Michael Green

Writer and producer

The old and the new

In Architecture and building, Environment, The Age on

First published in The Sunday Age, M Magazine

With the spotlight on five-star renovations, it pays to use as much of your existing home as possible.

WHEN architect Matt Gibson and his wife, Annabel Talbot, decided to fix up their South Yarra home, they took a thrifty tack. “We wanted to recycle as much of the existing structure as possible,” Gibson says, “re-utilise anything we could and use old materials from other buildings.”

With careful planning, a renovation goes hand-in-hand with the other three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. And Gibson is adamant that it doesn’t mean flower-power design. “You can have a contemporary space by reusing the structure and using eco-friendly principles, without having a shag-pile or stained-glass look.”

The 36-year-old is standing at the front of his narrow terrace home, looking smart and rumpled in jeans and a blue shirt. As he speaks, his 10-month-old daughter, Matilda, crawls to the courtyard at the red front door. “She loves it out here,” he says, picking her up.

She’s a wise judge. The small home feels spacious, thanks to clever use of natural light and mirrors. It also features a serene internal courtyard with an outdoor shower, opening from the master bedroom and bluestone bathroom.

The old house, built almost 100 years ago, had a hotchpotch layout born of two previous extensions. The kitchen was hidden away and the toilet was stuck in the lounge room. Despite the inconvenience, the couple lived in the home for two years before beginning their overhaul. When they did, salvaging the best of the existing structure seemed the natural thing to do.

“For me, I like keeping the old elements,” Talbot says, sitting on the couch in the airy living room. She’s from Britain, and her parents’ house was built in 1642. “I don’t understand having to pull everything down. In England you just don’t have the space to do that, and the planning rules don’t allow you to. We’re quite used to reusing whatever we’ve got.”

Although there were no heritage rules preventing demolition, the couple decided to keep the existing period front and the bedrooms intact, along with the entire roof and all the walls. “There’s a lot less embodied energy in revitalising the existing structure than in bulldozing it and starting again,” Gibson says. They reshuffled the back part of the house by moving the bathroom to the middle of the home and creating an open kitchen and living area facing the back courtyard.

It’s not just an environmental plus – the other big benefit is cost. The project outlays totalled $200 000. Gibson estimates that they saved about $100 000 by keeping the structure in place, and up to $20 000 more by using recycled materials.

They redesigned their old glass roof to become a contemporary skylight and re-employed three large bronzed mirrors – formerly wardrobe doors – in the rear courtyard. The floorboards were reclaimed from a demolished factory in Richmond and the long concrete bench was poured in place using aggregate gathered onsite.

Where possible, the couple also used natural or local products, such as sisal carpets, tree bark blinds, concrete tiles made in Brighton, and stones, for the chimney, sourced from Portsea.

Finding these salvaged and unusual materials proved the easy part of the six-month renovation. Amateur owner-builders can take comfort: working on your own house is hard going, even for architects.

“It was stressful,” says Gibson. “It was very stressful,” Talbot adds, laughing. Each of them was working a busy full-time job. They were staying with friends and labouring at the house in every spare moment.

Now that it’s finished, they’re pleased with the comfort and style of their home, and glad they stuck to the recycling theme. “It’s very poignant right now with the credit crunch because people are having to rethink they way they live their lives,” Talbot says. “And one person’s rubbish is another’s treasure, isn’t it?”

Gibson says that demand for salvaged building materials is growing fast. “There’s really nothing that can’t be recycled if you really want to.”

Should it stay or should it go?

Up to 40 percent of our landfill waste comes from building, according to yourhome.gov.au, and much of it could be reused. Recycling not only cuts demand for new resources, but also cuts your costs.

A renovation always means recycling, but just how much depends on the design. If you want to be green, save as much of the existing structure as you can and chose your materials carefully. Make sure your designer and builder understand your goals.

Doors, windows and cabinets are ideal for reuse, and look for bits and pieces with character – like Matt Gibson’s bronzed mirrors – that could be re-employed.

