http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_M3B8h_KSk&feature=related

Transition towns is a grassroots movement of individuals and community groups that encourages action at the local and regional level to future-proof our towns and cities by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.  It is a positive response to the doom and gloom scenarios of post-peak oil and global warming.  It encourages individuals to work  with others co-operatively to develop the life skills and activities that will help us to live well in a post-carbon world.

These two video clips give an introduction.  The first is by Jo Duffs as a member of the Sustainable Hawkes Bay Trust and the second is by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement.

This is an intelligent book that faces up to the impending challenges of global warming with clear-eyed courage.  Clive Hamilton is an Australian author who is Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philsophy and Public Ethics at Australian National University. 

It is not a catalogue of the evidence for global warming and climate change; rather, it follows the philosophy that it is better to accept catastrophe than try to deny.  By denial and avoidance, we make the future worse than it needs to be.  This book accepts that we are already on an unavoidable trajectory to catastrophe; the CO2 already in the atmosphere will take thousands of years to dissipate, and bring about changes to climate and sea level rise that we cannot avoid.

Following Pippa's wonderful last blog entry, another personal action you can do is tree planting.  The world's forests are estimated to absorb about About 9 billion tonnes of carbon a year from the atmosphere, but about 2 billion tonnes are returned through burning and deforestation.  In pre-human times, about 80% of New Zealand was forest covered.  Our climate and steep topography make forests perhaps the most sustainable landuse in the long-term.  

As individuals we can plant trees both in our own property and by joining a community planting event such as the regular Arbor Day plantings that are held by Hamilton City or the Department of Conservation.  As planners, we can do what we can to encourage the development of forest-friendly policies.  

A  worthwhile website to visit is http://clickatree.europa.eu/. 

Sometimes it just seems too hard. The atmosphere is warming, sea levels are rising, pests such as the insidious didymo threaten our waters, biodiversity is waning... Our watchdogs tell us that the planet is in crisis, but for many of us response at a personal level may just feel too little too late.

Kathryn is an interdisciplinary student who did her undergraduate degree as a BSc in Biology and switched to a BSocSc(Hons) in Geography.  She has just completed a Masters thesis that nicely demonstrates the value of a social science analysis for a biodiversity management.  To find out more, read on . . . . .

In 1949 Aldo Leopold, an American forester and ardent conservationist published "The Land Ethic" a plea to North American readers to change their attitudes and relationships towards nature. The Land Ethic has become a central corner stone of North American environmental ethics ever since. He wrote: