Sustainability Street
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wake up call
Page 1 of 6
Wake-Up Calls and Mind-Up By Willoughby Council Staff, September 2005
Wake Up Call- by Erika Van Schellebeck
Living sustainably is the single most important thing you will ever do.
Why? Because this is a critical time in history. We are currently
having such a dramatic impact on every natural system on this planet,
that if we don’t start to do something now, the results will be
catastrophic.
Look at global warming. The greenhouse effect, as it’s otherwise known,
is going to have an impact on every single plant, animal and person on
this planet. Floods, droughts, storms- like Hurricane Katrina,
increases in diseases like malaria, and sea-level rise. It has been
predicted that our sea level could rise by up to 30cm by the year 2040.
That’s only 35 years away!
Now, I’ve recently discovered the joy of taking my young son Leroy to
the Northbridge Baths. It’s a magical spot that looks out over the
shimmering blue harbour and towards the peaceful green bushland suburb
of Castlecrag. You can sit on the grass under the shade of the Sydney
Red Gums, but the best thing is playing on the beach. It’s a lovely
long shallow, sandy beach that we sit on and play in the sand, and then
we wade out into the calm deeper water so that Leroy can float and kick
his legs madly like a little frog.
But if we don’t start reducing our greenhouse gases, when I’m 65 I
probably won’t be able to take my own grandchildren to this same spot.
A 30cm rise in the level of the harbour could mean that this long,
sandy beach simply won’t exist anymore. Wow, it’s pretty full on,
isn’t it?
Now up until a month ago, if you had told me all that I would have
tried to forget about it because it just seemed so scary and made me
feel so hopeless. But since then I’ve had my own wake-up call! I’ve
realized that there are lots of things that people like you and me can
do that will make a huge reduction in greenhouse gases and ensure that
scenarios like this don’t happen.
Switch to Green power, change to a more fuel-efficient or hybrid car,
leave the car at home one day a week and catch public transport or walk
instead. These are not hard things to do. They don’t have a major
impact on our lifestyle, but they will make a huge reduction in
greenhouse gases. They say we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
by 70% by 2050. If you own a 4WD and replace it with a hybrid fuel car
or a smaller fuel efficient car, or if you switch to green power, you
can achieve a c cut of that magnitude in a day rather than half a
century.
Today we have the knowledge, the understanding and the technology to
shape our future. By each one of us making these easy changes to live
sustainably, we can ensure that our grandchildren and
great-grandchildren can enjoy this amazing planet as much as we do.
Emma’s sustainability wake up call- by Emma Hayes
There is a lot in the media about climate change.We’re starting to be fearful.Thinking that ‘water front’ property may not be such a good idea.
Wondering what species will survive? Will the human race?
How much longer can the third world survive with no riches and an ever-degraded environment?
It’s time to stop wondering. It’s time to start working. Working as a competing species. Focused like others, on survival.
Like bees in a hive… great sacrifices are made for the greater good of the hive. The male drone for example will have its genitales ripped out and will die after doing the job of impregnating the queen!
Personal, habitual change can seem as horrifying to some of our species.
Change can impinge on our personal comfort zone. A bubble of justification is our zone.
We justify our wants as needs. For example, our need to carry stuff in cars and get across town faster than everyone else does. Buy packaged goods because it means we’ll be eating faster… blah blah blah… faster and faster the feral bees work. Buzzing here buzzing there… Buzz Buzz Buzz.
In every activity, do they realise they are decreasing habitat and a major food source for our native species?
In all our activities, do we consider the impact on our human hive called planet earth? It's time to focus our efforts and reduce our feral like impact on the earth.
Reduce our want for honey and provide some hospitable habitat for the Blue-banded Bee types in our human hive.
Lets reduce our TAKE.
Inform the rest of our MAKE.
Put down the hose… and pick up a RAKE.
HOW MUCH DO WE REALLY KNOW- By Tim Bartley
We are one species in 30 million according to the wake up call provided and that may seem like a lot.
If you place your fore finger on your forehead there will be 100 million microbes in that space.
People have been to the moon. However, we have more difficulty getting to the bottom of our earths oceans - and we have not discovered many animals, bacteria, fungi and virus.
Northbridge Baths in a beautiful location with facilities and water quality equal to that of Sydney’s ocean beaches. However, the sand is placed there by council for the people to enjoy it is not natural - many other areas taken over by man and altered are now considered normal.
What is more important to Sydneysiders - a 2 billion dollar desalination plant or better education for our children, a better health system and improved water savings?
I am preaching to the converted on this subject as we realise the issues and listen to one another. Nevertheless politicians and leaders do twist the truth or not bother to find out in the first place.
The choice is ours.
WAKE UP CALL- by James Smallhorn
I am putting to you that sustainability is the most important thing that we should strive towards.
How can we be truly happy and healthy without a clean environment around us?
Just imagine a life without;
- Clean air,
- A blue sky
- Clean water to drink
-Clean beaches to swim in
- The sound of birds.
We are heading in this direction….the warning signs are already here:
New South Wales is in trouble;
80 species of plants and animals have become extinct in our state.
1000 are currently threatened with extinction.
With a population increase in of 1000 people and climate change inducing drought Sydney is running out of water.
We can’t swim for three days after it rains…
All this is pretty bad news but it is up to each of us to stop this trend and
move towards a more sustainable life.
This will lead to each of us being healthier and leading a way to a clean beautiful environment – this is what is important and really counts.
Wake Up Call- by Denise Anderson
In the last 250 years of industrialisation, there has been
• A tenfold growth in world population
• Huge economic growth and mammoth increases in food production
• People are living longer
• And generally, we are better off with good employment opportunities and well being.
But the price of progress is high. The earth’s life support systems are in peril:
• There is widespread land and water degradation
• We are losing species at an alarming rate, by mid this century, a quarter of species will be extinct.
• There are inequalities in resource distribution both between and within the developed and underdeveloped nations leading to global instability, terror and wars.
• The combustion of fossil fuels, the very thing that drives our industry, agriculture, homes, is contributing to climate change threatening the ecosystems that we all depend on. You just need to listen to the news to know climate change is affecting us now. Just today, NASA released a study predicting that 2005 was going to be the hottest on record.
• Already 2 billion people suffer from severe water shortages, but by 2025 it may be 4 billion.
• 10 million people per year are displaced by environmental degradation and the Red Cross says more people are refuges from environmental disasters than war.
Sustainability is the agenda of our age.
• It is practical and useful
• It can integrate across professions and disciplines, which is why is important that you’re all here today.
• It can draw communities, governments, academics and the commercial sector ti work together, as we are doing now.
• It is a concept that our world leaders need to express to show leadership in a time of global fear and with new heights of inter-racial and inter-religious barbarity.
• Sustainability is therefore a great source of hope.
The Sustainability St project has been building better relationships with each other and building a much better relationship with the natural world are the greatest challenges of human history - Sustainability Street ... a new reason to be neighbours.
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