Material-wise almost everything can be reclaimed, from plasterboard, timber and glass, to metals like steel, aluminium and copper. Even concrete, carpet, plastics, bricks and tiles are good to go around again – if not for you, then somewhere else.

It’s easy to find second hand suppliers or trade materials online. Try sites such as eBay, Trading Post, or Construction Connect Australia.

Matt Gibson Architecture + Design

When Matt Gibson was just a kid, he chanced upon an architectural blueprint. “I saw it and just thought it was so beautifully drawn,” he says. “Once I saw that, I wanted to do architecture.”

He started his own practice, MGA+D, in 2003 following stints working for other architectural firms in both Melbourne and London. In 2005, Gibson’s firm won Australia’s Best Emerging Practice.

It has since expanded to include five staff. They work on new, retail and commercial projects, but specialise in existing residential buildings. Gibson says he is fascinated by the play between old and new, and storytelling through design features that recur through a home. “There’s a trend running through our work, which is about utilisation of light, continuity of forms and patterns of movement.” 

www.yourhome.gov.au, www.arrnetwork.com.au

 

Teaming up and powering down

In Community development, Environment, The Age on

First published in The Age

Too hard for the politicians? In one  town unlikely allies are fighting climate change and winning.

SO FAR, the carbon trading debate has been cast as a battle between greedy businesses on one side and rabid greenies on the other. That’s not how it works in Castlemaine.

There, under the Maine’s Power scheme, the four major employers in the region have quietly teamed up with the local sustainability group and CSIRO to slash their ecological footprints. The employers are committed to cutting their greenhouse emissions by 30 per cent by 2010 (from 2006 levels) and working towards zero net emissions by 2020.

Together, the big four – Don KRC, Flowserve, Victoria Carpets and Mount Alexander Hospital – consume about half the shire’s electricity and natural gas. “They also employ about 2000 people and without them, our economy would collapse,” says Dean Bridgfoot, co-ordinator at Mount Alexander Sustainability Group.

MASG founded the project 18 months ago, launching it in February 2008. “We went to (the employers) and said, ‘You’re crucial to the town and we want you to stay here. We’re also concerned about climate change and we want to take action,’ ” Bridgfoot says.

He stressed their common goals and the businesses were receptive. “It was important that they could see that we were going to listen, be respectful and take their position seriously.”

The project is part of CSIRO’s Sustainable Communities Initiative, which promotes regional action through partnerships between business, government and local groups.

But Maine’s Power isn’t just about greening the town. With higher electricity prices on the way, the project also aims to secure the region’s electricity supply and the future of local industry.

The Mount Alexander shire relies on manufacturing for much of its employment, but it’s a long way from the power generators. Nearly one-fifth of its power is lost in transmission from the Latrobe Valley. The project began with a study of energy use and needs at each site. Then, CSIRO’s experts analysed technology options for the facilities, from solar panels and wind turbines to onsite gas-powered cogeneration (which makes both heat and electricity).

Soon, the scientists will hand over the final report and it will be time for action. The four employers must decide what investment they’ll make.

“What’s good for the environment is usually good for business,” says Bill Youl, manager at Don KRC. “We’ve approached it that way.” The smallgoods manufacturer is the biggest employer in the shire, making up to 1000 tonnes of hams, salamis, sausages and bacon every week.

“It’s an industry that has environmental impacts,” Youl admits, “but it also does a lot for the local community, in terms of employment. We’re keen to make sure we have a sustainable business.”

Don KRC is planning to expand its Castlemaine operations after closing factories in Altona and Spearwood in Western Australia. The company will double production but anticipates that its water use will barely increase. Power-wise, CSIRO’s research suggests that gas-fired cogeneration could satisfy the firm’s electricity and heat needs, while slicing its CO2 emissions.

CSIRO’s expertise has been crucial to the scheme’s success so far. “We’ve had some really eminent people looking through our factory,” Youl says. “It helps you be confident about decisions when you know you’ve got the best in the world giving you advice.”

