Growing the green redirection

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The Sustainable Hour no. 533 | Transcript | Podcast notes

‘What if I told you that you didn’t have to save the world, only love it? What if love will save the world? Love not as an empty word, but as a spell that binds us together in responsibility and action. Love that urges us to stand up for one another and this planet that sees every magical incarnation of life as beautiful and worthy.’
~ Willow Defebaugh, editor-in-chief of Atmos

Our guests in The Sustainable Hour no. 533, our last of 2024, are Kirsty Bishop-Fox and Costa Georgiadis.

They discuss the importance of sustainability, community engagement, collective responsibility and action, and the role of education in fostering environmental awareness.

Kirsty Bishop-Fox is a dynamic sustainability educator and trainer, empowering people and businesses to reduce their environmental footprint. Known for challenging the status quo, Kirsty offers practical solutions that inspire meaningful action towards a sustainable future. She is co-founder and president of Zero Waste Victoria and a consultant at Sustainability Pathways.
→ More information about Kirsty’s activities and projects can be found at: www.zerowastevictoria.org.au and www.sustainabilitypathways.com.au.

Costa Georgiadis is a landscape architect, author, environmental educator and TV host in love with nature. He travels the country extensively, visiting schools and communities immersing them in the joys of nature and how living sustainably is a fun and engaging lifestyle for all generations.
→ Go to Costa’s World for more information about Costa.

. . .

Be present
In this 533rd episode we round off the year by reflecting on the progress made in 2024 and looking forward to 2025, emphasising the need for collective action and personal responsibility in addressing the climate emergency.

We touch on the significance of language in shaping environmental discourse and the inspiring role of youth in advocating for change. In their conversation, Mik, Kirsty and Costa discuss the significance of using phrases such as ‘the green transition’ and ‘the green redirection’. You can read more about Mik’s research on the topic here.

“Redirect back to what we know,” Kirsty suggests.

Costa talks about the importance of education in fostering environmental awareness, the significance of sustainable living practices, and the transformative power of love in driving action for the planet.

The guests explore personal experiences and community projects that highlight the interconnectedness of individuals and nature.

The discussion culminates in aspirations for a future where individuals nourish themselves and the planet through conscious choices and community engagement.

“Be present!” is Costa’s advice.

. . .

We play a short song from TikTok called ‘Energy Smart’, and round off with listening to Costa’s song ‘Down and Dirty’.

Marking the very end of the Hour and our 11th year of broadcasting, we play an engaging advertisement for Cambridge University with Sir David Attenborough: Our Planet is Precious: Reasons for hope.

. . .

So ends The Sustainable Hour podcast for 2024. And what a year it’s been for us. We have spoken to so many people full of vitality who – like both Kirsty and Costa today – are in love with life and nature and are prepared to do all that they can to protect it.

Once again, week after week we highlighted the climate crisis we face, both the causes and the solutions. We were often unashamedly critical of our federal government’s failure to get real on climate. Sure there some good policies and projects they announced, but we found it very difficult to take them seriously, when they continued to approve the major cause of this crisis, i.e. granting permission for new fossil fuel projects.

At the time of writing this, there were very strong rumours that three more coal mines are going to be approved by Tanya Plibersek, the Minister for the Environment. Her government has already approved 24 new fossil fuel projects since it was elected on a promise to voters of ‘taking care of the climate’.

We are very proud of the wide diversity of guests that we have had on over the year, ranging from teenage activists to school strikers to regenerative farmers to climate-concerned grandparents to people of faith to activists just out of prison for taking non-violent civil disobedience actions to shine extra lumens on our federal government’s inability or unwillingness to do what the science is demanding on climate.

We have had guests of all ages and backgrounds, united by their belief that it doesn’t have to be like this and a determination to work for a safer, more just, inclusive, sustainable, peaceful and healthy world.

We’d like to thank all our listeners who suggested guests and topics for us to cover and hope this continues into 2025. Together we are much stronger that the sum of our parts.

We’ll be back doing the same on the first Wednesday in February. We hope you all have a safe, relaxing summer and return fresh after a break where you all get into nature and feel its nurturing spirit. Take care everyone, and as Costa suggests: Be present!

“It’s a big picture project in terms of educating families and bringing kids in. But it’s also a very small project, which families can take on and go and do at their schools. So getting that embedded, continuing to do the work that I do around this level of education. Yeah, there’s a lot on the plate, but most of it is around getting people to fall in love and connect with nature on a daily basis because they can’t redirect their thoughts and their attitudes and behaviour if they don’t have a heart connection.”
~ Costa Georgiadis, allround Aussie legend, nature lover and co-host of ABC Gardening Australia

→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts

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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.

The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.

True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.

“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org

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Documentary: ‘Climate Extremes: At the Abyss?’

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Steve Cutts: The Turning Point

This is all the same story

Every time you see an article like “South-west France swelters in ‘staggering’ 26.9°C November night heat”, you should be flicking your eyes across to every other article in your feed that lays out the actions being taken to worsen fossil reliance, expand agriculture or destroy land.

Even if they feel disparate, they are different frames in a connected sequence.

They are the same story: France suffered a 27°C night in November because a collection of human beings decided to keep the fossil fuel economy expanding even after the 1990s when we knew the consequences.

The actions climate delayers are taking today – to delay, to greenwash, to corrupt and to deceive – are going to be the things that cause these headlines (and worse) to pop up in the future, if we don’t finally begin to truly clamp down.

This is all the same story – which we consume as surgically extracted, separated and wholly decontextualised from their spot in the causal chain.

~ Ketan Joshi, Climate Comms, research and commentary, on Linkedin.com

→ The Guardian – 29 November 2024:
South-west France swelters in ‘staggering’ 26.9C November night heat
“Temperatures of this week would be exceptional for summer, says climatologist, never mind late November.”

