to this, and if she does I'll do the right thing and admit it online. That's unless withdrawal symptoms send me totally nuts first.

And just so you know I'm not the most extreme coffee-renouncing sustainability freak on the planet, check out this heart-wrenching post from the wife of the most extreme coffee-renouncing sustainability freak, "No Impact Man" Colin Beavan.

The sustainable marriage

My vision of 2050 involves the majority of humankind having developed a good sense for living sustainably in terms of resource consumption and the environment, but I'm also hoping that the world will have its fair share of people who are this wise when it comes to human relationships.

Weekly stats

I'm reading our electricity and water meters each morning. Every Monday or so I'll report on our average daily consumption for the previous week, and over time I'll work out a simple set of comparisons - maybe this week vs last week, this quarter to date, and last quarter.

The average daily consumption figures for our house with three adults and three children over the past week are:
339 litres of water (vs 423 last quarter);
8.0 kWh of electricity for general use (vs 8.7 last quarter);
6.8 kWh of electricity for heating water (vs 5.4 last quarter).

Anybody care to share their consumption figures from last quarter's electricity or rates notice? If you do, please note how many adults and children were using the resource.

I want a divorce - from my car

Early in the piece I laid out some concerns related to peak oil. Last weekend I expanded a bit on that and introduced the concept of localisation as an inevitable consequence of there being less fuel available for transport. More recently I've said some unkind things about biofuels in general and ethanol in particular. I finished with, "by far the most important thing to do right now is to simply use less fuel."

Alright, so I can talk the talk. But can I walk the walk? Well, I have a confession to make. And a real problem to sort out.

A bit over a year ago - well before sustainability concerns became part of my regular waking consciousness - I got a new car. My professional life requires a fair bit of travel and my employment package includes a vehicle allowance. I loathe log keeping and administration so I entered into a three year novated lease under which all of my vehicle expenses are automatically recorded and accounted for in a tax-effective manner.

That's all well and good, but now the sustainability issue has slammed me with a one-two punch. First, I chose a large six-cylinder car; and second, I'm obliged to travel at least 25,000 kilometers each year in it to avoid significant tax penalties. At an average fuel consumption of around 12 litres per 100km that's at least three thousand litres of fuel each year.

Remember that this is not just about greenhouse gas emissions, for which I could (and probably should) try to compensate through tree planting and other schemes. No, this is about the extravagant waste of a precious, irreplaceable and diminishing resource: oil itself. There were plenty of reasons at the time why this particular car seemed like a good choice but now, despite it being very well made and a pleasure to drive, I'm wishing I'd picked something a lot more fuel-efficient.

I'm going to look into my options for terminating the lease and work out whether I can afford to do so. I can't stop driving altogether (yet!) but I would feel much happier if I could replace this big car with a small motorbike or maybe a scooter. However, Michelle is terrified of me being smeared all over the road by a larger vehicle and so that may not be an option for the near future. That would leave me looking at a very small car or maybe a petrol-electric hybrid.

The big challenge - for every one of us - is to figure out how to live and work in a technologically advanced but transport-constrained society. And if peak oil is actually upon us then we need to start doing that right now just to prevent an enormous gap opening up between supply and demand which would result in spiralling prices and crippling fuel shortages.

--

"Yeah, I know we've had some great times together and you know I think you're great, and stylish and everything. It's just... I feel that you need more than I can afford to give. It's like we're not really compatible, not meant to be together, you know? So I uh, I really think that I need to spend some time with other vehicles. I'm really sorry. I... I want a divorce."

About the mercury in CF light bulbs

A lot of you would have heard that compact fluorescent light bulbs contain one nasty ingredient which the old-style incandescent blubs do not: the dreaded mercury. Everyone agrees that it's good to have bulbs which use less electricity but are we just trading one problem for another?

Well first the good news: although incandescent bulbs don't contain mercury their widespread use still contributes to the release of mercury into the environment around us. This is because the majority of the world's electricity is generated by burning coal and the combustion gases produced contain all sorts of unfriendly things including a significant amount of mercury. Because CF bulbs use so much less electricity and they last so much longer it can be argued that they will result in less mercury entering the environment overall.

That will probably be true for as long as we continue to produce electricity the way we do today. But if we can reduce our reliance on mercury-emitting fuels like coal or tighten up processes so that less of those pollutants are released from a power station, the calculations will be less and less in favour of the CF bulb. For now, in Australia, it's probably safe to say that CF bulbs are the better choice in respect to overall mercury emissions.

