And while we're outside...

I snapped a few more pics around the back yard to show you.

First, some actual news: I GOT ONE OF MY TANKS IN PLACE! It's amazing to see it sitting there so neatly and to think back through the amount of effort that's gone into converting a garden bed full of lilies (which I dug out and kept), manure-enriched soil (which I dug out, sieved and kept) and a tree (which I chopped down, dug out and eventually mulched most of) into the besser brick and crusher dust base on which it rests.

The other end of the house isn't quite so satisfying yet. Oh well.

I've mentioned once or twice that to help reduce the amount of solar heating on the western side of the house I installed some shade screens. Initially it was just in front of our bedroom window (the middle screen in the photo) but it made such a difference I bought two more for my study (nearest) and what is now Asha's bedroom. Am considering one or two more for the other end of the house but we never really notice much heat coming through the walls up there.

Last thing to show you is what we've got growing. All in pots so far as we're just getting started and haven't prepared any permanent beds yet.

In the first pic we have two rows of carrots (can you tell that 5-year-old girls were responsible for "lightly sprinkling" seeds along the centre?) and a whole crowd of capsicum plants plus a seedling pot from which a bean vine will hopefully emerge soon.

The second pic is the three cherry tomato plants in their climbing pot, looking a bit battered after the wild weather this week but covered in green berries and still flowering.

Finally our three little strawberry plants which were given to us by one of Michelle's scrapbooking friends.

Mulch ado about nothing

If you've read a few of my previous posts you'd hopefully know that I'm strongly in favour of reducing the amount of manufactured goods we purchase, selecting locally-made quality items when it's necessary to buy something and using my own muscles in preference to power tools. But sometimes the practicality of the situation is that you really don't have much choice.

This weekend I bought a mulcher. It was made in China, which is generally considered to have some of the worst industrial practices in the world in terms of environmental impact and social justice. It came in a box with styrofoam, plastic bags and bubble-wrap. Large portions of the product itself are made of plastic which is probably not recyclable. Oh, and it can use as much electricity in about two and half hours as the rest of the house does in a whole day (not counting hot water).

So what was I thinking?

Well there's a lot growing in our back yard including a couple of monster palm trees which drop enormous fronds on a regular basis. We have hibiscus bushes and on three sides a border of sheena's gold, all of which need to be trimmed frequently or they get out of hand. In order to make room for tank #1 I had to remove (by hand) one small tree and while I was at it I removed another (by hand) which had established itself in what is ostensibly the vege garden. Both of the trees, a half dozen fronds and a heap of prunings all piled together were starting to look like a fabulous snake refuge for the coming summer.

In rural areas and in times past, people would simply burn much of this material either as fuel or simply to get rid of it. That's not permitted in cities like Brisbane (for good reason). Here, this material is considered "waste" and so it is subjected to the same general rule which applies for other waste - it gets transported to a central waste transfer station and "processed". If I don't want my garden trimmings rotting in landfill I have to put them in a trailer and drive more than 15 minutes each way to drop them off myself - or pay somebody else to make the trip for me.

But I don't see this material as waste. It's a resource which I want to use here as compost or mulch. I tried for a while stripping the green leaves from the hibiscus prunings by hand so as to make a suitable material for compost, but in the end it just wasn't working. And how am I supposed to manually make mulch from those huge palm fronds?

In a bygone era there might have been mulching machines which could be powered by hand (or foot, or horse... or children). I very much doubt I could track one of those down these days. In the end there wasn't much choice. I had to go with what's available.

One aspect of the decision was easy: I wanted an electric one rather than something with a petrol engine, because I know I can buy 100% of my electricity from renewable, non-polluting sources. Beyond that it was just a question of choosing something that would get the job done. And I have to say... well actually no, I won't "say" anything. I'll just let the results speak for themselves.

Rain delays play

The base for tank #1 is too wet to finish levelling and compacting the crusher dust. The site for tank #2 is a sticky, muddy quagmire that's very easy to dig but too soft for reliable border building.

The "Walk Against Warming" march was supposed to be ironic with everybody holding aloft their umbrellas in the sunshine. That point's going to be a bit lost in the present conditions.

On the positive side, I've discovered that I have another six months before I'm required to finish the installation of these tanks and still qualify for $850 worth of Brisbane City Council rebates. We have to register our application by the end of September but don't have to complete it all until the end of March next year.

Colin knows what you want

Now here's a story which might convince people environmentally-friendly living is actually something they want to do. No Impact Man touts the benefits he and his wife have experienced as a result of their experiment - including a cure for dandruff and no more period pains.

That's a pitch which might change a few behaviours!