→ The Guardian – 21 November 2024:
‘Capitalism incarnate’: inside the secret world of McKinsey, the firm hooked on fossil fuels
“Interviews and analysis of court documents show how the world’s most prestigious consulting firm quietly helps fuel the climate crisis.”

→ The Guardian – 18 November 2024:
Australia accused of ‘exporting climate destruction’ on tiny Pacific neighbours with massive gas expansion plans
“Labor government ‘not acting in good faith’ when it stands on global stage and promotes its climate credentials, special envoy at Cop29 says.”

Reporting on flash flooding devasation in Brisbane at the top, while on the same front page advertising for ‘stepping up
on the gas’ in a so-called ‘special report’ which is paid for by a group of fossil fuel companies.

Australian homes could slash energy bills by two thirds by cutting out gas and petrol, AEMC says. However, parts of mainstream media continue to spread fear and lies, saying that the only way to avoid higher bills and blackouts is to “step on the gas”.

They can dress it up all they like, but fossil fuels are still climate-wrecking. And Australia now faces a $7 trillion hit to standard of living as a result of climate damage.

How long will Australians put up with being treated like this, really?

→ RenewEconomy – 29 November 2024:
Australian homes could slash energy bills by two thirds by cutting out gas and petrol, AEMC says
“Australian households could lower their bills by over two thirds if they fully electrify their home by cutting out gas and petrol according to a new report.”

→ RenewEconomy – 2 December 2024:
Climate damage: Australia faces $7 trillion hit to standard of living
“The worst is yet to come for Australians already suffering from climate change, with living standards forecast to take a $7 trillion hit between now and 2050.”

Why the green transition is inevitable
A core irony of climate change is that markets incentivized the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels beginning in the Industrial Revolution, creating the mess humanity is mired in, and now those markets are driving a renewables revolution that will help fix it. Coal, oil, and gas are commodities whose prices fluctuate. As natural resources that humans pull from the ground, there’s really no improving on them — engineers can’t engineer new versions of coal.

By contrast, solar panels, wind turbines, and appliances like induction stoves only get better — more efficient and cheaper — with time. Energy experts believe solar power, the price of which fell 90 percent between 2010 and 2020, will continue to proliferate across the landscape. Last year, the United States added three times as much solar capacity as natural gas.

Heat pumps now outsell gas furnaces in the U.S., due in part to government incentives. Last year, Maine announced it had reached its goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, in part thanks to state rebates. So if the Trump administration cut off the funding for heat pumps that the IRA provides, states could pick up the slack.

Unlocking the green transition in Australia

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How about we make the multinational coal and gas corporates causing it pay?… instead of us! https://t.co/54NN2s2Qzb pic.twitter.com/vhXtiVKwbk
— Mark Ogge (@MarkOgge) December 2, 2024

Australia’s emissions fell by 3 million tonnes last year.

Meanwhile, a single coal mine in NSW approved by Labor, Mt Pleasant, will result in 34 million tonnes of emissions annually for 26 years. https://t.co/IREhw4tUp1 pic.twitter.com/L7B3HF30Lq
— Mark Ogge (@MarkOgge) November 29, 2024

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A post shared by Go Beyond Gas (@gobeyondgas)

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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 533

Antonio Guterres, UN Chief:
Failure is not an option.

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

Anthony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to the elders, past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. Each week we mention that we… In the ancient knowledge that they have accumulated over millennia is wisdom. Wisdom that they hone from nurturing both their land and their communities for millennia before the land was stolen. And in that ancient wisdom lies so many of the answers we need as we face up to the climate crisis.

Mik Aidt:
2025, welcome! The Sustainable Hour is ready – what do you say, Tony, Colin?

Colin Mockett:
Look, I’m really looking forward to 2025, to be really honest. As you know, in 2022, during the second lockdown, we completely decarbonised our household. And only now is the message getting through to my neighbours, believe it or not. My next door neighbour, my immediate next door neighbour, asked my advice and bought an electric car, much cheaper than my electric car. He bought one of them, I think it’s the cheapest electric car in Australia, 25 grand for an MG. And he’s ranting about it. And over the fence, he’s now looking at our panels and looking at other things, as has another neighbour who said they weren’t going to get panels because they didn’t want the bother of having to clean them annually. But now I’m being held up as a shining example of what our neighbours should be doing in the future. And so I can see it rolling out quite considerably from just that decision in 2022. So yeah, that’s quite apart from anything else. I’ve got a bit of impetus coming from our neighbourhood.

Mik:
And this is exactly how it happens, isn’t it, Colin? You do what others do. So when we begin to see more and more solar panels up there on the roofs, it becomes normalised. And in the end, it’s like, ‘Why don’t I have that?’ You begin to see that you’re missing out. And actually, you are missing out because you’re wasting your money. If you’re using gas or if you’re using petrol, you’re basically wasting your own money.

Colin:
Yep. If you are unchanged and continuing to drive a diesel or a petrol driven car you’re supporting some pretty nasty regimes in Saudi Arabia or Russia. You’re not doing the planet good on two levels when you look at it that way. It is so… It’s sensible to take the next step into decarbonising. You’re not only working for the planet, but you’re working for the good of mankind, or humankind is the word we should use now, isn’t it?

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

Tony: (at 04:02)
As we approach the end of the year, we thought that we’d get a couple of people that have been on the show before to reflect on their year and look forward to 2025. They’ve got Kirsty Bishop Fox and Costa, who doesn’t need any other name associated with him because we all know who he is. So, Kirsty and Costa, thanks for coming on.

Costa:
Absolute pleasure.

Kirsty:
Great to be here.

Tony:
And how has 2024 felt for you two?