For Victoria Carpets, the research has shown that cogeneration would be the cheapest strategy for cutting emissions. The regional spinning mill produces wool and wool-blend yarns to supply its Dandenong factory. Mill manager Tony Breslin enthuses about the co-operative process but admits the company has recently become hesitant about its next step.

New carpet is a deferrable expense and since the financial downturn, sales have fallen. That will make any eco investment harder to make. “These last four to five months have created a fair degree of uncertainty,” Breslin says.

The Mount Alexander Shire council will be hoping they decide to go ahead with it. The Maine’s Power project is a key plank of the council’s ambitious green goal – in 2006 it committed to cutting the region’s carbon footprint by 30 per cent by 2010 (from 2000 levels) and to plan for carbon neutrality by 2020.

“It’s a big ship to turn around,” says new Mayor Philip Schier. They’re challenging targets, but there is strong local support. The sustainability group boasts more than 800 members. “It’s an exciting community to be involved with, particularly because the major industries are willing to take it on,” Schier says.

Partly, the council’s policy is about self-preservation – by pursuing early climate change action, the community will adapt ahead of the pack. But it also offers a model for other regions and levels of government. “It’s got to be a local, regional, national and global approach,” Schier says. “Unless you get in there and start tackling it, you are only forever going to be saying it’s somebody else’s problem.”

At Don KRC, cutting emissions isn’t just a sacrifice for the greater good. “It sends the right messages and it makes monetary sense as well,” says Youl. “In the future, companies will see sustainability as one of their key business planks and not something you bolt on the side to keep the community happy. It’s really about what’s good for your business.”

Mount Alexander Sustainability Group, CSIRO

The green payoff

In Architecture and building, Environment, The Age on

First published in The Sunday Age, Domain

New figures show that making your house more environmentally friendly does indeed increase its value.

IT’S official – higher energy star ratings mean higher sale prices. Research released in December by federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett provides hard proof that the real estate market now values eco-efficiency.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) studied sale prices and star ratings in the ACT and found that for a house worth $365 000, increasing the rating by half a star would add, on average, nearly $4500 to its price.

For homeowners, the new evidence is just one more motivation to take up government rebates for household makeovers – from modest shower roses to grand solar panels. And this year, there’s a suite of extra regulations and incentives to get you thinking eco-smart.

Tony Arnel, Victoria’s Building Commissioner and the chair of the Green Building Council of Australia, says research is piling up – from the United Nations Environment Program and consultants McKinseys, among others – showing that aggressive investment in reconditioning our buildings would have a lush green payoff, even in the short term.

“The building sector, including housing, has been identified as being able to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least cost,” he says. “We’re having an economic recession but interest in sustainable built environments won’t waver. It will continue to accelerate in 2009. We’re seeing a whole new industry based on water- and energy-saving technologies.”

The insulation trade is running hot. As a part of its anti-recession spending, the federal government will pay for ceiling insulation (up to $1600) in homes that currently don’t have any. It has also increased the rebate for solar hot water systems (now $1600) and the rebate helping landlords insulate their rental properties (now $1000).

The federal government’s Green Loans scheme is also set to start mid-year. It will offer around 200 000 households a free sustainability assessment and then, access to a low-interest loan of up to $10 000 to put the recommendations in place.

While the details aren’t yet finalised, to be eligible for the loan, a household must earn less than $250 000 a year. The government estimates that the scheme will inspire $2 billion of environmentally smart investment.

Here in the wilting garden state, the government’s Victorian Energy Efficiency Target (VEET) kicked off on January 1. It requires that the energy retailers encourage customers to install efficiency measures. Overall, the VEET aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to make 675 000 houses carbon neutral for a year. With nearly all our electricity coming from high-polluting brown coal, any cut in usage will be good news for the atmosphere.

