Pathways to safe climate restoration. Welcome to the 33rd Sustainable Hour on a wet and windy day in July - which is not going to keep us from talking about the sun - about solar energy and solutions to climate change problem. Today we are going to be talking honestly and seriously about this problem.

And we should apologise in advance: The Sustainable Hour is going to get inconvenient today. Because we need to talk about what will be able to cause that breakthrough which can put us on a pathway back to a safe climate - a topic which was discussed in-depth at a conference in Melbourne on 21-22 June 2014.

And not the absurd way climate change and carbon tax is currently being debated in the Australian senate. Politicians, CEOs and a high percentage of citizens try to turn science into a system of belief because it would be so convenient for their businesses if climate change wasn't really occuring. But they are fooling themselves. It is happening.

We have prepared three short audio excerpts from the conference for you which highlight the urgent need to respond to the climate crisis, and we discuss the possibilities of restoring a safe climate.

Conference speech excerpts by David Spratt, Ian Dunlop, and Philip Sutton

Pre-recorded interview with David Robinson, LIVE

Read more, see photos, videos and links:

http://climatesafety.info/pathways-to-safe-climate-restoration/

60,000 steps towards the City of Trees. In Australia, the National Tree Planting Day is coming up, and in the 34th Sustainable Hour, we take this as an opportunity to 'go green' and talk in-depth about both practical and visionary aspects of tree planting.

As part of the Greenway Project, Geelong Council will plant over 60,000 trees and shrubs over the next five years.

Guests in the studio:

Meg Caffin, urban forester, and

Alan Dawson, tree maintenance officer, City of Greater Geelong

Speaking of sustainability in schools. "Let's make sustainability fun!". "It's got to be about action!" These were two of the numerous suggestions by four speakers who gave inspriring presentations at the event 'Sustainability in schools - preparing the next generation' in Geelong on 28 May 2014.

Speakers:

Thea Nicholas, Cool Australia

Anthony Mangelsdorf, Project Manager, Barwon South West ResourceSmart Schools

Dave Campbell, teacher, Sacred Heart Secondary College

David Pace, teacher, Torquay Primary School

Renew Geelong Picnic 2014: On 27 April 2014, 94.7 The Pulse broadcasted live - powered by a biogas generator - from the Renew Geelong Picnic 2014 in Geelong's Eastern Park where over 150 citizens gathered to celebrate Earth Day and its Green Cities theme of this year. In the 30th edition of The Sustainable Hour on 18 June we look back at the event and rebroadcast excerpts from the day.

Climate change can be linked to increase in Australia's suicide rates, a study shows. In this the 29th edition of The Sustainable Hour on 94.7 The Pulse, we talk about what a city's councillors could and should be doing in order to ensure that its teenagers don't lose hope on climate change. Number one: allocate funds in the budget that enable the council as well as the community to take action and invest in the kind of solution-building that generates optimism and a feeling of community empowerment.

Placing responsibility for the mess that the current political inaction is creating, which, when it comes to climate change, seems to only get more and more absurd as time goes by - isn't this a matter of the law rather than just activism and letter-writing? Should these people and companies who are responsible for the climate damage, victims and suicides be taken to court? Will there come a day when this could actually happen?

We talk with a lawyer about that: Ariane Wilkinson. She works for Environmental Justice Australia, a citizen-funded, not-for-profit, public interest legal practice, using the law to protect and restore Australia's environment.

Ariane Wilkinson attended a public forum on unconventional gas mining and 'fracking' on 28 May 2014 in Winchelsea, where Lakes Oil executive chairman Robert Annells gave a presentation along with four gas mining and health experts. She explains what she took home from that meeting.

For photos, lots of links, music videos, online listening or download of excerpts, and more information, go to: http://climatesafety.info/?p=7747

Redefining the meaning of the word 'waste'. Instead of fighting over the expansion of landfill sites, it is time to start a much more interesting conversation about how we create a world without landfills. In The Sustainable Hour on 4 July 2014 on 94.7 The Pulse we talk about how we can build our own houses from recycled materials and about how our waste can be used productively as a resource rather than something to hide in the ground.

