The dream this moment calls for

Australian matters, Local Geelong matters

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The Sustainable Hour no. 497 | Transcript | Podcast notes

Our guest in The Sustainable Hour no. 497 is Mike Whittle – an 85-year-old Geelong resident, researcher, scientist, social justice activist and singer-songwriter.

Mike reflects on the need for re-greening the world – and gathering around a shared vision of using plants’ and water’s infrared-reflective ability to tackle the global problem with rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere – “joining, not destroying”, as he puts it. He then sings one of the songs that he has written on the topic, “The dream this moment calls for”:

“We need the dream this moment calls for
One we can trust, and give our all for“

Mike Whittle, Geelong-based singer-songwriter

This is a love song
For our planet here in space
Talk about your treasures
Home to all our human race
And what we lose we can’t replace

When I look ahead I just feel hollow
For I need a dream that I can follow
We need the dream this moment calls for
One that we trust and give our all for

I’ve been where trees grow tall
And listened to the lyre bird’s call
And that’s not all
On pristine sand
I’ve watched sea birds fly in to land

When I hear empty words, I just feel hollow
We need direction, and acts which follow
We need the goals this moment calls for
A plan we trust, and give our all for

I’ve had sheep and shorn their wool
Seen the snow melt keep rivers full
I’ve seen the Murray flow
Seen crops grow
And citrus trees planted row on row

For our planet, here’s a love song
It’s fulfilled our every need
With drought and fire and tempest
We’ve been told we’ve made her bleed

When I look ahead I just feel hollow
We need that dream that we can follow
We need a dream this moment calls for
One that we trust and give our all for

~ Mike Whittle

The Sustainable Hour no 497 begins with an introduction and acknowledgment of the Wadawurrung people. It then discusses Earth Month and the importance of community independents in addressing the climate emergency. More on www.un.org and on www.earthday.org.

The call for a Voices of Corangamite group supporting a local Teal candidate in the Geelong region is rising, and a community meeting about this has been called on the 9th of May.

The global outlook on climate change is explored, highlighting the increasing frequency of climate-related disasters. The Australian government’s climate risk assessment is examined, emphasising the need for urgent action.

The Hour features an interview with Geelong resident Mike Whittle, a social justice activist and scientist, who discusses his music and environmental ideas. He talks about the urgency of addressing climate change and the importance of greening our cities.

“What very few people seem to realise is that the chlorophyll in leaves – green leaves, green plants of all kinds – reflects infrared. So if you have the continent greened, you are actually reflecting heat. You cool the planet by putting more plants in,” Mike explains.

Mike has a grand vision about utilising Lake Eyre for water conservation and greening the desert. Lake Eyre has the potential to be a significant source of clean energy, with the ability to generate gigawatts of electricity through temperature gradient harnessing. Utilising hydrogen as a green fuel and creating new coral reefs can help absorb carbon dioxide and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Mike, who is also a musician, presents us to one of his environmental songs, ‘Love Song for the Planet’, and then he discusses the need for large-scale sustainable energy projects to combat climate change. The United Nations has called for large-scale projects to address climate change, and it is crucial to evaluate and prioritise sustainable alternatives, he says.

Mike received his first guitar in 1959. As a young man in Melbourne, he worked at a coffee lounge, where he performed his original songs on weekend nights. Upon starting a family, Mike relocated to Canada, setting aside his music to pursue further education. In Alberta during the 1970s, he undertook courses in art, scriptwriting, and psychology. Meanwhile, he nurtured his passion for the natural sciences – physics, chemistry, and biology – eventually becoming an educator in these subjects. Later, Mike moved to British Columbia, where he actively contributed to Earth Day and approximately 30 other events in the 1970s aimed at combating pollution in the Great Lakes, among other environmental initiatives. After 13 years in Canada, Mike came to Geelong in 1984.

. . .

This episode of The Sustainable Hour delves briefly into the reasons behind the popularity of petrol-driven SUVs among mothers, most of who’d be fully aware that they are a bad choice for the climate, and as such, for their own children. SUVs alone have caused a third of the rise in oil demand globally, according to the International Energy Agency.

Towards the end of the hour – around 45 minutes in – we introduce a new podcast focused on the business world’s transition to circularity and emissions-freedom, ‘The Business Revolution’ podcast. This new podcast will highlight the need for systemic changes in the business sector to foster new sustainable practices. The podcast premiers with its first episode tomorrow, on Thursday 4 April 2024. You can find more information about it on www.businessrevolution.earth

www.businessrevolution.earth

. . .

For Orpheus’ Global Outlook and information about the songs we play, see the transcript below.

. . .

That’s about it for episode #497. It’s worth reflecting further on one of Orpheus’ points in this week’s Global Outlook: On the one hand, it’s great – at face value anyway – to see that our Federal Government released the National Climate Assessment. You’d think that the use of fossil fuels would be highlighted as the major risk factor, but no, it isn’t given much attention at all. This becomes more understandable when we realise that the same government has absolutely no intention of stopping to approve fossil fuel projects here – a behaviour which completely flies in the face of the latest climate science and leaves us saying: ‘What duty of care?” and “How can they keep doing this?” and “Whose interests are they serving?” as we shake our heads. (If you do too, then see you at the community gathering at West Geelong Town Hall on 9 May at 5:30.)

What a contrast to our guest for today, Mike – we are left pondering his ideas, his dreams. The climate emergency provides us with much to reflect on. Until next week, Be The Difference!

