All this quiet reflection...

...makes one a silent blogger.

Somehow got side-tracked by a spot of project management assignment completion. Finally, well into week 4, I have finally dispatched that wretched Winter School subject, just in time for Spring! I have a new found respect for real project managers and the power of Gantt charts although, quite frankly, I cannot see myself becoming a true believer! The highlight of the entire adventure was using all my risk analysis experience to write a  risk analysis and control plan for none other than a wedding planning business, although save a section on natural disaster management, climate change in particular and sustainability in general, didn't get a look in.

This semester is turning out to be quite a difference experience to last semester. Away from the methodical focus of the engineering type subjects, I have been introduced to the warmer, fuzzier, green glow of the humanities. All which lead to last week's reflection piece looking something like this...

"Labels, riots and religion – never a dull moment in sustainability! As we continue to debate about typologies and also learn the meaning of more obscure words, such as epistemological, the green hue of sustainability becomes murkier. The examination of the two national case studies – the Australian National Strategy for Ecological Sustainable Development as compared to the UK Sustainable Development Strategy was most striking given the widely reported civil unrest in the UK and the extreme volatility of the world money markets of this week. The semantics of seeking appropriate sustainability indicators appeared moot when parts of English society were rioting over an undefined number of issues. 
Away from the civil unrest, a very thought provoking tutorial discussion was had about sustainable development by inviting religion, culture and inevitably sex into the room. I sat bemused and thinking that we only need to throw in politics and we were breaking every rule I was ever taught about polite conversation in society.  In particular the discussion examined the strengths of taboos in prevention of environmental damage and the interdependence of marriage, children and status in many societies."

However as the week has rolled on I have wondered whether we are not breaking enough rules about polite conversation...

Climate Change - a wicked problem?

"Wicked" you ask? Don't panic, this is not a continuation of my previous post regarding whether as inanimate object such as coal could be evil per se and I definitely haven't picked up the parlance of the youth, despite my daily exposure to the young and impressionable.

"Wicked problem" is a phrase coined by Rittel and Webber in 1973 and was originally used to describe an issue in public or planning policy. Summarised below are characteristics of a "wicked problem";

• it is difficult to define
• it has interdependencies and is multi-causal
• attempts to address it may result in adverse unforeseen circumstances
• it is often not stable
• it often does not have a clear solution
• it is socially complex
• it hardly ever sits conveniently with the responsibility of any one organisation
• it involves changing behaviour
• it may sometimes be characterised by chronic policy failure.

Unsurprisingly the majority of issues in the environmental and the greater sustainability space may be described as "wicked". For the curious, the same authors labelled those problems which although difficult could be solved in a systematic and somewhat linear way as "tame". A wit in our class today noted that if you love a challenge, you'd want all your problems to be "wicked" in the other sense of the vernacular..

"Wicked problems" need multi-faceted treatment from the variety of stakeholders (the literature likes to throw around the term "actors" - but after the fuss Cate Blanchett accidentally achieved, perhaps not appropriate in this case) and on-going attention. You manage an evolving wicked problem rather than ever truly solve it. The key challenge is successfully convincing everyone to make the right behavioural changes to make that difference. 

If that could be achieved in my lifetime, that would be truly "wicked"!!

This week, upon reflection...

One of my new subjects requires us to submit a reflective piece at the end of semester, a vignette reflections for each week of the course put into perspective at the end. Being the studious swot that I am, I have followed the lecturer's advice and each week I have taken a little time to document my reflections. However, if this week's anything to go by, it may be the thoughts which are left out which may be more telling.

Today someone actually articulated that as coal was a gift from God (not sure which one or who's claiming responsibility), it could not be evil. Actually I was under the perhaps false impression that evil and inanimate objects tend to be mutually exclusive. Coal is lots of things but I'm pretty sure it's not too harsh to say it's soul-less, just the way I like my inanimate objects (blessed or not). That observation didn't make the reflective cut..

We danced around the edges of neo-liberalism and it seemed to be the pin-up for all that is wrong environmentally, socially and economically, yet we also seemed to struggle with the recognition that for many, the neo-liberal and liberal view best fits what we have known even if we recognize that its extremes will not serve our vision of the future.


However it was the probing question "Is Sustainable Development an oxymoron?" which appeared to leave the debate in tatters. Defining oxymoron was a highlight - picks of the examples were "giant shrimp" and "smart government". The discussion was informed by the tutorial reading - a synopsis on a book written giving the 30 year update on "The Limits to Growth" and really, the conclusions appeared to waiver from "barbed wire firmly puncturing the buttocks" to "it's probably too late".


So I ask myself, if we genuinely believe it is too late then what is the point of sustainability? Are we merely learning the dark arts of environmental and social pallative care disguised as solutions so as the world dies slowly, at least some of us will be comfortable....


So on that note, armed with the knowledge that population is the elephant in the room, I went off to visit one of the earth's newest citizens just up the road where both he and his mum are recovering from the trauma that is child birth. He was small, sleepy, content and totally convinced that he was in safe hands. Only time will tell...

Greenhouse gas, skepticism and the common good?

Earlier this week I watched an interesting and completely surprising debate in one of my new subjects. In a typical introductory workshop, we were given the PLEA 2009 Quebec Manifesto and a number of questions were posed to generate discussion.

One of those questions, paraphased, was is there a relationship between climate change and carbon emissions?
The group assigned to comment on that question simply stated "no". The lecturer teased out their reasoning which included the fact that they believed that the effect of man-made carbon emissions were insignificant compared to the natural climate cycles and contributions of natural disasters such as volcanoes and bush fires. The reasoning also included that while there appeared to be facts about carbon dioxide generation, they were not convinced they were linked to climate change. For them, the scientific link was not compelling enough.

Given that the next 12 weeks would be based on methods used to measure and reduce the production of greenhouse gas production in commercial buildings, it made sense that the lecturer then turned to the room and simply asked, "how many people here believe there is a link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change?" I was surprised as I counted less than 50% of the room in agreement.

This was a room of future decision makers, still in their early twenties, who are tertiary educated and who do not believe the science is compelling enough. There is no doubt in my mind why the Australian Government is struggling to sell their carbon price and eventual emissions-trading scheme. Have we taught our society to be so skeptical that we do not even consider the precautionary principle?

The science of the debate has become extremely political and divisive in Australia and I wonder whether the discussion our group had is symptomatic of that and the growing weariness of a federal government which as a minority government has opened our eyes to how difficult it is to govern when every decision is the culmination of much compromise.