Tell me what you want, what you really really want

This is something I've been struggling to write for a couple of weeks now. I'm not entirely happy with it but it's hopefully better than nothing. With the caveat that I'm not trained in psychology or sociology or anything like that, let's dive right in...

The basic idea is this: all of the greenies, the conservationists, the environmentalists, the reduce/reuse/recyclers, the peak oilers, everybody who wants everybody else to voluntarily change their behaviour in some way, has to understand that their struggle is not primarily with behaviours but with values.

Value decisions drive behaviours. I wrote this about six weeks ago:

It seems to me that the primary driver for personal behaviour must surely be personal values. If so, that would imply that my failure to change behaviour in personal matters (such as limiting my Ice Break consumption as I had committed to do) comes down to a question of my own values. That I value the experience of drinking coffee-flavoured milk more highly than the environmental benefits gained by reducing my consumption. And that would probably be because the benefits of drinking it are personal, immediate and known whereas the benefits of reducing consumption are dispersed, delayed and unknown.

There's a famous TV psychologist who nailed the issue with his often-repeated question, "What's in it for you?" People don't just do random things. They tend do the things which they believe will meet the needs or desires which are most pressing within them.

Needs and desires is a tricky subject. Another famous guy by the name of Jeremiah is purported to have written, "The heart is deceitful above all things... who can understand it?" Well, a bloke called Maslov took a good stab at it with A Theory Of Human Motivation (here) from which is derived his Hierarchy of Needs (here with illustration).

We get even more complicated when we consider that we can, with varying degrees of effectiveness, redefine and reprioritise our needs and desires by adopting just about any other moral, ethical or value principle you could possibly conceive of.

The majority of these are older than we are and are imparted to us through our family, friends and broader society. Sometimes a new or derivative principle comes along, like the famous "land rights for gay whales" slogan, which we might see fit to adopt.

Some of these ideas - especially religious ones - become almost as deeply ingrained as the needs which Maslov described, and can take such a high priority that people are literally willing to die for a cause.

Let's get visual here for all you right-brainers with a diagram I just whipped up...

I hope that's making some kind of sense. People do stuff because of what they care about. If you want people to do different stuff you need to either get them to care about the same things you do, or convince them that what you want them to do is somehow aligned with their own most pressing needs and desires.

Now to bring this all back into context and finish up...

I started with a statement about attempts to bring about voluntary changes in behaviour. That's really directed at anybody (myself included) who wishes to inspire "grassroots" or community-based action regarding climate change or sustainability. It's a really tough job and we need to be clear what we're up against.

The other aspect to bringing about widespread change is the use of the law. The law is (supposed to be) a codification of the agreed values of a society and has a couple of unique strengths in regarding to upholding values:
- laws can be designed to counteract our bias towards personal, immediate and known benefits
- any value written into law is reinforced by Maslov's safety needs which incline most people towards civil obedience

Changing laws in a democratic society is generally achieved by demonstrating that a certain set of values is held in common by a majority (or an influential minority) of the people. It's a different fight.

As I think about the year 2050 and what kind of civilisation I hope we will have, I see a society in which the core values associated with environmentally sustainable (or even beneficial!) human society are broadly accepted and expressed in law so as to guide individuals as well as commerce and industry in behaviours which will meet our most important needs not only today but for the very long term.


And maybe a world in which I never ever ever quote the Spice Girls again.

Hard yakka in the rain. Glorious!

Since about lunch time today we've had fairly constant light rain. The BOM says about 10mm has fallen since 9AM. If I had my tanks installed that'd be about two thousand litres captured.

They're not installed yet, of course, but I'm working on it. Yesterday I ordered some crusher dust to use in completing the base for my tanks. I did some calculations and worked out I needed just a touch over one cubic meter of the stuff to form the base and ordered one and a half since it's better to have too much than too little in this kind of situation.

Today it arrived, all two tonnes or so of it dumped in our front yard. Caitlin (my almost-six year old daughter) and I spent a good couple of hours working in the rain to shift nearly half of it down to the end of the house and into the excavated area. We added more water using the hose (the rain was really very light) and I compacted it using a very simple but distinctly heavy tool borrowed from a neighbour. Square bit of metal with a long metal rod sticking up from the centre of it, lift it up, bang it down, hundreds of times.

It's so different to the kind of "work" I do during the week that I'm thoroughly enjoying myself... and thoroughly stuffed tonight. I can't show you a pic of the result because I didn't want to get the camera wet. But I'm very proud of the effort and of having persisted with it even in the rain. Not that I'm complaining about the rain of course.

