The Sustainable Hour no 371

[16:07] In The Tunnel today, our first guest is the founder of Mandalay Technologies, Simon Kalinowski. Simon’s company develops digital management software to help people who deal with waste to work more efficiently. He starts off by commenting on how we in Australia are going to miss out on the e-vehicle revolution. He then proceeds to philosophise about the important things in life and what is needed to get us to where we need to be to face up to the climate emergency. He also opines on burning waste to energy, how we, as a society, need to change our attitude to “waste” and the problems we have with plastics. You can find out more about Mandalay Technologies at www.mandalaytech.com.au.

“I very much subscribe to the view that I need to do more myself, and let that example and energy be a big part of my advocacy of change.”~ Simon Kalinowski, CEO, Mandalay Technologies

[25:40] Mik Aidt introduces Simon to a poster he is working on together with a group of Danish climate activists – it contains a list of seven things that we as citizens can do to help us face up to the climate emergency. We’ve posted the draft version of it on the podcast webpage below. The project will be launched in October 2021, and will deliver a series of posters which outline how different groups and sectors in society can find their role in the collective effort to decarbonise all our activities and products.

“To me a lot of the bad decisions and the bad practices that people make are because they have lost connection with themselves or with their loved ones, family and friends, because if you really do have that human connection, you definitely value things differently. The issue for me right now is that our values are out of wack.”~ Simon Kalinowski, CEO, Mandalay Technologies

[37:02] Following Simon we welcome Noreen Nicholson, who is special events co-ordinator for Geelong Sustainability. Noreen very enthusiastically tells us about their latest project. Their research had shown them that apart from energy consumption, the greatest emissions in Geelong comes from petrol driven cars, so they looked around for ways of addressing that. This led them to the Good Car Company and the idea of organising a bulk-buy e-vehicle project with them. You can find out more about this at www.goodcar.co/geelong.

[02:34] Colin Mockett‘s Global Roundup begins on the west coast of America where their months-long drought coupled with record temperatures has resulted in the inevitable wild fires. There are more than a dozen raging unchecked, the largest Beckworth Complex fire in California involves 1,200 firefighters and is still out of control.

Staying in the United States, John Kerry, who is Special Presidential Envoy for Climate from the U.S. Department of State,