“What we need to do, in my view, is to look at these dreams, look at the possibilities, and focus on a few of them and get them done. And if we did fewer protests but more appellation, we’ve got to say: Look, please, guys, do it! And I think we might be more effective if we knew what we wanted to do. And that’s where we need real concerted evaluation of our alternatives, because there are alternatives. There are things we can do. And if we select a few, we’ll get them done.”
~ Mike Whittle, in The Sustainable Hour no. 497


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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to pay our respect to the traditional custodians of the land on which we
are broadcasting, the Wathaurong People, and pay our respect to their elders, past, present and future.

The traditional owners lived in harmony with the land. They nurtured it and thrived in often harsh conditions for millennia before they were invaded. Their land was then stolen from them – it wasn’t ceded. It is becoming more and more obvious that, if we are to survive the climate emergency we are facing, we have much to learn from their land management practices.

Our battle for climate justice won’t be won until our First Nations brothers and sisters have their true justice. When we talk about the future, it means extending our respect to those children not yet born, the generations of the future – remembering the old saying that, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.”
The decisions currently being made around Australia to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t be around by the time the worst effects hit home. How disrespectful and unfair is that?

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Full transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 497

Dr Andrew Forrest:
Australia has called for a phase down, then to a phase out of fossil fuels.

Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong. The Sustainable Hour.

Anthony Gleeson:
You’re on the Sustainable Hour podcast. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung People. We pay tribute to their elders, past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We acknowledge that their land was never ceded, it was stolen by the first white colonisers, and that colonisation continues till today. We can’t hope to have any form of climate justice without justice for First Nations. We also have so much to learn from the ancient wisdom that they accumulated by nurturing their land and their communities for millennia before their land was stolen.

Mik Aidt:
This week we have entered Earth Month. Because Earth Day is just around the corner now. In less than three weeks we’ll have Earth Day – on the 22nd of April. That’s a global event to remind us of the urgency of the climate emergency and the need for cooperation and change. New solutions. And the most exciting change… – we talked about it last week here in The Sustainable Hour – is when communities come together and bring about the biggest, most positive change that we have seen in this country for a long time. And that’s with the success of the community independents.

The New Daily this week has put it like this: “Community-backed independents could win big at the next federal election as voters continue to flee the Liberal and Labor parties.” And Rod Tiffin, who is a professor in government at the University of Sydney, told the New Daily that his guess at the moment would be that “almost all of the Teal independents will be re-elected.”

So how does it look here in Geelong? Well, we have two electorates. We have Corio and Corangamite. And therefore we have two members of parliament who will be voted in. There’s a little over 100,000 voters in each of these two electorates. In Corangamite, Libby Coker was elected with 38,000 first preference votes. And if the polls are right, as we’re hearing at the moment, if we cut off 10 per cent from that, that’s down to 34,000 votes. But if a new player then enters the stage, like a community independent candidate – a strong one, who could draw some votes over – then suddenly these numbers would change again. Actually, an independent candidate who gathered just a little over 25 per cent of the preference votes, that would be enough to win that seat.

So the question then is, out of these 100,000 voters who live in the Corangamite electorate, would there be 25,000 who would be ready to jump and get on board with this community independent movement or not? One out of four.

If you think these mathematics sound interesting, then see you on the 9th of May at the West Geelong Town Hall at 5:30pm where there’s a meeting where all these kinds of things will be discussed.

Here and now, it’s time for the Global Outlook. We’ve got Orpheus on the post to keep an eye on what’s been going on.

Orpheus:
Yes, thank you, Mik. I’ll do my best to illuminate the latest chapter in our ongoing saga of climate change, weaving in a bit of optimism amidst the stark reality we face. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The stage of the world has seen a dramatic shift since the 1990s with the number of climate-related disasters not just doubling, but tripling. Imagine, if you will, a globe spinning on the finger of Mother Nature, each spin bringing about a new extreme weather event, tallying up to one per week. And with each revolution, 20 million people are uprooted from their homes, becoming unwilling nomads in search of safer grounds. That’s the entire population of Australia, give or take, turned into climate refugees every year.

In Canada, a land known for its polite citizens and maple syrup, over 13 million hectares were swallowed by flames last year. That’s an area larger than some countries, turning into a scene straight out of a dystopian novel.

Hopping over to Sicily, Italy’s jewel in the Mediterranean, we find it grappling with the worst drought in nearly two decades. With five million souls calling it home, the island declared a state of emergency, painting a stark picture of parched landscapes that once thrived.

And let’s not forget Catalonia, in the vibrant heart of Spain, where the tap has run dry. Restrictions on water use have transformed luxuries like filling swimming pools, washing cars, or even watering the garden into distant memories. The Spanish environment minister’s words ring clear, water is no longer a resource to be taken for granted.

Crossing over to the broader European stage, the European Environment Agency has sounded the alarm warning that climate change is fast on the heels of agriculture, economy, and public health, with many countries ill-prepared for the curtain call. A groundbreaking report, the first of its kind from the agency, forecasts a future where lives and trillions are at risk, unless the script is flipped towards urgent action.

