Welcome to Issue #28, for April 2025

The Federal election will be on 3 May and energy will be a central issue in it – this is a crucial election for the future of our climate and environment. Hopefully, you can register and attend our Climate Change and Energy Candidates Forum next Tuesday evening – see below. In any case, consider the climate in your voting deliberations.

It is pleasing to see that Council has endorsed Gamuda Land’s 3,000sqm park development in Fisherman’s Bend. It is good to see street closures to create parks, but it seems to have been done mostly “under the radar” with little community involvement. The plans to buy houses to make more parks in St Kilda/Balaclava are also be be applauded.

The EcoCente is a world class environmental asset in Port Phillip, and Labor’s pledge to fund a Citizen Science Lab there if they are elected is very positive.

PECAN fully agrees that the 36 global firms that create 1/2 the world’s CO2 emissions should be held to account and pay for the mess they have caused, and continue to cause.

We like this video that explains the economic farce that is the various forms of carbon capture and storage – the cost of capturing carbon during or after fossil fuels have been burnt is much more than simply stopping the need to burn the fuels in the first place by replacing them with renewable electric generation and electric vehicles.

And this informative article explains the hidden public health consequences of over-dependence on cars, and especially large SUVs and Utes – truckzilla dangers!

Disappointingly, with a few exceptions, local media seems to be largely ignoring Trump’s abandonment of action on climate change, which is arguably much more globally damaging than his tariffs and other madnesses.

It is also disappointing that Victoria’s new apartment planning rules only require 10% tree canopy coverage which seems totally inconsistent with the state’s target of 30% canopy coverage for Melbourne. Learn more.

And even more disappointing is Prime Minister Albanese’s actions to gut our environmental laws to help foreign owned salmon farmers further destroy Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania.

We can’t resist gadgets so we are drooling over the new Lenovo solar laptop, which harvests enough energy in 20 minutes of full sunlight to play 60 minutes of video. We also note that BYD has announced a new Super E-Platform so its cars can get 250km range from just 5 minutes of charging. (Tesla SuperChargers take 15 minutes to provide a 200km range.)

The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, a Saudi Arabian oil minister

We are living and working on the unceded lands of the Yalukit Willam people. We pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land and their ongoing connection to land, waters, sky and culture.

PECAN is excited to co-host the Macnamara Candidates Forum on Tuesday 1 April at the St Kilda Town Hall, starting at 7pm. Please register, and we hope to see you there.

Other PECAN activities during March included:

• A very successful talk with the Yalukit Willam Nature Association to learn more about this great community asset
• Submitted applications to join the City of Port Phillip Coastal Futures community reference group
• participated in several Port Phillip Neighbourhood Pop-up Conversations
• getting the Electrify Southside website and organization up and running

Simply reply to this email to express your interest in getting more actively involved in PECAN’s work.

In other local actions, Port Phillip Council currently have the following climate related community consultations happening:

• Port Melbourne Linear Parks Master Plan (along the 109 tram route)
• Small parks across Balaclava and St Kilda East
• Success of the Dickens Street, St Kilda, pop-up park
• Waste management and circular economy survey and consultation

As always, we strongly recommend that you Have Your Say!

During April, our friends at the Port Phillip EcoCentre will host the following events:

• Point Ormond Community Planting Day – Parts I & II
• St Kilda Repair Cafe and Bike Kitchen
• Climate Cafe, April

Also, the City of Port Phillip’s Climate Ready Communities program is holding some free training sessions in April.

If you want to meet up with like minded people, the Environmental Leaders Action Network will be having their bi-monthly meet-up on Thursday 17 April, 6:30pm-8:30pm in the EcoCentre.

Most children are concerned and anxious about climate change, so Melbourne University staff have launched the Climate Kids YouTube channel that answers their common questions. They also advise parents to get their kids involved in nature improvement projects to reduce their climate anxiety, like those at the Port Phillip EcoCentre.

You might also like to sign a petition asking government to create more marine sanctuaries.

Finally, if you want to publicly show your support for our climate, Parents for Climate currently have a range of yard signs available for purchase.

Electrify Southside has launched

This exciting, new initiative aims to support houses and apartments to electrify their homes.  You can read all about Electrify Southside on their website https://electrifysouthside.org/.

Electrify Southside is focused on enhancing energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint across the Port Phillip, Glen Eira, and Bayside council areas.

To kick off, Electrify Southside in partnership with the City of Port Phillip is thrilled to invite you to an Electrify Southside Expo.This event will bring together industry leaders, innovators, and the local community to explore the latest advancements in energy efficiency, electrification, and sustainable transport. Throughout the day, we will be hosting panel discussions and presentations on key topics shaping the future of electrification.

Date and time: Sun, 22 June 2025 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: St Kilda Town Hall

It’s a free event and tickets can be obtained here.

Stay tuned as we line up fantastic guest speakers and host around 25 stalls, to answer all your questions and more.

Electrify Southside was initated by the PECAN Renewables Working Group and also involves GECAN and the City of Port Phillip.

Using biophilic design principles to reconnect with nature
Humanity is hardwired to be immersed in nature, and it’s lack in many urban environments exacerbates many social and personal problems. Can we get closer to Oslo’s 68% green-space from Melbourne’s 9%? Learn more here.

Another short video about Tokyo’s new Azabudai Hills District shows what you can do with making new apartment buildings green – something that Australian governments and property developers really need to learn.

Spend a bit more to get to your new home to 8-star standard

Spending an extra $25,000 up-front could save you about $6,000/year in operating costs, or $300,000 over the life of the construction loan. And you would be comfortably warm or cool throughout the year. Learn more here.

World cement demand to fall significantly by 2050

The World Cement Association is forecasting a fall in global cement demand from 4.2 billion tonnes per year now to 3 billion tonnes per year in 2050. They believe that this change will come from slowing population growth, improved design practices that make more efficient use of the material and replacement by new renewable building materials (especially engineered timber). We hope that the fall will be much greater, given the very high CO2 emissions from cement manufacturing.

Goat regenerated bushlands

In Australia, goats can be very effectively used to regenerate bushlands because they preferentially eat many non-native pest plant species. This should be a very good series of videos to watch to learn about this good practice.

Data centres – part of our dystopian future?

In Ireland, data centres now consume 20+% of all the electricity generated in the country to power their computers, and use huge amounts of water for cooling. Surely, there are more sustainable ways for designing and operating them? Learn more here.

A big part of the cause for this problem is AI (Artificial Intelligence) – where each query consumes about 10 times the electricity needed for an equivalent Google search – see here for details. A lot of it is also bots trawling the Internet for data – see here.

While we are talking AI, we were flabbergasted to learn that these systems “hallucinate” about 1/3 of the time, ie there are factual errors in the answers they give people! It seems that “garbage in, garbage out” is alive and well – AI systems blindly repeat factual errors in their training data. This is a very big problem regarding answers to climate questions, given the huge amounts of climate disinformation there is out “in the wild”! Learn more.

And just for fun… wooden satellites

You have to love the Japanese – only they could put a wooden satellite into orbit! That is some long term carbon sequestration. And they are even talking about growing the trees to be used to make the satellites in space, as well. Learn more here.