All bound for Mumu land

There is no rational explanation for this photo.

We all arrived safely in Mumu land with our friend Lisa Dempster and are having lots of fun. She's in town for the *award winning* Format Festival's academy of words and the zine fair, where we acquired our nice green Mumu.


An amazing find in the bag of free stuff at Format.

Lisa has been staying with us and is now our second ever guest blogger. Take it away Lisa!

Ten things I love about Adelaide

1. Format Festival - the reason I came to Adelaide in the first place and one of the reasons I keep returning.
2. Amazing and plentiful vegan food - my favourite spot is Bliss Cafe.
3. Fantastic people, in particular the clever, creative and welcoming people who are involved with Format. I don't want to generalise about Adelaideans but my experience of people who live here is that they are down to earth, laid back and very friendly.
4. Wonderful wide streets and lots of green space near the centre of town, plus the fact that it doesn't have that big city feel.
5. Central Markets - so much wonderful fresh produce and so cheap! But my favourite stall is dough... their fruit and walnuts rolls are divine.
6. It doesn't feel like a 'car city' the way Melbourne does. Lots of people seem to ride bikes and it's highly accessible for two-wheeled transport.
7. Broad availability and cheapness of all kinds of Coopers beer! Also love the fantastic local wine.
8. Heaps of free wifi spots - fantastic!
9. Free transport in the city.
   
10. Staying at Cassie and John's house! Not sure if Larshy and Nissa love having me but I think the four of them are tops.

"#11 - the mumu"

Yes, I have a lot of love for this city.

The #adelaide tag on my blog will bring up a lot of love for this small city, including my escapades at Format and my experiences of eating here.

Thanks to Cassie and John for having me, in their home and on their blog!

Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!