Governments aren’t the only ones encouraging us to spend green – the private sector is also beginning to rally. The credit union mecu now offers an ‘Eco Pause’ option on its home loans, where borrowers can stop their repayments for three months, or pay half rates for six months, if they spruce up their abode with enviro-friendly features. The credit union also provides discounted interest ‘goGreen’ personal loans to pay for home efficiency improvements.

That’s all good news for Lyn Beinat. With her husband Maurice, she runs ecoMaster, a home energy audit and retrofitting business with 20 staff. EcoMaster assesses the thermal, energy and water performance of buildings. It prepares detailed, costed action plans and has an installation crew that will put the recommendations into place.

The couple’s experience overhauling their own house prompted them to start the business. Years ago, they returned to Australia after a stint in the UK and moved into a very cold house in Mount Macedon. “Our kids used to cry in the morning, ‘Can we go back to England Mummy? It was warmer over there,’” Ms Beinat laughs. “You know there’s something wrong with your house when your kids think that!”

With lots of hard work, they cut their electricity use by 80 per cent and at the same time, raised their winter temperatures from an average of 14 degrees to about 21. “You can have a real win-win out of fixing up your home. Our house is rated six star now,” Ms Beinat says. “It was rated one star when we started, and we’ve done it for less than the cost of stamp duty.”

While the energy audit industry is about to take off, Ms Beinat says business hasn’t been easy. Many people haven’t seen the value of spending money on home efficiency. Energy and water prices may be on the rise, but they are still low enough that some retrofitting measures, especially the more expensive ones like solar panels or double-glazing, take years before they pay for themselves.

“People certainly don’t get a return on investment from new carpets, but they still buy them,” Ms Beinat says. “So why do we only apply an economic filter to ceiling insulation or changing to low energy lights?”

In any case, with her own experience in mind, she argues that retrofitting is one of the few things a homeowner can do to give increased comfort as well as a monetary benefit, in the form of lower bills.

The evidence that better star ratings mean higher house prices adds even more kick to her claims. The ABS research was conducted in the ACT where, since 1999, homeowners have been required to declare their house’s energy efficiency rating when they advertise it for sale. The rules were brought in to provide extra information for consumers.

According to the Federal Environment Department (DEWHA), the scheme helps buyers understand what they’re getting and improves the efficiency of real estate valuations. It also pushes owners to retrofit their homes. The study shows that the cost of adding stars will often be far lower than the extra payoff when it comes to selling.

DEWHA is now working with the states to develop a mandatory disclosure scheme that would apply nationwide, and may include houses up for lease as well as those for sale. 

The low-energy way to beat the heat

HARRY Blutstein and Carol Lawson moved into their Northcote townhouse in early 2007. It didn’t take long to realise something wasn’t quite right. “It got very, very hot,” Mr Blutstein says.

The neat brick townhouse has three levels, including an attic study where Mr Blutstein works. It was always a very comfortable house, the couple says – so long as they kept the cooling running constantly on warm days.  Even worse for their bills, the in-built heating and cooling system was all or nothing. It couldn’t be set to control just one floor.

“This house was architect designed,” Mr Blutstein says. “It was built about 12 years ago, but you almost couldn’t have done a worse job in terms of making it less environmental. So we decided we needed professional advice.”

Although Mr Blutstein works in the sustainability field, he didn’t have the hands-on building know-how to assess the problems and fix them. “Neither of us are handy people,” says Dr Lawson, a GP. “Neither of us does more than the most basic things around the house. It was a big plus to get good practical advice and then have the work done under the one hat.”

They hired ecoMaster to assess their home and recommend steps to cut their energy use. The first step (and the cheapest, at about $300) was draught proofing. The crew installed flip-down draught stoppers and foam seals on doors as well as timber beading around architraves. “In everything we did, that was the best,” Mr Blutstein says. He was surprised to learn just how leaky most homes are – ecoMaster estimates that draughts account for a quarter of all winter heat losses.

Next, they swapped two-dozen halogen downlights with low-energy replacements and put in heavy window drapes on windows that didn’t have them. They installed a 2500-litre water tank for their courtyard garden and switched the old electric hot water service for a super efficient heat pump system.

