What’s your vision for Victoria?
Have your voice heard!
In 2010, both the state and federal governments go to the polls. And what better opportunity to put a little pressure on those pollies and get the policies we need for our environment.
A healthy environment and a safe future for all Victorians must be the top priority for all parties contesting the 2010 state election. And so Victoria’s leading environment groups have put the parties on notice. We’ve released a document outlining seven key areas that require urgent action by the party that wins next November’s state election. It's called Turning it Around. Make sure you have a gander and use it when voting this November.
Meantime, we’re working hard to ensure that both elections deliver big time for the environment. But we can’t do it without some people power! Tell us your vision for Victoria and we’ll make sure they get the message loud and clear.
There’s three ways to get your voice heard
Come to the Sustainable Living Festival
Not only will you get copious amounts of excellent info that will inspire and empower you. You’ll also get to have your say at our very special video booth, run in partnership with the Sustainable Living Festival.
We’ll be asking you to record your message to politicians, letting them know what you want them to do to safeguard our environment, and what Green Actions you’re taking in your own life. Your recording will be passed onto Brumby himself and the Opposition too! Now that’s getting it straight from the horse’s mouth!
Need more motivation? Check out the great festival program here.
Upload your own video to our website
Can’t get to the festival? Never fear! You can send in your video straight from your kitchen table, from the porch, hey even from up high in your tree house. Simply record your message and save it to a video-hosting site like Vimeo or YouTube and plug in the embedding code here. (It’s not that tricky, we promise).
Join the discussion
Of course you can always let your fingers do your talking and share your vision with us right here on this blog.
Have your say now…
UPDATE
Watch the videos from the Sustainable Living right here
Comments
Australia misses the bus
Just back from Germany...
...saw more solar PV and hot water than Australia is likely to have within the next 10-20 years...and all that in a country with just over half of Australia's solar radiation.
It hurts to see such an embrace of largely Australian developed PV technology. And they say we Australians love our sun.
What's wrong with Australia?..why don't we get it.
Also reminds me of when I lived in Turkey in 1987/88. 90% of household hot water was derived from solar.
Come on Australia...we can do better.
Change hurts
How can we get the message across to Politicians and a convenience enamoured public that we need to change our lifestlyes before it is too late? We need real leadership from politicians and community leaders to make sacrifices so we can make the transition to clean green economy. With the coming election-I'll vote for any party willing to stand up take the strongest stance. I hope you will too.
Change our thinking
There are many great groups trying to change attitudes and behaviours about the need to be sustainable and protect the environment and it would be fabulous if they got together under one banner and lobbied government. Marketing should be used as an important avenue of reaching the community and providing information, this could be done on public transport and billboards, even truck canvas to get the message across to those who wouldn't normally be reached. Also by using green shopping bags to highlight the issues which could fund EA's campaigns while keeping the issues out there on a daily basis.
My vision for Victoria is restoring and protecting forests, rivers, oceans and biodiversity necessary for life as we know it. It is to not permit the removal of vegetation but rather to limit the amount of building that is gobbling up all the land. We should change the way we think of building estates to incorporate wildlife corridors and linking them. Instead of each house being on a block of land all houses could be joined together retaining privacy but leaving larger land areas to provide landscape amenity, visual appeal, and wildlife corridors with paths through for cycling or walking to shops located nearby. Governments should educate the community on the harm domestic animals have on wildlife through advertising. To get governments to provide grants to artists and crafts people to create beautiful imagery of Australian flora and fauna and market these in a way that changes the public's perception of the worth of our biodiversity; this can be done through manchester, crockery and other objects of general use.
Governments should be pressured to ensure plants that are weeds are not permitted to be sold by nurseries and pest animals or insects are not allowed introduced into our country and used for agricultural use, eg. introduction of the bumblebee for hothouse tomato pollination. Gardening programs and magazines mainly encourage growing exotic plants and the community have little or no knowledge of our local plants, this should be addressed and changes made.
Solar panels should be installed on all roofs and this should be financed by the electricity companies who in turn would charge the customer for this [this is how it is done in Germany]. Government should be investing heavily in all sustainable projects that will offer long term solutions to climate change. Electric cars should be being produced here in Victoria providing new business opportunities, and this combined with shelters fitted out with solar panels to recharge the batteries would create further business potential for the solar industry in Victoria.
Overseas there are so many innovative and creative ideas and Australia could adopt a lot of these to reduce waste, create employment, build sustainable housing, limit population growth, and protect our fragile, unique and wonderful biodiversity.
A 5 million person green army
For every person in Victoria to take some kind of green action, and to know that this is THE opportunity of our lifetime not a burden to have to deal with. We can reimagine the drivers or commerce and industry to reshape society much as the abolition of slavery kick started the industrial revolution. Abolishing our dependence on fossil fuel will kick start the environment revolution. But if you look around it is already happening - so much amazing innovation and passion. We can do this.
Population
I think Dick Smith was correct in saying we need to cap the amount of children that people have. We already do not have enough water for Melbournians as it is being pumped there from the Goulburn. imagine when the population grows by thousands in a few years. Where is all the food and water going to come from to sustain all of these people??????
Measuring building efficiency using performance-based criteria
Current measures of building efficiency use a 'tick-the-box' system, eg Do you have ceiling insulation, yes/no? Many European and North American rating systems use performance-based indicators to provide an accurate assessment of a building's thermal efficiency, eg how much air and thus temperature is passing through the building structure? How fast does the building heat up and cool down without using air conditioning? What do we need to do to live comfortably without the need for air conditioning.....?
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