Hey there,
It's state election time in March and the posters are going up. The conservative Liberal party, smelling a topical issue, have added a block of green colour to their posters. Nice try. The real Greens are out in force. In an interesting cultural aside, Labor (the centre-right party), have mainly Italian names in our neighbourhood.
What's prompted me to comment on the posters though is that there is a new independent candidate running on an anti-abortion platform. He's - at least I assume from his name he's a man (and will therefore never actually experience being a woman with an unplanned pregnancy) - got money enough behind him that he can afford to plaster the main arterial roads with posters. While his slogan is "Save the Unborn", the main, misleading poster is a picture of an obviously full-term baby. The other, just plain weird one, features someone holding the hand of a baby old enough to wear clothes! Just one of these nasty posters gives you a cold shiver, but to be beaten over the head with them 10 or 15 times in a row is distressing (not that I'm saying it would be preferable for him to use pictures of embryos or foetuses. No WAY. But at least it wouldn't suggest that abortions are performed on women carrying full-term babies.)
This here is a shout-out to the statistical 1/3 of all ladies who have made or are currently faced with the possibility of making, the deeply personal and always traumatic decision to have an abortion, especially those in Adelaide who have to see this stuff every time they leave the house. Not to mention the actual kids being driven past this shit every day on their way to and from school. Here is a link to a wonderful Facebook group for anyone who is experiencing grief or outrage about these posters (and there seem to be a lot of people who are).
I'm wondering if this visual assault has anything to do with my desire today to sit myself down under a tree, take some deep breaths and post this to you from a green hillside at the Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens? Maybe - it's also just great to go out and have a little adventure. This weekend, and the last two gone, John is doing some filming. It's been strange being by myself with a relatively relaxed schedule after the intensity of the 31 Things month. John's continued on being super-busy into February, but now that the Ferris Wheels & Fairyfloss show is up and the 31 Things have wound down, I seem to have more time on my hands. I've been feeling a little housebound and housewifely, which no one wants to happen unless it's entirely voluntary. (Check out THIS amazing post on how to avoid heteronormative role playing in girl-guy cohabiting relationships). Anyway, we've borrowed John's parents' car this weekend and he pointed out that it was free today. He was right. I knew I wanted to do three things this Sunday - continue with a tidying mission I've started (in my mind), write a blog post, and bake a blackberry and apple pie from the fresh juicy blackberries and apples-off-the tree we picked last evening with our friends Rachael and Andrew in Basket Range.
I love gleaning and harvesting fruits and veggies, but they (and variables like the weather) decide when they're ready, and if you don't want to play down the freshness by freezing them, you have to be prepared to drop everything and cook (a viable alternative would simply be to cram handfuls of them into our mouths the way Andrew showed us last night - mmm - mmm!)
But back to breaking out of stereotypes - we're not going gently into those heteronormative roles/rules/routines around the 31 Things headquarters, so you can guess how we worked out today's plans. We're going to make the pie together tonight, I've taken myself off to the hills to blog and no one is going to tidy anything again today.
Meanwhile, I'm in the favourite picnic spot at Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, in a little parrot, butterfly, dragonfly, duck and frog populated glade. There's even a trickling water course/stream coming down through the lawn to the artificial lake, and its waters are GREEN. I haven't seen this much lushness in a long time. There's a blossoming tree, which is weird (but pretty) for this time of year, and enough humans around to make it not creepy.
I'm thinking that after this, I might climb up to the top level through the forest that's a mixture of native bush and Japanese and European trees. It really works in Autumn. I know it will be hideously gruelling, and it's quite warm today, but I want and need to honour the plan to get fit that the gym challenge of the 31 Things was attempting to kick start. (We have not been going to the gym 2-3 times a week!)
What have we been up to?
Our soil testing kit arrived in the mail (but we haven't used it yet).
We took dinner to Kelly from Sustainable Communities who punctured her artery in a nasty bike accident a few weeks ago.
We went to the FoE Food Convergence and came away inspired. Highlights were learning about Adelaide Food Connect (which I would provide a link to but which unfortunately seems to be suffering from having been hacked just now - next time), realising the importance and value of farmers, insights about community in our particular society (I'm planning to write an essay about this one and incorporate it into my Masters), learning about Venezuela and the government of Chavez and buying a compost screw from Chris Day (actually not yet delivered - Hey Chris!). A further insight was the importance of participating in government and planning if you want things done, and with this in mind I've started thinking about maybe working for one of the local councils in some capacity. A job has actually come up at our Council down the street on the Parade that I'm going to apply for, though it would mean deferring the Masters for a bit.
Speaking of jobs - John has got one at the Science Exchange! They'll be paying him to come in two days a week and continue doing what he began for his internship. The Science Exchange is excellent, such a fun place to work. It's really exciting.
Another big insight has been reading posts like this. Of course this further leads into ideas about community, which more and more seems to be the conclusion to various discussions about enviro topics and sustainability. It's exciting for me to think about ways community can manifest, and I love looking to other countries for examples of what works and what doesn't.
My Peak Oil freakout is settling as well. I think I'll soon be ready to write the post!
I'll stop soon, as I'm starting to feel as if I'm writing one of those Christmas letters.
But just a couple more newsworthy items.
John had a birthday and was given a beer brewing kit! We discovered last night that as well as Alison's partner Mike, we also know some other brewers. Rachael and Andrew brew not only beer but apple cider. They also have several bee hives. CAN we fit a beehive into the local sociology and ecology of our tiny Norwood backyard? Stay tuned.
Our exhibitions are going really well and we've sold a lot of work. Selling work - to anyone - is a first for me, and I made my first sale to someone I didn't know the other day. I also received a phone call at midnight last night from a drunk guy at the pub where our work is showing saying how much he loved my photos! (He didn't offer to buy one, but who cares!)
Lastly, my camera continues unfixed and while I've been loaned another, I can't quite get into it in the same way.
Tomorrow night we're going to another forum about our local community garden.
And on March 1st, we're hosting our next Sustainable Communities meeting, where we'll have about a 50% increase in members. Then my Melbourne pal Lisa Dempster is staying with us, so she can attend the Format Fest. Did I mention it's Fringe Time? The ferris wheel is back and we will continue to give it a workout every few days.
Til next time.
PS Ignorant hate campaigns like Trevor Grace's can have triggering effects for people who are experiencing trauma about the issues of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Lifeline's (as in nonjudgemental support, not pro-lifeline!) 24 Hour Counselling Service is 13 11 14 if you need someone to talk to. Remember, no insensitive loony should be allowed to make you feel bad for doing what's best for you.
Fuck off, Trevor Grace. Leave me and my sisters alone!

Rudd winked at us

Kevin Rudd has been taking up a lot of our time as of late. We attended a community cabinet last Wednesday. It was held in the South Australian electorate of Sturt, a marginal electorate that includes our suburb Norwood.

We dressed up and I shaved because we figured that we would have more of a chance to ask a question. We had been pre-briefed by Anna that we would have to have a clean cut look to be picked to ask a question.


Shoes and hair are always the activist giveaways. These sneakers were swapped for a sensible black pair.



Cass' op-shop outfit.



Young Labor.

When we arrived the cops ushered us up to the building where there was a metal detector and registration. Not having pre-registered we were placed on a bench marked "Group W" (not really) while they did a police check. Once they had established we were not wanted criminals they gave us each a button marked "CC10" and sent us into the main hall.


Cass nervously awaits the Cabinet's arrival.

