Author Archive: roman

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Articles by: roman

Repairing the Planet

October 29, 2019

Practical solutions to environmental concerns are addressed with the hope that filmmaker Damon Gameau’s  daughter, 21 years old in the year 2040, will face a hopeful future.

The film looks at possible solutions in four key areas:

Energy

We look at what can be done with solar panels capturing sunlight and trading it between neighbouring houses.

What happens if we extend the idea to trade electricity over a larger region?

Can we manage our own energy more easily and cheaply than a massive centralised system?

Transport

Is it the end of the motorcar?

Or should me move to rented autonomous vehicles?

Perhaps better public transport?

And what could we do with the space currently taken up by super highways?

Food Production

Can we revise our food production to take better care of the soils, making them more productive

and allowing them to store more carbon at the same time?

Will growing food locally be more productive?

Should we move to a vegetarian diet?

Education

How can we release the creativity of those denied education?

What might happen if people who couldn’t afford education

— or were denied it by virtue of belief, gender or background — were given

the chance to create opportunities and solutions for their regions?

If you’d like to see this movie, you can get tickets for $15/$10 concession, or two tickets for $20.

Why not bring a friend to our screening on November 12th, 7pm at the Mercury?

Tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/564492
Click to book!

Adelaide FoE Notes, Climate, FoE

Climate Strikes around the federation

October 15, 2019

from Sara Shaw Climate Justice & Energy International Programme Co-coordinator, FoE International:


The week of 20-27 September saw the biggest global mobilisation to highlight the climate emergency in history with over 7 million people participating in global climate strikes and actions! Friends of the Earth groups around the world were part of this movement – supporting youth and calling for climate justice for those on the front lines of climate change, dirty energy and false solutions. Here is our round up of how you all took part.

In APAC, FoE groups joined the strikes in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia, Timor-Leste, South Korea, Philippines, Bangladesh, Japan and Indonesia. FoE Malaysia put together a fabulous round up of photos from around the APAC region.

Europe saw some of the biggest climate mobilisations ever! 1.4 million people in Germany alone. FoEE did a fabulous round up blog, and a flickr album. Here are some of the climate strikes and actions FoE and Young FoEE groups joined across Europe:England, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Russia, Austria, Macedonia, Sweden, Croatia, Bosnia.

Africa saw actions across the continent with FoE groups participating in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania and Togo. FoE Togo organised an inspiring football match action with local children. Young activists from Mozambique took part in the strikes in the UK and spoke powerfully on climate justice.

FoE Africa also participated in the UN Secretary General Climate Action Summit in New York. On 20 September over 300,000 people mobilized ahead of this Summit. Philip Jakpor from Environmental Rights Action/FoE Nigeria and Sostine Namanya from NAPE/FoE Uganda were in New York for FoEI and part of themobilisation.… Read more >>

Actions, Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Climate

“Chernobyl” Faithfully Recreates the World’s Worst Nuclear Disaster

June 14, 2019

Some of us were adults in 1986, some of us were children or teenagers, and some of us didn’t yet exist. Because of that, we all have different memories of Chernobyl – the world’s deadliest nuclear disaster.

That didn’t stop the screenwriter Craig Mazin, or the director John Renck, from creating the five-part mini-series Chernobyl, and it didn’t stop American network HBO, and the British network Sky, from producing the series.

Chernobyl is certainly a change of pace for both Renck and Mazin. Renck had directed episodes of the TV series Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. Mazin had written the Hangover and Scary Movie movie franchises.

[…]

For those who don’t know much about the disaster, the series is an eye-opener. For those who do know what happened, the series is a near-perfect recreation of the events that took place in Soviet Ukraine on the morning of April 27, 1986.

 

Mazin said that Chernobyl arose out of his interest in writing something that addressed the fact that, “We are struggling with the global war on the truth.” For each episode, Mazin has created a podcast that can be found on Youtube.

Researching for the truth

To create the series, Mazin consulted many different kinds of sources, “from government reports to first person accounts to scientific journals to historical works, photo essays.” And, he worked hard to avoid putting false drama into his scripts because as he said, “So much of what happens in the show is just shocking. It’s shocking to believe that that’s what happened.

Well, our feeling was if we started pushing the envelope on those things then we would diminish the impact of all the things that we were accurate about, so we stayed as accurate as we could.”

— full story at interestingengineering.com

Adelaide FoE Notes, Nuclear