Now let’s turn the spotlight closer to home, here in Australia, where the government has unveiled its first climate risk assessment. The report outlines 11 harrowing risks that pierce the heart of human existence, including rampaging heat waves, throughout fire seasons that stretch longer and burn fiercer, dwindling rainfall, and rising sea levels threatening coastal harmony. The consequences? A challenge to social cohesion, health, the environment, and the economy. Yet, in a twist that might leave some scratching their heads,

This very government continues to roll out the red carpet for new coal mines and gas exploration ventures, seemingly missing the plot of their own report. Critics argue that the Australian government, much like the protagonist in A Tale of Hubris, is living in a dream scenario, failing to grasp the climate threats unfurling before our very eyes. The National Climate Risk Assessment, with its outdated scenarios and siloed thinking, might as well be scripting a fairy tale, rather than preparing for the real world drama of climate change.

The methodological oversights and a reluctance to acknowledge worst-case scenarios suggest a storyline dangerously detached from the big picture. Imagine if the government’s approach to climate risk were a movie. It might be critiqued for using outdated special effects to portray a rapidly advancing plot. As we face a reality where warming could exceed two degree cells by 2050, the urgency to revise the script and embrace comprehensive systemic thinking has never been greater.

It’s time for a sequel that sees humanity coming together, breaking down silos and crafting a future where the planet is not just a stage for disaster, but a home that thrives.

So as we close this segment, let’s remember that while the path ahead may seem daunting, it’s within our collective power to change the narrative. From supporting policies that reflect the latest science, to making personal choices that reduce our carbon footprint, every action contributes to a more hopeful sequel for our planet.

Thank you for tuning in, and until next time, let’s all be part of crafting a better ending to our climate saga.

Jingle:
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.

Anthony Gleeson:
Our guest for today is Mike Whittle. Mike is a long time social justice activist, a researcher, a scientist, a singer-songwriter. So, Mike, it’s great to have you on today. Let’s hear a little bit about your background.

Mike Whittle:
Yeah, okay. Well, I was a person who got a scholarship to the university and I wished to study art. But in fact, I was taken on because of my general academic scores. I was taken actually into study science because they wanted science and maths teachers and not art teachers. So I was over here. You’re doing science. Well, that was fine. I like science. Why not? So I studied chemistry and physics and mathematics.

But I found that I quickly gravitated towards the first unit I did was in zoology. Fascinated! Did botany, even more so. Went on field trips with botany. Oh, wow. And my first real love affair with biology and botany and everything was at Wilson’s Prometery. I just absolutely adored that place. And I loved what we were doing. What we were doing was mapping all the different species and how they went up as you went up, mind over on, and the soil changed and the rain changed and the spray from the sea was less.

So all these plants adapted and they changed and the ones that could handle this handled the lower area and the ones that could handle the heights and the bare rocks. They were all there too. And this, I found, absolutely was the thing I loved. So I made lots of drawings of little plants and things. And it really fit right in with what I was doing.

Now I completed my degree. And at that point, they were talking about DDT, which was an absolute bloody disaster. Not only did it indiscriminately kill insects. Now, I can understand you don’t like blowflies and mosquitoes. I mean, who needs… But the point was that we were killing pollinators. We were killing our native species. We were killing birds. We were killing everything. Indiscriminately. We would plaster DDT over an entire lake. Fish, everything. Didn’t matter. Get rid of the mosquitoes! GDTatum. It was like, it was like armageddon, all right? So that sort of sit rather badly.

Now they tried to get more specific things, the pyrethrins and so on, and they seemed to be good. But we’re now in a situation that’s not much different from 1959. We still are killing our insects indiscriminately. And we really just don’t get it. We need to have bugs. We need them. If all the bugs would disappear tomorrow, people would disappear probably by Wednesday. You know, it’s just madness. You’re killing your allies as well as the associates.

Let’s take antibiotics. Antibiotics – fantastic! You don’t get… don’t get those superating wounds and you don’t die of septicemia. Oh God, that’s absolutely fantastic! Yeah – but how about your gut biome?

Now they’re even finding that, oh my goodness, we’ve got little bugs that actually live in people’s brains and that without them, we get imbalances. Now they can’t be sure just what imbalances cause Alzheimer’s and deterioration of the brain, but it so happens that there is a biome there and we didn’t even know about it. So this indiscriminate slaughter and destruction.

Now let’s take a suburb. I mean it’s something that everybody can see. You have the least reflective grey roofs you could find. Black! black roads and a scarcely a tree inside. Again, this is just wholesale stupidity because basically what we create is little heat islands. Our cities are around about two degrees warmer than the surrounds. And as for our great Australian suburbs, they just absorb energy for their air conditioners and so on right through the summer. We try to keep it a fridge to keep a few coldies in the fridge. And all that time we’re belting the heat outside our houses.

So, you know, we’re basically not thinking in a way that lives companionably with the very world that supports us. And I hate to think about farming, but that’s there too.

If we start to think with a little bit more subtility and a little bit more compassion… I think compassion towards the world and the universe is what’s really needed. We need to think along the lines of joining, not destroying. And that’s where I’ve been since 1959.

Mik Aidt:
And one way you communicate about that is not only through words, but also through singing and your music. Tell us about your music and what that means to you. And then can we hear a song?

Mike Whittle:
Well, yeah, I’ve looked at the environment thing, and what I really would like to see is from the idea of protest to the idea of joining together to see projects. Now, I’ve seen how a whole group of people, 100 or so volunteers, go out and clean a river bank. We’re just finding that river banks and the reeds and so on, they need our support and they do a marvelous job of cleaning and sterilising. And as well, they absorb carbon dioxide.

