I am catching an early plane tomorrow to meet up with the other authors involved in the “Secrets Exposed…” series of books by Dale Beaumont. I was a contributing author to “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”.
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I have been watching, with mixed feeling, a pair of mud larks making a most elaborate mud nest on a pipe above my car parking space. The mixed feeling come from the fact that birds and baby birds do not wear nappies! I can now take my car to the carwash and it will look less like a Christmas pudding than it does at present.
After a few weeks of shrieking anxiety when anyone came near, three little heads appeared over the edge of the nest. That is the sign of spring that really is delightful. After a few days only two heads appeared and over the last few days I have been witnessing flying lessons with multiple crash landings. One baby was smaller and less competent and its parents left with the stronger baby.
The other baby was abandoned and this morning I went down to look for it only to find its flattened body on the roadway. I cleaned it up before my small grandson who has been watching the nest with great eagerness, arrives for family dinner tonight. What a short little life that baby had. I am probably daft, but I shed a tear.
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We are at a time in history when we need to be able to think creatively and completely outside the box. We have to redesign our lives to use less carbon. At the same time our toy makers and media are stultifying out children’s minds!
I bought some new Lego for my grandson to add to the much diminished remnants left over from my own children. Eventually I found a tub of Lego but even that had pages of designs for children to follow and not really many blocks for $50. Most Lego now comes in sets to build a specific thing.
When my kids were young their Lego was a large collection of blocks with assorted strange shapes and a few “people” blocks. No plans or ideas because the idea was to encourage them to think for themselves and dream up their own grand designs.
When I was a child, we had wooden blocks that did not lock together and we needed to think about how things balanced and locked in together if we wanted to build larger structures. We also improvised and incorporated toilet roll tubes, scraps of wood from Dad’s workshop and cardboard boxes. We still built our grand designs but we used our imagination and created our own.
My children were born in a remote part of North Queensland in tropical northern Australia. We did not get television until my kids were aged 5, 4 and 3. They were attending the local kindergarten when the TV tower was commissioned at Bartle Freere, near Cairns. That week the children’s games changed. They all played the games they saw on TV because it impacted at once on the entire town. What a pity their old imaginative games were gone. They never came back.
During my time in NQ I taught biology and science in the local high school and was astonished at difference between those pre-TV kids and the ones I had taught previously in the city. They were not as good at writing BUT they were streets ahead in maths and most importantly, compared with city kids, they were really creative thinkers. They were the children of people who improvised, built their own lives, their own houses, their own workplaces and made their own fun. They were a joy to teach. I returned to the city and taught very well mannered sponges who did not think much. You can’t waste time thinking when you need to cram for exam results. I left teaching. Now I hear that you can do a “science” degree with no physics, chemistry or maths! How can you understand a fish with no concept of pressure? The world has gone mad!
We now need people who can think creatively and not be blocked by being told that it can’t be done. We need Government and other regulators to be tough on polluters but to be flexible for people who are innovating and trying new ways. We need to encourage our kids to be creative, even when it does make a mess.
We won’t solve the problems of reducing our carbon emissions and thinking about our use and waste of embodied energy unless we allow and encourage creative thinking.
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Last weekend I took my Grandson Luka to the Monarto Zoo. This is a 1000 hectare pen-range sanctuary undertaking a major role nationally and internationally in breeding programs for rare and endangered species.
It was wonderful. We started out with a 90 minute drive in a safari bus though the entire park. The trip included lions, bison, cheetah, Mongolian horses, zebras, lots of African grazing animals, both black and white rhinoceroses (all brown really), hyenas, African painted dogs, a large giraffe herd and the entire place is part of the largest revegetation project of it’s kind in South Australia’s history! We saw a two week old white rhino and a three week old baby giraffe – and much more. Apparently giraffe give birth standing up on their very long legs and the babies emerge head first to land in a heap on the ground.
We had lunch and surrounded by all these wonderful animals, when Luka (aged 3+) had his face painted he wanted to be Spiderman! I thought after being 3 feet from a cheetah he would choose that or a lion but no – it had to be Spiderman.
We also went for a camel ride which was fun. I was fascinated by how soft the came’s coat was on my bare leg. At one stage Luka kicked his foot and the camel turned around and looked at him. He had not thought about kicking her and was very surprised to be looked at. A useful lesson in consideration.
The role large zoos like Monarto have in preserving biodiversity with its important role in the worldwide endangered species breeding programs in enormous and they have a wonderful record or breeding, exchanging with other zoos and returning animals to the wild.
There is also a very important role in educating our kids to value the diversity of life. It was a wonderful day and we were both exhausted. When we got home he drew me a picture of a hippopotamus which were not there but animals were on his mind. He told me today that there are lots of different sorts of “reindeer” all over the world which I guess is a fairly informed preschooler view of the wonderful diversity of horned grazing animals.
