We recently posted that we have gone solar. I do like the fact that we don’t give any money to the power companies but I do think that there’s no way that solar is going to solve all our energy problems, it’s simply not as dense as the thousands of years of stored solar energy…
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Treading Solar
We’ve been resisting going solar for a while. It’s not that we don’t support the concept. It’s just that we’ve been to too many houses where solar panels are just an excuse to continue over-using energy. We figured first we needed to decrease our usage and then we would consider getting panels in. Well we’ve…
Read MoreDivestment
I recently went to a talk at the Melbourne University festival for Ideas. This was a fantastic event that brought together a whole heap of experts from a wide range of fields to provide brief insights into their thinking on specific topics. It was all free and open to anybody who was interested, heavily supported…
Read MoreTransition 2.0
I seem to start a lot of these posts off with the words ‘it’s been a busy’. I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m linguistically limited or whether it just seems that there’s always something going on. Don’t get me wrong though, to be occupied and challenged in doing something that you love is a…
Read MoreScarecrows on Rossmoyne
How do you engage with your street community? It’s a question that’s pretty central if streets and communities are to become the functional group in a re-localised society, but it’s remarkably difficult. One of the things that I think is part of the trick is to ensure that there is a variety of opportunities for…
Read MoreReturn to Our Apple Tree
I’ve got to admit I was a bit skeptical. I’d been to a couple of the recent working bees at Our Apple Tree and had been a little let down by the turn-out. They reminded me of an anecdote about a group who helped start community gardens. They would hold an initial meeting and if…
Read MoreImagine that!
The problems of the world cannot possible be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. John F Kennedy So today marked the first day of what seems to have become a very training heavy end to the year.…
Read MoreOn Reflection
The opportunity to publicly talk about what we have been doing has been an interesting challenge. I talk for a living so it’s not the standing up and talking in front of people that concerns me but it did challenge us to think about what have we actually done, achieved and what is the impact.…
Read MoreAnd then there were six (a busy weekend part II)
Our nature strip has been a great success. At times, when the kids are asleep and I’m avoiding doing the housework, I just spend a little while watching passers-by stop and consider what it is exactly that they’re looking at. Some look around as if they are on hidden camera and this is some sort…
Read MoreTreading Lightly to the Pub
It’s been a frantic week at Treading Lightly HQ. The Johnson Strip, our plant to reclaim the nature strips has made a quantum leap. Our nature strip is still looking great and the second box is really starting to fill up nicely with green as you can see. This is obviously making people consider what…
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