SUV = Stoopid Ugly Vanity?
It’s great that out there in interweb-land here are a lot of people out there who help you question some almost inevitable excuses we make in our choosing what we consume and buy. Both the Alliance Against Urban 4×4s from the UK (pictured below) and nosuv.org have great lists of lame excuses that we tell ourselves to justify something as vain as an SUV.
http://www.stopurban4×4s.org.uk/reasons.htm
http://www.nosuv.org/excuses.html
Our personal favourites are ‘You’re Not A Farmer’ and ‘People Won’t Think You’re An Idiot’, but there’s lots of good info, particularly on how and who to campaign to, and how to get bumper stickers. Suv.org seems to be the main equivalent in the US.
Greenhouse.gov.au
The Australian government have their fair share of critics for their slooooooow response to Climate Change, and a small matter of not signing the Kyoto Agreement, but there is one initiative that looks genuinely useful. We only recently stumbled across it, and I guess if nobody’s aware of it then it’s still a good reason to criticise. There’s no point in having lots of useful information if nobody knows about it!
Anyhow, that aside it’s at http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome and there’s some fantastic information around environmentally sustainable housing.
A lot of the information is very specific to the harsh Australian climate, but there’s great tips for everyone from anyone who wants to make individual differences to their homes, to builders and developers. There’s a wealth of information you’d expect like how to choose solar panels, water tanks and appliances, to things you wouldn’t expect, such as the environmental impacts from furnishings.
It was created by the government in liaison the Institute for Sustainable Futures, at the University of Technology, Sydney, so you can be sure that the information is to be trusted.
Campaign against Billboard trucks
Advertising may be the root of all evil, or it may just help us remind us of all the wonderful things you didn’t know you had to have. Well we’re sure all the ads on this site are just fine, but one thing that we really don’t need is mobile or billboard trucks.
The Australian TV show The Chaser recently did a great stunt where they chased some advertising lorries round with their own advertising which campaigned to get rid of advertising lorries. Very Benny Hill with a message.
In Canada they’ve approached it in a not quite so funny, but probably more effective, way. There’s a number of sites (listed below) that are campaigning against them, mostly because they add to pollution, both environmental and visually, and because they enable advertising in areas where advertising aren’t normally allowed, particularly historic or culturally sensitive sites. Not only that but they add significantly to traffic congestion since by definition they need to be on the road for hours at a time, focusing on busy areas.
So why not take a maple leaf out of the Canadian’s books and start a campaign to sway public opinion against them? One tactic is to boycott brands that use the technique, or perhaps even see if there’s a way to get them legally outlawed.
www.uberculture.org/badtrucks3
www3.sympatico.ca/alwaysweb/mobile_billboards.html
Al the Gorey details
Sorry about that awful pun, couldn’t resist. Anyway, whatever your view about the ex-next President, Al Gore deserves to be recognised as one of the most important drivers of awareness for climate change. And the movie is one of the most compelling and inspiring documentaries out there - even if it does appear to be sponsored by Apple. Funny that…
Anyway let’s forget that and forget his energy hungry McMansion and his obsessions with ManBearPig - he’s alright really and maybe it’s good after all that they couldn’t count in Florida, because he wouldn’t have so much time to do all this.
CCC 4 BBC
The Change Climate Change team (we’ll call ourselves the CCC from time to time) were hugely impressed by the BBC’s Climate Change site. The Beeb always do these kind of things extremely well, and they always make an English expat very proud.
Not only is there a great deal of factual information, they aggregate all their climate change news and opinion there and there’s a great practical guide available from the Open University available here.
Change electricity providers
Many electricity companies now provide a portion of their electricity from renewable sources (eg. water, wind, solar). This is generally known as Green Power and costs slightly more, but it’s really a small price to pay to build up these renewable sources to become more economically viable. Check with your current provider if you can switch to Green Power, or if they don’t - find a new provider.
Please let us know if there’s any more in your country and we’ll add to the list.
Australia:
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
Presumably you’ve heard about climate change and global warming. Now we’re no scientists but we feel it’s really too big a risk to if we as humans are responsible, so we might as well try to do the right thing.
We also think that you shouldn’t have to be a scientist to know how you can individually make a difference.
So what we’re going to do is give you some options or ideas for ways that you can start to change the climate change back. Wouldn’t that be nice?
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