But the mercury in the bulbs is still a health hazard in your home and a degree of care needs to be taken. Bear in mind that it's exactly the same type of risk that you've been dealing with your entire life when living with regular fluorescent lights - it's only the shape of the bulb which is different.

The simple rule of thumb is that you shouldn't break them. Mercury is most easily absorbed through the lungs. If you do accidentally break one, open up the windows and doors so that the mercury vapour can disperse as widely and quickly as possible (reducing the amount that you and your family will be exposed to). It's probably wise to wear gloves and a mask while cleaning up the broken bits.

Fluorescent bulbs can be recycled safely but only through special processing and they should certainly not be placed in your regular recycling bin.

The Brisbane City Council provides conflicting information regarding the safe disposal of fluorescent bulbs. On the phone they advised me that "household quantities" of fluorescent bulbs may be placed in the regular waste bin (ideally wrapped in newspaper or the original packaging) and that larger quantities are accepted at waste transfer stations. But their website says such bulbs shouldn't be placed in the bin. I'll be seeking a clarification on this, and I would encourage you to contact your councillor (wherever you live) and asking them to ensure that a safe recycling option is made available.

One final comment: Ikea deserves special mention for the fact that you can return your used CF bulbs to them for recycling, but unfortunately they only sell the "Edison screw" type of bulb and not the "bayonet" type which is by far the most common fitting in Australian homes.

What do you want for dinner?

A simple question. It's been directed at me probably a couple of thousand times. That we can actually have trouble making a selection from the many choices on offer is a sign of how incredibly rich our lives are in comparison to the vast majority of human experience, in the past and the present day. I pray I'm never faced with my children asking, "Is there any food to eat tonight?"

Of course there's an abundance of food available to me this evening. But my choice is becoming even more difficult when I start to consider sustainability.

What do I want?

Something tasty and nutritious of course, and relatively easy to prepare in the next three hours or so. It should ideally be made from locally-grown ingredients which were produced using a minimum of irrigation and of fossil fuel input for fertilisers, pesticides, farm machinery fuel and electrical generation for processing. Packaging - such as plastic wraps - should be avoided. Vegetables are preferable to meat. Poultry is better than beef, lamb or pork. And the meal preparation itself needs to use a minimum of energy for cooking.

I'm taking early steps towards growing some veges in the back yard and a chook pen isn't out of the question. But tonight... I'd better go check out what's in the freezer.

NSW bets the farm on ethanol

Significant news from south of the border: New South Wales is set to become the first state to mandate the use of ethanol in petrol.

About the only positive thing I can come up with in response to this is that increasing demand might spur investment and innovation, which in turn might lead to the development of a biofuels industry that:

• doesn't compete directly with food production
• doesn't encourage deforestation and land degradation
• doesn't increase the already massive stress on our waterways
• doesn't require fossil fuel input for fertilisers and machinery
• has a chance of producing more than a couple of percent of our transport fuel requirements

Sorry folks, but by far the most important thing to do right now is to simply use less fuel.

SITREP: electricity usage at Brady base camp

Unlike water, there are no restrictions imposed on our electricity consumption. But also unlike water, most of our electrical usage directly contributes to global warming. (So why aren't we setting energy restrictions...?)

I mentioned in the hot water post that we have an electric water heater. It's wired up to operate only during the night when demand on the grid is low and is metered separately. I dug out some of our Energex bills and came up with some interesting data:



First thing I want to note is that this data doesn't cover our recent switch to CF light bulbs and the extra effort to be conservative. But there are some interesting trends there.

Our general consumption, in blue, shows a slight downward trend. The most recent figure is up a bit, which could be explained by the fact that we had an air conditioner installed in February (and which I will write about another time). As with our water consumption I've started just tracking electricity usage much more closely and will let you know how much difference our recent efforts have made.

But take a look at the shape made by the red bars, which represent the energy used for heating water. The five periods shown align pretty well with the seasons: summer on the ends and winter in the middle. There may be some reduction if we are successful in using less water overall but I expect that pattern to continue simply because the water comes in colder during winter and therefore takes more energy to heat up.

So... what are we doing to live more sustainably with regard to electrical consumption?

1. CF light bulbs
2. Turning things off
3. Um...

To be honest I'm not sure that there's a lot of room for us to reduce consumption just by changing our habits. Major reductions will require significant investment in more efficient appliances - water heater, fridge, stove and washing machine. Not only is that relatively expensive but the things we have now are working quite fine and replacing them prematurely would be a waste of materials and resources in itself.