In many ways I felt like an outside in my class earlier this week - nearly a generation older, with a firm conviction that even if the science is not rock-solid we are still compelled to act and despairing at the vehemence with which the majority of my fellow countrymen and women rail against change for the sake of the common good. It was with interest I read Richard Lambert's piece Unravelling a few of Australia's Climate Myths written from the view of an outside looking into this country's current debate.

It would be interesting to know what other people think of us in the global community.

In celebration of biodiversity..

Semester two kicked off on Monday so last weekend I studiously ignored my pending project management assignment and headed south to celebrate the end of the mid-semester break.

What better way to prepare for the coming semester than spend some time marvelling at the amazing biodiversity at our back door.  In this part of the world, it is whale watching season from May to September and we were not disappointed, sighting a very happy whale frollicking off the coast at Victor Harbour. For those with a keen interest in whale watching, I would recommend checking out the South Australian Whale Centre website which includes a log of recent sightings. We think the whale recorded as ID#1154 on the 23 July was the same one we saw about that time (but didn't log with the centre).

However it wasn't just about whales. My delighted Englishman had a close and harmless encounter with a lone echidna which was dawdling along the cliff top path and sighted both a dolphin in the bay as well as a seal playing off the rocks.

With the batteries recharged and the warm glow of biodiversity in my veins, I am ready to take on second semester.

Hmm.. what on earth just happened?

This evening I took my ego into my own hands and attempted to network.....

To say that at various times I felt I was in a parallel universe does not do the experience the justice it deserves. The theme of the evening was sustainability and therefore to behold not one, but two people, being escorted from the venue was a little surreal.

I did learn about a very cool whole system design concept for growing tomatoes but didn't really know what to think when one of the participants was interested in the product but ideologically opposed to the retailer.

Taking inspiration from the two marketing PhDs I befriended, I really need to work out where I am going to position myself in this unusual job market.

What I have learnt in my holidays

Well, the results are in and I have very successfully navigated my first semester, exams and all, which is both a source of relief and pride.

Despite perhaps rather foolishly enrolling in a winter school subject to simultaneously learn about the dark arts of project management and fast forward this learning adventure, I have continued in my spare time to marvel at the strong reactions change evokes. Having spent part of my holidays donating a small fortune to my dentist to repair teeth grinding damage, self-inflicted unconsciously worrying about small stuff, I know I'm not immune to adverse reactions to change.

The Australian Government has announced that from 1 July 2012, there will be a price levied against the 500 largest producers of carbon dioxide equivalents released to the atmosphere. I genuinely think they would have got a more positive reaction by announcing they were going to wipe Australia off the map with a series of nuclear tests, such has been the vehement outpouring of angst by a large number of Australians.

It probably pays to put the political climate here in Oz in context. As alluded to in Vote 1 - Thermal Comfort, after the last federal election, neither of the two major parties received enough of the primary vote to form government in their own right, resulting in a "hung parliament". It was an ugly campaign and an inconclusive outcome. The reality for Australians is that the major party which was prepared to negotiate with the minor Greens party and a number of independent members formed a government. Like all negotiations, there are concessions so we have had some unusual outcomes including very specific poker machine reform and the speeding up of an emissions trading scheme which (ironically) both major parties had previously threatened but been unable to deliver. There are numerous other political issues clouding the debate but I'll encourage you to research those yourself and come to your own conclusions.

Thanks to the good folk at the Australian Bureau of Statistics I can highlight the following information;
"In 2007, 18.75 tonnes of CO₂ were emitted for every Australian, compared with an OECD country average of 10.97 tonnes per person. Many large economies, including Japan (9.68 tonnes/person) and the United Kingdom (8.6 tonnes/person), had significantly lower per capita CO₂ emissions than Australia in 2007. Of the OECD countries, only Luxembourg (22.35 tonnes/person) and the United States (19.1 tonnes/person) had higher per capita CO₂ emissions than Australia".


There is a compelling case that as good Global citizens we need to make some fundamental changes to the way we operate our country and invest in alternative technologies and industry over the long term for lasting global benefit.


What has been so disappointing has been the lack of public discussion about the multitude of options and positive changes that can be made. You would think from the current national debate we are the smartest and most efficient users of energy on the planet so there will only be additional costs and penalties and nothing to gain from new technology and ways of thinking. There appears to be more focus on price increases than using less by being smarter, more efficient or seeking alternatives. That after all folks, is the entire point...


The fear of change appears to be the biggest threat to planet!

Perspectivity - is that a word?

Wandering around the murky, albeit "G" rated, depths of cyberspace, in the name getting educated, I came across a blog discussing the game called Perspectivity. It makes for interesting reading and highlights, amongst other things, that sometimes non-partisan, lashings of common good can be beneficial all round.

Have a look and think...could we make the current debate just a little more civil?

Rio de Janerio - a mecca for Peter Allen fans and sustainable optimists alike..

Despite bunking off early in swot vac to check out some of the more obscure World Heritage sites lurking in the wilds of South Australia, I survived the exam which tested my knowledge of The Australian Environmental Bucket list (also see Don't forget to admire the beautiful things).

In the process of memorising large chunks of specific information, with the view to documenting it word perfectly under exam conditions, my review took me back to those heady days when folk were genuinely convinced that Sustainable Development was actually a solution to the world's dilemmas. Enter Rio Declaration 1992, diplomatically hammered out as the outcome from what was known as "The Earth Summit".

Nineteen years on, several summits later, and the planning is well underway for Rio+20 - Earth Summit 2012 by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. There are two main themes - Sustainable Development Governance and the Green Economy. If you've been listening to Australian media of late, you may have interpreted that to mean "the Nanny state will be empowered to drag us back into the caves". For the curious, here's a fine example of the current state of the debate.

How much do you really know about your country's commitments to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (which incorporates the Kyotol Protocol)? How much of your own opinion is influenced by fear of the unknown?

The World Resources Institute, in preparation for Rio+20 has released a Information Note which is well worth considering. After all, one of the key aspects of Sustainable Development is Broad Community Consultation which includes the provision of information. Ask yourself, do you have enough information about the issues that affect you environmentally, socially and economically to make informed decisions?

Biomimicry - watch and learn!

As I revise for the subject that just keeps giving (see earlier posts e.g. All costs are relative) for an exam in a format that just keeps amusing, I was reminded of one of the cooler concepts we covered, biomimicry as part of a series of lectures from the Natural Edge Project.