Kirsty:
Well, for me, it’s been an interesting year in the sense that we’ve been looking at, I guess with Zero Waste Victoria, how we can reduce packaging, particularly in the fruit and veggie space. And it’s been interesting for me going to some of the industry conferences where I’ve actually heard what the big players are doing to reduce waste. And quite frankly, it’s not enough. But the good news about that is there are some review papers out right now which are going to be making it better for us all to have less packaging, have more repair, have more reuse and a real focus on sustainability in the circular economy.

So moving through to 2025, I’m really excited about that because we’re looking at it, the government’s looking at it, the community’s looking at it and it’s all great guns moving forward.

Colin:
Good on you, Kirsty, more power to your elbow. But the point is: 2025, we’re going to have a federal election. And that means you’ve got a bit of power. Have you got a strategy for getting to our politicians and saying, hey, we’ll only vote for you if you get on board with this reduction of plastics?

Kirsty:
Yeah, it’s interesting. You don’t have a strong strategy specifically for individual politicians, I suppose. The community is getting a louder and louder voice and they’re hearing us, they’re hearing us, they’re wanting us to be involved and they’re knowing that it’s not just industry who have got the money that matter because the industry is quite small in terms of voting whereas the community is making a big difference too. And the community is getting louder and louder with actually using a lot of noise, if that makes sense. Their actions are speaking and what they’re saying, they can actually be in the background doing something, they can be in the background repairing.

We’re at the Zero Waste Festival and people are repairing in the middle of Pett Square. That’s a really strong action and I think it’s really great when people don’t have the, know, some people are really great at articulating what they want and lobbying their MPs, but there are other ways to do it as well too and making it really, really, really clear.

Colin:
Costa, can I ask you… Look, I know that you’re a very good gardener, but are you an environmentalist as well? And do you buy any products that are wrapped in plastic?

Costa:
Well, Colin, that’s a really good question. And I think, you know, when you position yourself in environmental education, you have to find a balance between what is the end game, like what we would love, which is to eliminate single use plastic from that day to day machination, just like, yeah, make it easy, make it really convenient. To have that as an end goal, but then at the same time, have to onboard people that aren’t even thinking about it, because they’re the ones who we need to bring onboard so that you start to get some impact. So, you’ve probably heard the saying, it’s better to have 60 per cent of people doing an action of 10 or 15 per cent than 3 per cent of people doing it 80-90 per cent.

And that’s the kind of zone that I like to live in, translating information. Like Kirsty talked about going to some of the big industry conferences and you hear the talk and you hear the numbers and numbers can sometimes be massaged and cherry picked to serve certain purposes, right?

And for me, the most important part is to get information, get data and crunch it down and synthesize it into doses, into nice little hors d’oeuvres, into tasty little curry puffs that people can go, I’m gonna try that, you know, and you just come past with a bit of aroma, you you crank the garlic and get that smell going and get a little bit of interest because that’s the most important thing when you get the narrative turned around so that people come and ask. Well, when they ask, you’ve got a lot more opportunity to explain rather than be standing there doing these ones and saying, ‘Listen to me because I’m saving the world and you should be too.’

So, you know, I look at all of the events that I go to, or not just events, you know, projects and conferences and so on. And for me, it’s about making sure that information can get outside of that conference center, outside of that lectures theater, outside of those walls where the people inside are already converts and get it to people that first of all don’t know anything about it, but get it to people that are kind of in transition and say, here’s a bit more information for you to be able to advocate so that your efforts can start to extend and blend into your family culture. And then your family culture influences the families and friends around you and the neighborhood and so on.

That’s how I like to view all these things. So whether I’m going to the End Food Waste Conference, whether it’s the Australian Association of Environmental Educators, whether it was, you know, two weeks ago I was in Adelaide for the National Cemetery and Cremateria Conference.

Three days ago I was up in Coffs Harbour for the Australian Institute of Horticulture Conference. I don’t see any difference between those five events that I just told you about when most people would go, huh, where does that fit in?

But for me, it’s about the threads and everything is inter threaded. And the more we can illustrate that and show people that, you know, what’s going on at cemeteries is important to you. But equally what’s going on at the Institute of Horticulture talking about cooling our cities with trees, but the right selection of trees, so that the right trees get put in and then that 10-year investment doubles down into 20 years. You don’t get 10 years down and go, this was the wrong tree and have to take it out.

And the impact that that has on mental health and then the impact that that has on physical cost of living because if a street’s cooler and a suburb is cooler, that’s less energy that needs to be spent. And tie that in with the fact that a few nights ago it was water night and as an ambassador for that, talking about water, saving water, saving water is saving energy, saving energy, saving money, saving money is helping redirect priorities, not just in my own budget, but in the community’s budget and not just the community’s monetary budget, but the community’s water budget and environment budget and biodiversity corridors that can be supercharged because there’s water available. So I kind of… And then the cemetery is part of those corridors and we need to bring people in there.

You can sort of see how for me being out in these, you know, I’ve got a statistics chart, the outlying dots, like they’re as valuable as, you know, the clusters, because if we can push and pull and create these ebbs and flows and get people thinking about things differently, light bulbs happen and you never can be sure exactly how or when, you know, whether it’s me at that waste conference or Kirsty meeting someone that then changes, you know, the fruit stickers because she can put that through, you know, Zero Waste Victoria and get some momentum and you know, there’s the synergies of what it’s all about for me.

Colin:
Costa, I must admit, I’m really, really surprised. I didn’t expect that answer. I didn’t expect Costa to say, ‘Well, I’ve been doing cemeteries’ – and moving from planting vegetables to planting people. I was expecting, I must admit from my question of whether you would use plastic, I was expecting, well no, I grow my own vegetables, I only pick out the ones that I need for that day and therefore I’ve got no food waste. That is how I assume Costa Georgiardis worked, because you’ve got this reputation as an ace gardener. Have I got the image wrong? And are you spending your time in the TV studios all the time and you’re popping into the supermarket on the way home to get tonight’s tea?

