Regrow Qld 3 March 2021 Issue 9 Vol 2 (Subscriber)
New merch, planting trees with clicks, growing pineapples, and driving 500km for a paddle in a creek.
Autumn is upon us with slightly cooler weather and the chance of a cyclone. It’s a time for reflection on our lives and for reflection about the direction of our country. Doing the same things over and over and expecting the environment to just keep giving is madness. So we decided to do something different - and here it is. A positive vision for our future, every week. If you would like to help us out, $5 /month or $50 /year will be greatly appreciated. Donations are going to much needed equipment such as wildlife cameras and air monitors - and you’ll see the results here.
Thanks in advance : )
Editorial
Anna Hitchcock
My friends,
As Autumn approaches, Central Queensland has had not nearly its fair share of the La Nina rains we were promised. In fact, barring a cyclone, things are looking very grim indeed. A weak La Nina does nothing for Central Queensland, in fact, more often than not, this means dryer weather than normal.
But what is normal? I could recall some wet years from my childhood as normal, or the killer drought that broke in 1983 as normal. The fact is that in order to avoid our own biases we need to go and look at data. Humans are really really bad at being objective when it comes to our own memories. We tend to remember stand out events, and not the daily hum drum.
So when it comes to weather, and we look at the data, we must really put our biases aside. As much as we would wish for a wet CQ, the reality is that it is mostly dry. So let’s plan for that. Let’s fix our soils so that any rain that does fall gets absorbed. Let’s plant trees so that the transpiration process adds some more rain to the system, and let’s create better communities so that people don’t get left behind or go to the wall for lack of a little support.
{Anna}
Merch!
It’s now possible to buy a ReGrow Qld mug from our new Redbubble shop! (we’ll be adding more items over the next few months).
We recommend the ‘Classic mug’ shape, as our real world testing suggests that the handle will fit bigger hands. Dainty it is not. A good solid item for a good solid idea.
Postage was super quick and we had the item in our hot little hands in a little over a week.
Here’s the link: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/?query=Gladstone%20Conservation%20Council&ref=search_box
or search Redbubble for Gladstone Conservation Council.
Profits go to our donations fund which is used for things like wildlife cameras and air monitors.
NEWS
Hitting net zero by 2050 could add $1 trillion to the U.S. economy
“To avoid catastrophic climate change, the U.S. needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning that emissions shrink so much that whatever’s left can be offset by nature or by technology such as machines that can suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. A new report from the nonprofit Energy Innovation says that the goal is possible—and reaching it comes with other benefits, most notably adding nearly $1 trillion to the GDP.
“Our modeling, along with several other recent deep decarbonization studies, shows getting the U.S. to net-zero emissions by 2050 is feasible and would generate millions of new jobs and significant GDP growth for the U.S.,” says Robbie Orvis, director of energy policy design at Energy Innovation, where a team used a detailed modeling tool to analyze the policy needed to get to net zero. “Much of the reductions required can be achieved with today’s technology. But to be on track to net zero and also be on a 1.5 Celsius degree compliant pathway, the U.S. must get started right away.”
Forward thinking -
Peter van Beek
Converting clicks into trees?
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Converting what into what? Yes, you read it right: you can convert the clicks when you search the web into trees in the ground. And while you do that, you help to reduce Google’s obscene profits and power by just a tiny, tiny bit. But hey, every bit helps and you’ll be joining 15 million people worldwide.
There is a search engine called Ecosia[1] that uses 80% of its revenue from advertising, the money everybody fights about, to plant trees worldwide. That includes Australia. With partner ReForest Now, they funded the planting of 26,000 trees in the Byron Bay region last year and have since signed a contract to double that.[2] Australians already use Ecosia in some 7 million searches each month, up by 30% from last year.
The company says it is privacy friendly: searches are securely encrypted, anonymised within days, and never stored permanently. It creates no personal profiles based on search history which is a huge money maker for Google, Facebook and other search and data analysing companies. It does not use external tracking tools or sell data to advertisers.2
All that sounds good, but what assurance do we have that this is not a load of advertising hype, PR-spin or half-truths? We get enough of that, from the very highest levels of government down, and don’t need more of it.
Ecosia subjected itself to external certification to join the worldwide list of ‘B Corps’.[3], [4]These are businesses that live up to ‘high standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose’. It was the first German company to become a B-Corporation and is consistently rated amongst the top ones.
Ecosia uses the Bing technology owned by Microsoft and much poo-pooed by Google. But it can be a good idea to use more search engines than just Google. I do it to compare how biased Google really is, especially in its top-ten ratings. Ecosia is easy to download and install, even I could do it![5]And once installed, it works effortlessly with every click.