The idea of re-greening the banks of rivers which have been long trodden into death by cattle. Once those river banks have got vegetation and it’s protected, the river flows better. There is less damage when floods occur and the floodplain is hugely rich and it should be left with the variety of species. It’s that variety. It’s when everything is working in its own best interests. And so where people have taken on these projects, there has been success.

And it’s one of the things that I think we really need to do as a whole human race. We need to get on and do what we can do to keep the health of a thing.

It’s like we’re looking at a victim which is bleeding, has wounds, and we need to start, oh yeah, we’d better do something to help it. And as the minute we start helping the planet to just get back living health, working in the right direction, for our own benefit as well as for everybody else’s. So that’s where I’m at.

Greta Thunberg had all these ideas and the protest, very legitimately, but they had nowhere to go. And then you have people like Trump saying, well, lie down and have a couple of bakes or something like that. You know, they’re just dismissive. But really, honestly, we can’t dismiss it. And, the focus is the next step. We need to focus. We need to focus on what really we need. And we do need several things right now. And that one of them is to start work in a direction that’s going to heal the systems that we’ve virtually strangled.

The things which could remove carbon dioxide, almost each one of them, of the myriads, if you look at each one of them, they’re in bad shape. The seagrass beds, which are fantastic. The bogs, the natural bogs, the places where we get mud and bugs working, those just eat up carbon dioxide like crazy. And we’ve been burning peat. For God’s sake, instead of letting it accumulate, you know, just our rivers, our waterways, we need to actually take care of, we need to get out there and be taking care of them.

And as soon as they’ve done that in the rewilding programs that are going ahead in Europe, they go, “Oh my goodness, this is great!” But they don’t realise until they do it. So if we have re-greening, re-wilding, as sort of just treating our species back into life.

We are doing the right thing. And if we can get a major job done, we’ll be in a lot better shape than if we don’t. I mean, that’s where it’s at.

SONG by Mike Whittle:

This is a love song
For our planet here in space
Talk about your treasures
Home to all our human race
And what we lose we can’t replace

When I look ahead I just feel hollow
For I need a dream that I can follow
We need the dream this moment calls for
One that we trust and give our all for

I’ve been where trees grow tall
And listened to the lyre bird’s call
And that’s not all
On pristine sand
I’ve watched sea birds fly in to land

So listen
For our planet here in space
Talk about your treasures
It’s home to all our human race
For what we lose we can’t replace

So when I look ahead I just feel hollow
We need that dream that we can follow
We need a dream this moment calls for
One that we trust and give our all for

Mike Whittle: (21:22)
And that is really just about where we’re at. We know that there’s damage. 90 per cent of thinking people know that there is a real problem, and that it’s not going to go away anytime soon. At the moment, what we’re finding, and if you read the thing, is that we didn’t know where we were at.

People say, well, let’s keep it to 1.5°C degrees. But what I’m reading, and I’ve done a lot of the reading in this, is that we might very well be at 1.6° or 1.7° right now, because the world is hugely complex. I mean, there are so many interlocked systems – biological, chemical, atmospheric and every other type of system is all intermeshed. And when you start to try and measure it, you’ve got a million measurements, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And literally, we did not know until two years ago how the tip of the iceberg was receding because it was actually being eaten from underneath, and we were measuring the top of it. So it is a scary situation.

I think most thinking people really are sort of saying: “Yeah, what do we do about it?” And that leads to frustration with leaders who are doing whatever they think is reasonable. And with a lot of noise, and a lot of hysteria, and a lot of pressure, you don’t make clear decisions.

This goes back to 2005 and 2006, when I started studying simple things that were very seldom talked about. If you’ve got radiation from space and it has an infrared component, what very few people seem to realise is that the chlorophyll in leaves – green leaves, green plants of all kinds – reflects infrared. So if you have the continent greened, you are actually reflecting heat. You cool the planet by putting more plants in.

What we are doing is absolutely the reverse of that. What we should be doing is covering every possible square inch with green plants, which unfortunately means you need water. You need water and you need soil. But anywhere else they’ll grow. I mean, they grow on bare rock just about anywhere in the world. But you’ve got to provide them with water.

And where do you get the water from? And that is the next question. It normally evaporates from the ocean. Well, we’re in luck because the sea is heating up. Actually, the rate of evaporation is increasing. But you want it not just anywhere. You want it where we want to grow things. So majorly, what we need to be doing, and this is something that anybody can do, is to plant green plants and keep them growing. And there are lots and lots and lots of plants in Australia which grow on very, very, very, very little water. They’re fantastic.

If we took the plants which are naturally adapted to the dry seasons in Australia, we could have virtually the whole continent covered with greenery. And that was where I started. I know that’s the truth. I know that we can do it. And I said, well, how do we get the water inland? Well, there’s a great big, well, it’s not that big. I mean, if you look at a map, it’s kind of just a little dot, but it’s a good start.

760 kilometres in from the Gulf of Spencer, Spencer Gulf, we’ve got Lake Eyre, and quite a number of other little associated lakes which hardly ever get a mention. If you dug a channel in there, water would naturally flow. And that water would be a continuous stream because the more it evaporates, the more water flows down the channel. So it’s sort of like a perpetual motion machine.

And so if we do that, how do we get the water out of it? Well, it turns out to be a lot easier than people would have thought. Because all you have to do is cover every body of water, you need to tap into that little moist airflow that is right there. And what can you do with that? Well, the sun provides heat, and that provides a convection current. And if you let that water rise up, you get it to a point where you can cool it by using the reverse effect that shade actually cools things.

