LagrangePoint - Brad Howarth

The Earth Hour debate

A couple of weeks back I made mention of Earth Hour, the Australian-born initiative to raise aware of climate change through asking everyone to turn off their lights and electrical appliances for one hour. It's a cause I've personally wrestled with ... While I appreciate that it is effective in terms of giving added publicity to the topic of sustainable living, it does also seem to be a token effort in the face of ongoing carbon pollution - especially as Australians seem unwilling to take the message and put it into action through buying green power or leaving their cars at home. As best I can estimate Australians have done little in the last year to mend their ways, despite most of the country having heard about Earth Hour a year ago ... but surely no one thinks that turning off the lights for one hour is enough ...?

There is also the danger of Earth Hour becoming a bandwagon, where corporate heavyweights with dubious green credentials jump on for the ride. I fear that the public may be on the verge of becoming highly cynical about some of the environmental messages out there, and attempts at 'green-washing' won't exactly help.

But at the same time, for that one hour a large number of Australians 'come together' (in some spiritual fashion at least) in doing something about carbon emissions and climate change. And that can't be a bad thing, can it?

Anyway, my interest was tweaked when Chris Simon alerted me to this editorial (Download smart_arse_april_4_2008.jpg) by John Mescall, executive creative director of SMART, in AdNews. Chris has also contributed his own spirited rebuttal here. This is not intended as an attack by me on John, and as I said, this is an issue that I am still pondering (isn't that a remarkable effort in fence-sitting??) so I thought I'd post them both up and see what everyone else has to say ... is Earth Hour a worthwhile event or an effort in corporate tokenism?

Trying again .. GQ - Sinking Feelings

Apparently the PDFs of the GQ Australia climate change story Sinking Feeling didn't quite work, so I'm trying again by chopping the file into four JPGs. Alternately, you can still pick it up from the news stands - look for the Australian edition with Jessica Alba on the cover ...

 

 

Dyanamic Business - The lean, green SME

I added another magazine to my roster in July when my first article for the SME-focused monthly publication Dynamic Business hit the shelves. This one was another chance for me to visit the topic of what can be done by businesses to reduce their environmental footprint - in this case, looking at the steps that SMEs can take to reduce their impact. The story has not yet gone up to the magazine's website, but you can check it out in the August edition, or take a look at the un-corrected draft version here: Download dynamic_business_green_smes_draft.rtf

Carbon trading - the emission mission

One of the topics that I'll be writing about soon is the whole kerfuffle that is expected to emerge around the new field of carbon offset trading. As various companies vie to demonstrate themselves as greener than thou, an industry is springing up offering to do everything from plant trees to investing in solar power in order to offset those emissions that can't easily be eliminated. The problem however is that not all offsets are the same shade of green ... Anyway, anyone wanting to learn more will get the chance at the Oz Carbon Trading Conference, to be held in Sydney on May 31 and June 1. For more information, click here:

Another option to make a difference

In my quest to find new and interesting climate change related companies, the CEO of small Melbourne software developer NETapplica, Marc Lehman, pointed me to this one that he is involved with: ICEUS. Like Todae, the goal of ICEUS is to show that making a difference in terms of climate change is not too expensive or too hard for the business world, including tools to calculate your carbon offset footprint and buy or gift an offset certificate.

Story in development - Climate change

Thought I would have another crack at using this blog to open up the journalism research process to the world ...Am currently immersed in two new features on climate change. The first is investigating the impacts that it will have on society (how the cost of certain items will rise, how certain foods will become harder to get, how property prices might change as rainfall patters change, how diseases and pest species may move into new areas, etc). The second involves ferreting out those technologies and researchers who are working on technologies that can help alleviate the causes and effects of climate change, as well as investigating how organisations can use technology to make themselves more climate friendly.

Any suggestions appreciated, and e-mail is the best way to reach me.

The Stern Review on climate change

Anyone who has been recently nudged into action by Tim Flannery's excellent book The Weather Makers or Al Gore's film might want to check out The Stern Review from the UK, which delves into the economic ramifications of climate change. I wonder how long it will before statements such as "There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now" are translated into a darker, past-tense statement ...