SNIPPETS
new year and beyond
DID YOU KNOW? 2013’s global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels WERE 36 BILLION TONNES, A LEVEL UNPRECEDENTED IN HUMAN HISTORY.
SO THIS IS WHERE 2013 GOT US… WORDS BY Caitlin Howlett
Australia’s biggest green festival
The Planet Talks
The Sustainable Living Festival is in its 15th year! It takes place in Melbourne from 8 to 23 February, 2014. Head along to the heart of Melbourne for the Big Weekend from 14 to 16 February for workshops, demonstrations, artworks, exhibits, films and live performances. www.slf.org.au
Returning to Adelaide’s stunning Botanic Park Speakers Corner courtesy of the University of South Australia, The Planet Talks is part of the 21-year-old WOMADelaide festival, 7–10 March, 2014. A line-up of inspiring speakers from Australia, Europe and the US have been selected to talk in six thought-provoking panel discussions over three days. It’s
AuSSie, AuSSie, AuSSie New research shows that buying Australian-made products matters more to Aussies now than it did a year ago, and we regularly buy local, even if it comes at a cost. Yet, just 20 per cent of Aussie companies have a firm policy of buying Australian-made, and 34 per cent have no policy or preference whatsoever for buying Australian. As a conscious consumer, you can check out the online directory at www.australianmade. com.au for more than 10,000 certified Australian-made products, or look for the green-and-gold kangaroo logo for Australian Made, Australian Grown. For every $1 million of new or retained manufacturing business in Australia $333,900 worth of tax revenue is generated; $985,000 worth of value-added is generated; $95,000 worth of welfare benefits are saved; and ten full-time jobs are created.
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hosted by Robyn Williams (ABC Radio National) and Bernie Hobbs (ex ABC TV’s The New Inventors), and the 2014 program includes UK barrister, award winning author and Ecocide campaign founder Polly Higgins, Peter Garrett, Annabel Crabb, Simon Sheikh, Tanya Ha, Prof. Chris Daniels, Prof. Steffen Lehmann, Paul Gilding, Peter Ward (US), Simon Holmes à Court, Richard Slaughter, Peter Owen, Tory Shepherd, Tim Hollo and more. Check out the program at www.womadelaide.com.au.
THE RELISH OF LIVING FOOD This is perfect for the cooks that come from all ‘woks’ of life who’ve never quite mustard the strength to try making ferments. Get some sage advice from the well-seasoned living legend of ferments, Sandor Katz, who will be giving easily digestible talks around the country in February, 2014. So if you’ve got mushroom for improvement, don’t be a sauerkraut, and get your tickets here: www.milkwood.net
A recipe for every week The Foodies’ Diary 2014 is a handbag essential for any food lover, which, let’s face it, is most of us, right? It features an in-season list at the start of each month, plus more than 60 seasonal recipes, including Tunisian prawns with fattouche for September and Roasted apricots with amaretti crumble and almond panna cotta for December. From SBS Food, which is renowned for its encyclopedic global cooking knowledge, it’s a tasty visual feast of ideas. Hardie Grant Publishers, $29.95, www.sbs.com.au/shop
Get intimate with Great Whites IMAX theatres in Melbourne and Sydney will host a 3D experience that puts you face to face with one of the most feared and most misunderstood predators on our planet. Great White Shark 3D is a lively documentary of the true story of this species, which is more often than not misrepresented
by mainstream media. It’s hoped education will foster appreciation of and respect for this mysterious animal. Hear from the people that work with these giants of the sea, and see the well-known and not so well-known hotspots where these sharks live. www.imax.com.au
For your chance to WIN one of five double-passes to see Great White Shark 3D in Sydney or Melbourne, click on the WIN tab at www.greenlifestylemag.com.au and tell us why you want to see this film. >>
William Winram freedives with a Great White Shark in Guadalupe, Mexico
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FEATURE
25 ways
to live more sustainably NOT SURE WHERE TO START IN BECOMING ‘GREEN’? HERE ARE 25 HABITS TO START YOU ON YOUR WAY TO A MORE ECO-FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE. COMPILED BY Lesley Lopes
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1
EAT LESS MEAT.
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And choose organic where possible. Meat production is waterintensive, uses land that could be given over to food crops and contributes substantially to climate change.
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Have a three-bin system in the kitchen – one each for recycling, compost and general rubbish. You can also make it easier for your housemates, family or work colleagues to recycle by making sure the bins are well labelled. Use pictures instead of words for pre-schoolers. – Tanya Ha, writer, journalist and sustainable living advocate.