But that doesn't mean we can't do something to reduce our impact on the Earth: today I paid a little under $60 to GreenSwitch to fund the generation of 1402kWh of electricity from renewable energy sources - the same amount of electricity that we consumed last quarter for general use and water heating combined. There are other ways to achieve the same effect but I liked the simplicity and the low cost that GreenSwitch offered.

Some time down the track I'll replace my electric hot water system with a solar one and I may even look at installing solar panels to generate power. But for now I'm pretty happy that we have a renewable energy industry that's so easy to access and quite reasonably priced.

Caboolture Sustainable Living Fair: 2nd June

I just found out about an annual sustainable living fair which is held at Burpengary, just north of Brisbane. This year it's scheduled for Saturday the 2nd of June.

Haven't discussed it with Michelle yet but I'm going. (Thanks, hon, I appreciate the support!)

There are several solar energy firms listed as exhibitors so I'll be checking out all their info. The permaculture club sounds like a good group to ask about making some productive use of my "lawn". And along that theme of localisation, I'll hopefully be able to make contact with some other people from this area to share ideas and encouragement with.

Anybody want to join me? We could car pool or something, depending on whether my kids come along and how much time everybody wants to spend there.

SITREP: water usage at Brady base camp

sitrep: noun, informal, a report on the current military situation in a particular area. ORIGIN 1940s: from sit(uation) rep(ort).

Our council rates notice for the first quarter of 2007 records an average daily water consumption of 423 litres per day. This compares with 430 litres per day in Q1 2006 and approximately 450 litres per day in Q4 2006. That's for a household with two adults and two children... now three children as of the 3rd of May.

Here's a quick list of the things we're doing to keep our water consumption as low as possible.

1. No garden watering (the gardens here are not really worth saving, anyway)
2. Short showers with the flow turned down
3. No flushing unless necessary... "if it's yellow let it mellow"
4. Less urgent of two evils: we're using disposable nappies instead of washing cloth ones
5. Using the "water saver" buttons on the washing machine and dish washer
6. Fixing leaks (only the loo and one tap have needed attention so far)
7. Living with filthy cars
8. Shaving over a sink with a small amount of water in it
9. Taps off while brushing teeth and washing hands
10. Absolutely minimal use of water to rinse dishes

We've just ordered two 5000 litre water tanks (from a local manufacturer) but demand is so great it's going to take about four months for them to arrive. By placing one at each end of our long, narrow house we should be able to capture most of the rain which falls on our roof. 10Kl represents about one month of average rainfall over the past year, or about two weeks worth if you take the average over the last ten years. At the rates of consumption noted above that would last about 23 days - just about enough to make us self-sufficient for water if the current pattern holds.

I've started a little project to monitor our consumption more closely by reading the meter myself and will be reporting here every week or so on our average daily water usage. We'll see how low we can get it before the tanks are installed and then watch what happens afterwards.

Can despair be helpful?

Remember that I started this blog as part of my own fight to avoid falling into depression over the constant barrage of bad news and terrifying predictions regarding humanity's impact on the Earth and our chance of surviving the first half of this century.

Well here's an interesting perspective on that same topic, "The point of despair", where it's suggested that despair can be the springboard for positive action.

Visionary thoughts from the UK

I know I only just introduced Transition Culture last night, but the latest entry on that site is such a good, easy-reading summary of the ideas there that I can't resist plugging it again.

It's the transcript of an interview conducted with Rob Hopkins earlier this year and if you're at all interested in what I'm on about in this blog I urge you to check it out.

Ethanol bad! Green slime OK?

I feel the need to reiterate that trying to replace petroleum with ethanol made from crops grown on farms is, as it stands today, a thoroughly idiotic thing to do. That's why I suspect that transportation will be massively cut back in 2050 compared to what we have today, assuming that predictions of diminishing oil supply are accurate.

But there should always be hope. And the future saviour of human transportation and civilisation as we know it might just be slime!

When I was a kid, we had something called a "car"

For the average Aussie nothing on this blog so far would have been too surprising. I've talked about global warming due to CO2 emissions, the terrible drought we're suffering and some fairly obvious approaches to reducing electricity and water consumption. So far I'm pretty much in the mainstream.

But to live up to the title of this blog we're going to have to go quite a bit further. Time to get back onto the topic of oil, I think, and how utterly dependent we are on the energy it provides us for transportation.

