This Week’s Environmental News in Three Minutes…. This is an era that calls for tough talk and Real Dirt wishes there were more tough talkers around, which is a pity that a little Australian with a name befitting a wharfie pub brawler faces extinction. The Aussie in question is the Growling Grass Frog and by [...]
Entries from August 28th, 2008
Real Dirt, Fast – 28 August
August 28th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Real Dirt Fast
Tags: Business Council of Australia·climate change·growling grass frog·pulp mill·sea level rise
Baby Whale – time to get real, not reality tv
August 28th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Guest Viewpoint
Picture courtesy, South West Rocks Dive Centre Story by Nicky Hammond, Marine Programs Manager, NSW National Parks Association The mass public outcry to the baby humpback saga on Sydney’s northern beaches last week was striking. Not just in its sheer magnitude, but also striking in its contrast to the reaction to other wildlife issues. [...]
The Old Tree Blues
August 26th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Blog
Blue Tree picture by Bob Beale Story by James Woodford Recently a former colleague of mine, Bob Beale, sent me this amazing photo he took of a tree painted blue. Bob, who is the author of the recently-published If Trees Could Speak, is a renowned environmental and science journalist and distributor of internet funnies. When [...]
Tags: hollows·land degradation·trees·wildlife
Real Dirt, Fast – 21 August
August 21st, 2008 · 2 Comments · Real Dirt Fast
Kimberley wilderness property, Marion Downs – purchase announced this week by Australian Wildlife Conservancy (story below) It’s hard not to feel sorry for the baby whale in Pittwater, north of Sydney, but it is also a really striking example of how confused our priorities can get when it comes to animals. The story – by far the most [...]
Tags: climate change·private conservation·sea level rise·sharks·whales
How Good is Grid Feeding and the Guilt Free Shower?
August 18th, 2008 · 8 Comments · Guest Viewpoint
Stuart Whitelaw is a Moruya based architect and artist. This is his experience of a grid feeding solar system… When we built our house in 2000, power from the grid was already connected to our barn on the site, so rather than go stand alone solar with batteries, we decided to install a grid feeding [...]
Real Dirt, Fast – 14 August
August 14th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Real Dirt Fast
As the Georgians and Russians prepare this week to play with their fancy and very dangerous firecrackers in the Balkans we were reminded that humans have been red in tooth and claw for a very long time. One of the great slugging matches of Australian science, some would say our very own academic Balkans, is [...]
Roo on the Menu or Rue the Day – SMH/Real Dirt Exclusive
August 7th, 2008 · 14 Comments · News
Picture by Stuart Cohen Story by James Woodford AFTER installing solar panels, buying a hybrid car and turning off the air-conditioner, the climate-conscious Australian is now being asked to eat kangaroo. The marsupials, it turns out, have the potential to be the Prius of the nation’s farmlands. A scientific paper in the international journal Conservation [...]
Real Dirt, Fast – 7 August
August 6th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Real Dirt Fast
We live in a small world. But this week for a brief moment it seemed a little larger than internet, 24 hour news, jet planes and the protestant work ethic would have us believe. I woke up on Wednesday morning to hear Fran Kelly on Radio National interviewing a researcher about the discovery of a [...]
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Seachange: when forests make way for people
August 5th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Guest Viewpoint
There is a dark flipside to the great Australian seachange. Bushfire regulations are leading to the devastation of coastal forests, as city dwellers buy up uncleared land. Stuart Cohen grappled with this issue when he purchased a block on the coast. He discovered you can have your forest and a house too… Story and pictures by [...]