DON’T SHOP FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS.
Avoiding the supermarket for a bit will allow you to take stock of what’s in your pantry and fridge and help you to get into the habit of using up all the fresh produce in the crisper before buying more. Not-for-profit action group Do Something! estimates Australians throw out about 20 per cent of the food they buy – worth $7.8 billion each year.
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At work
REFUSE THE PLASTIC BAG.
What’s the point of putting two items in a plastic bag at the supermarket checkout just to carry them 30 m to your car? Just carry them if you’ve forgotten your reusable bag.
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MAKE RECYCLING EASY FOR THE FAMILY.
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INVEST IN A REUSABLE COFFEE CUP.
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PRINT DOUBLE-SIDED WHENEVER POSSIBLE.
Buy a takeaway coffee in a disposable cup almost every day at work and you’re sending almost 250 cups and plastic lids into landfill each year. Keep a reusable KeepCup (shown) or similar on your desk.
GET ORGANISED FOR RECYCLING.
Put a small container in the kitchen for spent batteries and make sure everyone in the household knows these chemicalfilled items don’t go in the regular bin. There are battery recycling bins in Officeworks and ALDI stores. Likewise, set up a dedicated recycling basket for soft plastic other than supermarket shopping bags: rice packets, bread bags and any other scrunchable plastic. This will substantially reduce the rubbish in your regular kerbside bin. There are drop-off points in 480 Coles supermarkets around the country.
Create a printer preset for double-sided printing so it becomes a habit.
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REFUSE THE FORK.
LOUISE LISTER; LESLEY LOPES; THINKSTOCK
At lunchtime, also avoid the takeaway chopsticks, the fishy soy sauce dispensers and the café sugar sachets. Have your own stash of condiments and cutlery in your desk drawer, or use those from your office tea room. >>
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F E AT U R E
Olivia and
ONE TREE PER CHILD Olivia Newton-John HELPED START NATIONAL TREE DAY IN AUSTRALIA 20 YEARS AGO. NOW A NEW TREE-PLANTING INITIATIVE FOR CHILDREN HAS GARNERED HER SUPPORT. WORDS BY Lesley Lopes
If every chil d in Australi a planted a tree before they reached the ag e of ten we’d have mill ions more trees greening up public spaces and im proving ou≠r country’s carb on footprint. Olivia Newton -John has lent her supp ort to an initiative th at would see tree planting even included in school curr iculums – called One Tr ee Per Child. Together with Jon Dee, founder of Do Something!, and his daught er Estelle (pictured), Ol ivia is using her impr essive eco credential s to help establish One Tree Per Child here an d overseas, and was on ha nd to launch it recently th e UK. It’s commitment li ke this that earned her th e Hall of Fame award at our recent Green Lifestyle Awar ds. Here, we take a look ba ck at some of her achiev ements and find out abou t her latest environmental projects.
We have an obligation to our children to become leaders IN CREATING THE CHANGE THAT WE ALL WANT TO SEE..
What was the first environmental issue you were passionate about and what motivated you to do something? Back in the 1970s I cancelled a tour of Japan due to the dolphins that were being killed in fishing nets there. That was probably the first ‘public’ issue, even though I have always been very conscious of what’s happening with the planet. I was also very proud to be named the first Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Environment Program, in 1990. Of course, trees are something very important to us on so many levels. In fact, I have planted over 10,000 native trees on my property in Australia [Gaia Retreat and Spa in the hinterlands of Byron Bay], and it’s beautiful to see how it has created a new wildlife corridor for so many species of animals and birds.
You and Jon Dee started National Tree Day in Australia (pictured above). During the time you both fronted the campaign, more than ten million trees were planted. How did it start? It began in 1993 when Jon and I were having a cup of tea at my home in Los Angeles. Jon was there to film me for a ‘Save the Planet’ TV ad and over my kitchen table we were talking about the fact that people weren’t planting trees like we did when we were young. One of us said “someone should start a national tree day”. It was one of those light bulb moments. To cut a long story short, National Tree Day began three years later. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved with that campaign. Those trees and shrubs have created a lot of habitat for Australia’s wildlife and helped to beautify many parks and urban areas around Australia.