Costa:
Look, when you’re away on the road like I am a lot and sometimes it backs up to eight, nine, ten, twelve weekends in a row.

You know, I miss windows of planting sometimes, but what I do is I have my perennial stuff in so I can go out onto that balcony and I’ve got some chicory and some different lettuces out there that are trees and they are so tough and they’re bitter and I love it because that’s good for the gut. And so I can go out and make myself a salad like that. But I did get, I’ve got my tomatoes in, I’m involved with a project where there’s a grow along at the moment.

So people sign up and they get to grow along with a whole community of growers. And I take videos and share the ‘grow along’ with people and share the bumps and the bruises and the fact that I don’t make it perfect. And I’m actually really pumped that it isn’t perfect. And I’m pumped that things come and attack it and the birds dig it out and then I come home and I go, look at this and I make a video and say, look, I have these same problems, you know, I don’t want to intimidate people.

I want to share that, know, whether you’re here in Sydney or whether you’re in Melbourne or whether you’re in, you know, Will, Kenya, we all have our challenges and being able to grow a little bit and be able to, you know, have that perennial stuff that just keeps growing even when you can’t necessarily keep to the annual windows. That makes a difference.

Mik: (at 15:34)
I would love to hear something about, from both of you, Kirstie and Kosta, what do you think as a big new trend or a big word that came up in 2024 for you?

And I’ll give you an example. I was in Denmark in August and I heard everyone there talking about the green transition, the green transition. That word was everywhere. And I realised that Australia is missing in my opinion, that we all talk about the same word, the same vision in a way, or the same phrase that everyone is talking about. Politicians, media, people you meet in the street. The word transition has really grown. And I know there’s a movement here, a global movement for the transition towns and transition streets. So it’s not like we don’t know the word. It’s already in use for sure. But for me, a big, big word that came up was actually just that word transition. And I heard you use it, Costa, when you just talked about that ‘people transition’. What about if we were more bold and said The Transition? So here’s an example, right? What about you, Kirsty, if we start with you? What was big for you this year? What came up as maybe a surprise word or a trend or something that could move into the next year?

Kirsty:
The word that’s coming to mind is ‘redirect’. I think we, and it needs to be a small redirection or sometimes it needs to be a big redirection, but sometimes it could be a small redirection just to get the trajectory going in a slightly different path. Reviving is part of the redirection in the sense that we’re sometimes redirecting back to what we know worked. It doesn’t have to be new, it doesn’t have to be amazing. And it’s interesting, I sat in the Waste Conference earlier this year, and in the Waste Conference, they were talking about the CDS. And my question to them was, what about refills? We need to refill and reuse. And I point out that I know this was possible because when I grew up, that’s what we did. We refilled those drink bottles. We refilled the milk bottles. We refilled the soft drink bottles. Well, I didn’t get the soft drink, but my neighbors did. But it’s those things. And sometimes we can redirect or we go back to where we were. And I think that can make a real big difference as well, too. It doesn’t have to be new. You don’t have to reinvent everything.

Mik:
Now I’m getting a bit nerdish about words, because I have thought a lot about how to translate ‘Den Grønne Omstilling’. And Kirsty, you nailed it right there: I think the word ‘omstilling’, which is a Danish word – the best translation I have heard is to ‘redirect’ – that is the exact translation of ‘omstilling’. So what the Danes talk about all the time is ‘the green redirection’ – that’s what they talk about. And maybe that is what we should be calling it?

Kirsty:
I like redirection. It works for me. It makes sense. And it can be used in different ways. Redirect the food that we grow, redirect the food that we choose to buy and eat, redirect back to those basic things. Redirect away from big food and look at health food. And health food is not health food with a high protein, low fat. That’s not health food at all. In fact, if you see high protein, low fat, no added sugar, avoid it. But go back to what we grew up with, with real food, fruits and vegetables, cooked with love to nourish your heart, to nourish your soul, to nourish your body, redirect back to what we know.

Mik:
Fantastic. Let’s test this word, Kirsty. We have someone we can test it on who talks a lot about narratives and who is out talking to all of Australia all the time. Costa, what do you think about using the expression, ‘the green redirection’?

Costa:
Look, I’m a big sticker for vocabulary and you know, the words we choose are the words that create the future. And it’s only when we stop and listen to what we say on autopilot where you get that chance to actually rethink what you’re saying and not repeat just the phrases and the framework that creates the future. So something like redirect – I mean, you know, in the waste space, shifting from waste to resource.

Just that vocabulary change shifts the narrative in a really positive way because then you’re not saying that’s rubbish because there is no rubbish. Everything has a value. And what rubbish does is actually consign the value to a cost rather than an asset.

So when people started to change that language and say this is resource recovery, you know, that was a big step because it got things out of that waste and rubbish stream. And then I think working towards what Kirsty said, there are these steps and I think it needs to be like a water ladder at a river where it changes level so that you can move up the ladder, be in some water, be comfortable. Then you wait for a little bit of a change in the tide, the next lot of water comes up and you advance after you’ve been there for a while.

We can’t expect to change the language, change the thinking and demand that people all just go straight up the ladder and go, yeah, I’m with you. Because for some of them, just the idea of going to the first step in the ladder is a big thing. So allow them that time to settle and synthesise the information, become part of what this picture is and what this new, what these new bearings are, what this new direction is, and then go, okay, this is how the ladder works.

All right, I’ll go up to the next level. And you realise whenever you’re doing a story, like words come with baggage. And by baggage, I mean, the greenwashing. And the moment you start to use a word, you’re going to put people in camps, and they’re going to go, or they’re to go, yeah, or they’re going to sit in the middle and go, hmm, I’ll see.

So I think anything where you build a shift, it’s got to have the engagement. The engagement comes with the direction and the direction comes from, you know, a bearing that we put on it. And that bearing has to have a title and then away we go.

