There is much despair, doom and gloom about what we have done to our Home, our Planet Earth and about its unfolding consequences. Things seem overwhelming, particularly if you start thinking about it… and believe you cannot do anything but that: think. And thinking is not going to get us out of this hole, ‘Prof’ Hanstein says here.

No, he urges us to play ball, with balls too, and thereby positively, unpredictably transform this Big Ball we live on into a beautiful place worth living on, and for.

Interdependence, he says: We’re all connected. Now, I’ve done some thinking about that, uhhh, oops, …not too much of that he says. Things go well anyway when you play in life. Maybe playing is a form of ‘thinking?’

Maybe it’s best if I let Hanstein introduce his blog himself:
“HANSTEIN mixes Physical Education & Sports with basic Quantum Physics and invites YOUNG PEOPLE (13+) from all walks of life to start transforming their world, step by step. His web blogs, full of Creativity, Hope & Balls can be read in(ter)dependently from each other but it is preferable to start with TAKE 1, then TAKE 2, etc. LET’S PLAY BALL!”

Oh, and yes, the world really IS so interconnected, unpredictable and just one giant relationship. Realising that is a great ‘alternative energy’ inside all of us. It’s what it’s all about. Yes, we all drop balls too. Life’s throws up curly events.

Receiving Hanstein’s blog post by email is one of them: He was one of the kids that I grew up with in my Dutch neighbourhood. He loved soccer even then, I was and remain totally disinterested in the game. We come from the same place, literally, and half-way across the world, he in Canada, I in Australia, we’re busy with similar themes – Hanstein more physically so than I am (being a veteran wheelchair-user) but that just gives you different angles on flourishing within limitations.

You can play with that!

All power to you Hanstein!

So, you want to become an energy auditor? Click here.

Save money on your gas & electricity bills. Switch to the cheapest energy provider here.

Saving energy by minimising waste is a measure that can be taken now and has immediate effects on reducing energy bills and greenhouse gas emissions. A home energy audit can be revealing.

Did you know that Australia’s energy demand is projected to double by 2020? And the world’s energy consumption will rise by some 44% by 2030?

And energy prices are rising fast – as you know. We used less natural gas for this winter quarter compared to last year and we still paid some 25% more! That’s in Western Australia where we have oodles of natural gas reserves.

And we cannot wait till “They” do something. Everyone is “They.” Cleaning up our act at home, in our own bacckyard is a powerful act. One thing anyone can do is to have a qualified person do a home energy audit or a commercial energy audit.

All this means is that you get someone to assess where your home or business building is wasting energy and where you can plug the drafty gaps, replace energy-wasting lighting and , insulate your roof, and perhaps your walls.

With the generous renewable energy incentives and weatherization subsidies governments offer there is no excuse.

Plus the home and business energy audits area is a good example of a green job. Perhaps its something for you?

You might be used to local councils throwing up barriers to straw bale construction buildings. But in North Kesteven, Waddington, UK, the council is the mover.

The first council-instigated straw bale social housing project in the UK will be completed by October 2009. The council decided straw bale homes are cheaper to build and have better sustainability compared to brick buildings.

It will build four three-bedroom straw homes in total. These warm and cozy homes (straw bale homes are delightful) will be affordable and improve community sustainability.

Kesteven Council does not stop there. During construction of the new straw homes locals are invited to watch and participate in straw building courses!

So remember North Kesteven as the first point of light in widespread adoption of this most sensible building type. Right for our times.
May there be lots more of it…

Want to know more about straw bale housing? Go here

More information on the Kesteven project here: http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/article.php?category_id=1&article_id=306

The Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) reports an increase last year of 8.4% in the “green” market share of all Dutch investments. This means that investing ethically, in renewable energy, and socially responsible business is a winner financially as it is for the environment and for social advancement.

Never before did eco/social investment banks Triodos en Bank en ASN Bank see so much money flow into their clients’ saving accounts as during 2008 – they grew by 37%!

Not so long ago green investing was no more than “cute”, but not to make you any money. No more. Worldwide realities of dwindling oil reserves, dirty coal, carbon credits and strong renewable energy growth point to the inescapable conclusion green investment is the future. And it’s now.

Sources:

http://www.volkskrant.nl/economie/article1242699.ece/Duurzaam_sparen_blijft_populair

http://www.eurosif.org/about_eurosif/sifs/the_netherlands

A parabolic trough solar power plant in Kramer, California

And… it is virtually next door to me. In Wanneroo, Western Australia, where I live. So, will that mean future reprieve from 27% per year domestic grid energy price rises?