Guests in the studio: Rachel Goldlust, Earthship Australia, and Erwin Boermans, energy specialist, Comfort ID. Live phone interview: David Holmgren, environmental designer, ecological educator and writer - one of the co-founders of the permaculture movement

Audio clip: Jeffrey Sachs, economist and professor.

Climate change, media and money. While Lismore City Council aims to go 100 per cent renewables in ten years, the City of Greater Geelong Council has approved a draft budget with sustainability initiatives receiving little or no funding. "We need to have a mature discussion about what is happening to our environment," wrote Michael Martinez in an opinion piece in Geelong Advertiser, and that is the starting point for our discussion about climate change in The Sustainable Hour on 28 May 2014.

How to dance with the elephant in the room | This was the week where the word 'unstopable' melting of ice was introduced and sunk in - the fact that the ice at West Antarctica is melting faster than anyone had realised - and it is already around 20 years too late to do anything about this.

Unless we really begin to understand the seriousness of this planetary emergency and not only stop burning fossil fuels entirely, but also extract so much carbon out of the atmosphere that we get back to 1970-levels.

Why is climate action not a mass movement? Will we ever again have a clean conscience when we talk with our children in the decades to come? We talk with the president of Geelong Sustainability Group, Dave Campbell, about these urgent questions which a group of young, local citizens from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition raised to federal MP Sarah Henderson on 20 May 2014.

In The Sustainable Hour on 21 May 2014, we also talk about two great, local projects: the Greenways Project of planting 60,000 trees - and the Connecting to Country Aboriginal Arts Festival.

Guest in the studio: Dave Campbell, Geelong Sustainability Group [7:36-23:20]

Phone interview: Katja Nedoluha, Connecting to Country Aboriginal Arts Festival [23:27-40:33]

Pre-recorded: Pete Johnston, the Lions Club of Geelong Breakfast [4:23-7:35]

» Continue reading on http://climatesafety.info/?p=7436

Show no 25: Climate crunch time on Budget Day. In Geelong, the annual budget was approved at a city council meeting on 13 April 2014. The new budget means cuts to the council's sustainability initiative, Future Proofing Geelong. The federal government released the budget for the nation as a whole on the same day. The national budget outlines a much longer list of climate safety-related energy reduction and renewable energy schemes and initiatives which now will be not only cut but stopped.

Guests:

* Lisa Gleeson, Red Cinema

* Mike Lawrence, CEO, Greenline Engineering

"What has happened to Australia's climate and energy policies the last 24 hours is a significant thing that people should be aware of. Approximately 15 billion dollars that would have been harvested through the current climate policy with a cost on pollution, a cost on carbon, will be lost to the budget. And if you extend that through to 2020, then that looks like 20 billion dollars which has come out of the budget. And yet there is a direct action program which is paying people to continue to pollute. It is just farcical," said Mike Lawrence, CEO, Greenline Engineering in this edition of The Sustainable Hour, the 25th in the series, where we also discuss what could cause politics and people to change, and how can we lobby more effectively for a a clean, green and bright future for our children and future generations.

» For photos, lots of links, music videos, online listening or download of excerpts, and more information, go to: http://climatesafety.info/?p=7336

Green sustainability is the ultimate blue. "Sustainability is actually an extreme right wing philosophy," explains our guest in The Sustainable Hour on 7 May 2014: Tim Adams.

Tim Adams is the principal of F2 Design. He is also the Immediate Past President of the Building Designers' Association of Victoria, the creator of the BDAV's '10 Star Challenge', and a Member of the Alternative Technology Association. His home is acknowledged as 'The House With No Bills'.

» For (much more!) information, photos, related links, music videos, and so on, go to: http://climatesafety.info/?p=7245