It's not rocket science and that, my dear friends, is both its attraction and its beauty. The concept is simple - "mimic" solutions in nature to solve challenges in society which could be design, process or business based.

There are three main types of innovation derived from nature;
form - examples include shapes (see Mercedes Benz's avant garde concept vehicle inspired by a box jellyfish) and non-chemical adhesive methods (Gecko tape)
process  - examples include cooling systems, filtration (including sewerage treatment) and desalination (fair to say, probably not a reference process in the various desal plants popping up all over Australia at the moment)
ecosystems - examples include feedback loops and symbiotic relationships (and everyone wants one of those..)
(Source: TNEP notes)

In an increasing energy constraint world, one of my favourite observations is that most of the products and services of nature are biotic - that means they occur at ambient temperature, low pressure and in low toxicity conditions. There are, of course, some spectacular exceptions - volcanoes, tidal waves, cyclones and bushfires, but just imagine the reduction in energy if we could make the things we needed at standard temperatures and pressures.

Don't forget to admire the beautiful things..

Occasionally I take the advice of my family, much to their amazement. I am currently suppose to be studying for my end of semester exams but after handing in my last two assignments for the semester on Friday decided to take a couple of days away from the books to revel in the Queen's birthday long weekend.  Yes, I am aware the Queen of England was born in April and strangely enough tends to celebrate her birthday then. However, June is the descent into winter for these colonies so we have a random winter long weekend in June, blame the Queen and perversely open the Australian ski season, whether or not there is snow on the Australian Alps. Except in WA where they have the Queen's birthday in September and perversely open the Perth Show but, how I have digressed..

In one of the subjects (which will be examined in the near future), we have been learning about the various types of environmental legislation in the various jurisdictions of Australia and how, if at all, it protects the beautiful things we have.

When the lecturer asked for examples of World Heritage areas, RAMSAR wetlands etc., she usually met the correct answer with, yes, you must visit there before you die. So actually, it appears I am about to be examined on the Australian Environmental Bucket List (and the processes for getting the correct Minister to approve any major acts of environmental desecration planned in the near vicinity).

So, in keeping with the theme, over the weekend instead of studying the legislation, we visited some of those sites that the Commonwealth Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act aims to protect including The Coorong National Park. We also passed in our travels the World Heritage listed Naracoorte Caves and Bool Lagoon.

The strange thing is, at different times of my life, I have lived nearby all of these natural wonders and only ever took visitors there occasionally, never just went to look and admire. Just another little reminder - don't forget to admire the beautiful things while you can...

Are all alternatives equal?

I live in a quaint jurisdiction of Australia. We have a container deposit recycling scheme and a ban on the use of lightweight plastic bags. Practically that means two things;
(i) you NEVER see a recyclable container lying around as litter because an enterprising collector will have swooped it up and cashed it in, resulting in up to 85% of all eligible containers being recycled AND
(ii) everyone has to bring their own bags to the shops or purchase an alternative to non lightweight plastic.

The shopping bag discussion is worth having. The number of single plastic bag uses has fallen considerably since the introduction of the ban in May 2009. Research findings six months after the introduction found significant changes in behaviour and overall support in the community.

However are all alternatives to single use lightweight plastic bags equally better for the environment?

I was given this link as part of a Lifecycle analysis discussion recently at Uni which got me thinking. It is an old report now (December 2002) on the Environmental impact of plastic bags. On pages 36 and 37 there is a discussion about alternative bags and estimates of both carbon dioxide emissions and embodied energy. It is interesting to note the high impact of paper bags (associated with the processing requirements) and the much lower impact of reusable plastic boxes and the "green bag". The swag style is that associated with Ikea - much larger than the average shopping bag and not always suitable for lugging home the groceries.

Some food for thought this week...

The $300 house project

As I beaver away with my fellow group members on our sustainable house project design in readiness for next week's presentation and design submission, I sort of got distracted.  My attention was drawn today to an amazing little competition started on the Harvard Business review blog (of all places) which has been brewing away in the depths of cyberspace as showcased by a recent article in the Economist.

Check out http://www.300house.com/ to read all about a competition to design safe, useful and affordable housing construction to be trialled in the slums of India, Haiti and Indonesia.

If you want to join the team, you've got nine days to put your design in the ring.

The can of worms that is biofuels...

Yesterday I had to give my presentation on my biofuels project. Unsurprisingly, the presentation side wasn't particularly difficult given the number of times I have presented, facilitated groups, run training  and engaged in the art of public speaking in my former lives. Sometimes there are benefits to being the "mature age" student!

I'm going to go out on another limb here and suggest that most biofuels may not be the answer to the current fossil fuel dilemma. Oh the heresy!!

Part of my project discussed the energy lifecycle analysis of the biofuels - that is considering all the energy used to grow them - from clearance of the land, to preparation, planting, irrigation, fertiliser, harvest, transport and processing. A little bit of my agricultural past finally made a positive contribution to my studies!

The biofuel concept was a simple one - they should be carbon neutral because the combustion of a biofuel will emit the same amount of carbon dioxide that was sequestered by the plant in its lifetime and as long as plants still remain on earth, another plant should happily take up the same amount again creating a perfect carbon dioxide cycle. If only that was the case...

One of the most interesting articles I found during my research was a study completed by the Swiss looking at biofuels used in Switzerland (noting that many are imported). Their findings resonant with those of many other researchers, "In principle, each of the fuels examined (bioethanol, biomethanol, biodiesel and biogas) can be produced in an environmentally friendly way – it depends on what raw materials and production technologies are used".

Key impact areas include where land must be cleared or reclaimed (forest and swamps) to create arable land in the first place. Equally, energy crops that require intensive agricultural practices (fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides or anything else which gets you out on your presumably fossil fuel driven tractor) have much higher environmental impacts.

In general, biofuels made from waste materials tend to have the lowest impact. Often they would not have had a useful afterlife, ending up in landfills or being dumped out of sight and out of mind. Waste materials can include rubbish, sewerage and crop residue (straw, husks, bagasse [leftover sugar cane] and wood thinnings).

And all this before we even get into the food versus fuel debate...

What is life cycle energy?

Today I did my first "closed book" quiz since November 1997. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience - the questions were all fair and reasonable but my poor (now considerably older) little brain is out of the habit of rote learning and recalling on cue. Not looking forward to my two "proper" exams later in June, but I digress.

