Advertising and Sustainability; the way to make sure that the underdog will win

I was lucky enough to secure a seat at the latest Sir Walter Murdoch Memorial Lectures by Todd Sampson on Creativity - balancing fear & success. 

(I got a spot because I responded immediately as part of my strategy to not double-handle emails!)

If you're like me, you might need to look him up if you don't watch much TV! You can see him on the 'Gruen Transfer' show. As a successful advertising executive, he has also been heavily involved with dreaming up 'Earth Hour' which has recently been popular in the less developed world including China (I felt hope bubbling up inside me as I saw the images and almost cried).

He was delightful, wearing a stupid 'Farmville' T-shirt in bright red and casual shoes. The academics introducing him were all wearing very formal wear and were very careful to follow protocol, although I happen to know that they are lovely real people in person. The contrast was stark and I'm sure that he is very conscious of his personal branding - managing it very carefully.

He regaled us with his stories including flying to New Zealand for work and happening to have tea with Sir Edmund Hillary, climbing Mount Everest solo, his pivotal decision to finally become CEO in his firm and about his kids and the importance of parenting encouraging creativity.

He wants us to be courageous enough to take 5 minutes of being creative, rather than choosing to default to some conservative response as a result of fear.

This struck me. In Australia we have numerous examples of environmental problems being ignored or under-funded. Climate change, salinity and systemic forest and woodland declines to name a few close to my heart. We seem reactive and scared. The Carbon Tax has come about as a sort of stop gap after the larger  Emissions Trading Scheme proposed by Kevin Rudd fell through as a result of the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Turnball being displaced in favour of Tony Abbot (the economist in favour direct action and any other random insanity that occurs to him). Something that seemed inevitable with bipartisan support fell apart and the Australian carbon market took a heavy blow... several years later we seem to almost have The Carbon Farming Initiative in place, but that too could fall over before the administrative arms are up and running.

We're settling for less than what my heart tells me is possible.

This concept of creativity trumping fear (at least for 5 minutes) must be embraced by those of us in environmental campaigns as the way to make sure that the underdog will win.

So the question goes out to the ether - "How do we use the creativity often shown in the advertising world for good (rather than evil)?"

"How can we inspire others and change our world?"

Your role can be small, or larger than you could ever imagine :)

Wicking Beds

I've got so many topics I want to blog about! Today I've chosen wicking beds, as I know that my good friend Theo is excited about them and it is very topical as we here in Western Australia are coming into summer.

We will want to design our spring & summer gardens to conserve our scheme (town) water. Did you know that around 50% of our tap water comes from ground water and that we have got forests and woodlands dying from drought? I only recently put two and two together and it has mostly cured me of my desire for long showers. I simply imagine the tree roots sucking on air above the clay bottom of their home aquifer.


The concept of wicking beds is to stop the water from running away and store it in such a way that plants can access it passively. This is in contrast to systems like hydroponics and aquaponics which rely on electricity to keep the water flowing past the plant roots.


There are as many ways to implement a wicking system as there are permaculture designers and practitioners! Speaking of designers, my favourites are Milkwood's Kirsten and Nick -you can see how they made their wicking bed here.


I've got one trial so far and it has worked extremely well. I'm happy to recommend it as possibly one of the easiest ways to grow food in pots.

I started with one of the food grade 5 litre oil containers below (thanks for these Andy!). I find the large size is best for plants to grow vigorously and that they are more productive this way.

I cut off the top to turn it into a pot - easy enough with an angle grinder but some people don't like to use the electricity!  I then cut slots in the base using the angle grinder to allow excess water to drain away, these are up about 5 centimetres from the ground. You can see the bottom has a slight ridge in the centre to allow them to be stacked like this. If you were using another container you can just as easily put the drainage in the side.


The image below is of the finished product with some mint I've successfully grown from seed! Mint seed is tiny, so I'm very happy with this result.

The plants have doubled in the last week or so and are loving the spring weather. They will do better in this pot than any other as they are thirsty!

I'm looking forward to mint with watermelon or apple and cos salad. Yum.!

Here's to simple gardening that is good for us and the earth.

Wild Foods

I get really excited when I see lovely fruit growing over the fences of public spaces. In Perth Western Australia I can get lemons almost all year round, oranges in July-August and perhaps most addictively mulberries in October.

I'm so pleased that last year I took the time to make a few notes to remember where and when... most importantly... to go foraging!

You can see the map of one of my 'stomping grounds' (the places I often visit or spend time in) above. I created this very quickly and easily using Google maps. I made a point of listing the name of the food plant and time of year to visit. In the map above you can see the Lillypilly... an unusual fruit to keep it interesting, although for people who have grown up in Perth they will most likely recognise it. You might know the fruit as 'Chinese Apples'.


At the moment I am very much looking forward to making batches of mulberry jam. Last year we had recently returned from our holiday in Europe and I was very happy spending my spare time gardening and walking in the sunshine. I picked a lot of mulberries when I came across them!

I turned this windfall into jam, jelly or syrup - reserving small quantities of the best perfect fruit to freeze whole for fruit smoothies. Ripe mulberries may need a lot of lemon or store bought pectin (jam setter) to help make a jam, but who wants jam all the time when you can have syrup poured over your yoghurt? Lemon juice and sugar come highly recommended in all cases.

In creating your own wild food map, Google is a great tool to start with and bear in mind that you may be able to build a map with your local community (UK example).

Sustainable Solutions: Favourite Blogs

Sustainable Solutions: Favourite Blogs

I've decided to create a page full of my favourite blogs, for those interested in sustainable solutions. I would love for you to suggest some in the comments and if I become a fan, I'll happily add a fancy image!

Self Regulation

I'm confronted by the desire to manage myself. I'm talking about cycling to work, catching public transport, reducing waste and composting.  