The $200 Million dollar project is now subject of a feasibility study. No details are yet available whether it would be a solar PV plant or solar thermal. But I intend to update you regularly.

How will that square with the Australian federal Government’s announcement of the world’s largest solar thermal power plant by 2001? This one will have an output of 1000 megawatts for a AUS$1.4 billion investment?

Great developments in our fossil fuel-constrained world.

One thing though… Have you considered the hook and the resilience of replicating centrally-based large power plants? Some wholly privately owned or in public-private arrangements?

First, the hook. Again you will be shackled to a power grid and waiting victim for any price rises companies and governments will inflict on you. Power costs will continue to rise because of carbon credits and the cost of fossil fuels.

How to wriggle off that hook?

The alternative is living off grid. Or at least supplementing your grid-fed power with your own solar hot water, solar PV panel or wind generator. Also by using power-efficient appliances. And lastly, but first on the list, reduce your energy use. Change your habits.

Till the next development in Wanneroo… Your local reporter!!!

2008 was a good year for the wind power energy industry. World Watch-measured wind industry trends show a world-wide increase of some 27,051 megawatts, and wind power installations up by 29%.

Wind industry critics, take note! Broken down by countries, the US is now leading in total wind energy, ranking above Germany, a renewable energy thoroughbred. For Europe overall, wind is now its leading source of electric capacity, ahead of natural gas and coal! This is a breakthrough point for Europe.

There is more… China is set to surpass its wind energy target of 10,000 MW by 2012 and is now taking care of a third of global wind capacity.

Upward trends in green jobs are secured, with around 400,000 people now employed in the wind power energy industry. Lower prices for wind generator components, caused by the global economic recession, willl further accellerate these trends. Expansion in green investment, in part spurred by renewable energy incentives, make renewable energy an unstoppable snowball.

Sources:
World Watch Institute Vital Signs 2008

From Geology Times an image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf relative to Antarctica as a whole

The seventh great Antarctic ice shelf to break away from Antarctica in 30 years is the Connecticut-sized Wilkins ice shelf.

This ice shelf started disintegrating in the 1990′s and its full break-away is now imminent. You can see daily satellite updates here on the event as it progresses.

There is a wide-spread view that this event is yet another symptom of rapid climate change.

A backgrounder on the  Wilkins ice shelf break-up can be watched here on YouTube.

Of course this is not the only ice melting and contributing to rising oceans. Glaciers are too, but that’s another disturbing story.

What can you do? Well, obviously we cannot refreeze the shelf back but we may perhaps prevent the worst of effects, by connecting these big, but far-away results with our daily lives.

You can for example report local impacts of global warming wherever it is that you live. Or tell stories of local initiatives that reduce CO2 or otherwise contribute to a sustainable world.

You can do that here in writing and photo image or at 3Ceco.com Chronicles of Climate Change by uploading your video.

Yes! You can do something! And it’s easy. Why not get going!

This little car is very cheap, boasts green credentials, and it comes from India.

The aptly-named Nano car, by Tata Motors was finally launched, after some years of delay in production. The cheapest car in the world!.

The little hatchback Nano is priced starting at 100,000 rupees or $2,050 US. Its length comes in at 3.1 metres, and its features a 623cc, 33 HP rear 2 cylinder engine. With a top speed of 105 km/hr Its mileage is impressive at around 20 km per litre.

What’s also impressive is that the company can squeeze four doors into this short car!

Aircon, radio or cd player? Optional extras only.

An estimated 50,000 of these cars will be produced in its first year, a far cry from the 250,000 the company originally aimed for.

But it is still a potentially explosive market where Indian demand for the Nano is so high that the first customers will be selected at random from among those on the waiting  list.

It is as well that the Nano is miniscule because India’s roads are already congested with millions of cars. And if you have been there you know the chaos that can cause.

Environmentalists cast a worrying eye on the prospect of adding more CO2 emitting cars on India’s congested roads.

But Tata Motorss says Nano’s  CO2 emissions are small by virtue of its high mileage and it emits fewer pollutants than the ubiquitous scooters it aims to replace.

Nano beyond India

The Tata Nano Europa was shown at the Geneva Motor Show this month, with a planned launch of 2011.

An American Nano? No, no plans for that yet. But there are options there for driving green and cheap too.

Find your own cheap green car.

You can sometimes find amazingly cheap green cars in car auctions.  We found a 2007 Toyota Prius hybrid, sold for under $6,000!

Or look at converting your car to electric.

Help Think A World Beyond Climate Change

A conference of up to two and a half thousand top scientists from 80 countries have warned that the world is on the brink of environmental disaster as worst-case IPCC scenarios were being exceeded.

