Thank goodness the storms have stopped today. I simply couldn’t bring myself to even think about the naked bike riders yesterday in the sort of weather we were having. You can read about them here: Cyclists bared all to protest car culture Having taken my own bike out for its inaugural ride recently I am 100% behind (metaphorically, not literally) what they are doing although not even global warming would get me to do the Lady Godiva.
How wonderful it would be if all old cars could be rescued from landfill and made into survival gardens like this one. The inside could be like a mini-glass house! I have a fantasy that one day I’ll be so fit that I’ll be able to make a garden with mine instead of needing it to drive in. In the meantime it continues to amaze me how much misinformation there is about cars and driving. The one action I’ve done in the last few weeks that has caused the most startling response from other people, is to simply reduce my driving speed. I felt this was the least I could do given that Australia’s transport emissions are now up 30%! Continue reading
Performance for 25 Passing Vehicles by John Reid
Well, today I discovered that just buying a bike is no preparation for peak oil! After clearing out my front room yesterday I put my bike in an easy to access place and finally, after owning it for 5 months, went for my first ride in Blackheath. I told Ian he was a wimp for driving, not riding, as I put on Maxie’s helmet and launched off to my permaculture class on the other side of Blackheath. I was feeling as cocky as Kevin Rudd. Well! I had no idea how many hills there were between here and Wombat St and by the time I got there my legs were jelly and I felt like I was about to have a coronary. I couldn’t believe it – it’s taken me the whole day to recover. Continue reading
Eric Thake
An Opera House in every home, 1972
On days like today it is so fantastic to be alive! I’m even starting to love catching the train to Sydney. The serendipitous nature of travelling with other people and unexpectedly bumping into friends, or making new ones, is quite a lovely surprise to someone who has always driven a car. Today we bumped into Josephine who was on her way to Queensland to do a week’s voluntary work for Courage to Care Continue reading
Great domino image from the boblog
One of the most common responses to discussions that arise about global warming is the one that has people saying, I’m only one person – what difference will it make if I do or don’t drive my car? … if I do or don’t buy more books? … if I do or don’t fly? There is also a strong feeling, which was argued vehemently by the young people I was with today, that most people, including themselves, aren’t willing to change. They seem to think that someone will wave a magic wand and suddenly everything will be all right and they can keep living the life they’ve always lived. Continue reading
Seeing wattle flowering all the way down to Sydney today kept me focussed on how unnaturally warm it has been. This wattle doesn’t usually flower until July. It’s strange how extremely beautiful weather can be really disturbing when it happens at the wrong time of year. Seeing the wattle made me feel even worse about driving down to Sydney but I found the usual excuses for my behaviour – I’ve got a lot of electrical equipment and boxes to carry to give my climate presentation and then I have to get very quickly from one end of Sydney to the other … meanwhile, 5 hours of carbon emissions later … that was a lot of time to ponder … Continue reading
Cheers!
OK, so my new personal action today wasn’t really “very new” in that I HAVE reused glass bottles as drink bottles before, but today was the first time I’ve reused a wine bottle as a water bottle … and all I can say about it, other than that the water tasted very, very nice, was that everywhere I went people noticed! Continue reading
I wonder at what point the people who eventually became part of the French Resistance decided to cross the line from the comfortable lives they’d always lived to a place where they risked everything to fight for the good of other people? Continue reading
OK, so now I’m a soccer mum – how do I deal with that new part of my life?
1. The first issue is the driving. With two adults and two children we can’t really get a lift to Lithgow with another family. We could potentially hire a bus and go down as a team, but we’d need a pretty big bus with all the parents and I really don’t think that’s likely to happen … I’ll hold onto that thought though. Continue reading