You and Jon also ran a media campaign to save Tasmania’s Styx forests. The Tasmanian forest industry was unhappy about it, but do you feel validated for the position you took? Yes, I do. I realise it was a very difficult period for the logging communities, but sometimes you need to stand up and say what you feel in your heart. At that time, Jon and I took the TV program, A Current Affair, to see the logging. It had huge TV coverage and for many Australians it was the first time that they learned of the logging of beautiful old growth trees in Tasmania that were hundreds of years old. Not only that, we showed how the local native animals were being poisoned as well as losing their habitat. That the Styx has now received World Heritage listing shows that we were right to stand up and join the many others who were also campaigning to protect that beautiful part of Australia. >>
COOKING
ICE COOL THESE REFRESHING SUMMER TREATS ARE LOW IN SUGAR AND FREE FROM ARTIFICIAL COLOURINGS. RECIPES BY Tracy Rutherford PHOTOGRAPHY BY Steve Brown
If you like to know exactly what’s in the treats your family eats – and avoid artificial colourings and flavourings – these delicious icy dishes from Tracy Rutherford will do the trick. The kids will love the Mango Fro-yo Pops, while the Chai Spiced Ice-cream is a little more sophisticated – perfect for impressing dinner party guests.
CHAI SPICED ICE-CREAM Makes about 600 ml Preparation time: 20 minutes + chilling and freezing Cooking time: 15 minutes + standing
1 cup (250 ml) milk 300 ml cream 3 tsp black tea leaves 5 cardamom pods 1 cinnamon stick 3 whole cloves ½ tsp ground ginger 6 egg yolks ½ cup (110 g) caster sugar Chopped roasted almonds and sweet biscuits, to serve Combine the milk, cream, tea leaves and spices in a medium saucepan. Place over medium-low heat and slowly bring to the boil. Turn off the heat and stand for 15 minutes. Use a wire whisk to whisk the egg yolks and sugar until thick, creamy and pale in colour. Reheat the milk mixture until hot. Slowly pour onto the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Wash out the saucepan. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into the saucepan. Stir with a wooden spoon over low heat for 10 minutes, until mixture thickens. Don’t let it boil, or it will curdle. It is ready when you can run your fingertip through the mixture on the back of the spoon and a line stays in place. Transfer to a clean bowl and set aside to cool, stirring occasionally to release the heat. Cover and refrigerate until chilled. Churn in an ice-cream churn according to manufacturer’s instructions. Place into an airtight container and freeze until firm. Serve with a sprinkling of chopped roasted almonds and sweet biscuits. Note: If you don’t have a churn, freeze
mixture then break up and process or beat with electric beaters in a chilled bowl. Return to freezer. It won’t be quite as creamy, but it will still be good.
RASPBERRY ROSE SEMIFREDDO Makes about 2 litres Preparation time: 20 mins Cooking time: 5 mins + overnight freezing
3 eggs 3 egg yolks ¾ (165 g) cup caster sugar 1 tsp rosewater 600 ml cream, whipped 125 g raspberries, roughly crushed with a fork ½ cup (65 g) pistachios, chopped
Put the eggs, yolks and sugar into a heatproof bowl (glass is best). Place over a pan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Using electric beaters, beat for 5 minutes, until very pale, thick and increased in volume. Remove the bowl from the pan. Add the rosewater and beat briefly to combine. Use a large metal spoon or rubber spatula to fold the cream through the egg mixture until evenly combined. Lightly fold in the raspberries and pistachios. Transfer to a container, cover and freeze overnight, until firm. >>
THE BIG PICTURE
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what are you looking at? Peter Elfes SHOWS CENTRAL AUSTRALIA IN A STUNNING NEW LIGHT IN HIS LATEST BOOK, THE GREEN DESERT.
The glossy white at the water’s edge is a thick layer of salt, where the lake has evaporated over several seasons, leaving excess salt behind. The exposed salt left on the once submerged surface of the beach is pink because the halophiles can survive encased in salt crust for some time. The glossy white strip above this is the shine of crystallised sodium chloride.
WORDS BY Joel Burgess
This is Silcrete Island jutting out into the vast inland sea of Lake Eyre in South Australia. Photographer Peter Elfes caught this unique part of the Outback at a rare time, when microorganisms known as halophiles (meaning ‘salt-loving’) flourish in the water. The simple life forms have a red colour to help them harvest the Sun’s energy, and they can live in water with salt concentrations more than five times greater than seawater.
With sufficient rain, the island is a pelican haven, but the amount of salt at this particular time means there is little food for them, so the brown rocks are bare and uninhabited. See more stunning images like this in The Green Desert, photography by Peter Elfes, text by Peter Timms, ABC Books, $59.99.
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