Welcome! Wikis are websites that everyone can build together. It's easy!

Environment

What are your best ideas to improve the environment in Australia (including climate change)?Environment - Oz Ideas

Here's What to Do...


  1. Start a new thread by clicking on the 'Start a New Thread' link in the middle right hand side of the page.
  2. Type in the name of your idea in the subject line, and describe it in the body of the thread.
  3. Vote on other ideas (other threads) by clicking on "Do you find this valuable?" Yes or No?
  4. Comment on other ideas by hitting the 'Post A Reply' button on a specific thread (in the lower right hand corner.)
  5. Tell your friends, bookmark us on Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon, and come back often to see what other people have said about your idea and others!

Sub-pages include:
  • Air Quality
  • Climate Change
  • Energy
  • Growth
  • Water
  • Wildlife
Please see water, energy, and growth control ideas below posted before March 1.



Latest page update: made by ozideas , Feb 28 2008, 5:07 PM EST (about this update About This Update ozideas Edited by ozideas

23 words added

view changes

- complete history)
Keyword tags: None
More Info: links to this page

Anonymous  (Get credit for your thread)


(Showing the last 5 of 11 - view all)
Started By Thread Subject Replies Last Post
Randall_Berger Allow People To Be "Recycled" into the earth 3 Apr 18 2008, 3:38 AM EDT by Anonymous
Randall_Berger
Thread started: Feb 29 2008, 10:07 PM EST  Watch


I would like to see the laws changed so people can be disposed of in an environmentally responsible way. Archaic social customs of burial and the risk of disease are things of a bygone era.

I personally find the whole idea of being embalmed/mummified and even cremated to be an incredible waste of energy and resources.

I would like to be buried in an untreated cardboard or fibreboard casket without anything done to my body, apart from refrigeration, until I am interred.

Cremation, while saving land, is an incredible waste of energy and emits a lot of greenhouse gas. Ever thought how much energy it takes to reduce the human body to ash? How much carbon that would emit? I don’t want that on my conscience.

I think the embalming of a human body and burying it in a metal casket with headstone, etc, to also be incredibly wasteful and a financial burden on the surviving family. Cemeteries are an incredible waste of land.

Let’s recycle ourselves and return our bodies to the land. This would probably require some sort of legislation.

22  out of 54 found this valuable. Do you?    
Show Last Reply
Anonymous Carbon Trading 0 Apr 1 2008, 9:57 PM EDT by Anonymous
Thread started: Apr 1 2008, 9:57 PM EDT  Watch
As yet I have not seen any factual evidence that carbon trading will actually reduce emmissions.

I believe those proposing carbon trading are mostly wanting to start these schemes simply to make money for themselves or to push a cause or to build a bigger bureaucracy.

It is all smoke and mirrors.
6  out of 9 found this valuable. Do you?    
Keyword tags: None (edit keyword tags)
Anonymous Charge for water, gas, electricity differently 0 Mar 29 2008, 6:01 PM EDT by Anonymous
Thread started: Mar 29 2008, 6:01 PM EDT  Watch
We need to find a new model for paying utility companies that doesn't reward them for producing more. Pay them a fixed fee per household served, maybe, or per person plus per square metre of garden. And, to motivate the consumer, maybe a tax on usage over the average which is paid to an independently administered fund for research into alternatives and usage reduction. But how to charge businesses?

Kenneth Davidson in The Age was spot on yesterday, when he described a water utility's response to saving water by lowering the pressure - the utility initially said it was an effective strategy, and then rescinded that message almost immediately (presumably when they realised it might be too effective, and they'd lose income!)
If it was in the interest of electricity companies to save electricity rather than produce more, they'd be interested in providing free compact fluorescent globes. and researching LED and other alternatives, to save putting in new power stations.

As much as I hate the complexity of phone bills these days, the phone companies have at least developed different models of charging that better reflect their constraints.
6  out of 7 found this valuable. Do you?    
Keyword tags: None (edit keyword tags)
Anonymous Veggie Diet for the globe 2 Mar 9 2008, 7:16 AM EDT by Anonymous
Thread started: Mar 8 2008, 10:36 PM EST  Watch
Why don't government officials start the ball rolling and set an example for the public by adopting the vegetarian or vegan diet and start talking about the importance of this issue. Factory farming and the meat industry make up for 20% of gas emissions into our already polluted air - these millions of animals would not even be here if it weren't for our palates and the human body does not need meat to survive. Changing our shopping lists is much more "do-able" than getting all the cars off the road...and we could put some of the budget towards paying the farmers to plant trees on their masses of cleared land. It's not rocket science, however unfortuately the general public need people in the media and governments to tell them what to do...Go vegetarian world - it's actually very delicious if you buy a new recipe book.
6  out of 39 found this valuable. Do you?    
Show Last Reply
pyno Vertical Farming 4 Mar 8 2008, 9:34 PM EST by dra_red
Thread started: Mar 3 2008, 4:10 AM EST  Watch
How about we explore the concept of vertical farming? The name really says it all.
Instead of having a 30 hectare plot for a farm, for example, we could have a half hectare plot 60 stories tall.
The advantages are numerous:
- The same volume of product can be produced in a much smaller space
- All the land that was once cleared for farming can return to native vegetation
- With solar power the v. farms will be a net carbon sink
- The enclosed green house environment will mean no herbicides or pesticides will be needed
- As a by-product of the above point this could improve the health of the community
- All the farm-boys (and girls) coming city bound will feel useful again
- The farm can purify the city’s grey waste water (drought proofing the country??)
- It can help decentralise the economy
- A v. farm could sit right above a super-market (fresh food straight to the consumers)
- A vertical farm would look freaking awesome!

So the advantages are pretty clear and that's just the start. And we wouldn’t need any major technological breakthroughs to accomplish this. The only problem I can really think of is cost and profitability. Although, I’d say, in the long term these things could really turn a profit for major supermarkets what with $0pa in freight costs and carbon credits, etc…
24  out of 38 found this valuable. Do you?    
Show Last Reply
(Showing the last 5 of 11 - view all)
Top Contributors