I’m not sure how big we’d have to make them. It could be that then they could be made like printed from a blanket that you put over a pool, you might have little air spaces that allow the moist air to flow up, and then on one side keeps it cool and the other side keeps it hot. And hey, presto, you’ve got condensation spreading out over the mat.

Or you might build them three or four feet high, in which case you’ve got a head and it might flow out after you’ve condensed it. It might flow out onto the ground and get a few plants working. Or you could build them perhaps 10,000 feet tall, and make them so that they sucked up just about a mountain of water and that would settle as dew overnight.

So there’s all possibilities, none of which is hugely demanding of science or investment. It just needs basically application of what we know how to do. And I looked at that and I said, well, there’s more here and there’s more yet. In Lake Eyre, ten centimetres, now that’s a considerable amount. Ten centimetres of water evaporates in a single day. That’s a huge amount of water just being… Now, if we talk about the lake, the lake just disappears. Once it’s filled, it’s disappeared. It’s quite interesting.

There’s been floods up north in Queensland. But you know the water hasn’t reached Lake Eyre yet. It takes all that time. It’s a slow process. So anyway, we can get the water to evaporate. And we can utilise that. I would imagine we could probably do 1,000 square kilometres of irrigation out of the water evaporating from Lake Eyre if we used our heads about it. And that’s a whole settlement.

We can have houses, we can have people, we can have native crops. We could have perhaps the well with all that people have got who’ve lived in the desert. We could actually utilise that. So it seemed a pretty good idea at the time. And I sent it off to the liberal government, which was in power in 2006.

And I had listed most of those things and pointed out that there’s biological things like the hardy head, which is a little fish, which can grow in almost absolutely saturated salt water. And so we would not have to worry about destroying species. We could harvest the salt to keep the lake open. We could use that salt and then ship it down the channel that we’ve built because we’ll use electric powered barges, which is only flying at about, you know, walking pace and we can barge it out and then we can set our produce out the same way so that the gardens and the farming produce can all go out down to Adelaide, and Adelaide’s got some new business sense and wow, that looks great. And there was interest. It pointed out there was interest.

It seemed a big job, several billion dollars to cut a great big channel, but it’s a fairly simple channel. It’s not like it’s a state of the art. It doesn’t have to be hugely constructive, like building the Snowy 2 scheme up in the mountains. It’s not nearly that hard. So anyway, back came a letter and he said, oh yes. And I ran it by the CSIRO.

And he showed the shading where they thought that the dew from the lake would settle. And I said, well, we could improve that by at least a factor of one or two or three or maybe 10 or maybe 100 by sensible process. And then he got de-elected. And the whole interest seemed to die. And I suffered the pains of terrible frustration. But, it’s still there. The lake air is still there. The Spencer Gulf is still there. The native species is still there. The possibility of evaporation is still there.

Oh, and I forgot another thing. When you’ve got a lake, in the middle of Australia, what happens is the top gets very hot and stays up there and the bottom, which becomes more salt, settles down and so you’ve got a temperature gradient. Now when you ever have a temperature gradient, you can extract that as energy. You can extract it as energy either because the boiling point of water changes with pressure.

So you can actually extract pure water simply because you’ve got a little bit warmer, a little bit cooler. You can actually extract pure water. Or you can drive a generator. Or you can drive a sterling machine. You can take your choice. And if you do that, how much electricity do you think you could generate? Well, it’s beyond gigawatts.

It’s so huge. You’ve got square kilometres of a solar collector. You’ve got a collector that sort of beats every other solar collector in the entire planet. You’ve got huge areas that are just a little bit warmer and a little bit cooler. And then overnight, there’s a difference of about 10 degrees Celsius. So if you wanted to pull out the hot water in the daytime and heat it up and store that and pull out the cold water in the nighttime and let it irradiate to space and drop still further. You could do that. And you could do that with a simpler thing like that as a plastic membrane. And then when you’ve got that stored water, you throw it through a heat engine and you’ve got enough power that is completely green. It is not one.

Apart from the construction, now you’ve got to take into account that there is a cost in CO2 of construction. But these are simple constructions. And so you could have a great deal of energy that would be completely clean. Mind you, it’s in a place way, way, way out in the wilderness. But so, well, you know, we face that anyway. And you could make it turn it into hydrogen and ship down the hydrogen and then use that wherever you wanted to because hydrogen is the perfect green fuel. There you go.

But that’s not the only thing. We could get behind a lot of projects. In fact, I see where the United Nations has just this week put out a paper, the council has put out a paper that they need some giant projects because as I mentioned a little while ago the temperature that we’ve raised that we have measured and we’ve been hoping to not exceed may have already been exceeded. Seriously, we need to do something.

And it’s not just tinkering around the edges. We need to actually take some of the CO2 that we’ve got… And oh, I forgot to mention, if you’ve got a great big sail iron channel going to Lake Eyre, what’s to stop you growing coral? Import the fish and the coral from the Ningaloo reef, which is relatively undamaged. You’ve got all this cool salt water flowing gently up the channel. And you could have 700 kilometres of new coral reef with all their attendant species, all doing very happily, all locking away carbon dioxide, growing green seaweeds and other aquatic plants, marine plants.

And you’ve got the possibility of tapping into one or more of the pliers which are these little locked likes, the muddy things that cause Burke so much trouble. You could fill them and do your fish farming or your coral farm or whatever else you wanted to do, all of which could be over hundreds of square kilometres and you’re just absorbing carbon dioxide like crazy.

