Australia

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The conclusions of a new report written by Australia's top climate scientists are grim: Heatwaves are expected to increase 10-fold while droughts will almost double in number and become more widespread -- possibly impacting an area twice as large as now. Rainfall is also projected to continue its long decline throughout the country.

The report's release prompted agriculture minister Tony Burke to compare the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO's (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) findings to "a disaster novel," according to <...

Image: Phooey Architects
What can’t the shipping container do? We know you can live in these fabulous prefab versions of shipping containers (such as the All-Terrain Cabin or Detroit's planned container condos by Steven Flum); you can shop in them (like in Freitag’s shipping container store in Zurich); you can even serve beer out of them (we like...

We’ve run a hive full of stories here (links below) about Honey Bees and how their decline can adversely impact agriculture. However Australia, due to its island-like border security has, to date, fortunately been spared the devastating industry losses experienced elsewhere. But the local industry is accutely aware this could change suddenly unless it remains vigilant.

The apiarists who managed the 673,000 registered hives in Australia, producing over 30,000 tonnes of honey annually, worth about $50 million AUD, have had keen eyes on a parliamentary committee who recently handed down their report on the bee industry.

The committee’s chair Dick Adams sai...

“The caravan and camping Industry in New South Wales realises that Australia has some big challenges ahead in order to reduce our eco-footprint. For this reason, environmental programs such as the Gumnut Awards have been developed to get the touring industry to proactively drive environmental sustainability.”

The program, self described above, was developed back in 2002, modelled closely on the success of the David Bellamy Conservation Awards in the UK. Since that time the Caravan and Camping Industry Association of NSW ...

Australia has been in the grip of a one-in-a-thousand-year drought. A while back we looked at how this was affecting the ability of cities to provide basic drinking water services and what it meant for agriculture. Then we perked up with stories on how individual Australians and their municipalities have again embraced rainwater harvesting. With gusto. (Governments have even being

The average car on Australian roads today is only as fuel efficient as its predecessor was back in 1963. That’s the finding of prominent transport researcher Paul Mees, of Melbourne University, who is crunching numbers for the Garnaut climate change review. Paul says that “the current rate of progress in making cars more fuel efficient is no progress at all.” In 1963 the average Australian car went 100km on 11.4 litres of petrol. (That’s 20.6 mpg) They can only manage the same efficiency more than 40 years later.

Gathering data fro...

When the Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, died a couple of years back, after being stung by a stingray, our obituary post sparked off a torrent of views for and against Steve’s style of wildlife conservation. Let’s see how we fare this time?

Wildlife Warriors Worldwide, the organisation set up by Steve Irwin and his family, is currently building what is described as the “world's largest wildlife hospital” next door to Australia Zoo in Queensland. Which is kinda cool on its own. But we also like that it will be housed in “one of the biggest strawbale constructions in the world.”
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Folding Bike Innovations (FBI), trading in Australia as Onyerbike, are, by their own admission “designers, importers and retailers of innovative bicycles.” They offer several full size folding bikes, such as their top of the range ‘Hawk’, with its magnesium alloy rim, 6 spoke, 26” wheels. The 7005 aluminium frame folds at a massive hinge in its centre, to make for a fairly compact package. The Hawk weighs15.8 kg and costs just shy of $2,000 AUD....

The size of food product packaging may have to increase, not contract, if recent thinking on providing more information on environmental impacts was to be enacted. We’ve heard about carbon labelling for food in the UK, now an Australia academic is proposing also adding water impact labelling to the mix.

Speaking from last week’s Water Down Under conference in Adelaide, James Hazelton, a senior economics lecturer from Macquarie University, floated the concept of packaged food carrying a label indicating how much water was used in its...

Commercially legal crops of industrial hemp have been approved for the Australian state of New South Wales. The NSW Minister for Primary Industries reckons the approval could open up “the establishment of a new viable industry” for the state.

“For example, it could be used as an additive to wool in soft textured durable yarns, for insulation, as an alternative to fibreglass, in paper products and textiles and also for load bearing masonry for building. Hemp seed oil can also be used as a base for skin care products and paints.”...

In our quest for efficient water use, this might be the first time we’ve come across a shower that recycles its own water for reuse [we’ve already looked at behavior-related conservation tips, like the navy shower and the selective flush, and we’ve also featured a wide-array of technologies, from

Skateistan is a new project being put together by one of our regular contributors, Travis Beard. He's been touring around turbulent cities and sending us photos and stories about things like the rife heroin problems in Afghanistan and the plight...

Melbourne psychedelic blues rockers 'The Last Gypsys' are headlining at Ding Dong this wednesday night. Think Brian Jonestown massacre but more drunk. These guys play as hard off the stage as they do on, so head down and check them...

This is where our editorial assistant, Jon, normally sits, and quite frankly, where he should be sitting today writing things down for us. Given the text message we received from him at 7am this morning though, we're pretty confident we're...

Multi-talented garage punk infant terrible 'Jay Reatard' is playing the Annandale hotel tonight to kick start his Australian tour. Check the flyer for Melbourne and Brisbane dates. If you're not there you better be dead.