The last question in the quiz required us to calculate the life cycle energy for two different house constructions and then recommend the one with the lowest overall energy use. Imagine my surprise when I came home and sat down for a spot of mindless television (between other assignments), only to discover tonight on the New Inventors on ABC 1 the first item was on a new software tool which helps calculate embodied energy and lifecycle operating energy! The coincidence given today's quiz was slightly unnerving..


The concept is simple (but complex to determine the actual numbers used in the calculation). 


Life cycle Energy = (Operating Energy x Life of building) + Embodied Energy


Where:

• Operating energy is all the energy you use in your house to heat, cool etc - i.e. run your house
• Life of building is its expected lifetime - often estimated only 25-30 years
• Embodied Energy - all the energy used in the extraction, processing and transportation of the raw materials, manufacture of the building materials and construction of the building (what gets left in and out of the system boundary can be a point of contention). Typical domestic buildings in Australia have embodied energy values of 5.5-6 Giga Joules per metre squared.

Like all things sustainable, there are trade-offs. Often houses with high embodied energy (constructed with steel, concrete or with a number imported specialty efficiency items) will have much lower operating costs over their lifetime (in the best case scenario not requiring artificial heating or cooling). Equally a house with low embodied energy may not perform as well thermally, requiring use (or additional use) of heating and/or cooling.

That's where life cycle energy can help broker a peace deal. It will allow you to compare different constructions and decide whether the trade-off is worth it!

If you are interested in the software, check out this link http://etool.net.au/. If you are really keen, here's the link to program on ABC iview.

And the science says....

This is not a diatribe about hard-core climate change deniers (after all,we all know at least one and hopefully agree that it would be a waste of perfectly good positive energy). Nor is it about those who are happy to wait until they are knee deep in water on their favourite beach esplanade (where normally they would be sitting drinking a suitable beverage and admiring the beach etc) before they suddenly cry "But no-one told me this would happen, really" or "I didn't think it would be this bad".

For those who like to think about the bigger picture here on earth, the millennium ecosystem assessment may be of interest. Its objective was summarised as "to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and the scientific basis for action needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of those systems and their contribution to human well-being".

Yes, the scientific basis, that logical, rational reasoning behind why we need to improve the way we manage and interact with all those ecosystems which make up our planet (and funnily enough do not revolve around us). The fact I like most is that it isn't the work of a small group of people but rather involved the work of 1360 scientists.

ONE of the disturbing findings included;
"Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth." Note the concept of global warming isn't even mentioned!

Even if you believe we aren't contributing to the changes in atmosphere, we have definitely left a scar here on earth that needs to be addressed. It also highlights the underlying theme of the precautionary principle (for a refresher see ESD - that's not a party drug), that uncertainty is not a reason not to do something that could potentially have a significant effect on the environment.

Carbon dioxide is a colourless, odourless liquid so it is often out of sight, out of mind. Yet a polluted stream or a dried up wetland is ripe with visual clues that things are not OK.

What can you do which will make a positive difference in your ecosystem today?

Sustainability on the inside...

As I was reviewing my early notes on sustainable buildings for an upcoming quiz, my attention was drawn to all the elements which affect indoor environments. For many of us, our primary concern for all things environmental is for those things that our activities affect in the outside environment.

When was the last time you thought about making your indoor environment a better place to be? Do you ever have more than a passing thought about the following in your numerous indoor environments;

• indoor air quality
• ventilation
• air temperature and humidity
• noise and acoustics
• glare
• access to daylight and exterior views
• quality of light
• quality of water

Perhaps if I put into perspective the fact that Australians spend up to 95% of their time indoors (according to the good folks at CSIRO), then maybe that may pique at least some curiosity?

Be bold and educate yourself. You may wish to start with the State of Knowledge Report -Air toxics and indoor air quality in Australia. In any case, this week's challenge is to think about how to make your environment sustainable on the inside!

Energy efficiency - is it sustainable?

Here's a heretical thought for the day. Perhaps just achieving improved energy efficiency is not so sustainable after all. While doing "more with less" is definitely commendable and most cost effective, if the resource is not renewable and nothing is done to recycle or reclaim it, then it will just take longer to use it up! In the end, the resource is still exhausted.

Energy efficiency programs are often the initial way to provide funding for increasing the sustainability of practices - after all, when you use less of something, the money you save is available to be directed somewhere else.

Harnessing those savings and creating sustainable systems is the key to making energy efficiency sustainable. Next time you identify a way to save energy, by all means put it into place but then go to that next step - make the changes which make those resources renewable or recyclable.

Happiness is back, again..

So, it would appear that being miserable just isn't sustainable!

Previously in the life of this blog I discussed happiness under Affluence, Sustainability and Happiness - an unholy trinity and the intrinsic role happiness may have in defining sustainability.

This week I was introduced to the Happy Planet Index (HPI) and for those who are curious to find out more, please feel free to follow the link. While you are there, take the survey and get an indication of your own HPI score.

The concept is compelling - to calculate the "ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world". It's not about the happiest people (note that Bhutan has a HPI of 58.5 - in the middle of the rankings) but rather the "relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens".


For a quiet read and contemplation, try the full report so you too can discover all the elements contributing to why with a HPI of 76.1, Costa Rica tops the list. I was surprised to learn that Costa Rica has a very high life expectancy which wasn't something I had associated with Latin/Central America. Unsurprisingly the country at the bottom of the list is Zimbabwe (HPI of 16.6), and directly above it, many of the sub-Saharan countries who are its neighbours.


The elements of happiness are many and varied, as too are their effects on individuals. If you take the survey you may be quite surprised by some of the recommendations. For mine, the recommendation that those who live alone should find themselves a flatmate makes an erroneous assumption - that any company shall make us happy. For those who have ever shared a house/room/flat, you can probably see some of the potential flaws in the model! 

Word of the Week - Fellmongery

One of those quaint prescribed acts of environmental significance listed in Schedule 1 of the Environmental Protection Act 1993 (SA). I had no idea so I looked it up. Thought I may as well share!

A fellmongery is a operated by, unsurprisingly, a fellmonger. A fellmonger is a person who prepares skins for tanning or leather making by removing fur or wool.

So, it you happen to harbour a desired to begin such a business, please note that it will be considered an act of environmental significance where "the conduct of works for the commercial preservation or treatment of animal skins or hides being works processing more than 5 tonnes of skins or hides per year, but excluding—
(a) the processing of skins or hides by primary producers in the course of primary
production activities outside township areas; or
(b) the processing of skins or hides in the course of taxidermy."