They also fitted a large external blind to shade the west-facing rooms from the hot afternoon sun. To cool the sweltering attic study, ecoMaster added insulation and recommended a sky window for the south roof face and blinds on north and west windows.

Mr Blutstein estimates that all up, they’ve spent about $10 000 and halved their electricity use. “We could have been comfortable the inefficient way, always heating and cooling the whole house,” he says. “But now we’re getting a much better result for the environment.”

 

Power from the ground up

In Environment, The Age on

First published in The Age, Insight

Around the country, small groups of ordinary but passionate people are banding together, lest they succumb to despair, to force action on global warming.

A FEW weeks ago, a small group of parents and young children — in orange T-shirts and sensible hats — sat in the park at the corner of Spring and Lonsdale streets. The parents sipped drinks and gossiped, and their kids squealed and bolted around the grass. Placards leaned against the fence: “All I want for Christmas is a future”, and “My future is priceless”.

The Walk Against Warming protest had just finished. This group was Families Facing Climate Change, a collection of 10 Ashburton women and their families. They live in Peter Costello’s electorate, Higgins, and formed their group in 2006 in the playground of their kids’ primary school.

“We just were really worried about our children and their future,” Anna Mezzetti said. She’s a 37-year-old mother of three. “We’re just families. We’re just ordinary people, but it’s about being empowered to go and talk to the local MP and say, ‘This issue is really important to us.’ “

Her co-founder, Dimity Williams, added: “We read the science. When you read that, you can’t understand why nothing’s happening — we’re still frustrated. We thought rather than just complaining about it and getting depressed we would actually try and do something.”

They’re not alone. Grassroots climate action groups are appearing like white blood cells at a wound. Over the past two years, an unprecedented, unreported and largely underestimated climate movement has sprung up throughout our cities and regions. Many of the members have dedicated decades to living simply and sustainably. The great majority though, are new.

Groups start up so rapidly it is difficult to know their numbers, but according to Melbourne’s Climate Action Centre, Victoria probably has about 50, and most are less than two years old. Nationwide, there are well over 200, and Australia is not unique in this trend.

Before long we will see whether such groups can make a real difference in the wider world — one of rising temperatures and melting ice caps on the one hand, and the forces of status quo and instant gratification on the other.

The worldwide climate movement is comprised of small groups with different goals. It has no single agenda or set of policy proposals, but collectively (in some cases unknowingly), it is working to influence negotiations at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009, where all countries will establish the successor to the Kyoto Protocol. There, our leaders must agree on swift, strong emissions cuts if there is to be any hope of averting catastrophic climate change.

James Whelan is one of the optimists. He runs the Change Agency, a Brisbane NGO that consults for activists. He has been around the block with any social issue you care to name and says the climate campaign is different.

“In the history of social movements in Australia, you can’t find a parallel. There’s nothing like it for its diversity, for its rate of growth, and for its inclusiveness. It includes coal miners. It’s rural. It’s urban. And it’s a mistake for anybody to think the climate change movement is part of the environment movement. The climate movement is a much bigger beast.

“You can hold a public meeting in any urban centre in Australia now, and initiate one or more climate action groups,” he says. “This is a movement where the grassroots element is taking the lead and the NGOs are following, some of them faster than others.”

At Melbourne’s Trades Hall, the Climate Action Centre has just opened. It will be run by, and for, these local groups. It aims to strengthen the movement by developing, supporting and forging links between groups. It will hold forums on current issues, and share resources and research.

Broadly, there are two types of climate groups, though often they overlap: political action groups, such as Families Facing Climate Change, and practical action groups. The latter may be solar bulk-buying collectives such as the Dandenong Ranges Renewable Energy Association, (or personal carbon-footprint cutters such as the Westside Carbon Rationing Action Group.

Their diverse membership bears witness to a wellspring of concern rising from deep within the nation’s psyche. But they face a huge task.