Because what have we got to lose? Nothing. The info we are asked for is already known by the big boys. What have we got to gain? More trees being planted, pinching back a tiny bit of Google’s excessive profits and a smidgen more privacy. All good in my books.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
[2]https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2021/02/meet-ecosia-the-b-corp-alternative-to-google/
[3] B Corp certification is conferred by B Lab, a global non-profit organization with offices in the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_%28certification%29
[4]https://bcorporation.net/about-b-corps[5]https://ecosia.en.softonic.com
Eco Friendly Living:
How to grow a pineapple
Growing pineapples in Qld is pretty easy - they don’t need much water, are happy in a variety of soils, and take about 2 years to fruit - way quicker than fruit trees. Also there’s the brag factor which goes something like this:
Guest: “Lovely fruit salad”
Me: “thanks, I GREW THE PINEAPPLE MYSELF”
Cue praise to bask in, such as “Oh wow, you’re so clever”, “I have the blackest thumbs, you must have green ones” and “They cost like $2 at the shops, why bother?”
Hmm. Don’t ever ask for praise from a teenager.
Anyway, here’s how you get a pineapple plant from a pineapple fruit:
Place the cut off top of the pineapple in a container of water. I’ve used a plastic one as this process takes some time.
The water will get disgusting as the flesh rots off. Assure your significant other that this is all part of the process. Tell your small children you are growing zombies. Change the water often - not because the plant needs it, but to prevent complaints from the neighbours.
As the flesh rots off, little white tentacles will appear. These are not the mark of Cthulu, nor some weird fungus, but exactly what we have wished for: roots.
STRRRRRIKE!
(When a cutting gets roots it’s called ‘striking’)
Once the roots are a nice big mass, then you can plant it out in the garden. Give it supplementary water until you are sure it is growing well. Pineapples are slow growers and will take a while to show stress, so err on the side of caution.
Pineapples: delicious and easy to grow.
Supplementary uses for the pineapple plant are as a spiky edging- they look great in a massed planting.
Happy gardening!
Anna
Opinion:
Get Him to The Creek
Folks, last weekend I did something I’ve waited all summer to do; waded into a flowing creek full of cool, clear, freshwater.
I even drank some; because that’s the sort of wild-eyed desperado I am.
And desperate is the word, because I had to travel nearly 500km to have a little paddle.
You see, and pardon the pun, rain in the Central Queensland area has been a bit thin on the ground this year; actually, for several years.
Look, I’ll be the first to admit the Gladstone district is not famed for its’ lush, tropical rainforests, rich soil, rolling green hills, wetlands and waterfalls. In fact, the lack of precipitation was a major factor in selecting our city as the perfect place to build one of the worlds’ largest alumina refineries back in the 1960’s.
Rain, you see, is the enemy of the alumina producing process.
(Note: Bowen was the other arid, coastal candidate, but our council must have put out a better spread of sandwiches and soft drinks when the selection committee popped by.)
But, even by Gladstone’s downpour dodging standards, this summer season has been a bit disappointing. Sadly, La Nina, the rain bringing weather system currently swamping much of Far North Queensland and Northern NSW, decided to skip our parched region this year and, as a result, the place is drier than a fried chicken leg in a service station hot box.
Apparently El Nino is predicted to return later this year, so hope for soaking rain is vanishing faster than grass in a cattle pasture. A tragedy for the native wildlife and heart-breaking for our poor farmers, their animals and crops.
You can be the best farmer in the world, but without rain you won’t be farming for long.
On a personal level, I have a six year old granddaughter who has never swum in a local freshwater creek or stream in this neck of the woods. And the waterways with puddles in them are not particularly enticing. Look, call me over-protective, but I’m a tad reluctant to let her frolic in stagnant pools where blue green algae is flourishing.
It appears our only hope for decent downpours lies in praying for a cyclone to pass through our area and dump a deluge of life bringing, creek filling, rain. Things must be pretty grim, because I’m seriously considering giving it a go; and I’m an agnostic.
But cyclones, like bushfires, droughts and floods have been getting bigger and badder in recent years, so I think I’ll skip petitioning The Almighty for the time being as the cure may be worse than the disease.
History is full of examples of civilisations, cities and towns that have been abandoned because the weather changed for the worst, or poor decisions were made regarding land and water management.
If the current local weather pattern we’re experiencing is the new normal, then there’s a pretty good chance my granddaughter and her children, will be swimming in the creek I was in on the weekend; along with the other climate refugees who were forced to move from our region.
But I’m pinning my hopes on our generation getting our collective acts together in time to avoid that particular scenario playing out, and folks, right now is a good time to leap into the water with us to find out how we can all make a difference before it’s too late.