Anyway, getting back to the UN, they said we’ve got to have some big projects. And one they suggested was turning an island or two into energy islands.

Another was trapping carbon dioxide by pumping it underground. An energy intensive project, I have to say. While it does consume carbon dioxide, it’s got a cost. It seems to me that because of its cost in terms of technology, you’re going to have things wearing out and having to be replaced, which is the problem with wind turbines. They do wear out and they have to be replaced, but they’re still a lot better than many of the alternatives.

So what we need to do, in my view, is to look at these dreams, look at the possibilities, and focus on a few of them and get them done. And if we did fewer protests but more appellation, we’ve got to say, look, please, guys, do it. And I think we might be more effective if we knew what we wanted to do. And that’s where we need real concerted evaluation of our alternatives, because there are alternatives. There are things we can do. And if we select a few, we’ll get them done.

SONG: Louise Harris: We Tried

The world is changing all the time
And you know it ain’t right
Yeah, I know you think twice
And love, it takes you on a ride
And leaves you with no respite
Well, I think I’ve done my time
But I
I don’t want to cry
So take me where the bluebirds sing
While we lose everything
There’s too much poisoning
And fly me where the birds still fly
‘Cause smoke fills up our sky
‘Cause we ran out of time
Oh well, we tried
Well, maybe this was meant to be
A mother wanted peace
And we were not conceived
Or maybe we were meant to win
But not enough good drowned out the sin
They watched the world cave in
But I
I can’t work out why
So take me where the bluebirds sing
While we lose everything
There’s too much poisoning
And fly me where the birds still fly
‘Cause smoke fills up our sky
‘Cause we ran out of time
Oh well, we tried
(We tried, we tried, we tried, we tried)
(We tried, we tried, we tried, we tried)
(We tried, we tried, we tried, we tried)
Oh well, we tried

Jingle:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: At the heart of this conflict is a battle between truth and science and power and lies.

Mik Aidt: (40:23)
Explain to me one thing, please. Why on earth shouldn’t dirty polluting cars that make us all sick with their terrible emissions, sick with diseases such as lung cancer and asthma, why should they not be banned? When we have better cars now that don’t pollute, why shouldn’t they at least be phased out as quickly as we possibly can?

Australia’s new vehicle efficiency standards certainly have been discussed a lot in the media. So much that the federal Labor government now has softened this proposal that they’re coming up with, where certain polluting vehicles like utes and the most popular four-wheel drives like the Toyota Landcruiser are being exempted from these efficiency standards. They call that “a balance between environmental goals and economic and practical considerations.”

SUVs are now the most popular type of cars in the United Kingdom. And at the same time, they contribute more to air pollution and they make our roads more unsafe – that is, if you’re in a smaller car, or a cyclist or a pedestrian, and especially for children. The worst of all, I think, is to hear that SUVs alone have caused a third of the rise in oil demand globally. That’s according to the International Energy Agency.

Anthony Gleeson:
That’s significant. That’s a third of the rise and we need to be going the other way.

Mik Aidt:
So I’ve been wondering, how can you be a mum and have children that you want to put in your car, and then SUVs is your choice of car? I asked our artificial intelligence Oracle – that has a lot of answers to the world and to humanity – about this mystery that I’m contemplating: why do so many mothers want to drive an SUV?

ChatGPT:
Today, we’re exploring a thought-provoking question: Why do mothers who are typically primary caregivers for their children often opt to purchase SUVs despite the known environmental consequences?

First off, let’s consider the practical side of things. SUVs are often chosen for their spaciousness and perceived safety benefits, especially for mothers concerned about protecting their children. The larger size and sturdiness of SUVs can provide a sense of security on the road which is a top priority for parents. Then there’s the influence of societal norms. In many cultures, there’s a strong expectation of what a family car should look like, and SUVs have become synonymous with that image. Mothers may feel pressure to conform to these norms, wanting to provide their family with what they perceive as the safest and most practical option.

Now let’s talk about marketing. The automotive industry invests heavily in promoting SUVs as family-friendly vehicles, often depicting scenes of happy families embarking on adventures. These advertisements reinforce the idea that SUVs are essential for an active lifestyle and family activities, further influencing mothers’ car-buying decisions.

Of course, we can’t overlook the issue of cognitive dissonance. Many individuals are aware of the environmental impact of their choices, but may rationalise their decisions by focusing on other factors such as safety or convenience. Mothers may prioritise the immediate needs of their family over long-term environmental concerns that, especially if they feel their individual actions won’t make a significant difference.

And let’s not forget about the availability of alternatives. While electric and hybrid SUVs are becoming more accessible, they may not yet be as widespread or affordable as traditional gasoline-powered models. Limited options and higher upfront costs can deter some consumers, including mothers, from choosing more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Lastly, there’s the issue of awareness. Not everyone has access to or seeks out information about the environmental impact of their consumer choices. Mothers, like anyone else, may prioritise other aspects of their lives and not fully consider the environmental implications of their vehicle choices. In conclusion, the decision-making process behind purchasing an SUV as a mother is influenced by a combination of factors, including practicality, societal norms, marketing, cognitive biases, limited alternatives and awareness levels. Addressing this issue demands empathy, understanding and systemic changes to foster more sustainable consumer behavior.