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It is 11am and I have just stopped for a coffee and a piece of fruit. I decided go outdoors on my terrace and soak up the sun while is early in the day and I can get Vitamin D and warmth without getting skin cancer in the middle of the day.
It was a lovely break! Yesterday was hot and very windy then overnight a front came though with quite good rain and the world looks so clean.
This morning the rain stopped while I walked to my gym and stayed away until I returned then gave another burst. At present the sky is blue, the sun is out, the bees are busy around my lemon tree which is in flower and there ware birds investigating the potted garden and using the birdbath. I truly enjoyed sitting in the fresh air and watching the world.
I moved to an apartment about 2 years ago and I live two storeys up with another six above me but I have a 6metre x 8metre terrace and I have filled it with a potted garden – some fruit trees, some vegetables and herbs as well as lovely ornamentals like a frangipani tree I have had in a pot for around six years and potted roses. Most of my plants are very drought and heat tolerant and those that were not did not make it through last summer. Most of them are favourites that I have had in my last 3 houses but they have grown some.
Initially I was concerned about how I would cope with the reduced space but it is a large apartment and the terrace garden actually gives me a better feeling of space than my previous house because of the borrowed landscape I can see from 2 floors up. The old house felt buried in the suburbs. The apartment is within easy walking distance of the city centre across a park and it is very well insulated so I use minimal heating and cooling. I added a verandah over my north facing windows to give me some dry outdoor space but also to keep out the summer sun while letting winter sun stream in.
With the verandah and two large café umbrellas to give me privacy from above, I have an idyllic space complete with a sand pit and totem tennis for grandchildren. I love apartment living and it is very energy efficient.
My only regret is my dream of having a totally eco house that retains all its own water and makes all its own power. To find this so close to the edge of the city, close to family and with a view, is so unlikely that I guess I will settle happily for the apartment and terrace and work on the Strata Corporation to allow us to have solar panels.
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Former Port Moorowie resident Jean Cannon is passionate about the environment, and so much so has recently released her book, “It is easy being green”.
Jean Cannon, author of “It is easy being green”, dedicated the book to her grandchildren – “who have to live in the world we leave them!”
Quite apart from refuting Kermit, Jean has used the frog in her work because they are an indicator species for environmental, and especially water, pollution.
“Frogs are now endangered in many places and like the canary in the mine indicating air quality, we ignore this at our peril,” she says, explaining that the book provides simple steps to help businesses help the world. (more…)
The week before last I went to Sydney to a pre-APEC EcoForum and updated on global warming issues.
Then last week I spoke to University of South Australia Students for an our on global warming, green initiatives and how small to medium businesses are coping with this, or not as the case often is.
This week I was the speaker at a breakfast for Eastside Business Enterprise Centre.
Next week I shall be in Sydney again on Wednesday for lunch with Al Gore!
In my spare moments I have two new books out this week:
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Some of you may have seen me interviewed on Sky News Eco Report over the weekend. They were talking about my book, “It is easy being green, simple steps to help your business help the world” (available from www.itiseasytobegreen.com). We discussed the benefits to business of having an environmental management system and also about the importance of knowing what regulations you need to comply with and having a simple paper trail to prove you take all the reasonable steps you can to comply with these laws and regulations.
I will confess that when the cameras started rolling I had the oddest feeling in my middle – scary stuff.
Waiting for the plane on the way home I saw my book on display in the airport bookshop shelves – very exciting so I took a photo with my phone for all to share my excitement. The emotion is a bit like seeing your child play his first sporting match. Writing a book is almost like giving birth.
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I had a display stand at the Wine and Grape Industry Environment Conference last week and met lots of interesting people. Trade shows are expensive and very tiring and from my point of view it is unfortunate that most of the people who attend an environment conference are the ones who already have systems in place. The people who need my services are not there. The interesting question is how to reach those small growers and producers who do not have the time, money or the interest to go to the conferences, to let them know that being green does not have to be as difficult as they think it is.
They way to green your business is to first work out everything you do, then assess the risks involved, develop an plan to manage the risks than take small steady but regular steps to make the plan work. If you want to go green with small steady steps, go to my websites, www.enviro-action.com and www.enviroaction.com.au. To download a free chapter of my book “It is easy being green, simple steps to help your business help the world” go the www.itiseasytobegreen.com.
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On Friday night I was honoured to be the winner of the South Australian Seafood Industry Training Award for training excellence. I was also a finalist in the Environment Award.
I was told that what the industry really appreciates is the balance I show between the needs of the environment and the needs of the industry. I am deeply touched by this because my aim has always been to strike this balance because when industry benefits from the systems they are building, they continue and this produces the best environmental and other outcomes.
This is the same comment the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, The Hon Peter McGauran MP made about my book – “I cannot recall reading a book by an environmentalist which genuinely balances the needs of the environment with those of business, as yours does. Congratulations. ……. Your work and your book show how small businesses especially can achieve commercial goals while nurturing their operating environments – a true win-win.”
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