Mik:
So that was a very long answer, Costa, to a simple question, which was: do you like the expression ‘the green redirection’? – or not? And I heard you saying you don’t really like the word ‘green’, maybe, but ‘redirection’ is OK?

Costa:
I’m cautious of it because, because what we’re saying, because once you say ‘green’, you kind of just say ‘environment’, whereas people come at this from so many different ways, whether it’s waste, whether it’s food, whether it’s community, whether it’s schooling and education. Yeah, I would just need to think about it a bit more.

Mik:
So what about ‘the global redirection’?

Costa:
Probably… the global redirection, I think, is… you can kind of create a bit of overwhelm and people think ‘You’re putting the whole world on my shoulders.’ The way I shift that is by saying, ‘Just change the world around you.’ And that’s the best, because then that affects the world and then it goes out. So yeah, I’d be careful around ‘global’ because people just shut off.

Mik:
What about ‘ecological’? – ‘the ecological redirection’? …It’s impossible to say.

Costa:
Again, I think it’s a very specific title, which people will put into a canister and say, right, that’s that.

Mik:
Let’s go back to square one. Kirsty suggested ‘redirection’ is a great word. What about we don’t need – like, the Danes have ‘the green redirection’, but let’s skip the ‘green’ and just talk about ‘the redirection’. We could see ‘the redirection’. It could be a personal redirection. It could be a ‘sustainable redirection’.

Kirsty:
I like ‘personal redirection’ because there’s lots of ways, know, I’m, you know, we all move on in life. And I’ve actually realised in life that the older you get, the better life can get if you enable that to happen.

And that redirection can be redirecting you to have your best life. And to me, my best life is a healthy, sustainable, community-focused outcome. And so if we redirect our personal choices and the personal things that we do, because personal actions are really important, we can talk about waste on a global scale, and we can talk and talk and talk about what somebody has to do on a global scale. But if we don’t do that on a personal scale, everybody needs to do it on a personal scale, not some of us, but everyone.

And as Costa was saying before, we’re not looking at some people doing it perfectly. I’m really all into progress over perfection. And I’m a reform perfectionist in the sense that sometimes it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s got to be done. And it’s just got to be that step towards it. And the trouble with perfectionism is you reach that level of what you thought was perfect, and then you change it.

So it’s just that step forward. And when we’re about eating, and cost of growing our food, you know, I love to grow my food and sometimes I have more success than other times. And at the moment I’m going out there and I pick three leaves out of my garden and it might sound small, but they were like I had a rainbow chard, they were in silver, big leaves to put into my omelet. Those little things, that’s one little thing that made a difference.

And if I can’t do that because my garden’s lacking and cost is probably more time poor than me in the garden, but sometimes I get that way too, I will grow sprouts on my garden bench. So it’s just that little thing that we can do. And it might be a seemingly small thing, but to me, the reward of having the food that I’ve grown without the plastic, I’m saving money. That’s really a bonus. That’s not what drives me, but of course I am…

Or we could redirect it by going, ‘Okay, you know what, I’m not going to buy new clothes! I’m not going to buy new clothes this month’ – if you buy a lot of new clothes. I buy secondhand and the clothes up things. ‘Okay, next time something breaks, I’m going to try and get it repaired.’

So we can redirect our personal choices to live our best lives. And that’s going to be more sustainable. And that can be different in the eyes of different people. Is your sustainability goal plastic free? Is it not to reduce food waste?

Is it not to that have a textile waste? Is it to reduce your carbon emissions?

It doesn’t matter what it is, but every one of those redirects adds up, but one step at a time.

Tony:
You’re both, Kirsty and Costa, two people that interact with lots of people and get to know about lots of projects. Has there been one thing that you’ve come across this year that’s really impressed you and think that it’s, Yeah, it made you feel good.

Kirsty:
One thing I’m thinking of for me is some of the work I’ve done in schools. And what impresses me no end is when you get these young people who are questioning and asking questions. They want questions of their leaders. They want questions of why. And that curiosity is being sprouted, whether it’s at schools or whether it’s even at events.

Like I know at the Zero Waste Festival, we had a young girl. She was nine years old and as I’m wrapping a session up, I’m putting the time, I see her hand up. Now when I see a young kid with a question in an adult-focused forum, as a panel moderator, I wanna hear their voice because these kids, when I said never let me down, that’s the wrong way of framing it, but they always impressed me with the questions they asked. And she asked a really big question, it was a food panel and she asked a question about shrinkflation in our food.

You know, where the packets are getting smaller and the costs are getting higher and what’s being done about that from a nine year old kid. I’ve sat in schools and I’ve had students say, well, you know what, how come our school is doing this? We can do better.

And the moment, the moment a student says that to a teacher is the moment that you set the wheels in place for it to happen. And that impresses me every single time. And what impresses me just as much as these kids is the teachers who empower these kids and give these kids the opportunity to have voice and agency.

It’s not up to our kids to fix what our generations couldn’t, but it impresses me that they’re going right moving forwards. We’re going to take action and they’re bringing along their parents, they’re bringing along their friends. They are our future and it’s really inspiring to see.

Mik:
Costa, remember you came to South Geelong Primary School and talked to the kids there about a worm farm and you personalised these worms. And I can tell you one thing, that story you told that still today lives in my family. My kids were at that school and they were looking at you talking. At that time, they were, you know, smaller than 10 years old. Today, they are teenagers beginning in university and so on. However, we still talk about The Worm in the garden, not ‘the worms’, but ‘The Worm’. And we feed it and we nurse it and it has a personality. And that’s thanks to you, Costa. You must have had some experiences like Kirsty is talking about in schools. Have you had this this year as well?

Costa:
Yeah. I was just scrolling like a pinball machine rolling a credit, like, of all these great projects that I’m seeing from pollinator corridors that have been established outside of this year, but are just doubling down and growing along the Yarra. And then that grew out of a community project, the Heart Gardening project, growing out of a community project, now building incredible relationships with the council, the City of Melbourne and the Royal Botanic Gardens.