Recently, I saw climate scientist Professor David Karoly speak to a one-third full auditorium at the State Library. He is professor of meteorology at Melbourne University and was a lead author on last year’s report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Karoly said many rates of change are already at the upper limit or outside the range of the IPCC climate change projections — including increases in emissions, sea-level rise and arctic sea ice melt, and decreases in rainfall in southern Australia. The climate is changing faster than the IPCC projected.

Even under the most ambitious targets spelled out by the Federal Government’s climate-change adviser, Ross Garnaut, there is a 50 per cent risk of global warming exceeding 2 degrees, a rise that would cause extraordinary human suffering. Karoly noted that not many people would take a train with a 50 per cent chance of heading off a cliff.

In this light, the Federal Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will be nowhere near enough. Labor’s pre-election commitment to a 60 per cent emissions reduction by 2050 will not meet Australia’s share of the worldwide burden. Cuts must be swifter and deeper.

As I listened to Karoly, I scanned the room and saw wide eyes and empty seats. Later, I left with a shocking and surreal message: the immediate future of our civilisation is threatened. The conditions of life on earth are certain to change. What we do now will determine by how much.

I’d just learnt about the globally accepted scientific research, but oddly, back on the street, my new knowledge felt radical and subversive, and somehow too confronting to share. This emergency is not widely understood. The climate action groups may be multiplying, but among the public at large, alarm about climate change has fallen from its peak.

In November last year, just before the federal election, 50,000 people crowded Federation Square for the Walk Against Warming. They wanted Howard out and, shortly after, they got it. At this year’s walk, however, numbers were way down. The organisers, Environment Victoria, estimated 15,000; The Sunday Age reported 5000. It was a disappointing turnout.

Has an opportunity been lost?

Social researcher Hugh Mackay believes the public was ready for tough sacrifices earlier this year. “The willingness of the community to act in the first six months of this year was palpable. They were waiting to be asked to do something.” That attitude could only last so long. “People’s attention span on issues like this is quite short, unless they can convert their concern into action very quickly,” Mackay says.

For many people, the climate emergency is no longer so pressing: the global financial crisis has emerged to divert public attention. Also, the Rudd Government has taken some of the pressure off by at least acknowledging the existence of the climate problem and initiating some green policies. But even the Government is sending mixed messages. In the furore over rising petrol prices, nearly all voices argued that rises must be restrained. As Mackay notes, when our leaders say we can use petrol as freely as ever, many people assume there isn’t a carbon emission catastrophe after all. The same logic applies when the public sees that the biggest polluters are likely to receive compensation under Labor’s proposed emissions trading scheme.

There’s one caveat to all this gloom. Alongside the community’s waning concern, Mackay says he has observed a contrary trend. He says we have woken up from a long stretch of disengagement from social, environmental and political issues. He’s not certain how these two trends match, or what will happen next. But the grassroots movement has already influenced the debate. Last month, Tony Windsor, independent MP for New England in northern NSW, introduced a private member’s bill, the Climate Protection Bill 2008, to Federal Parliament. Windsor calls it “the people’s climate protection bill”. It was born about six months ago in his electorate office, following a visit from concerned constituents. Since then, 65 climate groups have been involved in its drafting.

The bill would bind the Government to deeper emissions cuts: by 2020, 30 per cent below 1990 levels; and by 2050, 80 per cent. Among other things, it also sets steeper renewable energy targets and mandates greenhouse impact statements on new legislation. (According to Karoly, even those targets are not strict enough.)

The bill was loosely based on UK legislation, originally driven by grassroots organisations and just passed by their parliament. Windsor says his bill’s success depends on the public will.

“The people can actually drive this, if they activate themselves. But if they just sit around and wait for the Parliament to do something, my guess is they’ll end up with a watered-down arrangement probably not worth pursuing … I think people will ratchet the pressure up (on their MPs). I hope they do.”

