Welcome to our eNewsletter – Issue #32, August 2025,

We hope that you can join our monthly meeting starting at 5:30pm on Thursday 7 August at the Cora Graves Centre in Blessington Street St Kilda. The details were covered in an earlier detailed email.

We are all very excited by the opening of the newly finished Port Phillip EcoCentre, which was built with grants of over $6 million from the Council and State government. It was part of Open House Melbourne in July and the many people who visited were impressed by the all-electric design, rooftop solar power with batteries, 6-star building envelope made from renewable timber, rainwater harvesting and Australia’s first citizen science lab.

I was very interested to read that Wesfarmers has taken out a $100 million loan with the government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation to install solar panels, batteries and EV chargers at its Bunnings and Officeworks stores. Given that the business case for these investments has shown strong returns for several years, I am surprised that Wesfarmers has not been doing more of this but, hopefully, with the government funding, excess power can be stored and used by local low-income housing, especially at night.

I was intrigued to watch this video where a JP Morgan Chase report suggests that climate change could lead to some investment bonanzas while a UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries report sees a very different, and much bleaker future (potentially up to a 50% reduction in global GDP by 2100) – I agree with the actuaries, climate change is a slow moving global disaster, and slowing it down is becoming more and more urgent.

On this point, I note that, more and more, climate change is a real and present danger and and we can no longer bury our heads in the sand. Witness, the algae blooms devastating sea life off South Australia’s coast. As the S.A. Environment Minister Susan Close has said “there are things that can be done to make the environment more prepared to tackle the impacts of climate change. We need to explicitly decouple our economic growth and prosperity from asking nature to always take a bit more of a hit.”

Furthermore, people need to understand that you cannot insure yourself against climate change – insurance companies will not cover you against future events that are likely to happen!

This terrifying video about the hundreds of abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico makes very sobering watching. I am very concerned that we will soon be facing the same problems in Bass Strait, the North West Shelf and elsewhere in Australia, with the same companies running away from dealing with the same problems. In a related story, it seems that under a deal agreed in the 1980’s, the Australian government is on the hook for $500 million to help Chevron clean up decommissioned Barrow Island oil wells.

It is great that the new landmark climate ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declares that countries have a legal obligation to protect the climate from greenhouse gas emissions. While the ICJ’s 500-page decision is non-binding, observers say it will reach far and wide in its impact. “We have a ruling today that will reverberate around the world and will echo through history,” said Dr Wesley Morgan, a research associate with UNSW’s Institute for Climate Risk and Response.

I was heartened to have my view that making homes all-electric and sustainable increases their value confirmed by domain.com.au research showing that energy efficient homes in Melbourne attract up to a median $197,000 price premium. It makes the Domain Sustainability in Property 2025 Report a good read.

I was pleased to read that a new study shows that about 50% of Australian households are planning to upgrade the efficiency of their homes in the next 5 years, but more education and incentives are needed to convince the others. Our member, Electrify Southside is on the right track to help this happen.

Finally, the Totally Renewable Yackandandah newsletter is a very good read if you are interested in how communities can become more energy self-sufficient and liveable, which we should be looking at more closely in Port Phillip.

We don’t have time to sit on our hands as our planet burns. For young people, climate change is bigger than election or re-election. It’s life or death.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Politician & Activist

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.

Get involved with climate action

July was another big month for PECAN when our people were involved in several submissions and other activities:

• Street walks with Councillors to discuss urban forest improvement and other liveability initiatives
• Submissions to improve Bay Street
• Participating in regular Friday lunchtime vigils outside Labor MP John Burns’ electoral office protesting against approvals of new oil and gas projects – come along 12:30-1:30pm any Friday, if you have time
• Attending the launch of RMIT’s OCRA (Ocean Research Climate Action) impact centre, which incorporated a screening of White Rock, an excellent documentary about sea urchins destroying the iconic kelp forests of the Great Southern Reef.
• Attending the Lighter Footprints Urban Forests, Boroondara meeting to see what learnings can be transferred to Port Phillip

Come to a meeting, or reply to this email to see how you can get involved in climate action. Also, forward this email newsletter to everybody you think it might interest.

Our compatriots at BCCAG are hosting a Should you get your home off gas? forum on 27 August August (6:30pm-8:30pm) at Brighton Secondary College. It should be very informative, and we hope that you can attend – Register here

During July-August, the City of Port Phillip has a community consultation open for the Bay Street Shopping Precinct. As always, we strongly recommend that you Have Your Say

We also love that the Port Phillip Libraries have launched a seed library which lets residents “borrow” seeds for free and grow their own plants to harvest and enjoy. If you have space, give it a go!

