Streets Meet for the First Time

It's official - Mulgoa and Penrith City Garden Club are the latest Sustainability Streets in Penrith!

The first meetings of these brand new groups were held on Saturday, with a great turn out for both groups.

Mulgoa was the first street out of the blocks, meeting in the park at the top of The Straight Road. We found at the meeting that there was a lot of interest from people who lived outside of The Straight Road so we are now going to refer to the group as the Mulgoa Sustainability Street to encourage people from other streets who live in Mulgoa to come and join in. There was a lot of interest in learning more about saving energy and water from the members of the group, as well as finding suitable grant funding to apply for, so the next meetings will be covering these topics.

The members of the 'street' have decided to hold their next meeting on Saturday 25 August at Aisha's place to learn about composting, worm farming and cutting down on waste. If you are keen to come to the next meeting or find out more contact Carmel Hamilton on 4732 8050. The meeting will begin at 10:15am.

The afternoon saw Penrith City Garden Club meet in the lovely backyard of Jan and Jon Hennell at Orchard Hills for a quick sausage sizzle lunch before getting down to 'Sustainability Street' business!

A great afternoon was had by all as they found out all about Sustainability Street and mapped out a plan for the next few sessions. Their next meeting will also be held on Saturday 25 August with Janis nominating her house at Emu Plains for the session. The meeting will kick off just after 1pm. To find out more contact Carmel Hamilton on 4732 8050.

Solar Boats for Penrith

Last night (Wednesday 25 July) I was lucky enough to attend the official launch of the Adopt-A-School Solar Boat Challenge at the Log Cabin in Penrith. This is a great program that has been pulled together by the local Schools - Industry Partnership Program with support from Penrith City Council and local businesses.

Penrith Mayor, Councillor Pat Sheehy, was on hand to launch the program and congratulate the teachers from the five schools within the Penrith Local Government Area who have come on board to the program. The picture above shows the Mayor, with representatives from the Schools - Industry Partnership, SEES Pty Ltd and teachers from participating schools: Caroline Chisholm College, Cranebrook High School, Nepean High School and Penrith Anglican College.

Basically, ten local businesses have signed up to sponsor and partner a local school to participate in the upcoming Australian International Solar Boat Challenge. These local businesses have made it possible for each local school to receive a solar boat kit - absolutely FREE - that they can use to build their own solar boat to compete in the State Finals of the Solar Boat Challenge, which is being held in Penrith later this year.

The businesses will continue to mentor 'their' school while the school needs to use the Solar Boat Challenge to promote 'their' sponsor! It's a great win-win situation which means that more local kids can get involved in a great project to learn about alternative energy, design and teamwork all while, hopefully, having a great time.

To find out more about the Solar Boat Challenge and how your school can become involved visit their website http://www.solarchallenge.com.au/, download a fact sheet or contact Council's Sustainability Education Officer, Carmel Hamilton, on 02 4732 8050.

Straight Road to Sustainability

Sustainability Street in Penrith continues to grow, with our two newest streets about to get started. The Straight Road in Mulgoa and Penrith City Garden Club will hold their first meetings on Saturday 28 July and bring the total number of Sustainability Streets within the Penrith LGA to six! Who knows where it will all end - hopefully one day there will be Sustainability Street signs all over Penrith and thousands of people working together on real grass roots sustainability.

There's definitely a lot of excitement in the air with recent media articles in both the Penrith Press and Western Weekender adding to the interest. Vanessa Steele, of Blue Organics, will be working closely with both groups on the Sustainability Street project and be putting together some great workshops. Vanessa (left in the green singlet) is really looking forward to getting started and has some great ideas for practical green living.

I'm sure you will be hearing a lot more about what these two groups are up to over the coming months as they take the Sustainability Street challenge. If you are keen to find out the latest information on all of our Sustainability Streets you can sign up to receive the newsletter - just email Carmel Hamilton and provide your details. Better yet, why not come along to the Sustainability Street sessions and have some fun while you save the earth- contact Carmel for more details.

Swimmer Suffers for the Planet

When you think about the impacts you might ‘suffer’ if you were to make some changes to live more sustainably and reduce your impact on climate change they probably seem fairly inconsequential when you read about the extremes that swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh has gone to! Suffering through shorter showers and having to deal with the inconvenience of TVs and washing machines switched off at the wall just doesn’t seem to cut it.

On July 15 Pugh undertook a world first by swimming a kilometre in the north poles freezing waters (-1.8˚C!!), and he did this to raise awareness of the effects that climate change is having on the polar ice caps and the rapid rate at which they are melting. Pugh says ‘I can’t think of a better way to show that climate change is a reality than by swimming in a place that should be totally frozen over.’

Pugh braved the water for 18 minutes and 50 seconds while he thrashed out a lazy kilometre in a pool formed in thick ice by rising global temperatures. On emerging he said “I hope my swim will inspire world leaders to take climate change seriously. The decisions which they make over the next few years will determine the biodiversity of our world.”

It’s definitely inspiring to hear of someone so committed to a cause, and his brave call to action has generated a huge amount of media highlighting the issue of climate change and the need to act now. Though, based on the number and content of articles and stories that have been appearing in the media these days about climate change, global warming and other related subjects it seems that global attention to this issue is quickly increasing in priority and becoming more mainstream.

This week's announcement by the Federal Government of their plan to introduce an emissions trading scheme by 2012 is just another sign that climate change is an issue that is not going to disappear.

So, why not be inspired by Lewis Gordon Pugh and take the time to make a few more changes for the planet – lucky for us we needn’t jump into freezing cold water to do it! Although I do hear that Greenpeace are looking for volunteers to strip off for a photo on a shrinking glacier in Switzerland in the next couple of weeks!

But seriously, there are plenty of ways you can make a difference – check out some of our fact sheets or visit the websites listed below.

Useful Websites:
1. NABERS - http://www.nabers.com.au/home.aspx
2. GreenPower - http://www.greenpower.gov.au/home.aspx
3. Energy Smart - http://www.energysmart.com.au/
4. NSW Government Climate Change - http://www.greenhouse.nsw.gov.au/
5. It's A Living Thing - http://www.itsalivingthing.net.au/
6. Australian Greenhouse Office - http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/