So these are those growth synergies that I love to see because then it builds the validity because it has the data and the knowledge and most of all it started from heart, you know, but you need the head as well. So seeing these balances, My School down in Geelong, you know, a wonderful project that has progressed and is now in its second year and they’re having their second birthday this Thursday, they’ve got some upcoming projects where they can step and start to build their next satellites.

And these projects… And Food is Free project in Ballarat, they just celebrated their 10th birthday. But they’ve moved on in the sense that from the laneway to the green space to now a courtyard in this community hub. And then they’ve been given this huge area of a couple of acres to build this farm that’s going to grow food much like farm my school to grow food boxes for the local community for people in need but then also for people to to buy and and and be part of in the community so What I really love is where you know you get to see this progress and you get to To follow up.

It’s like you see something on the telly and then you never hear about it again. I love to do the follow ups and to support these projects and make sure that people can see how things do take time, but just because they take time doesn’t mean they’re not successful and that we don’t need to be urgent and force things when they’ll move along at a pace and when we can allow that pace to happen then the right people see it at the right time and support it. And that’s what I see in all these projects around the country.

Don’t cover up research for decades that prove your industry is destroying the Earth to make a quick buck.

. . .

TIC TOC SONG: ‘Energy Smart’
Climate change is real and it’s time to go green.
We gotta cut the carbon and make it clean.
It’ll take a little teamwork.
We’ll all do our part.

. . .

Colin:
I’m interested, Costa… I mean, we all know the Costa that we see on television and we all build little personas around it of somebody who is close to the soil and somebody who grows their own stuff. And we tend to think of you as being probably vegetarian, maybe vegan, probably got your allotment as well as your own garden. But you let a little thing slip earlier on when you said when you get home, you come out on the balcony where you’ve got your tomatoes growing. And I thought you must live in an apartment. And then I remembered reading somewhere that you’ve got a degree in archaeology or you studied archaeology at uni, did you not?

Costa:
Landscape architecture. Landscape architecture, right.

Colin:
So my first question is, are you in a normal house with a garden or are you in a unit and do you live in a sustainable manner? You know, have you got panels? Do you drive an electric car? Are you sustainable in your living, in your normal living?

Costa:
Okay, that’s a good question. So first of all, why do I have a balcony in my garden? I have a balcony on my garden and a garden on my balcony because I want to grow things in containers in a small confined space so that I can illustrate and grow alongside what a lot of people and most people have to do.

So I want that firsthand illustration. And that’s the best way for me to do it on this little balcony that gets summer sun, but in winter it’s shaded. So I can’t do as much up there. I also have a street garden. My street verges on a garden. And along there I’ve got two worm farm bathtubs, seven compost bins, four worm farms, and people bring me their food scraps from down the street, probably about 14 houses bring me their food scraps, which I put into the compost bins.

When I have chickens… – I don’t have chickens at the moment, but that’s going to change over the new year because I’ve just been on the road a lot and I didn’t want to introduce new chickens when I wasn’t around because it’s not fair for them to just not have someone here. So I’ll wait until probably the end of the heat, probably until end of Feb and I’ll get some new chickens and then.

Normally a lot of those food scraps go to the chickens. What doesn’t go to the chickens goes to the worm farm and then what doesn’t go to the worm farm goes to the compost. So I’ve got this integrated system that’s like a community composting system and people come and bring me their waste. My frog pond, if I lift the window, have a listen. They make a symphony. I don’t know if you can hear that?

[Costa opens a window]

So they’re the Perrins tree frogs. So I’ve got a massive pond in the backyard and at this time of the year, it’s peak Perrins. And those frogs are part of, I suppose, the biodiversity strategy that I’ve got with my garden and with my nature strip. And it’s just an absolute treat to know that every year. That pond is pumping out probably three or four thousand parents, local tree frogs that just go out into the suburb.

And I get people from four, five, six streets away saying, I think some of your frogs are in my gutter and I had one jumping through the living room last night. And I just go, wow, you know, for the last eight years, I’ve repopulated the frogs of the area. That’s a sort of story that I love to be able to tell.

You might have an old pool that you can do that with, but you can do that with a small pond or a bathtub or a pot that you seal and just build it and they will come. Then I grow veg inside alongside the pond. I’ve got a couple of raised beds as well. So in specific answer to your sustainability, their measures that deal with the food waste of my own and a lot of people.

When I’ve got my chickens, of course I’ve got eggs and I share those with people as well. When the street garden is pumping, people have access to that. So that’s a nice offset of my moves and my travels because I kind of share food and share the garden with people.

I don’t have an electric vehicle at this stage. I have a push bike, and I do have an electric skateboard that I love to ride when I go out to other towns. It’s such a great way to move around a country town because you’re not in a car and you feel the temperature, you feel the shade, you feel the movement of the place and you can ride along the open spaces or go down the main street and get to meet people or just ride early in the morning. And so, yeah, that’s a kind of little random anecdote there that I take my electric skateboard around when I can as a bit of fun.

And yeah, I suppose I aim to reduce the amount of energy that I use because I don’t really need a lot and try to just reduce my footprint as best I can. Then look, as far as the travel goes, people have asked me about this before.

And I say, look, yes, I have some footprint there. But whenever I go somewhere, I always offset it by doing a community or multiple community other visits outside of just the event.

And then I’ll go to school and I’ll go to a preschool and I might visit a retirement village and catch up with people. So I kind of work, I work an offset system like that, that if I’m going to go to a community, it’s not just FIFO. I’m not in and out. I will stay there. So I’m going up to Armidale this weekend.