As always, during August our friends at the Port Phillip EcoCentre also have a lot of events happening. The EcoCentre is a very strong local environmental resource that we always encourage residents to join with and support.

You may want to join the Wilderness Society Walk with Community, Talk with Nature walk through the Yalukit Willam Nature Reserve in Brighton, 10am-1pm, Saturday 2 August. You should RSVP if you intend to join the walk.

Especially if you have children at home, you may want to get the free Climate Council’s Climate Anxiety Toolkit which is includes practical tools for helping you manage climate anxiety in yourself and your loved ones.

Finally, there are several ongoing environmental petitions and actions that you might like to sign up for:

• The Boomerang Alliance has:
  • a petition to increase container deposits from 10 to 20 cents to account for inflation and to increase take-up. I would also like the range of containers included to be expanded, especially to include wine bottles!
  • an open letter to extend producer responsibilities for packaging and to fast track a national collection scheme for soft plastics.
• The Wilderness Society has an email campaign asking Coles and Woolworths to go deforestation free.
• Katherine Copsey, the Greens MLC for Southern Metropolitan has an online petition to end duck shooting in Victoria. She also has a community survey asking voters about their most important issues – maybe do the survey and give environment issues a high weighting.
• The Australia Institute is running a petition asking the Australian government to ban fossil fuel lobbyists from COP31 if it is hosted in Australia. And they have a second petition asking the Australian government to fix our gas export problem.
• Sign the Greenpeace Make Polluters Pay Pact to ask the government to ensure that oil and gas companies pay to clean up their environmental messes.

We really like this free course on Backyard Biodiversity recently hosted by Boroondara Council, and wish we had something similar in Port Phillip – I, for one, would attend.

Nothing to sneeze at: one of Melbourne’s most-loathed trees wins a second act

Mulching big trees after they die is a real waste, and harvesting their wood for furniture is a much higher “value add” end-use. Also, swapping out aged London Plane trees for equivalent native species can improve our urban forest biodiversity while reducing health issues and maintenance costs. Learn more. We especially like Revival’s inner-city timber mill.

Tidal power is starting to make an impact

Damming water from incoming tides and then releasing it via a generator has been used for centuries and now immersing generators in tidal flows is becoming more popular. Immersing generators in tidal flows and ocean currents is much more cost effective, more flexibly located and much less environmentally intrusive than damming tidal flows. Projects are now being implemented in several countries, notably in Europe. Nonetheless, the current total installed tidal power generating capacity is negligible, globally. Learn more. Something for the heads of Port Phillip and/or Western Port Bays?

Australia’s ants do a lot of our environmental heavy lifting

Australia is home to 10% of the world’s 15,000 different ant species and they have been around for an estimated 58 million years. They fill important ecological niches and do a lot of nature’s cleanup work. Learn more. We must maintain this biodiversity!

How smart landfills can slash methane emissions

Landfills often generate methane emissions arising from decomposing organic matter. Orange County, California, is re-imagining its landfill management practices in several ways (including using methane sensing robotic dogs and diverting organic waste to composting facilities) to reduce pollution and benefit communities. Learn more. Strong support for our system of FOGO bins in Port Phillip.

How a school can become a power plant for its community

In Baltimore, Maryland a school has installed more than 1,600 solar panels and is using the power to service its own needs and to provide cheap electricity (25% price discounts) to local low-to-moderate income households. Learn more. We should be doing this kind of thing in Victoria – schools have a lot of roof space and empty corners for big batteries. Perhaps Australian governments could support similar initiatives here so excess solar power not used within Victorian schools could be distributed to nearby social and affordable housing.

Could sharks hold the secret to cutting flight costs?

New research indicates at micro-riblets etched into the surface of a film glued to the skin of airplanes can possibly reduce fuel consumption by 3-4%, which is a major operating cost and pollution saving.

What are self-driving cars all about?

This interesting video talking about Waymo self-driving cars is by a person living in Los Angeles, one of the four US cities that has them (and where over the four cities they are doing 200,000 rides/week, with fares that are significantly cheaper than Uber). It is clear that they will have a big impact on urban transportation in coming years, and hopefully will remove a lot of cars from roads and free up a lot of parking spaces. However, they are not a good substitute for investing in more/better public transport.

A bit of fun…

Shellmet is a helmet for fishing workers made from waste scallop shells and recycled plastic. Not sure why they are just for fishing workers, but you can learn more about the helmets here!

And just for fun…