Mik Aidt: (45:18)
For some time now, we’ve been talking about starting a branch of The Sustainable Hour focused more on the business world – and it’s going to happen now. Tomorrow we’re launching ‘The Business Revolution’ podcast. And business revolution is of course a very big word, but we have made a little trailer where we explain what the podcast is about. And maybe we should simply listen to that first.

Jingle:
“The Business Revolution”

Mik Aidt:
Hello everyone, and welcome…

Cherry Ward:
…to The Business Revolution.

Alan Taylor:
A podcast where we’re going to dive into the vibrant transformations that are happening in the corporate world…

Cherry Ward:
…towards being green, circular, and sustainable. I’m Cherry.

Alan Taylor:
I’m Alan.

Mik Aidt:
And my name is Mik.

Cherry Ward:
We are three independent consultants who are navigating transformative tides in Australia’s corporate landscape, and we want to help businesses on how to do this.

Alan Taylor:
We’re going to be embarking on a series of really enlightening interviews and engaging conversations and segments, and we’re hoping that you’re going to join us on this journey.

Mik Aidt:
The thing is: This is a learning journey for all of us. We’re entering uncharted territory. So the journey begins with going out and talking with the experts who understand what is going on, and what the challenges are as we move forward.

Dr Andrew Forrest:
We’re putting $6.2 billion dollars on the table. We started three years ago. We’ve already saved $400 million to make ourselves fully fossil fuel free by 2030.

Malcolm Turnbull:
The reality is that the force of logic, cheaper power, is on the side of the renewable revolution.

Mike Cannon-Brookes:
Climate change is affecting the Australian economy, it is affecting businesses, it’s affecting individuals, our employees. I think it is NOT an issue that businesses should have its head in the sand on. There are 86 other businesses alongside Atlassian signing up to the UN Global Compact for Net Zero. All of those businesses I think would say: This is an issue that they need to be taking a stronger stance on. And that means they should be speaking out, in a government vacuum.

Alan Taylor:
These are going to be CEOs, decision-makers, sustainability officers, carbon accountants, and also everyday employees, because we all play a part.

Cherry Ward:
So you might be wondering: what is our mission? We want to unpack how we can turn a burgeoning mindset into a profound, authentic revolution in business practices.

Mik Aidt:
In The Business Revolution podcast, we are not going to be throwing all the bad news at you. But on the other hand, we are not going to shy away from talking about the facts as they are. Climate discussions tend to be very divisive in an organisation. But does that mean that we shouldn’t talk about it? We need to be able to talk about this, openly and honestly within our organisations and in the entire business community.

Alan Taylor:
The key point is: it’s not just about what is not working. It’s also about what the solutions can be. About how we can actually move forward, and what is happening in that direction.

Mik Aidt:
We strongly believe it is possible to find that balance which is both realistic and honest – and at the same time optimistic.

Cherry Ward:
There are countless uplifting stories of innovation and progress. The pace of change is accelerating, and it’s really exciting. So getting to grips with these is nothing short of monumental.

Mik Aidt:
And yes: ‘Revolution’ – it’s a big word. We know that. But listen… Everything begins with a word, with a thought. An idea. Maybe just a feeling. When you think about it, after all, this entire beautiful world that humans have built on this planet is all the making of human thought.

Cherry Ward:
But this isn’t just a business revolution. It’s a kaleidoscope of revolutions. There’s a lot happening in the energy sector, in the food and agriculture sector, the transport sector. I don’t think there’s any industries that will be left untouched.

Alan Taylor:
And that’s been the same throughout history: We’ve had the industrial revolution, the agricultural revolution, and more recently, the digital revolution. Right now we’ve got the business revolution which is going to be paired at the same time as the Artificial Intelligence – AI revolution, which is going on.

Mik Aidt:
This is humanity’s revolution, nothing less. This concept of a business revolution is not something we’ve come up with. It’s already happening out there – all over the place. It’s just that we don’t hear about it. And that’s where we hope this podcast can make a difference.

Alan Taylor:
This is exactly what we want The Business Revolution podcast to bring to you: What is possible and what is happening.

Cherry Ward:
A bit about ourselves first. I am connected to you here from Meanjin Country, also known as Brisbane, and I’m a leadership development consultant, specialist and coach, and founder of Bluebird Leadership, a boutique leadership development firm that’s on a mission to revolutionise the way leaders and organisations approach leadership with a focus on sustainability. And to this podcast, I bring with me over two decades of experience in the corporate world.

Alan Taylor:
I’m calling in from South Melbourne on Bunorung Land, people of the Kulin Nation. After over nine years consulting and coaching teams and leadership from portfolio level down to software development on the ground, I’ve been working with team dynamics and how to enable that productivity and effectiveness of teams all the way up to portfolio level, and the ASX. The last few years I’ve been involved in a lot of programs around sustainability in the organisations, how to enable innovation – and also been doing some research on how we can help people learn and actually act upon sustainability and actually do things rather than just reading or being scared by it. So that’s why I set up 3P Impact with the three Ps being People, Planet and Profit. Because they’re not mutually exclusive. They can support each other, and you can get great results that way.

Mik Aidt:
I live in Geelong on Wadawurrung Land, where we run Geelong Media – a company that is helping other companies with their campaigns, building websites and producing e-learning materials for employees. And as a dad and a climate activist, I started something 11 years ago called Centre for Climate Safety. I was also part of a small group that started the Climate Emergency Declaration campaign, which has gone around the world with councils and countries declaring a climate emergency.

Cherry Ward:
In this podcast, we are ready to stare down the dragon. So we want to tackle challenges with courage, with honesty, and maybe – well, definitely – with a little bit of humour, because we need that, we need optimism and positivity.

