Sydney and Surf

The Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains and signs of spring

Moving on

Goodbye Newcastle...we're heading to Katoomba tomorrow

Poppy

Renew Newcastle Project

The main reason for coming to Newcastle was to check out the Renew Newcastle project.

And well...to be honest, I don't think I would have come here if I hadn't of watched Not Quite Art, which featured Newcastle, and heard about the Renew Newcastle project on Marcus's blog.

Marcus Westbury, with the help of a few others kickstarted the project, which gives creative people and community groups the opportunity the use disused buildings as gallieries, stores or anything their creative minds can think of for a short to medium time period.

I visited the stores today, and being Monday, most of them were closed :-( . So if you're going to come up here to check out what is going on and do a bit of photography, (It's a great place for it) then it's best to visit on either a Wednesday or a Thursday.

To get a map of the buildings involved in the Renew Newcastle project go here or pick up a copy from the Newcastle informaiton centre.

Newcastle

What's not to like about this place?

47 seconds of wabi sabi

Gin Gin Junk

Forest Treasures

are the true diamonds.

A walk about Cooktown

Cooktown is north of Cairns.


It's the place where Kangaroos were first seen by white people. And where Captain Cook landed to repair his ship.


It's also a very pretty place...

Cairns

We reached Cairns about nine days ago...it took about 4 days to get there from Alice Springs by car. Boy it was far!

Carbon neutral

The words “Carbon neutral” seems to be slowly creeping into mass produced products to assist the savvy consumer carefully make a purchase that is guilt free and will “help the environment”.

Throughout my travels around Australia, I've seen a lot of tourist brochures and a few notebooks here and there claiming their products are “carbon neutral”. At first I thought it was great that companies, who produce most of the greenhouse gasses, are finally taking responsibility for what they do, and doing “their bit” for the environment. But then I thought again. What exactly makes a product carbon neutral? Is it just donating a bit of cash to an NGO to plant a few trees that probably won't even survive? Or is it using solar power rather than coal or oil to produce the product?

In the end, it depends on where the manufacturer wants to draw the carbon neutral line. I'm guessing (and mostly likely correct), that it stops at planting trees. Don't get me wrong, I love trees and their nifty ability to absorb CO₂. But whole “carbon neutral” thing reeks of hype. And I'm just not falling for it. Sorry marketing folks...but you'll just have to do better to fool me.

The manufacturer may be using carbon neutral methods to produce that cute little notebook, but what about the paper itself? Surely it was produced by another factory, who purchased the wood from another, that was possibly from another country, which would have used heavy machinery (read CO₂) to chop and transport the wood to their site.

I'm sure there is more I could add to this, but I wanted to keep it simple so I could highlight the problem of a product or company that claims to be “carbon neutral”. I hope by posting this “short” rant on my blog, people will think twice about “carbon neutral” and save the environment, by not purchasing anything or very little.