And they just wanted me to do something on Friday night and Saturday morning. But I’m going Friday morning. I’m visiting gardens and a school and a refugee community garden that they’ve set up. I’m then doing something for the council around their composting and reprocessing of the food waste. And then on the Saturday, I’m doing the festival and then I’m staying on the Sunday to visit all the other gardens. So that helps build that event.

And if we build that event, because it’s its second year, then that can extend out into all the other people that can come and build that event as a sustainability and environmental ed, garden, biodiversity kind of hub for that region. That’s why on this occasion, I say to myself, nah, I’m gonna spend three days there, not just the morning and the evening that they want.

Mik:
We are at that time of year now where society more or less begins to close down and everyone takes a deep breath, sits with their feet in the sand somewhere or reads a book. And then we come back to work in about a month’s time. And I would like to read to you something I read in a newsletter just a couple of weeks ago, the editor in chief of a magazine called Atmos, Willow Defebaugh wrote the following:

‘What if I told you that you didn’t have to save the world, only love it? What if love will save the world? Love not as an empty word, but as a spell that binds us together in responsibility and action. Love that urges us to stand up for one another and this planet that sees every magical incarnation of life as beautiful and worthy.’

Willow Defebaugh, editor-in-chief of Atmos, wrote this. Is there something in this that we need to talk more about, more about what binds us together in responsibility and action? Kirsty?

Kirsty:
Yeah, look, I think when we start doing things together and we do it together and for each other because of love, whether it be love for your family, love for your community, it takes away that sometimes competitive edge which can get in the way of things.

In many ways, I say we, as a society, are conditioned to want more and more and to be, to have this high-flying job with a high-flying wage and a high-flying life. And having been in the corporate world, it’s great to jump out of it and not have that high-flying life. And I don’t mean flying in the sense of airplane flying. I just mean what I want now in life is quite different. You know, I want to be grounded. I want to be connected.

And when you say love, there are so many different angles with love. And I think one of the biggest things for me is actually learning love as in personal love, like a self-care type of love, in the sense that we can often go caring. And I’ve been in a position before where I’ve been caring for my family. I’ve been caring for the courses that I do and caring for the work that I do where I haven’t been caring for myself. And we have that self-love. It’s easier to… Self-love fills your cup, which means you can give more.

I was having this conversation with someone the other day. So when I take myself as a priority, when I spoke to you before about having those three leaves, they might have been, might not sound like much, but that’s all I need for one omelet. But that’s a little way of loving myself, loving my family, loving the planet without even thinking about the planet. And if we take that approach with everything, it’s even like going to a close up and going, these are the clothes that I once loved.

Maybe I still want to love them, but they don’t work for me the way they used to work. And then I see somebody else wearing it, and they actually look amazing in it. And that’s another way of loving, whatever it happens to be. And when you go as customized, both through different ways, go to schools, and then you see the kids. And when you go into these schools, and they just want to hear what you have to say, because they’ve got so much hope. It’s love. There are so many ways that we can share love in a broader sense. And I think that word love is sometimes underutilised or misinterpreted.

You can have a lot of love for something and love is a verb, something that you do. For me, probably one of the pillars of what I do every day is talk exactly about love and falling in love with nature and falling in love with the world and just how precious it is and that every single person has a position and a place of significance, even when that gets so polarised and so politicised and so camp driven that if you’re with them, you’re not with us. And if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

And all of these extremities that have seemed to have gotten even worse with the nature of political indifference and the walls that people are putting up literally and figuratively all around the world. To me, those moments where you connect through the heart, that’s actually what’s going to get us through this transition as we spoke about, because science isn’t changing people’s approach. The science is on the table.

And people make these captain’s calls and just say, ‘Well, you know, the world is this’ and that ‘I don’t believe in that’. I don’t believe you can believe whatever you want. But the facts are the facts. And I think that’s a clear reflection of the fact that the facts aren’t what’s going to help drive this change.

What we need is that really balanced injection of heart into all conversations and processes.

Colin:
Well, look, we’re coming towards the end now. It’s been a fascinating hour and I’m surprised that the hour just seems to have melted. But the point is, if I were to ask you, what would be your ideal situation if we were to meet again in a year’s time? What would you love to be able to say we’ve achieved in 2025? Yeah, I’m the bloke who gives the easy questions.

Costa:
You just come out with the sledgehammer on notice. Boom. Are you ready? Yep. Okay, let me think about that for a sec.

Colin:
Well, that means you go first, Kirsty.

Kirsty:
That means I go first? Okay, Colin. Come on. Costa thinks, and I give him little snippets to feed off. I guess in terms of sitting here in relation to love 2025, I think I started saying a bit before, I know myself, I eat reasonably healthy, even more than healthy, for me I’m looking at making sustainable food choices, which are not just going to nourish me, but nourish the planet. And it’s these little things that we do that make a difference.

And I feel that most people, most people in Australia, even worldwide, can actually nourish themselves and nourish the planet better than they are.

We actually, I had somebody tell me this one of the researches, we do not grow enough fruit and veggies in Australia for everybody to meet their minimum requirements. And the reason that doesn’t happen is because they’re not brought. So when you think about that, we can all have more healthier foods. And what that does from a personal level, it gives me more clarity, it gives me more energy, it gives me that, I guess, those better health choices, and it sets me up to have a better future.

The reality is, when I look at it from an environmental perspective, it’s actually taking the power away from big food and giving me the power. And if I can do that for myself and spread that message to others to have those thoughts, it doesn’t have to be a big change, it can just be a little change by going, okay, breakfast cereals, right, let’s not have breakfast cereal anymore. You make that one little change, it can make a massive difference.

So that’s one scope there. In terms of other things that we do, it’s really just encouraging people to think about their personal decisions, to think about reducing plastic, the plastic with the produce, get that into a higher level where the government is talking about it. And I don’t like to think on a global scale too much in the sense that we can support the global by acting local.

And so if I look at that local action that I can do and think of everyone around the world doing this one thing, then that’s gonna have a global impact.

