July, 2009 - PacificEdge

Home retrofit production a educational resource

Always doing something interesting and useful, Rosemary Morrow's new booklet on retrofitting her house for energy and water efficiency, and food production, has already inspired others...

New manual for sustainable living in Sydney

TerraCircle Inc's Australian project — a community sustainability action guide for local government...

Adrift in a strange land

JAMES BOYCE’S BOOK, Van Diemens Land, is a tale of how geography and environment can influence culture.

A little noise with your coffee, ma’am

A FRIEND OF MINE now avoids the popular practice of taking a break or meeting friends in cafes. It’s not that she has suddenly become anti-social or that she has taken a dislike to our national beverage, coffee. It’s just that she finds cafes and coffee bars to be too… well… too noisy.

Launched: the NSW Food Summit underway

THEY CAME FROM COUNCILS and health services, NGOs and universities, farms and government… and they filled the NSW Parliament House theatre to capacity. This was no convention of the curious. It was the launch event for the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance’s (SFFA) drive to develop a food policy for NSW.

Gibson’s Spook Country a rapsody on our world

I’ve just finished reading William Gibson’s Spook Country, his most recent novel. Having now put it aside, I guess I’m trying to gather some thoughts about it.

Shuman: local the way forward in economics

Talk about rapid response. Within a couple days of Michael Shuman finishing his Brisbane address, something like $36,000 had been raised to set up a local economic initiative. It seemed like the idea of LEI’s – Local Economic Initiatives – that emerged in the 1970s only to soon disappear, had been reborn.

Going to Launceston? Just don’t breathe too deep

CAUGHT BETWEEN rapacious extractive industry on one hand and the sublime beauty of nature on the other, Tasmania remains a paradox in the Australian political landscape. Now, there’s something else to add to the offshore contradiction that is this southern island state—Launceston’s air.

In Tasmania – Shakespeare’s excursion into the deep heart of this strange island

IT WAS LATE on a cold Friday evening when I dropped into Desire bookshop. Cars’ headlights had been turned on and clusters of commuters, hands thrust deep into pockets and heads bowed, scurried homeward along the Corso from the ferry wharf. The day was drawing to a close and a chilling wind was blowing in […]

Daring and exploration on Tasmania’s wild rivers

I’VE JUST FINISHED reading Johnson Dean’s Shooting the Franklin — early canoeing on Tasmania’s wild rivers, and have come away with a feeling of great admiration for those early adventurers who made hazardous voyages into what was literally the unknown.

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