An August 2002 conference in Casey, Building Sustainable Communities on the Urban Fringe brought together council planners from around Victoria, particularly the outer suburbs, as well as representatives of State Government and academia. Topics included: Local case studies highlighting the relationship between planning, community development and wellbeing; Examples of successful integrated planning; Exploring strategies for [...]
I was quite blown away by these stats — based on US figures — but no doubt quite similar here in Australia. About half the energy used in the US goes into constructing, heating, lighting and maintaining the nation's buildings. That's taken from an article by the Rocky Mountain Institute's Greg Franta based on [...]
I'd like to draw your attention to two reviews of the book Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (Architectural Press, 2005) edited by British architect Andre Viljoen. I met Andre a year ago in Dublin after he presentated at the FEASTA Food Security in an Energy Scarce World conference, so while I haven't read the book I [...]
This is a short video interview of Megan Quinn, Outreach Director of The Community Solution, inteviewed by Davie Philip of Sustainable Ireland. The interview took place at the Local Solutions to the Energy Dilemma conference in New York on April 27-29 2006. Sustainable Ireland will be launching a 'Powerdown Project' in the near future in [...]
Megan Quinn sent through an article containing this quote from Karen Berney, a US-based community health consultant: “The goal of Peak Oil education is to bring about change in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices,” Berney said. “To do so they must take ownership of the problem, and develop their own solutions.” She added that adults [...]
This came in the mail from the wonderful Sustainability Street project of Vox Bandicoot – a concept which started in Darebin and is spreading around the world!: Calling all Westgarth residents … Let's make Westgarth's streets Sustainability Streets! Would you like to have friends round the corner, grow your own vegies, or have fun learning [...]