The conference, at the University of Copenhagen, 10-12 March 2009, sought to update climate change knowledge since the 2007 IPCC report. Timely, in view of the UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December and because the 2007 report used three years of data analysed up to mid 2006.

Growing Pace Of Climate Change

Climate appears to be happening at an accelerated rate. Environmental tipping points could be reached which would magnify climate change effects and make them much harder to deal with. Irreversible global changes could result.

This conference heard that the overall prognosis on climate change is worse than previous estimates have suggested.

Grave Effects Of Climate Change

• A 4C rise could turn swaths of southern Europe to desert.
• Sea levels will rise twice as fast as official estimates predict.
• Modest warming could unleash a carbon “time bomb” from Arctic soils.
• A failure to cut emissions could render half of the world uninhabitable.
• Rising temperatures could kill off 85% of the Amazon rainforest.

What’s Happening Now

The IPCC 2007 report estimated the most likely global warming rate to be 3% by the end of this century. But British economist Nicholas Stern warned that policymakers now need to consider the consequences of global temperature rises of 6°C or more.

And climatologist Konrad Steffen of the University of Colorado at Boulder estimates that sea levels could rise as much as 1 metre by 2100, according to new analyses of ice loss from Greenland. The top estimate from the IPCC’s 2007 report was a rise of 0.59 metres by the end of the century.

A New Thinking

The Kyoto treaty’s first phase ends in 2012 and a greatly more effective agreement must be reached. Essentially we can no longer talk about preventing global warming. We must plan how to live with the effects of it.

Part of that planning must be about technology and different ways of doing things. Most of all it must be about transformation of thinking about ourselves and our role on Mother Earth. Because the underlying thinking that got us into this mess is clearly redundant in getting us out of it.

The new thinking must be about genuine care for each other and our planet.

New thinking starts with you and me. Cause you and I are intimately connected and all of us are intimately connected to our Planet Earth.

The oxygen you breathe has been breathed by dinosaurs (No, c’mon.  Of course I don’t mean certain politicians) and the water you drink is the same water that has passed through the depths of the Earth’s geological structures and has been metabolised by billions of life forms before you.

Every change you can make, affects all of us. Any small caring act goes towards a tipping point of global transformation of consciousness. I can do that. So can you.

I recommend Eckhard Tolle’s book A New Earth and Bradley Nelson’s book The Emotion Code for practical knowledge towards a new way of Being. You can also attend training seminars on The Emotion Code to learn to released “trapped emotions” yourself. What!  Yes, read the book. It does make a lot of sense.

Why do I recommend these books? We are facing a new world: new economics, newly caring for the planet and each other, and ways to live through the transitional turmoil. This must start with you and me. These are quite amazingly practical books for these times.

Cognitive Dissonance

Still, a new Gallup Poll showed that more Americans than ever in the past decade believed the seriousness of climate change was exaggerated.

In the face of growing evidence, of a melting North pole and glaciers and rising temperatures this result could be described as cognitive dissonance. Global warming is such an overwhelmingly uncomfortable issue that one way to live with it may be to rationalise it away, rather than make behavioral changes.

It is one choice you could make.

Copenhagen Zero-Emission City

On a bright note the city of Copenhagen has launched a plan for it to be a zero-emission city by 2025. In view of current trends we may only hope many cities will follow in its footsteps – a governments lose valuable time negotion trade-offs and protections for their economies.

Why not aim to be a zero-emission zone all by yourself? Think about it!

Green Cities 09 was a 4-day expo/conference, recently held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Many policy makers, builders, investors, architects, planners, home owners milled and absorbed the latest information on green building and green homes.

It is  interesting Queensland was the venue as it has over the last few years been pummeled by extra heavy duty cyclones and floods, causing devastation.

Aptly, the keynote address by Charles Lockwood, was entitled:  “Will the economic crisis stall – or kill – green buildings?” about the impact of another crisis of our own making, The Economy.

Taking the aggregate respoonse of the event’s 72 speakers, on the whole, the answer was resoundingly “no.”

There are emissions to be reduced, waste to be cut AND money to be made.

It’s always only the cream of an entire presentation to get the Power Point version only, but nevertheless the expo’s database of the 72 presentations is worth a look, if you weren’t able to be there.

Put it in your diary for 2010.

Why?

Well, just look at what info was dished out this year:

• What investors want from green homes
• How To Build Green Cities
• How the rating tool Energy Star performs
• How to deliver greener residentisl developments
• and that’s just a grab in the barrel…

Of course you can get your own Ozzie Green Building Guide right now and go green today!

And as far as green investing advice goes, it’s not far away…

Cheers