Community Gardening

The COVID-19 has stalled much of our projects, including climate action across the globe.

Locally, however, small actions are happening in our community.  The Australian Multicultural Community Services, in partnership with the Brimbank City Council, has initiated the Grow Green Garden Talks Program. The aim is to bring significant change to people’s health, habits, practices, lifestyles with small, consistent, and practical steps. With climate change disrupting food supplies sending prices of goods and services higher, gardening offers solutions for self-sufficiency and helps the community to live for a more sustainable future.

Before the Victorian State Government enforced the COVID-19 restrictions In March this year, we came up with a gardening curriculum which has drawn significant interests from the community.

Contents include:

• Planning your food garden
• Preparing and building healthy soils
• Plant cycles and identifying seasonal crops
• Identifying seeds sources and seeds saving
• Plant varieties
• Planting and growing crops
• Managing bugs and pests
• Managing weeds
• Edible weeds
• Abundance: From harvesting to preserving
• Reducing food waste from roots to shoots
• Composting: Recycle from soil to soil
• Natural fertilisers
• Development of cost efficient meals
• Cooking: From the garden to the kitchen
• Climate Change and what we can do
*With monthly expert guest speaker sessions

Download full Gardening  program contents  here.

Note that lockdown and restrictions scaled down our activities. The facilitator of the program (Rowena), however, endeavoured to work singlehandedly  by planting a variety of winter vegetables on three new garden beds. Video clips have been filmed for a series of presentation. Here’s the first part of the series:

 

Do you need speakers in your events?

Our mission is to educate the public about climate change that affects our ways of life and to work toward solutions at a grassroots level in Australia and beyond. Please feel free to contact me to schedule an appointment (Melbourne, VIC) or visit the Climate Reality website to get in touch with more leaders in your area. Thank you.

Stepping Up

News reports bombard humanity with a dire warning: the planet is heading to a runaway climate breakdown. The good news is there are hundreds of solutions at hand to limit global temperature below 1.5 C.

According to Project Drawdown, stopping food waste and eating plant-rich diet are two of the top 10 climate solutions in terms of potential impact– beating solar farms and rooftop solar panels combined. The Lancet also released a report backing plant-rich diet as a way forward for a healthier body and a healthier planet.

Rowena’s new initiative: Climate Action Starts from the Kitchen. Anyone who is involved in gardening, cooking, permaculture, and other sustainability-related matters may get in touch with Rowena.

Rowena Dela Rosa Yoon at the Westvale Community Garden. (Photo: Denis/Weekly Star)

Climate Reality Community Workshops

Community workshop stall organised by Climate Reality Melbourne North-West.

Climate Reality Community Workshops have ran at the Flemington Farmers Market and the Moonee Valley Festival. The workshops engaged visitors from all walks of life to speak up and share how can they help address climate change in their daily life. The team received overwhelming response and ideas (see coloured sticky posts).

The event has eventually gained the interest of the wider Climate Reality team in Washington DC and we have been asked to contribute to the coming 24-Hours of Climate Reality in early December. A short video will be packaged up and streamed to a global audience.

To set the scene for the video, we have been asked to run another workshop this coming Sunday, 15-Oct at the North Melbourne Spring Festival .

Interested in educating your community about climate change and what they can do to make a difference? Please contact us.

Renewable energy revolution marches on

President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing climate change. The president said this would put an end to the “war on coal” and “job-killing regulations”.

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The Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by his predecessor, and boosts fossil fuels,  BBC reports .

However, as much as Trump and his oil-soaked administration want to make fossil fuels great again, the global clean energy revolution is gaining speed to the point of being unstoppable. Here are a few reasons the renewables revolution will continue without Trump’s blessing.

Josh Marks writes 6 reasons the clean energy revolution doesn’t need Trump’s blessing

Emma Gilchrist  of DeSmogBlog also examines 6 Charts That Show Trump Isn’t Stopping the Renewable Energy Revolution Any Time Soon

“It’s at the point of great return. It’s irreversible. There is no stopping this train.”

The battle for renewable energy as an alternative to fossils fuel goes on.

10 Years after the Inconvenient Truth

WAYS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH CHANGED PEOPLES’ LIVES

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the film’s release, and the Climate Reality Project is celebrating the impact it had in stirring millions of people worldwide to take climate action. People of all ages, from every part of the world, have begun to share how the film impacted them by using #ait10 on social media and commenting on our Facebook page.

So far, the responses on social media have been overwhelming – and incredibly inspiring. See here.

Post-COP21 and Beyond

The Paris climate summit held last month sealed a historic agreement among 196 countries to limit greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to keep earth’s temperature below two degrees Celsius.

The agreement is historic as signatories finally acknowledged the reality and threat of climate change. The deal is a positive step that needs to be worked on.

This year — 2016–is the time to keep up the momentum for global action. Climate Reality leaders are available to speak at events organised by educational institutions, businesses, communities, NGOs and other organisations. Feel free to contact me to discuss.

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Al Gore greets friends at The Wheelers Centre

 

Al Gore speaks at The Wheelers Centre, Melbourne on 26 July 2015. (Photo: Australian Conservation Foundation)
Al Gore speaks at The Wheelers Centre, Melbourne on 26 July 2015. (Photo: Australian Conservation Foundation)

The Climate Reality Project Chair Al Gore greets climate leaders and friends at The Wheelers Centre in Melbourne during his  Australian tour in  July 2015. Hosted by the Australian Conservation Foundation, Gore thanks supporters and said the movement is winning the fight against climate denial.  He also met with state government ministers and senior business figures as part of efforts to build global momentum towards the Paris climate change summit later this year.

 

Road to Paris , Live Earth Campaigns

The Climate Reality Project (CRP) is launching the Road to Paris, a global campaign that will bring together citizens, business leaders, non-profit organizations, and NGOs to galvanize climate action and encourage participating countries to commit strong carbon emission cuts. The campaign will urged countries to forged commitments at the 21st Conference Of Parties for the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change in December this year.

Road to Paris would include emissions reductions commitments based on national circumstances, a system of periodic review for these commitments, and a long-term goal of net zero carbon emissions.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, from left, primatologist Jane Goodall, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and  U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon participate in the People's Climate March in New York, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014. Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Manhattan on Sunday, accompanied by drumbeats, wearing costumes and carrying signs as they urged policy makers to take global action on climate change. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

It will focus on mobilizing public support from the global community and citizens in eight countries that hold strategic significance for the upcoming negotiations, as a building block for a strong international agreement. Target countries include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. The CRP will also have a programmatic presence in Mexico and Europe.

Former United States Vice President Al Gore, chairman of The CRP, said the UN climate negotiations in December mark a crucial opportunity for the international community to come to a bold, universal agreement to make significant emissions reductions commitments, including a long term goal for zero net carbon emissions.

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Nations agree on negotiating texts for 2015 Paris talks

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Geneva, 13 Feb 2015 – A key milestone towards a new, universal agreement on climate change was reached in Geneva following seven days of negotiations by over 190 nations.

Nations concluded the Geneva Climate Change Talks by successfully preparing the negotiating text for the 2015 agreement. The agreement is set to be reached in Paris at the end of 2015 and will come into effect in 2020.

Delegates from 194 countries convened in Geneva to continue work following the Lima Climate Change Conference held in Peru last year, which had produced elements for the negotiating text–known as the Lima Call for Climate Action.

“I am extremely encouraged by the constructive spirit and the speed at which negotiators have worked during the past week,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“We now have a formal negotiating text, which contains the views and concerns of all countries. The Lima Draft has now been transformed into the negotiating text and enjoys the full ownership of all countries,” she added.

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