Also to me about bringing people on this journey in a subtle way. I say subtle in the sense that everybody as an educator is at a different place on this journey. And it’s just giving them that hope. hear a lot of, well, it’s not being recycled anyway and a lot of things aren’t being recycled.

And there are some things that aren’t being recycled, but there’s a lot of things that are being recycled. And if you can go, well, if recycling’s all too hard, well, don’t worry about recycling, just reuse. To me, it’s actually easier to reuse than worry about those things.

So if I look at that and look at the people around me, they’ll look at the people who empower me. And if we can all get with those positive mindset people and feed off us, like we’re doing now, we’re feeding off each other right now. you know, the opportunities I get to be with Costa, I feed off him.

And hopefully he feeds off me a little as well too, as well as everyone else around us. And the more we do that, the more we all grow together as a community and individually, because it’s one of those things, you know, speaking to my teenage sons, my teenage son who I love dearly and is knuckling down studying, studied really hard for his year 12 exams, but sometimes it’s like, yeah, mom, I don’t care about that. I’m not worried about the chemicals that are in that cream or are in that thing there.

And it’s like, well, lucky you’ve got your mother to think about that. But then I reflect back to when I was a teenager, I probably wasn’t that too different. And when you get this knowledge and you realise that, hang on a minute, we’ve got all this life ahead of us. We’ve all got a lot of years ahead of us. So let’s make the next years of our life the best years of our life. I think that’s possible. I suppose in a similar light, one of the first things that came up from reading that quote or listening to that quote was exactly that opportunity to be receptive for me to continue to not only be open to new ideas and new outlooks and new perspectives, but be able to continue to synthesise them and craft them into the stories that I can then take and amplify and help projects get positioned and get connected to new people.

Yesterday I was at an open garden weekend up in Northern Victoria. I bumped into an inspiring friend of mine called Joost Bakker, who you may or may not have had on the show, but he has been like right on that edge of ideas consistently. And talking yesterday about why we are not growing hemp as a replacement for, you know, an industry around fabric that is just not designed for this continent.

And you hear those statistics and you get thrown into that realm again, you just want to say, right, I need to get that message out there some more. That idea of also dealing with the systems of biochar and dealing with waste from farming and agriculture and turning it into the kind of long term soil building facility, subsurface building, soil building facility that stores and helps hold the carbon and build fertility and build the health that Kirsty’s talking about in the food, you know, because we need mineral and nutrient dense food. So there needs to be a shift there as well out of the status quo. So my intent for that year ahead is to continue supporting the projects that I’m also working on, like when it comes to Gardening Australia Junior, getting a third season of that up and going, you know, that takes steps because, you know, we’ve just finished filming – literally today – the second series.

But that’s a big picture project in terms of educating families and bringing kids in. But it’s also a very small project, which families can take on and go and do at their schools. So getting that embedded, continuing to do the work that I do around this level of education. Yeah, there’s a lot on the plate, but most of it is around getting people to fall in love and connect with nature on a daily basis because they can’t redirect their thoughts and their attitudes and behaviour if they don’t have a heart connection.

So that’s a really big thing that’s part of my everyday life and it’ll be part of next year more than ever before.

JINGLE (at 53:44)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.

Mik:
We always end the Hour, and we’ve done that for 11 years now, by saying, well, we used to say ‘Be the difference’. But we have improvised it a lot the last year or so, asking our guests to say, what do you think we should be? Kirsty?

Kirsty:
Be redirecting the change.

Costa:
Be present!

Colin:
I’ll go one further than that, Costa. Be in the present.

Mik:
Seize the day.

. . .

SONG
Costa: ‘Down and Dirty’ (at 56:04)
Get yourself unclean, there’s a whole new paradigm and you don’t need a neon tone, embrace the change, make a shift, it’s time for everyone to lift, so spread the word, make some noise, all the mums and dads, all the girls and boys. Let’s dance!

. . .

Cambridge University advertisement on Youtube.com:
Sir David Attenborough:
It might seem like an obvious thing to say, but we need to keep saying it. Our planet is precious. The climate stability of the past 12,000 years has come to an end. And around the world we are now suffering from the impact. At the same time, nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history, with as many as a million species facing it.

Fortunately, we’re now better informed about the state of the world than ever before in the planet’s history. And those with knowledge and the ability to innovate can provide solutions to a great number of problems. We need solutions. We need action. And we need them now.
Female narrator:
We’re bringing together some of the world’s brightest minds to develop real, workable solutions.

We’re helping today’s leaders build sustainability into everything they do. And we’re training tomorrow’s leaders to deliver a zero carbon future. Cambridge is a world leader in low cost, next generation solar cells, which convert more of the sun’s rays into electricity.

We’re designing new types of batteries to support an energy revolution. Our scientists are harnessing photosynthesis to turn sunlight into clean liquid fuel, to power vehicles and industry sustainably.

We’re developing natural construction materials, tapping heat from underground transport to reuse as an energy source. But it’s not just about reducing emissions. We must remove carbon that’s already in our atmosphere. This means protecting and growing the Earth’s natural carbon extractor, the tree and plant life that helps us breathe.

It’s time to reconstruct economics to include nature as an ingredient. Rebalancing fragile ecosystems won’t be easy. It will affect how we work, how we travel, what we eat and how we live. But in a world riven with inequality, the way we do this must be fair for all. That’s why we’re working with governments and industries to develop zero carbon policies that work locally, nationally, and internationally.

Attenborough:
If we don’t change, we’ll lose more than we can ever recover. It’s a source of comfort to me that people are recognising their world is at stake, that the ocean is not infinitely full of food and the ground is not infinitely full of minerals. There are huge opportunities to get things right. The only way to operate is to believe we can do something about it. And I truly think we can.

. . .

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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

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

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Live-streaming on Wednesdays

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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