The Sustainable Hour no. 354

Working with us in the Climate Revolution on 17 March 2021, we have three more solution seekers:

Firstly, with news of the UN International Day for Forests next week, we have asked Melbourne indie singer-songwriter and climate activist Peter Vadiveloo to bring his guitar along. Peter’s gift to the climate revolution is his music – music rich in his passion for social justice. He certainly makes his listeners think and leads us in a very special rendition of his forest anthem ‘Fight for the Trees’. We talk about the many ways in which forests provide crucial environmental services for us, and how clearing them at the rate of a cricket ground every two seconds – as we are in Australia – is absolutely crazy.

Next we have Ecosystem Restoration Camps champion Elly Tucker. She was on the show last year talking about their first restoration camp in Northern New South Wales. Elly has returned to Victoria and is on the lookout for a suitable piece of land for Ecosystem Restoration Camp Number 2. Today is about flagging this project. While she doesn’t have a specific patch yet, she realises the value of collaborating and building relationships with local government as well as key environmental groups in her targeted area in the Yarra Valley. She has organised meetings with these groups and will be coming back on the show from time to time to update us on their progress. We look forward to shining a few extra lumens on Elly’s work. This could easily be a model for others to follow – yet another part of the #ClimateRevolution. You can find the action group Australian Ecosystem Restoration Camps’ on Facebook – or sign up to help on their website. The group has over 400 members already.

Through the magic of zoom, our third guest is John Lefebvre from his home over looking beautiful Vancouver Island in Canada. Like our first guest, John is a singer-songwriter with a strong social conscience. In the early 2000s, he became a millionaire via his involvement in the Internet boom. He then set about spending it. He openly admits that some of his choices at first weren’t all that wise. Along the way, through meeting environmentalists, including David Suzuki, he developed a deeply held desire to do good for our precious environment. This led him to being a director for the David Suzuki Foundation. John’s story attracted a lot of interest. So much interest, in fact, that he was convinced to turn it into a book. ‘Good With Money’ was the critically acclaimed result.

Colin Mockett‘s Global Outlook starts with climate experts expressing their dismay about the choice of Mathias Cormann as secretary general of the OECD.