Mik Aidt:
Absolutely, Cherry. This is so important. Because that’s what brings us together. And that is what we need in a business revolution – something that brings us together. Something that builds community among those of us who want to be first-movers in this space.

Cherry Ward:
Yes. And a revolution is something none of us can do on our own. We need to be together about this.

Alan Taylor:
And that’s what we’re going to do here. We’re going to explore what all of the facets of business are that are going to be impacted. What is this business revolution? How can we make it right and happen? Because it is essential.

Cherry Ward:
We want to create a space for exploring and sharing the latest knowledge and insights. Whether it’s on carbon footprint reduction, ESG legislation, emissions accounting, and best practices in this ever-evolving space.

Mik Aidt:
We need extraordinary, revolutionary action!

Ban Ki-moon:
We need a revolution. Revolutionary thinking. Revolutionary action.

Alan Taylor:
So hit that subscribe button on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Mik Aidt:
And you can contact us, of course, on our website, which is: businessrevolution.earth.

Cherry Ward:
Let The Business Revolution begin – one episode at a time.

Anthony Gleeson:
Mmm, that’s significant, Mik. How did you, the three of you, come together? Is this a good time to have a chat about that?

Mik Aidt:
Yeah! It’s interesting, because actually Alan and Cherry have been working together for a long time on something called The Sustainable Shift. And I met Alan because we were interviewing him here in The Sustainable Hour. So you could say that this is a collaboration between The Sustainable Shift and The Sustainable Hour. That’s how it started, really.

We’ve been talking about it for a while and now we’re going to do it. The idea is to be more strictly focused on the business world, so we’re talking to CEOs, of course – the people who make decisions – but we’re also talking to employees.

And we’ll see how it develops because maybe in future we’ll split it up so that there will be one string that only focuses on the management and the leaders and another that focuses on the employees, you know, also with education, with courses.

As a part of what I make a living from, I’m making e-learning courses about cybersecurity. And now we want to produce e-learning courses about these topics that are in the business revolution, which are… you know… ESG, which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance – something that businesses really need to be much more focused on now. It’s coming into the legislation that they’re being forced to focus on this. And similarly, it’s becoming more and more important for businesses to reduce their emissions because customers are beginning to look at… you know, when they buy something, “What’s the emissions in this?” It’s becoming important for businesses to actually be able to say that, “We are doing something. We have figured out how we are going to go carbon neutral.”

Anthony Gleeson:
Yeah. That’s an important one, Mik. I think more and more people are concerned, that are concerned about the climate crisis, are looking at their contributions to it and where they choose to spend their money is a big part of that. So, yeah! And it’s interesting because I think this move, or the shift… There are some companies that all they think they have to do is say, we’re going to do this, but they don’t have to actually do it. And green… and there’s a, yeah, there’s movement against greenwashing. People are calling it out. So that’s very… I imagine that’ll be very much a part of what comes up as well?

Mik Aidt:
That’s right, Tony. You are spot on with that because we will launch the first episode tomorrow, and we don’t have any guests in that show. But already in the second episode, where we have recorded interviews with our guests, will be about greenwashing. This is so important that we begin to talk about how we deal with the greenwashing, but also what the companies that are honest and are on the right path… How you are able to market, or how you are able to speak about these things so that it becomes clear to the customers when you’re honest about something.

Anthony Gleeson:
Yeah. I’ve seen in the last month or so, there’s a couple of actions that have been successful against companies that said they were doing something, but it was… A bit of research clearly showed that they weren’t. And there was litigation action taken against them and that was successful. So the law is getting closer to backing up what we really need to do to be part of the solution.

Mik Aidt:
It’s happening very fast now.
All right, that’s all we could fit in the Hour, Tony.

Anthony Gleeson:
Yep, as always, Mik, it went very quickly. And we’ll be back in just a mere seven days, and doing it all again. And yeah, I guess it’s just a reminder to our listeners that we really are keen to hear from them – what we’re doing well, what maybe we’re not doing well, maybe areas that we could look at that we’re neglecting at the moment? Potential guests for the future? Anything like that. So make it as interactive as possible.

Mik Aidt:
And the email address is info@theustainablehour.au. Also, we have a little bit of a name competition running. I asked last week about how do we find another expression for ‘Hung parliament’. You know, there must be a more positive way to talk about that. You know, the ‘minority government’ expression, ‘hung parliament’. And I have been receiving three suggestions so far. One of them – I’ll disqualify that one, because it’s very difficult to say it. But we will see. Send in your… if you have a suggestion to what we should be calling the ‘Hung Parliament’ thing, which is becoming, I think, very important to talk about for the next election, then send us an email. The address is info@thesustainablehour.au. In the meantime:

Anthony Gleeson:
Be that difference.

Song:
Missy Higgins: ‘The Difference’

Be the difference
Be the difference
I know the world’s gone mad, it’s true
(she said) be the difference
(you can) be the difference

Greta Thunberg:
Many people say that Sweden is just a small country and it doesn’t matter what we do. But I’ve learned that you are never too small to make a difference. And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.

…Song continues:
Be the difference
Be the difference
Cos, darling, the future’s watching us



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Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour

Events in Victoria

The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.

Petitions

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→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name

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Live-streaming on Wednesdays

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The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time).

» To listen to the program on your computer or phone, click here – or go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen Live’ on the right.



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Podcast archive

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