To recap, there are two essential problems with our oil supply: our burning of it is a major contibuting factor to global warming, and we're burning it so fast it's probably not going to last more than another couple of decades anyway. What's more, there aren't yet any technologies which we can confidently say will be ready to step in to keep our vast fleet of vehicles moving as the oil wells dry up and/or global warming gets so serious we don't dare drive any more.

Stop for a moment, and try to imagine a world with only half as much fuel available for transport as we have today, and at twice the price. Imagine that every second airline flight was cancelled. Imagine that you could only drive your car to work every second day (or for two car families that one car had to be taken off the road). Imagine half of all road-based goods delivery being cut. Half of the bulk cargo ships permanently anchored.

It should be immediately obvious to you that any significant decrease in oil supply is going to have a huge impact on the civilisation we call "the developed world". And in stark contrast to the basic assumptions of economic growth, the availability of oil would continue to decrease quite rapidly.

Civilisation in 2050 will either be based on some revolutionary transportation technology... or it will have dramatically restructured in a kind of reverse-globalisation. Actually there's already an accepted term for this: "localisation".

This idea is going to feature pretty prominently on this blog in the future. I know there's already plenty to worry about with the warming and the drought, but I think this one's probably just as important and equally urgent.

Tonight I'm going to add permanent links over on the side to two other blogs. The first is Chris Rhodes' Energy Balance and it's become essential reading for me. It can be a bit technical/analytical at times but frankly that's the value of it: Chris manages to put actual numbers against things like the comparison of present oil consumption vs the amount of land required to grow the equivalent amount of corn etc for producing ethanol. He helps separate fantasy from reality. And he has a great grasp on the implications.

Please take a moment to at least skim some of Chris's posts - this link gives you about half a dozen of them which include reference to localisation.

The other blog I would like you to check out is also from the UK. There's a fascinating movement springing up over there in which small communities (mostly rural but there's also some city action) are quite deliberately adapting their local economies and infrastructure to become vastly less reliant on oil. They're operating under the moniker of "Transition Towns" and there's a blog called Transition Culture dedicated to documenting their experience and promoting the broader adoption of the idea.

Now none of us can say for sure what will happen in the next forty years. Maybe we'll develop the technology to permit us to continue something like our current society in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. But that's a bloody short period of time. It seems smarter to me that we should look for wisdom in the culture of our pre-oil ancestors rather than gamble the future of everything on us actually pulling off a technological miracle.

For the time being, my vision of 2050 involves a lot less moving about of people and products. We'll still have the ability to travel... but as with so many other things we'll have learned to appreciate it more and will use it much more wisely.

Federal election winner: planet Earth

Commenting on my hot water post, Arienal mentioned the ALP's recent election year promise to assist households with the adoption of energy- and water-efficient technologies through zero-interest loans.

Frankly, I like it. A lot. I hope something like it comes to pass regardless of whoever wins the election.

The downside is that Labor's funding would only start to become available in January 2009. That's understandable given that there'd be a fair amount of administration to set up first and as a pre-requisite for receiving the loan you have to submit your household to an efficiency audit, which means the audit processes and infrastructure need to be established before anybody can apply.

So I'm going to continue to do what I can, now, and encourage others to do the same. Like I've already pointed out, you can reduce your consumption of all sorts of things without a cent of up-front investment. And those of us who already have the means to switch to more efficient technologies should do so without delay.

Leaky loo, fixed?

In hindsight this is so obvious it's embarrassing.

It may be that the ballcock washer is wearing out, but the clever apparatus is designed to be adjustable. There's a little screw at the top which controls the angle between the float arm and the bit which pushes down to close the valve. A slight turn with a screwdriver and now the valve gets closed more tightly as the water rises, which means that it will hopefully shut off the flow completely before the water level is able to reach the overflow inlet height.

If this doesn't fix it I'll have to figure out how to get in to replace the washer. Fingers crossed for now.

In hot water

Some aspects of attempting to live more sustainably are easy, even fun. But I'm finding that there are some real sacrifices required too.

One of my favourite things in the whole world is a long hot shower. It washes away the grime and stress of the day. It relaxes the muscles and the mind. It's an oasis of calm where exuberant or grouchy two-year-olds can be legitimately shut out of your attention for a short(ish) moment in time. With all the distractions out of the way and the body being calmed it's a perfect place for dreaming up solutions to problems big and small, or mentally rehearsing for some task or exam which you might be facing.

But for all its personal benefits it's also a slap in the face of sustainable living.

