Strawbale House

As most of you are probably aware our current economy is driven by constant growth and that the success of any commercial venture is always measured by continued growth of sales, earnings, and market share. Since I have realised this myself quite a few years back I have always wondered how such continued growth can be sustained, not just in an environmental perspective.

I have recently come across this site called “The Story of Stuff” which kind of explained how the current economy works and that we can’t keep on expecting relentless, continuing growth.

The site features a 20 minute movie where Annie Leonard explains how our economy currently works and how this needs to be changed to enable a sustainable economy which in turn even helps the environment.

One scary fact that I always suspected but thought was a bit of a conspiracy theory is that world economies have been deliberately set-up for more and more consumerism in order to keep the earnings of the big corporations growing.

I do highly recomend taking 20 minutes to watch the movie on the “The Story of Stuff” website to anyone interested in sustainabilty.

Also, please share your thoughts on what Annie Leonard presents in the movie in the comments section of this article. I’d also like to hear about any ideas this movie might have inspired.

For ourselves, Rosalba and I are most likely to move our superannuation money into an super account that invests more into sustainable companies. We are currently looking at Australian Ethical Supperannuation as we believe that ethical investment includes investment into companies with sustainable practices.

So again, please share your thoughts in the comments section. Remeber every civilised and intelligent comment until the end of August 2008 goes in the draw to win the Book of House Plans.

The Channel 7 Sunrise team have started another petition to stop the means testing of the solar rebate in Australia. The Sunrise petition already has over 30,000 signatures so it looks like this petition will make an impression.

If you would like the means test for the solar rebate to be scrapped, please sign the Channel 7 Sunrise petition. I believe you should sign this petition even if you have already signed a previous petition for this purpose.

The Sunrise petition can be found at http://sunrisefamily.com.au/current/petition/

Also please do tell your friends about the Sunrise petition and get them to sign it as well, if the feel the means testing should be scraped.

We just got the most current ReNew magazine issued by the Alternative Technology Association which contained a number of interesting articles. One that I found most interesting was about “Solar Guerrillas“.

Solar Guerrillas are people that install small grid connected solar systems without approval by the utilities or respective government or council. The Solar Guerrillas reason that every little bit helps and that the monopolisation on the production and distribution of energy threatens the health of our environment and the very life of our planet.

I personally wouldn’t go quite that far but certainly agree that the monopolisation of energy production and distribution is not the best way it could be done. When we initially looked into getting electricity connected to our shed on our country block of land, the prices quoted by the local electricity provider did seem like highway robbery.

I am tempted to try my own solar grid connected system where we are now, but doing it legally is just to expensive at this time. On the other hand I don’t really feel like breaking the law which I think these solar guerrillas end up doing.

The one admirable thing about these solar Guerrillas is that they are quite happy to share the energy they feed into the grid with their neighbours without regard for financial compensation.

What do you think? Are these Solar Guerrillas doing something worthwhile or are they just some uncontrolled freaks?

Have you noticed how shopping dockets seem to get longer and longer?

I have just been to Big W to pick up a hooded kitty litter tray. That was the only item I purchased and the docket for the one item is nearly ½ metre long. (Ok, I am exaggerating a little bit here, it is actually just a tad under 40cm long.)

Now, Big W is not the only culprit producing extremely long dockets. Some BP service petrol stations produce huge dockets as well just for a simple purchase of petrol with nothing else.

You may now think, what’s the problem with a long docket? It’s just a piece of paper. The way I see it there are multiple things wrong with excessively long dockets.

1. It is wasteful. While everyone is talking about saving the environment and lowering greenhouse gas emissions shops introduce longer dockets using up more paper.
2. Some of these dockets are not even normal paper but thermal transfer paper which I would not be surprised used some kind of toxic substance.
3. You can’t stick such a long docket in your wallet without performing a little origami trick first as the dockets are too big.

If you have come across some shops that produce ridiculously long dockets why don’t you leave a comment with the shops name and maybe we can shame them into producing more reasonably sized dockets again.

Rosalba has forwarded a link to me for a petition to stop the Australian Government introducing the means testing for the solar rebate of up to $8000 towards the installation of photovoltaic panels on your home.

You may have already seen my other post about this. I invite all readers to sign the petition on-line (link below) so we can show the government that we are not happy with means testing for the solar rebate.

Following is the quote with more info in the petition.

There is a petition that you can sign to try and get the Fed Govt to remove the $100k income cap on the $8000 PV rebate. Representations have been made to Wayne Swan and the shadow Minister for the environment Greg Hunt. It would be good for individuals to send them letters and emails as this policy has already had a devastating impact on the PV industry with cancelled orders, a drastic drop off in enrolments and job losses in the industry are imminent. Given our problems with green house gases and peak oil surely the government should be encouraging the use of solar like the Queensland government.

If you too feel passionate about this issue please forward to a small group of your friends.

The reference is :
http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/solar-panel-rebate.html

The new budget introduced a damper for the solar industry by now applying a means test to the eligibility of up to $8,000 government rebates for the installation of a residential solar power installation. The means test to be introduced shortly means that any household having a combined annual income of over $100,000 per year will not be eligible for the government rebate any longer.

The introdcution of this means test, at the level proposed, is disappointing and confusing as other measures proposed in the new budget, especially around family tax benefits, are means tested at $150,000 per household. Why introduce means testing at two different levels for different benefits?

As reported in The Age the solar industry is already suffering, with 50-70% of orders were being ditched as a result of the means test, leaving companies with millions of dollars of lost business. In fact some businesses already needed to cut jobs due to the surge in cancelled orders and more jobs are expected to go.

This probably makes the solar system my wife and I want to install on our new home less affordable as most likely we won’t pass the means test and won’t be able to claim a government rebate.

If the government rebate is not sustainable, maybe the government should instead ensure that the feed-in tariffs for grid connected solar installations is more attractive as highlighted by Hans Josef Fell, the German Greens’ energy spokesman in this article in The Age.

A recent news item on the Alternative Technology Association website (www.ata.org.au) highlights some improvements that should be made to the feed-in tariff in power across Australia. A feed-in tariff is the mandated price a home owner is paid for any electricity fed back into the electricity grid from their solar panel installation or other sustainable energy production.

Judging form the article on the ATA website it seems like the government is again siding with the big corporations and only paying lip service to home owners with sustainable electricity production systems.

At this point, both my wife and I, are seriously wondering if we should even bother connecting our new house to the grid or just be completely self sufficient. We reckon the money saved by not connecting to the grid can be better spent on increasing the number of batteries or solar panels for the solar system we want to install anyway.

Any feedback is welcome in the comments section of this post.