- Part 7

Earth Hour Video Competition

Earth Hour 2010 – 27 March 8.30 – 9.30pm

What is Earth Hour?

Earth Hour is a worldwide campaign that aims to educate the community about the threats of climate change, informing individuals and businesses about the difference they can make by reducing their emissions at home and in the workplace.Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the, Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

Cairns Regional Council, Ergon Energy, GBRMPA, WWF, WSPLincolne Scott and Hot FM will once again bring Earth Hour to the Cairns Region.

Earth Hour, Every Hour 2010 – “One Living Planet” is the local theme selected by the Earth Hour partnership in Cairns.

The theme for entries must fit under one of the following categories.
What do you think makes life so excellent in FNQ? We have come up with the “Big 5”:

1. keeping our families safe and healthy
2. keeping the rainforest and reef
3. keeping our tropical lifestyle
4. keeping our clean water
5. keeping our culture.

The Video Project and How To Get Involved

Earth Hour offers the community the opportunity to express their views on climate change and sustainability – and to get funky and creative in the process.

People of all ages and all levels of experience are encouraged to enter the short film competition. All entries must be accompanied by a completed entry form and adhere to the Conditions of Entry.

An Earth Hour event will be held on 27 March 2010 at City Place featuring family entertainment, public artworks and a screening of selected video competition entries.

What Earth Hour Will Do With Your Entries:

Selected entries will be posted to YouTube and need to comply with YouTube format requirements: QuickTime .MOV, Windows .AVI, or .MPG files—these are the most common formats. YouTube specifically recommends the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 640×480 resolution with MP3 audio.

The Prizes
Selected entries will also be screened at the Earth Hour event, and will be in the running for some great prizes from local companies.

They Include:
A new Flip Mini digital Compact Video Camera from the Focus Reef Imagery Centre
2 Double Passes – Cruise for Two and Full Day at Green Island with either a glass bottom boat or snorkel tour with Big Cat Cruises
1 Double Pass— Wilderness Cruise & Crocodile Farm Tour with Crocodile Explorer
1 Double Pass for a Sunset Cruise with Crocodile Explorer

Prize categories include the most creative; best message; funniest; most inspiring.

Entries are due: Fri 19^th March. Entry forms can be downloaded from:
www.cairns.qld.gov.au or
www.theradio.com.au or directly here
Entry Form – Word Format

For more information contact Annaliese Walker earthhourfnq@gmail.com

Airfares on Sale from Germany to Australia

If you are sitting in cold Germany at the moment thinking of the warmth of summer. Here is your chance to experience it early. Qantas is having a special from Frankfurt to Cairns via Singapore pricing is from EUR 897 and you can explore more of Australia with Qantas’ Special Offer and include up to two internal flights in Australia from as little as EUR 59 per flight. This is for travel between 5 April 2010 until 20 June 2010.
For more details and book go to the Qantas Website.
For some great times and unforgettable experience don’t forget to visit our website to book you snorkel and scuba diving trip to the reef.

The Pufferfish – Species of the Reef

This fish has an obvious relation to it’s name and behaviour. It defends itself by inflating itself and forming a balloon by sucking in large amounts of water or air. It is not good to make them inflate themselves for the amusement of divers or onlookers. It places large stresses on the puffer-fish.
Having owned a couple of them in an aquarium as well as seeing them in the ocean, they have a ton of personality. The funny swimming motion and friendly behaviour endear themselves to everyone almost immediately. Puffers are able to move their eyes independently, just to add something else to check out when spotting these fish. Many species can change the color or patterns of their skin to match their environments
Believe it or not there are 121 different type of puffer fish around the globe. It seems over inflating your ego seems to be a popular defence everywhere. You will find the most variation in species around tropical locations and the cooler and river locations tend to have only a one or a few species in each location. Most people break puffers into two main categories the standard puffer and porcupine which has spines that stand on end as the fish inflates itself.
They are not an agressive fish and defense is mainly based on the puffer action or by it’s flesh that contains a deadly toxin. Considered a delicacy, the meat has to prepared just right or you will feel the effects of this poison. But how could you eat this cute little fella in the first place?

How to Run a Good Environmental Program

After the numerous environmental debacles and not much good coming from some recent programs here in Australia (for more info, Solar Panel Risks and Roof Insulation Deaths. I have decided to break my rules and get on my soap box here. We are pretty positive that these theories will apply in most places around the globe. First I need to educate some of the bureaucrats and ministers that exist around the world in some basic business.

Business Profits = (Gross Sales Price) – (Cost of Sales). This may seem obvious to most of us but it seems to be lost to many people we vote for. So how does this tie into environmental programs. Well the businesses installing the green solution and the installer both follow this simple equation to put food on the table for themselves and their employees. Below is a generalization so my apologies to those and some of my personal friends that are doing the right thing. So this means installers will buy readily available materials and sometimes the cheapest. The company or household purchasing the item will also shop for what they deem the most cost effective. We must make the latest most efficient technologies green and affordable.
So let’s get to the meat of what we can do to fix the problems, while creating a better planet and economy.

1. We all know that a snowball does not stand much of a chance in an oven. So let’s stop spending so much money on proving it will melt and work on cooling the oven.

2. Pure research labs come up with concepts that may or may not work they need to engage with engineers and manufacturers to get the product to market. Make funding dependent on that process.

3. Assist manufacturing companies to turn their processing green and to deploy the latest environmental solutions. Fines imposed for not hitting targets are passed onto consumers and the largest companies get the best advantage by being able to hide a smaller amount in more units, even though they maybe the biggest polluters.

4. Publish several key factors; the amount of known environmental pollutants created in the manufacturing process. The amount of pollutants saved per year over conventional products. Letting the public making informed decisions.

5. Have strict standards that ensure only the most efficient products both in their manufacturing process and ongoing savings are eligible for the incentives or rebates.

6. During this whole process the world will need to train and educate everyone from the manufacturers to the installers and consumers on the best use of these products. Include in the incentives guidelines for training and requirements to make sure this process is safe and the most effective.

7. Fund central inspectors and trainers to ensure standards are met and best practices learned and redeployed through the industry. This funding must be included in the original budget for at least the length of the project to ensure compliance and the best outcomes for everyone.

8. Consumer rebates should be consumer rebates, consumers having that control will assist he government with some control. If the consumer isn’t happy they call the government inspector, if he isn’t happy the installer will have to rectify the issue before he gets the rebate amount.

9. Constant reviews of new technologies being deployed with all advisers required to declare publicly any conflicts of interest. Yes, I know, now I have crossed the line. But skeptics are a good part of any scientific process, we need independent scientific reviews and not just hidden associations that are blown out of proportion.

10. Embrace those willing to be the guinea pigs with the new products and allow current regulations to have leeway, understanding that many of the regulations existed before we knew what a solar panel was.

There are lots of things that are not in the above list but it covers the principles of what we are all trying to achieve.

OK, stepping down from the soap box now. This will be the last time, well probably not. Maybe there is an off chance that someone who is a bit smarter with a bit more influence then me may take up this fight.