For starters there's the water. In some parts of the world this is less of a problem (the best shower I've ever had was a fancy double-headed setup in a hotel in San Francisco where I'm told the water is plentiful) but in Brisbane, Australia we're so short of water that we're banned from washing our cars and are being urged to limit our showers to four minutes a day.

Four minutes is certainly sufficient to carry out the tasks essential for hygiene, though I've had to stop using my "ShowerShave" anti-fog mirror and have reverted to shaving over the bathroom sink. But it just doesn't make the grade in terms of relaxation or problem solving. Sometimes I compromise by turning the water right down so it's literally a very hot trickle and extending my stay for another minute or three. Wish I was rich and extravagant enough to get one of these installed.

But this isn't a brag post... it's a confession. Because even though I'm making sacrifices to save water, my home is among the inefficient greenhouse-gas-spewing majority when it comes to heating the water in the first place.

We bought this place a couple of years ago and along with it the existing "electric storage" hot water system. That's the common variety which has a big tank at ground level and an electric heating element inside it. Using electricity to produce heat is horrendously wasteful and inefficient - more on this in a later post - but compared to the technology these systems replaced (which involved chopping wood) they are vastly more convenient and relatively cheap to run. That is, they're cheap when you source the energy from burning coal.

I'm investigating my options for installing a water heater that will make use of some of the plentiful solar energy that's available in this region. One involves a $4,000 outlay over two years for a system that keeps the tank at ground level and uses a small electric pump to cycle water up through the solar collectors on the roof. There's also the more common type which puts the storage tank on the roof above the collectors, allowing gravity to pull the colder water down, but I have no way of knowing whether our roof is designed to take all that weight. Will check it out.

Whichever way I look at this, sustainable living is going to cost me when it comes to my beloved hot shower.

CF light bulb spookiness

Only days into the big switch from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs, I've been forced to remove the bulb from the ceiling fixture in Joshua's room. He was seriously freaked out by it.

There is something very strange about the way the new bulbs are behaving here. At night, once your eyes have adjusted to the dark, all of the ceiling-mounted bulbs can be seen to give off small, regular pulses of light.

For a while I thought it might be due to some kind of energy build-up due to radio waves (we have a huge AM radio tower just down the road) but bulbs that aren't in the sockets don't flash. I suspected the ceiling fans could have been causing some kind of interference but it happens even when all the fans are off.

Joshua noticed it on Thursday night and it terrified him. Since I don't know what causes it or how to stop it, I had no choice but to remove the bulb.

Weird.

Quick CF light bulb tip

On all of the energy saving light bulbs I just installed I used a fine-tip permanent marker to write the date and the purchase price. It will be interesting to see whether they last as long as their makers claim they will, and to compare the cost of today's bulb with its future replacement.

Leaky loo

Recently our toilet started leaking. Not in an icky way, just that there was a tiny flow of water coming from the cistern into the pan. At night time you'd hear a slow dripping sound. The kind that drives environmentalists totally crazy. Gotta stop the leak.

The guy at Bunnings muttered something obscene and said it'd probably be the seating washer. Eventually figured out which type of washer to buy and dived right in (so to speak) to the task of fixing it.

Good news: I replaced the seating washer and didn't break anything.
Bad news: it didn't fix the leak.

Oh, turns out the Bunnings guy wasn't swearing: there is actually a part of a toilet called the "ballcock" and it has washers that wear out too. No way to tell if my Caroma is a pre-2000 or post-2000 model so I bought both sizes figuring I can return one of them later.

Poking about in the cistern again for a bit. Can't for the life of me figure out how to get at the suspect components. Afraid to pull or twist too hard in case I break something and cause a real problem. Make sure there are no kids around, close my eyes and hit return on a Google search for "ballcock washer". Nothing offensive, but nothing helpful either.

If anybody knows how to get inside one of these things without breaking it, please let me know.

Light switches

Lighting is a great place to start talking about simple, economical things that everybody can do to reduce energy consumption and hence greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution related to electricity generation.

Literally all it takes is a tiny bit of attention to switch off lights that don't actually need to be on. According to the government lighting presently accounts for about 12% of the average Australian household's greenhouse gas emissions - a large enough chunk to justify trying to cut it back.

Switching off is easy, it's effective, and it actually increases your bank balance without a cent of up-front investment. In the Brady household we've taken this to heart and are making a conscious effort to only use lights when we actually need to - for a large part of most evenings there are only three bulbs switched on in the house.