They might. Community organising is back in vogue — most notably in President-elect Barack Obama’s grassroots campaign, which was fuelled and funded by record individual donations of time and money. American writer Paul Hawken, in his book Blessed Unrest, argues that the start of the 21st century has seen the emergence of a compassionate, thriving global movement for environmental and social justice. He sees a movement of more than 1 million organisations, from neighbourhood associations to international charities, that is causing profound societal change, step by step.

Hawken writes that when asked for his view of the future, he always replies the same way. “If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a heart.”

Dr James Goodman has long researched social activist movements. He is a senior lecturer in the school of social and political change at the University of Technology, Sydney. He and his team have interviewed climate activists in Britain and in Australia. “One of the things we explore is what motivates people, given the scale of the problem and given that governments don’t seem to be listening,” he says.

“It’s a very intense personal responsibility. It’s almost like an emotional reaction. It’s the sense that ‘we’ve got nothing else to lose’.”

SO FAR, he says, the UK activists are generally pessimistic about the future, and the Australians are more hopeful, believing their actions can bring about the changes they want. In February, action groups from all over the country will meet in Canberra for the Climate Action Summit. Over four days, they will hold workshops, protests and strategy meetings. They will petition MPs and encourage one another to keep badgering their representatives all year.

That’s what Families Facing Climate Change plans to do. It ran candidates’ forums before the last state and federal elections, and has met state Labor MP Bob Stensholt and Peter Costello. “When we met with Peter Costello, he didn’t know what green power was,” said Dimity Williams in the afternoon sun.

“We explained to him what that was and how he could get 100 per cent green power for his house. I lent him Tim Flannery’s book The Weather Makers, which he hadn’t read even though Flannery was the Australian of the Year. I think we’re doing him a favour. The politicians learn from us.”

But at this year’s Walk Against Warming, for a while at least, it was hard not to feel despair. Afterwards, I sat in the park for a while, hungry and tired, at first contemplating the science and then, the improbability and complexity of the response required.

I thought about what makes individuals form grassroots groups, about why some feel compelled to leave their lounge rooms and stride out against the gale, willing the whole world to do the same.

Anna Mezzetti explained her group’s motivations: “If you don’t try and do something, then you just despair. It’s better when you band together with other people, rather than being alone, worrying. We actually felt uplifted when we discovered each other.”

Dimity Williams went on: “It’s harder and harder to remain hopeful, but I don’t want my children to turn to me in 15 years’ time and say why weren’t you doing anything?”

A newspaper blew across the grass, its loose pages catching and spreading in the wind. Instinctively, the kids in orange T-shirts ran and gathered them as best they could.

There is hope in action.

Permaculture club

In Community development, Environment, The Age on

First published in The Age

An Australian community group is putting the backyard at the forefront of environmental change.

The yard is swarming with straw hats. It is a sunny day and people are working hard. A handsome, muscular man in khaki is wielding a pickaxe. As soon as I see him I think of Jamie Durie, but there’s no TV crew here.

This isn’t Backyard Blitz, it’s a permablitz. This is how it works: an enthusiastic group of volunteers come to your house and donate equipment, plants and seeds. They work with you to transform your garden into an organic food-producing Eden. You don’t even have to supply lunch – they’ll bring that, too.

Permablitz is a catchy contraction of permaculture and backyard blitz. Basically, it’s a good old-fashioned working bee with a twist.

Today we are attacking Fiona and Anthony’s place in Heidelberg West, outer suburban Melbourne. The house is square, smallish and rendered in cream, with a corrugated-iron roof. There is a soccer field bordering it on one side, from where a few large gums overlook the fence. There are vegie patches in the front yard. The backyard is open, grassy and strewn with debris.

Fiona looks at her lawn and says, “It’s just a mess.” She’s right. There are mounds of gravel and dirt and plastic. Newspapers are soaking in a green frog pond and a shed is in pieces against the wall. The washing is still on the Hills Hoist.

The first blitz was held more than 18 months ago for Vilma, a 70-year-old El Salvadorian woman. “It was a beautiful day,” says Permablitz founder Dan Palmer. “When we arrived there was a small plot of lawn and when we left it was garden. A year later, it’s still pumping and it’s brought a lot of joy.”