Of course, you may prefer to become a taxidermist instead and revel in the exclusion clause!!

Bonus marks for participation!

The subject that just keeps giving (ethics, acoustics, water treatment, cyclone technology) came through with a gem today. The Story of Stuff was a the prelude to one of the most painful discussion groups I have ever been obliged to be involved with - matched only by discussion groups in yesterday evening's lecture for the same subject which also felt like pulling teeth. In comparison, running health and safety training for scientists and engineers is a breeze.

If you have a spare 20 minutes, a curious inclination and enough spare bandwith, click on the link above and have a ponder. I  liked the visual style of line drawings and then adding the "hidden detail" but as much as I loved the message, I struggled with the delivery style. Determine to post a link despite my reservations, I looked up the site and also happened to find the blog of one of the creators. She had written a post entitled "What's the best way not to get invited back for dinner" which ironically captured the essence of what I didn't like. To me, the greatest art of selling a sustainable message is in the crafting. The power of persuasion, the management of change, capturing hearts and minds - can it be painless? How do we make that voice a chorus, in time and in tune with today?

You see, very few of my fellow students want to be in this subject. It is compulsory for their engineering studies and merely stands between them and a qualification for a career they are not even sure they want or even know why they are there. The discussion group was painful because at the end of this clip they didn't want to discuss it, they didn't want to think about it, they didn't want to be there. We handed up our summary because everyone gets a bonus mark for their assignment if their name and student number is on one of those summaries.

When do we all realise that doing the right thing isn't about a bonus mark, it's the only way we'll be able to participate on the planet!

Best laid plans are often victim of the user..

Mid-semester break is upon the long-suffering students. Oh we doth protest too much! Despite a number of assignments which magically need to be completed before next week's return to grindstone, I could not let a 5-day weekend go by without some bush camping and general R&R. There is something strangely therapeutic about no mobile reception, dubious hygiene practices and beholding some of our most amazing creatures. Best not tried in the confines of a civilised home!

Our destination was some of the gorgeous remote coastal area of South Australia, Lincoln National Park and Coffin Bay National Park as well as further up the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula around Venus Bay. We had quite a visual feast of Australian emblems - wallabies, kangaroos and emus, not to mention a host of other furry creatures and quite poignantly given the Christian influence of the festivities, a plague of locusts. The highlight had to be the amazing pod of more than 20 dolphins frollicking in the waters off the point at Venus Bay.

With many hours spent driving between camp sites, I got thinking about the whole National Park concept. One of the strange things they allow folk to do in SA is drive on the beaches (including in the National Parks) which doesn't strike me as a particularly environmentally sustainable thing to practice (on multiple levels - from carbon emissions to erosion and squashed furry locals).

After Yellowstone in the USA, it turns out that the Royal National Park in N.S.W. was the second National Park in the world. I was fascinated to read about its history which highlights that even some of the most inspired ideas can sometimes run contrary to good sense in hindsight. You'll note in the link above that in the early days of what was then just the National Park (QE II - the woman, not the boat, caught a train once in its vicinity and miraculously the name was changed in the 1950's), the park was "improved" for the entertainment of visitors, to include vast expanses of lawn and the introduction of exotic species! The type of thing which makes even the less environmentally minded in this day and age wonder....

Will we look back in 100 years time at the way we managed National Parks and also wonder, what on earth were we thinking?

What on earth?

Through various means in the last couple of days I have discovered that this year Good Friday and Earth Day will co-exist in harmony on 22 April. I've always been somewhat skeptical about Earth Hour, Earth Day, World Environmental Day and their ilk. After all, good environmental habits should not be entertaining fads lasting merely one to twenty four hours...isn't that why we have celebrities ?? Like a puppy, they should be for life...

It was with amusement however, that I discovered the (take a breath) Department for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (...in the Court of King Caractacus, were just passing by) have a Calendar of environmental events which can provide you with a daily "environmental" cause to think about if you so desire. Must admit there are a few occasions which do not fit the traditional stereotypical environmental cause (but good luck to those who enjoyed Women's history month in March).

If you are sitting there (no matter what the date or indeed despite whatever day you could be celebrating), thinking what useful environmental habit can I form this year, the Earth Day website has some ideas which form a campaign Billion Acts of Green. Sign up if that's your thing but if not, maybe get an idea for your next "green habit" that can last a lifetime. Who knows, maybe the world could be better off...every day of the year.

Waste not, want not

If you didn't catch Hungry Beast on ABC 1 last night they did great program on waste - everything from human waste power generation to the wicked waste of food in the average Australian's fridge.

You can catch it on ABC's iview for the next 13 days but like all good things, it too has an expiry date.
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/750847

Hope it gets you thinking...

There's alternative and then there's alternative...

Plenty to do and nothing much of note of late...

With mid-semester break in sight (oh the life of the overworked student), it's been a busy couple of weeks of completing readings, assignments and the like. In all honesty, I haven't tripped over any interesting facts, outrageous statements or inspiring pieces with which I could share. Apologies for allowing my imagination to go on holidays before the break!

I did complete a rather unorthodox assignment over the weekend on energy and alternative fuels. Suffice to say, it really did go to the extreme of alternative fuels. I believe the point of the exercise was to demonstrate that liquid fossil fuels are hard to beat for their energy density and convenience. For your amusement only, allow me to share one of the crazy questions (plus crazy answer)...

Estimate the mass of a McDonald’s Big Mac required to give an equivalent energy content of 50L of gasoline.

According to ABARE’s list of energy content conversions, automotive gasoline has an estimated energy content of 34.2MJ/L

The estimated energy content in 50L of automotive gasoline would be

= Energy content by volume x volume

= 34.2 x 50

= 1710 MJ

Using the McDonald’s published energy estimate of a Big Mac which is 1030kJ/100g

then the equivalent amount of Big Macs for 50L of automotive gasoline would be

= 1710x10⁶ / 10.3 x10⁹

= 0.1660T

Extrapolating that if energy content per 100g is 1030kJ and energy content per serve of Big Mac is 2060 kJ, then each Big Mac is approximately 200g

Therefore to determine the number of Big Mac equivalents

= 0.1660/ 0.0002

= approximately 830 Big Macs

The explosive truth about waste..

Today I was in a tutorial where we were discussing ways to use domestic waste in anaerobic digester, which I understand for most people is not a standard item for discussion. Take organic waste, introduce microbes which thrive happily without oxygen, exclude air by covering and let it fester. You will soon have a wonderful collection of really putrid smelling gases and very angry neighbours. The gases are flammable (and a potential energy source) so you can create some pretty cool flame throwers or blow something up which could reduce your neighbourhood popularity.

Of course, your local council landfill is actually an industrial-strength anaerobic digester and your local council may have already be fitted it with an industrial strength flame thrower. The point of burning off the methane is so it doesn't migrate into the atmosphere and actively become 21 times more effective than its friend carbon dioxide at contributing to the greenhouse effect. There is an art to preventing explosive situations in local housing estates nearby but that is a completely different story....

Landfill is not always an option. After all, what do you do it when you have limited places to bury it?

Welcome to the waste challenge (of the non-nuclear variety) which is an everyday issue in Japan. The entire country separates their waste into three piles - flammable, non-flammable and recyclable. Japan relies on incinerating their waste, by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually. The key environmental issue is the combustion products when waste containing chlorine is burnt includes dioxins as a by-product. Nasty little creatures which are persistent in the environment, bio-accumulate in fatty tissue (stick and don't leave your body) and potentially cause cancers and reproductive defects.

So when new regulations regarding incineration closed down the options for a Japanese town, they began a  journey towards Zero Waste. The video is worth the view (bear with the advert and the subtitles). It is not without frustrations - 34 different types of separating, the requirement that everything needs to be washed, an ageing population and the whole time commitment.

How far are you away from Zero Waste?

When wasting energy becomes too expensive you'll see action

..and sadly probably not before.

Austerity is the new buzz word in global economics, as in "austerity measures". Perhaps make it your word of the week? Austere means "characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint", in short, "simple".

For those who like to watch life and times beyond our shores, you would be aware that austerity measures have seen people demonstrating in the streets of Europe, as they struggle to comes to terms with enormous deficits (and in the case of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, paying back their bailouts by the EU). This is not an Australian-style political fear campaign, these countries are economically actually in dire straits.

Enter Sustainability. Suddenly wasting all that energy is not economically feasible after all... Of course, strangely it was apparently quite OK in the good times!

The Daily Mail in 2009 took great pleasure in describing Buckingham Palace as "topping the list of Dirty Dozen London Buildings" and while I won't vouch for their journalism, the photos in this article are fascinating. The article was highlighting that while the UK government were pouring money into reducing domestic emissions from houses, the largest generators of emissions were actually very old, very leaky public buildings and ironically the same taxpayers were stumping up (in the most part) for those energy bills.

Roll on 2011, and in the light of austerity measures, suddenly retrofitting these public buildings to save energy now makes sense! The extension to the London Mayor's RE:FIT climate change programme means that by spending approximately 2.7 million Euros (which is not an insignificant sum), the good British taxpayer runs the risk of saving millions of pounds in additional energy costs, every year, not just the year of the retrofitting...

Just imagine if someone had seen the sense in improving energy efficiency in the good times when there was plenty of money floating around? It seems sad that, in the words of Boris Johnson (debate about the man another time), only now they see the sense of conserving "precious public funds at a time when every extra penny counts”.

I'm a taxpayer. I'd like to think in a sustainable economy my public funds are always precious and we should always get good value, not just when it suits our politicians!

 

Sustainable jobs?

When we think Sustainable jobs inevitably we think "Green Jobs", jobs which have a mission statement to save the planet, jobs which apparently don't harm mother nature, that sort of thing. In short, it's all about the environment.
Somewhere along the line we often conveniently forget that sustainability has three pillars - environmental, social and economic. Much earlier in the life of this blog, I wrote about the lecturer who lead a workshop on the sustainability of our individual houses and at the end of the discussion simply said "Does your house make you happy"?
Essentially she was tapping into the social indicators we often overlook when assessing the sustainability of a house. Some examples;

·         Quality of buildings as place to live and work (fit for purpose type concept)

·         Building related effects on health and safety of users (it's always lurking out there...)

·         Barrier-free use of building

·         User satisfaction

·         Social cohesion and participation of users

As I rode home this afternoon, I was still marvelling at the enthusiasm one of my other lecturers has for her work. She has a "real day job" and does a little lecturing on a guest basis for part of the semester each year. She beams with enthusiasm as she talks about what she does each day and she appears to be delighted when a student answers a question demonstrating that they understood. If we looked at her job like you assess a house then suddenly you can start ticking a few of the boxes above... it suits her, it isn't adversely affecting her health, there appears nothing insurmountable in her way, she enjoys it and it allows her interaction with those she wants to associate with.

Too often we look through the sustainability prism and only follow the green band. For those who remember ROYGBIV, you'll know it's not the only path to the light.

It's good to know there are sustainable jobs out there and they are not all about saving the world... I hope you have one of them.

Word of the Week - Azimuth

Today I learnt a new word. The word itself was a little tricky to pronounce but actually getting my head around how it worked proved to be a little more challenging.

When someone asks you to run an energy simulation program on a simple house design, you don't expect them to ask you for the azimuth of the wall. It appears that it is an alternative to using the points of the compass to explain which way the wall is actually facing. Still confused?

I'll leave it to the good astronomers to explain as they managed to make it clearer than our tutor.
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/A/Azimuth

Enjoy your word of the week. Goes without saying you should have a go at putting it randomly somewhere in a sentence in the not too distant future!

All costs are relative..

From the eclectic subject which has covered engineering ethics, mentioned in passing Alfred Nobel's less than peaceful origins, subjected its students to the mind bending concepts of acoustics and is currently revealing to me the issues to consider when designing a waste water treatment plant, comes this gem "The irony is that it costs about the same to put someone through an Ivy League University in the United States as it does to incarcerate them".

Beyond the flippant reaction, "Well education does come in any manner of guises" or Stephen Fry's observation that the time he spent in English Public Schools was an excellent preparation for the time he would later spend in goal, I thought that was one comment which warranted further investigation.

Which lead me to the quoted source, Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L.Hunter Lovins. The excerpt makes for some thought provoking reading and firmly ties in economic concepts with  lofty environmental ideals. Have a read and see what you think.

There is a long way to go though - this crazy subject is apparently compulsory subject for all third year mechanical engineering students. One was overheard at the start of the last lecture making the comment "I suppose they are going to tell us about even more things that will get in the way of doing our job".

I resisted the urge to turn around and say, "And you haven't even been introduced to the OHS regulations yet". After all, he has a lifetime for them to ruin his designs and get in the way of doing his job and who wants to spoil that surprise...

How noise affects sustainability

I survived acoustics. The disturbing flashbacks to Year 12 maths were not enough, so thankfully having a maths teacher extraordinaire type sibling who took time out from educating the next generation to help the current one (putting into practice another of the ESD principles - intragenerational equity!) meant I eventually, and successfully, completed the assessments.

The question has been asked on more than one occasion, usually by disturbed loved ones as I attempted to pull my hair out, what on earth does acoustics have to do with sustainability?

As it turns out, the study of acoustics in this subject was for the benefit of mechanical engineers who in the future will be designing stuff operating in an environment near you - anything from the car you drive, the air-conditioner you switch on, the processing plant next to your hobby farm, to your next state-of-the art sound system.

You see, we now take well-designed, quietly operating equipment for granted but, the designers of tomorrow still have to learn the principles of noise (and its reduction) today.

Reading around the subject of noise is revelatory. The World Health Organisation considers occupational noise as a burden of disease. Unsurprisingly their data shows there are no recorded cases of death caused directly by noise. However it is the third highest risk affecting Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY). This measure combines the burden due to death and disability in a single index. Each year represents the loss of the equivalent one year of full health. So while occupational noise won't kill you, it appears it will not make you stronger either.


Occupational noise is not the only form of noise which is bad for your health. Environmental noise has been the focus of the WHO Europe who suggest that excess noise "can disturb sleep, cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological effects, reduce performance and provoke annoyance responses and changes in social behaviour". In reality, this is when noise may lead to death - indirectly that is...

So, in a nutshell, sustainable societies are those where the inhabitants can communicate effectively so being able to listen to each other helps. It is also beneficial if the inhabitants are not being made ill or being driven to acts of violence because of undesirable noise in their environment. Noise levels can and do affect sustainability!

ESD - that's not a hybrid party drug...

Ecological sustainable development is more commonly referred to as ESD and I suspect in some fairly high quarters, considered the oxymoron lurking in the office of progress.

Whether you are old enough to remember The Stockholm Declaration circa 1972, or just a diligent reader of  lecture notes, you'll soon learn it was heady stuff for the day. When the UN got involved in 1983 and commissioned The Brundtland Report which was released in 1987, the world began its slippery slide into considering more than just economics but also environmental protection and social equity. Roll on 1992 and the Rio Declaration - suddenly the international community were agreeing on 27 principles to guide sustainable development. Back at the Earth Summit that same year, the newly released  Agenda 21 provided a 500 page action plan (because apparently in saving the world, trees will be collateral damage) with the objective to alleviate poverty, hunger, sickness and illiteracy worldwide and, no less, halt the deterioration of ecosystems which sustain life, all at the same time. As a matter of interest, Australia signed up to Agenda 21 so we now report annually on our progress to the UN Commission for Sustainable Development.

Drilling down into the detail, ESD can be summarised as being guided by the following key principles;

• including short and long term environmental, social and economic considerations in decisions
• the precautionary principle
• conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity
• intergenerational equity (the people of the future will be no worse off)
• intragenerational equity (no group in current society will be worse off)
• development of mechanisms which better reflect true costs including the polluter pays principle and the user pays system
• broad based community involvement (consultation of the masses).

So why is this little summary of history important? Well while you actively debate the merits of the proposed Carbon Tax around your dinner table, it is worth considering that it is an example of the principle 16 of Agenda 21 -  the user pays. There is actually some method in the current government's garbled message..

Week 3 and all is busy...

It's the end of Week 3 and I have handed in my Ethics in Engineering essay, completed and submitted my sustainability assessment of my house and discovered enough about phytoremediation to be able to submit an abstract for a research project which will investigate opportunities for bio-fuels generated by the plants being used to clean up contamination on petroleum sites. Huge thanks to my environmental colleagues at work who know really interesting stuff about cleaning up pollution and shared that with the safety chick!

Further to my post about biofuels, the idea behind the research project is growing bio-fuels on land which is not putting either food production, forests or native flora/fauna at risk.

Battling my way through an acoustics assignment for next week....

To eat or to drive? - could be the future question

After a spot of reading for my Biofuels assignment, it is becoming clearer to me at least (for those more enlightened bear with me), that being alternative is not as simple as it looks.

In a week where the ongoing unrest in Libya sent the oil price up, only to be (literally) shaken down again by the devastation wrought by Mother Nature in Japan, we have been reminded that cheap fuel is at the whim of a jittery market.

On the face of it, being the good economic rationalists most of us find ourselves being, alternative fuels are there and at the moment, are competitive. Really? The following is worth considering, given that the the time of writing, oil was trading just under $US 100/barrel;

Brazilian ethanol from sugarcane is competitive at $US25-30/barrel
US ethanol (from corn) is competitive at $US 50-60/barrel and even
EU ethanol (born of cereals, sugar beet and/or agricultural subsidies) is competitive at $US 70/barrel.

Brazil is one of the few countries where pure petroleum is no longer sold and the flex-fuel vehicles in that market run on 10-100% ethanol and/or petroleum blends.

However there is that small burning question, with an insatiable thirst for fuel, how will we grow enough to eat and drive? That's even before we consider the forests and the bio-diversity we are all rather used to.... Oh, if only it was that simple!

Vote 1 - Thermal Comfort

It's fair to say Australians really didn't seem to know what they wanted at the last federal Australia election yet we voted like the good little citizens that we are and now we can marvel on a daily basis at what democracy has produced...

Makes you want to withdraw back into the comfort of your own home and ignore the madness. However, what makes your home comfortable? Not surprising our perceptions of comfort, including "thermal comfort" differ from person to person.  But don't panic, like all good reality shows, you can vote and the researchers will happily listen. As far as I am aware though, no-one get evicted however in the UK, the government is currently worrying about it in their Fuel Poverty Strategy. It appears the Brits don't want anyone living in a home where the occupants cannot afford to heat the rooms to at least 18 degrees in winter.

Once upon a time we didn't have that wang-fangled air-conditioning thing (blowing cold or hot air for that matter).  However, with its advent came a need to define thermal comfort - it's hard to sell a product which creates a condition you cannot define! Enter the ASHRAE Scale and the Bedford Comfort Scale (the Yanks v the Brits) which essential provide alternative tools to vote for your level of comfort in the space in which you occupy (hot, warm, slightly warm, neutral, slightly cool, cool, cold or variations on that theme) and someone can measure and quantify it. Effectively using all the votes, they can calculate a mean comfort vote (something to do with average, rather than being malicious).