Last week I found myself wasting chicken food I'd gotten for free, it had gotten too old. Some days I drive to work simply because I have woken up too late to get a park at the train station. Worst of all, last night the aquaponics began overflowing due to a build up of healthy plant roots in the grow bed! Luckily I happened to hear the fish jumping and was able to save them!

So I'm not going to beat myself up, which can lead to becoming less motivated to act rather than more! I've decided to treat it as a challenging game, with sophisticated nuances and interesting players (my friends and family).

I begun searching the blog-o-sphere for wisdom. How to get results, set a good example and be happy with my efforts? This is challenging ... so let's make it interesting!

I know that one of the Permaculture originators, David Holmgren, has had some experience with us flawed humans. Check out the diagram below at 4 o'clock!

Source

The bible is full of observations and suggestions about how we manage ourselves so that we do what we know is right. We have been dealing with these issues for most if not all of human history.

In the professional world, the most productive people are highly organised, apply self-regulation and select how they will spend their time to get the most 'bang for their buck'.

So where does that leave me? I feel the answer includes not 'rushing' around. Rather, embracing the idiom - 'a stitch in time saves nine'. In being conscious of myself I can:

• Reduce over-stimulation by computer or TV
• Get enough sleep
• Wake 15 minutes earlier (or more)
• Generate a routine & spend time at home

A routine you say? Years ago, Mum gave my husband the 'hot tip' that I do better with routine... and can do anything within it. It's true; when I was at high school I did 6 high school subjects, no sweat; while at uni I held down two jobs, did full time uni, helped run the Christian union and had a boyfriend. Whew! But I had a routine! At some stage, I lost the routine and it felt like everything was falling apart, including my confidence.

I feel it all comes down to being calm and clear thinking! This allows for effective decision making and a 'balanced' life. As an adult now, I finally 'get' it and have certainly got my confidence back and feel as though I should be able to do almost anything... so back to the routine.

Being deliberately slow in changing my routine will make it easier (see 9 o'clock), I'll begin by tweaking my schedule as follows:

• The mornings of my days off will be treats for the chickens with blended fruit we haven't eaten or greens 'weeds' from the garden. I should enjoy this process!
• 2 minutes of aquaponics cleaning on a Saturday morning - risk management!
• Bins and composting on Tuesday nights (before rubbish pick up the next day)

I trust I will find myself living with more integrity and that I will be better equipped to make a difference in our world.

Over and out

Frugal Living

I have just finished reading The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving by John Hoffman, for free. Someone had kindly scanned it and I was able to read the whole thing online! I won't give it a glowing recommendation, but it was certainly engaging and informative.
For us, the most common area in our lives for us to waste money and compromise on our environmental values is food. Waste, non-local produce and stuff accumulating that we won't use for years!
Considering our strengths, we definitely know how to forage for wild food, grow our own herbs and cook from scratch... doing pretty well on these fronts.
So I took the dive (metaphorically) and went hunting for some chicken food - and found an amazing amount of fresh baked goods. I was conflicted as I don't feel that this is ideal food for our laying hens nutritionally, but satisfied myself that they would eat as many pellets, weeds and insects as they liked. I was a little freaked out by the idea of people telling me off, but the book had instilled in me a sense of hero-ism - rescuing waste gave me the moral high ground. I feel bemused in retrospect.
John's observation that people won't throw good things in bins as they want people to forage them was borne out by the 3 cartons of diet Coke I saw but did not collect (we don't use artificial sweeteners/ chemicals in our food). 
On balance, I will continue to get vegie scraps from the organic shop when I go there, occasionally scavenging bakery, restaurant or grocery discards for the chickens. I will aim for a healthy diet for the chickens, avoiding sugary icing and preferring an avocado or lentils to a loaf of bread.
And... if I see something that is excellent quality, I'll feel free to eat it myself!

Systems Thinking: We are all Environmental Managers

I'm lucky enough to work in an exciting field: tree declines in Western Australia.
During the last 6 months I've been able to have numerous discussions with some brilliant minds and this posting will capture some of this thinking.

I've also been reflecting on being a self-taught learner (autodidact) - which I feel is a very valuable thing to be, if I can claim that status? I admire this sentiment from Margaret Mead: "I learned to observe the world around me, and to note what I saw." The way I see it, we must pay attention, put two and two together and remember what we have learnt.

My big boss took me to the window the other day and pointed out the line of dead trees - Tasmanian Blue Gums. They'd simply run out of ground water. Plenty of other vegetation had survived, but these were the thirsty crowd.

I thought about that, suddenly putting two and two together... humans are using water that the trees have historically counted on to get them through droughts, possibly tipping them over the edge.

Water is important. I looked it up - we humans in Western Australia are using up to 50% ground water in our 'tap' water... leaving that much less for the plants. Bearing in mind we don't draw from every aquifer.

Having been interested in environmental matters for some time, it occurred to me that this was the first time I'd taken the 'lack of water' issue seriously - previously I was always thinking about human need/use. I felt ashamed but then began to realise that this is probably true for most environmentalists. I bumped into Jarred, pastor and peace activist, on the train and he couldn't believe that we use so much ground water. It is interesting to see that for most of us, water is 'out of sight and out of mind', but it can be reconstructed as not simply a commodity but life itself for the various ecological communities we live amongst.

Some weeks have passed since I experienced this paradigm shift. I was discussing this with a guest lecturer who I was lucky enough to hear speak on world food security from a plant pathologists point of view. He mentioned coal seam methane extraction and associated fracturing of the aquifers. Certainly, this is a permanent degradation of the previously separate bodies of water and fossil fuels - to farmers' detriment.

I trust that I can remember this lesson and be a systems thinker and not just a consumer.