In the next couple of days I'm hoping to do a final level and compact at that end of the house and finally get that tank into place where it's meant to be. Have a niggling concern that what with all the geometry changes due to choosing and siting the border bricks it's going to be a fraction too small. But hey... it's only more work to do.

Don't OVERFEED the worms

I might have mentioned it previously, but I've been wondering why the worm farm instructions make such a big point of not overfeeding the worms without explaining why it's a concern or how you know when you're giving them too much food.

You might have realised this before now but sometimes I'm not very smart. Especially when the answer is a really simple one.

If you give worms too much food... they don't eat it all and it goes bad. Humans and worms both want to stay away when this happens.

I'm quite happily forgiving myself for not getting this right on the first go. There's no sign that any worms have suffered as a result. Hopefully all that's necessary is to dump out the bad stuff and try again with smaller amounts - which is what I've done.

Learned a number of small things along the way too...
- carrot tops can sprout when kept in a dark, moist, nutrient-rich environment
- compost worms don't appear to be able to bite raw carrot very well
- a few vinegar flies is not a problem, but lots of them indicates a problem
- compost worms prefer food that has been really finely chopped, but not blended
- the little critters can move surprisingly quick when they want to

Action stations!

Mr S sent me a link to the Big Switch campaign website the other day. It's an initiative of Greenpeace with support from quite a number of conservation groups and a couple of business organisations. It aims to promote grass-roots community action on climate change and use that as leverage to pressure individual federal politicians into ratifying Kyoto, committing to significant emissions reductions by 2020, committing to significant renewable energy production by 2020 and establishing a national emissions trading scheme.

I gave it some thought and decided to participate. My details are registered and I've sent an email to my local member of parliament. But I was most interested in the community group aspect of the campaign.

My electorate (called "Petrie" even though it does not include the actual suburb of the same name) is bizarrely-shaped with the northern and southern halves having almost nothing to do with each other. Through the Big Switch site I discovered that there's a Redcliffe Climate Action Group but I have no intention of driving all the way up there to be part of it.

Thankfully there's another group based in the adjacent electorate of Lilley, going by the (possibly temporary) name of the Brisbane North Climate Action Group. This looked like a much better fit.

So Mr S and I went along - car pooling - to a meeting of the BNCAG this evening. What a fascinating bunch of people they (we) are. A dozen in total, a handful of whom started getting together about two months ago. Highly informal, friendly, and motivated to actually do something about reducing our community's impact on the Earth, and in particular on the climate.

It's very early days. Almost embryonic, you might say. But I'm hoping that this might be the opportunity I've been looking for to get involved and make a meaningful contribution to the future of civilisation.

Next meeting in a fortnight. I'll keep you posted.

Progress on the tanks

This weekend I finally got the second and third sides of the in-ground brick border done for the first of my two tanks. The third side is visibly straighter and more level than the second, which in turn looks positively professional compared to the first. Oh well. They'll do the job. That is, if I ever get it all finished - which at this rate is a bit of a concern.

There were a couple of interesting things that came out of today's work. First, I now not only know what a cold chisel is but have purchased and used one so that a brick can butt up smoothly against the concrete apron around the house. And second, I'm now aware that when a brick company describes bricks as being 400mm wide and 200mm high, that includes 10mm of non-brick (ie, empty air) in each dimension to allow for the concrete which typically is found in between each brick. Of course my brickwork includes no concrete and so the result is not quite what I had expected it to be.

Am pleased to note that the advertised width of the brick includes no non-brick components.

What's the vision?

Something I've been asking myself for some time now is why 2050vision.blogspot.com is so devoid of any clear vision about what a sustainable civilisation might (or should) look like in 43 years time. I don't even have a "vision" label defined yet to apply to a new post. Either I need to come up with something or I need to change the name of the blog.

I guess to date I've been trying to understand some of the issues the world is facing, exploring some of the possible responses and finding out from my own experience what are some of the barriers to change. I've focused largely on energy-related concerns and discovered how easy it is to reduce electricity consumption but how hard it is to break the chains of oil dependence for transport. I've become horrified by our society's concept of "waste" and "waste management". And, at the age of thirty, have just started to learn the language of soil, plants and living systems which was second nature to countless generations of humanity before me.

It's probably a good time to start bringing ideas from all those areas together and forming some kind of picture of a desirable future. I say only "desirable" because it would be foolish to declare something "likely" or even "possible" based on my limited study and the uncertainties surrounding those big issues of peak oil and climate change. But I'm going to try and work on some thoughts of my own as well as link to other people's ideas for the future.

For the next post, though, I will have to revisit some ideas which I'm told I did a bloody poor job of communicating in my first attempt: the subject of human motivation, or why we do anything at all.