Here's where it gets more complicated than just voting (unless you like to vote below the line in the Senate). There are six basic elements which will affect your perception of thermal comfort - ambient air temperature, mean radiant temperature, air movement, clothing level, humidity and metabolic activity.

It's not an exact science but an interesting one, illustrated best by those working in the field. While running a workshop for a paper, the heating in the building had failed and each workshop participant (each a recognised expert) was asked to estimate the internal temperature of the building. Their guesses ranged from 9 to 20 degrees. The thermometer read 15.5 degrees.

The explosive truth about peace...

Why did it take this long (and a random series of lectures in Engineering Ethics) for me to discover that without dynamite, there would not have been a Nobel Peace Prize? There probably would have been a "Someone else Peace Prize" eventually, but not a Nobel one.

Son of a man who made naval mines from gunpowder and dabbled in arms manufacture (of the ordinance, not limb, variety), Alfred Nobel developed commercial production of nitrogylcerine, subsequently involved a brother (and several others in the wrong place at the right time) in a fatal explosion, improved the formulation and created dynamite. A pretty auspicious start for a man who would die bitter and wealthy but be inspired to leave all his money to establish the various Nobel prizes, including that for peace.

I love the fact that the Swedes select each of the winners except the Peace Prize - which has been outsourced to those neutral Norwegians since its inception in 1901.

It's probably not the most sustainable way to encourage philanthropy but it's an interesting thing to know...

Affluence, sustainability and happiness - an unholy trinity?

I expect to revisit this philosophical question in many guises so here's hoping I can keep up with engaging titles....

Riding my bike yesterday, I recalled a couple of discussions in the last week which made for some interesting thinking.

The week kicked off with a benign lecture on energy sources. It was all a bit Year 12 physics re-visited however my attention was piqued when mentioned that the resting human only requires 80W of energy (a reasonably bright old school light globe) and most sedentary work requires 100W (a bright light globe). Walking is about 350W and those active things, who like to run, use about 1000W. The simple message - energy for "being" (even with bursts of activity) is very low. The lecturer then asked - why do we need so much more energy for "living"?

Fast forward to the tutorial discussion about the sustainability of the design of each of our houses. There was much discussion about northernly aspects (or lack thereof), building materials, water tanks, solar panels, 24/7 appliance usage and utility bills. One fellow student quipped that his share-house couldn't afford to run up high electricity bills ergo student poverty appears to be quite sustainable! Which elucidated the following gems from the tutor
(i) studies have shown that homes in more affluent areas often have lower "sustainability scores" simply because the occupants can afford to use more energy even though they may also live "better designed" homes
(ii) occupant use of a building ultimately enhances or degrades sustainability performance of a building - a five-star green star built building will only deliver on its promise (the design and construction) if it is used well.

So that's why the "five star living" concept is quite relevant - everyone can improve what they have even if it wasn't all that great in the first place. How do you use your level of affluence to influence your sustainability?

 After we had all dissected the "environmental sustainability" of our houses, we were surprised to be asked "Does your house make you happy"? In the multiple tools measuring "sustainability" they have yet to develop an index of happiness associated with a building. Perhaps the next study trip will be to Bhutan?

Don't be misled by the green background...

I probably should have made this the first post and not the third one, but it was Day 5's key learning and I do like a logical sequence of events...

In keeping with the guidance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on green claims please be aware that the background colour of this blog should not be construed to infer anything other than I thought it looked good.

This blog has no known environmental benefit and none is claimed by its author. There is no recycled material anywhere in this blog - the text is original and hopefully in pristine condition when you read it. There is no certification applicable to this blog and none is claimed. No frogs, wombats or other beloved fauna were targeted,or tested in the making of this blog.

I do subscribe to GreenPower (R) and as a result pay a premium to offset 100% the carbon dioxide emissions created as part of electricity generation process. I am not fooled, and neither should you be, that as a result there is less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It just means that some more alternative energy sources get a boost in funding so one day, when the black and brown stuff runs out, we have some alternatives which are tried, tested and most importantly installed!

Five star living....

Don't panic, by the end of week one, it hasn't all been irrelevant lectures and strange encounters with building sites, although there are quite a few to avoid, which I guess bodes well for facilities for future generations which some of you are happily producing at a rapid rate.

On Day 3, the tiny little part of me that always wished I'd changed my first UAC preference to Architecture at UNSW when I had the chance (and miraculously the marks as it turned out) all those years ago finally got to say "I told you so".

Amongst the sea of engineering subjects I have found myself floating in, there is a small Architectural island, promising the basics of sustainable residential design. So far, so fun. I think my fellow students (all third years methinks) wonder from which time-machine I stepped and I can remember the disdain which my fellow undergrads directed at our batch of mature-agers the first time round.

I discovered that despite everything about my current place that defies sustainable housing (including its three ancient a/c units!) and even on a student budget, it is possible to enjoy five star living, NABERS-style. Apparently, if you don't use much electricity, gas or water, you will have a higher rating! Take the challenge and if you dare, find those utility bills and enter the numbers in www.nabers.com.au.

Are you enjoying 5 star living?

The ethics of engineering....

The strangest place I ended up on day 1 was not
(a) a 6 star green star spaceship which doubles as an Engineering building
(b) buying a text book in the middle of a large space that used to be a refectory
(c) gazing at piling rig in the middle of what used to be a lovely lawn to sit on in my youth
but rather
(d) in the first two of six lectures in a series on Engineering Australia's Code of Ethics.

The lecturer acknowledged audibly that the subject matter applied to the vast number of fourth year engies of all persuasions in the subject who run a distinct chance of graduating sometime soonish. He seemed unsure as to what to do with those post-grad blow-ins from Sustainability lowering the tone. In turn, I acknowledged silently to myself that as the lectures just happened to be in a Masonic Lodge, that apparently exclusive societies beget other exclusive societies.

As a hardened campaigner against the innumerable acts of stupidity possible while wearing a hat, and still casual employee of a professional consulting engineering company which must remain nameless, it was an eye-opening experience. Hopefully my two page essay on the matter demonstrates I learnt something...

If you are curious, concerned or just having trouble sleeping, feel free to check out the link www.engineeringaustralia.org.au/ethics.