But you can approach most resource use problems from two directions: you can reduce demand (switch off lights to use less electricity) or you can increase efficiency (find a way to get more light from less electricity). And it so happens that Australia is getting right behind a more efficient lighting technology: the compact fluorescent light bulb.

Standard "incandescent" bulbs make light through brute force. They slam electrons into atoms of tungsten metal, which responds by converting most of the energy into waste heat. But if you throw enough electrons at it the tungsten gets really hot and starts to give off some light in addition to all the heat. No disrespect to Mr Edison, but what he invented is essentially a heater which glows.

"CF" bulbs are basically miniature, folded up versions of the long skinny tubes which most of us have in our kitchens and which congregate in large numbers on the ceilings of offices and public buildings. By using materials which are naturally inclined to emit light (as opposed to using a dull grey metal) they convert a much greater fraction of their energy input into light and only a small amount into waste heat.

CF bulbs use about a fifth of the energy of an incandescent bulb which produces the same amount of light. And that's why in a few years time we Aussies won't be able to buy the old kind any more.

The major drawback is the cost. We have installed 25 CF bulbs here at an average cost of roughly $5 to $8 each. But the manufacturers claim that the combination of reduced electrical bills and much longer lifespan means they'll more than pay for themselves in the end.

If finding the money to replace all your bulbs up front is a challenge, there's still plenty you can do. Start, of course, by switching off lights you don't really need turned on. Consider buying a small number of CF bulbs to install in the sockets that get used most - probably in the lounge, the dining room and the bedroom. Or you could replace your incandescent bulbs one at a time as they burn out.

We've only made the big switch recently, so it's going to take a while before we notice any difference in our electricity bills. I'm considering checking my own meter once a week or so and crunching some numbers. Will keep you "posted".

Caitlin sees the light

I swear this is true.

My son, not quite 3, is an "early to rise" kind of boy. It's almost becoming tolerable as we head towards winter but over summer we were seeing far too much of 4am. This morning it was 6 or so, still quite dark inside with the curtains shut, and I'd already sent Joshua away to play in his room until my preferred rising time of 6:30.

And since everything that goes through his mind comes out his mouth at top volume, he managed to wake his sister fairly soon after that. They were getting on well enough. That's when it happened.

Josh decides it's too dark in his room so he runs and grabs the footstool and turns on the light. Caitlin, only five years old herself, gently says, "No Josh, you don't need to turn the light on. Just open the curtains like I did... see?"

*click*

Yes Dad

If I were to embellish this blog's tale a little, it would be the story of a sudden and dramatic change of heart and mind: chapter one would end with me leaving my old life behind and setting out on a new adventure to save the world.

The truth is somewhat less exciting. No, don't stop reading! It's still a bit exciting, I promise! It's just... there really wasn't any obvious pivotal point where suddenly I decided things had to be different. Rather there's been a gradual increase over time in the sense of how important this all might be and therefore how much time, money and effort it might be worth commiting to the cause.

But in some really fundamental ways the essence of what I'm advocating goes way back to my childhood, to values my father tried to instill in my brother and I. That's not to say Mum didn't share those values or the experiences I'm about to describe - it's just that for some reason I have more vivid memories of what Dad said and did in relation to this. In particular, he was (and is) very conscious of avoiding needless waste.

I don't know enough to say whether his family was poor by the standards of the day, but Dad grew up with much less wealth than my friends and I did a quarter century later. Clothes were made rather than bought. You really were expected to eat what was put in front of you, including lambs brains or tripe, because there really wasn't anything else. In these and many other ways Dad learned to make do and be satisfied with what he had and to be as conservative as possible in the way things were used and consumed.

Whether it was switching off lights when we left the room or eating up the last few slices of bread which had started to go a bit dry or washing the car on a regular basis or (and especially) considering what kinds of things were actually worth spending money on, I was always encouraged to make the most of what I had and to waste as little as possible.

To some degree I think I learned the lesson. But almost certainly not as much as I suspect he was hoping.

Well today, at 30 years old, it's time for me to say, "Yes Dad." We all need to learn how to be more conservative in the original sense of the word. We need to choose what we consume with a view to what will be available tomorrow. We need to waste as little as possible so as to get the most value out of what we already have.

Imagine how much of a dent we could make in our greenhouse gas emissions and our consumption of oil, water and other natural resources if we all started taking Dad's lessons to heart.

I think that'd be a fitting next post: switching off the lights when I leave the room.