It all came about when Palmer crossed paths with a South American community group in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs.

Young environmental skill met with co-operative spirit and, since then, permablitzes have been held all over the city. For now, Palmer does much of the organisation, but there’s a website where people can find information and organise their own blitzes.

“It would be nice if it became kind of viral,” he says. And his wish could be coming true – the blitzing bug recently spread to backyards in Sydney and New Zealand.

According to the website, a blitz aims to create or add to edible gardens; share skills about permaculture and sustainable living; build community networks; and have fun.

“Permaculture is a way of designing the places we live to be sustainable, diverse and abundant by working with nature rather than fighting against it,” Palmer says. “It covers every aspect of a healthy sustainable life: food, water, waste, shelter, local community and economy – you name it.”

A well-designed, efficient garden can provide lots of food using fewer resources than typically go into supermarket produce. So growing your own vegies is a practical response to environmental problems such as climate change.

A few weeks prior to each blitz there is a planning day, where the owners and volunteers come up with a design for the garden.

Today, there’s a wish list of tasks posted next to an old bath tub. We are going to build more garden beds and put a pond in the front yard. One shed is to be moved to the backyard and another erected for a fox-proof chook pen.

“The plans change every hour on the hour,” Anthony tells me as debate rages over where to put the shed. I wander to the front yard and bump into a lengthy discussion over whether to buy a pond liner or to use a decaying green wading pool.

All is resolved by the time we tuck into pesto, tabouli and salad, brought by the volunteers. While we eat, Fiona tells us about her grey-water system and her long-term plans for the garden. Palmer checks the wish list: things are looking good. We are well-fed, inspired and enthusiastic to continue work.

Volunteers come and go as the afternoon progresses. But exactly who are they? Fiona confides that she knows only “about 10 per cent” of the people filling her yard. “I couldn’t have got this many people if I’d paid them,” Anthony tells me.

Initially, Palmer says, there were more people from the South American community, but the demographic has changed as blitzes move around different suburbs. People in their 20s are the majority, but there are people of all ages. Many of the regulars have completed a permaculture design course and are keen to put their new-found skills into practice.

But not only people who’ve studied permaculture come along. Others just think it’s a great idea and are interested in learning about gardening. Tanya, a budding documentary filmmaker and permablitz veteran, is one of those. She tells me that she loves the sense of community, skill-sharing and cross-generational support.

At the end of the day, the wish list hasn’t quite been fulfilled. The pond and garden beds are finished. The chook shed is up but roofless and the other shed remains unmoved. Despite this, Fiona is thrilled with the progress. “It’s just the beginning…but we’ve done so much. It would have taken ages to do all this by ourselves.”

Fiona and Anthony aren’t the only ones who are excited. With environmental issues entrenched as front-page news, Palmer says that interest in permaculture is growing exponentially. “Right now, there are a lot of really fired-up people getting involved.”

So, keep your green thumbs at the ready: a blitz could be coming to a backyard near you.

What is permaculture?

Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren coined the term “permaculture” (short for both permanent agriculture and permanent culture) in 1978, in their book Permaculture One. They spelt out a revolutionary food production theory, in which growers create their own integrated ecosystem, each aspect helping the others to flourish and reducing overall resource use. Since then, permaculture principles have blossomed all over the world.

Five permaculture gardening tips

Crop rotation: boost soil nutrients and avoid pest and disease problems by changing plant groups in order: first legumes, then cabbages, tomatoes, onions and root vegetables, and so on.

Grey water: if you use mild vegetable soaps for washing, recycle the water onto your garden.

Weed management: cover garden beds with mulch to control weeds.

Companion plants: grow herbs and flowers throughout your garden. Mixed plantings will confuse potential pests.

Indigenous plants: native species provide habitat and food for indigenous wildlife.

Source: Rosemary Morrow, Earth User’s Guide to Permaculture, Kangaroo Press, NSW, 1993, page 8