The proceedings inside were very well attended and lot more informal than I was expecting. Not only by the 200 strong public section but by 10 ministers representing the front bench. I was expecting a more round table kind of thing but it was more of a panel talk with Kevin Rudd presiding.


Presiding...

Kevin Rudd himself picked audience members to ask their questions and there was a sea of raised hands. Cass did some strategic eye-catching and was horrified to find herself winked at by Kev, but thrilled to be up next. The whole thing was on the fly, so we'd only had time to work out a question on the bus on the way there. It was based on the FoE action call-out, but as Cass said in her letter to the editor, below, he never really answered.

I asked him if he would bring an emissions reduction target to the Copenhagen Accord of 45% by 2020, to avoid catastrophic climate change, which the head of the IPCC has said we only have until 2012 to achieve.

Kevin Rudd's response, though lengthy and designed to pacify, was, in essence, a cool "No."

The message was clear. Climate scientists and half the world's nations agree that warming must be kept below 1.5 degrees celcius, and 350 CO2 ppm, but the Prime Minister talked about 2 degrees and 450 ppm.

How he plans to meet even these irrelevant targets is a mystery, given that he went on to explain his plans to "do no more than other countries."

This line is a cop-out that will see Adelaide fry and the Pacific Islands deluged.

Based on current assessments of country promises, the 2020 targets will head us towards 3.5-4 degrees warming, which would be a catastrophe.

Several other attendees came up afterwards and expressed their disappointment at the PM's response.


The blur that is Kevin Rudd dodging the issue.

After Cass asked her question I felt inspired and a lot more confident to ask one. I wanted to take him to task for not answering properly and follow on into an question about clean energy technology. I started to leave my hand up obviously and was soon winked at in a "you're next" way, until he saw me saying something to Cass (we were sitting seperately) and so refused to make eye contact with me again until the meeting was over. I felt very proud of Cass for asking her question and very disappointed in the wishy-washy answer as many other people seemed to be judging by the people who came up after.

After the main question time was over some people had pre-booked to talk to individual ministers but we were set to go to town to do another thing on the list of 31, number 23. go to an escapist movie. Unfortunately we couldn't make it as the community cabinet ran over time.


Made it! Almost. The way out was patrolled by nervous police, and was a less than ideal place to roll an ankle.


Celebratory beer at the Cranker. The only time we have ever been overdressed for a venue.

PS From Cass -
Here's how we went calling Rudd and Wong.

John called on Tuesday, but Rudd's secretary was pretty short. She let him finish, but advised, "I've got phone calls and work galore today, everyone's calling about this, so put it in writing."

The phone was off the hook when it was my turn to call on Tuesday night, so on Wednesday morning I tried again. Rudd's secretary was still having a bad week. I asked if I could read her out a message I'd written and she let me get a certain way in, even noting down the figure of 45% (as if she'd heard it before), before cutting me off with, "So it's a climate change issue, well I can certainly pass that on for you Cassie, bye bye." I agreed.

Following this I revised my cheat-sheet to make it more succinct, so that I could make sure Penny Wong's office took down the points I really wanted to make.

The person at Wong's office told John to send an email instead. I was told the same thing, but with the option to proceed.
"To be honest the best way is for you to send an email, but I can take down a message as well if you like."
"Would you mind? It's just a couple of points."
I read out my little spiel and thanked the secretary for taking it down.

After the Rudd winking incident I adapted the FoE pro-forma letter to include the community cabinet question and response and sent it to the Advertiser. It hasn't appeared, but in checking for it on Thursday I noticed a short article about Rudd possibly talking to the Greens about their plan to get a greener version of his ETS scheme through the Senate. Onya Kev!

22. Tiny Towns pieces and zine and climate change zine

Things are gearing up for the start of February for the 2010 Adelaide Fringe! Yay! This is an exciting and busy time of year for us. Thing number 22, for me, is all about doing the work and starting to promote the three events. Check out our Fringe Guide blurbs!

To start with Ferris Wheels & Fairyfloss.
From a cowboy's fairyfloss-induced dream, from carnies to acrobats, to ferris wheel tattoos, John Willanski and Cassie Flanagan combine black and white drawings, colour-saturated photography and digital art to enter the hyper-real world of the traveling showground.

Princess Fairyfloss

Secondly Urban Jungle.
The city can be a stark unwelcoming place but the jungle is coming back to play. Street artist John Willanski invites you to come play too.

Some dresses waiting to be part of the Urban Jungle show.

and Finally Tiny Towns.
Exploring a new future of technology, energy and community Tiny Towns holds a mirror up to the way we live now and the way we will need to change.

Desert winds, a part of the Mini Art exhibition related to Tiny Towns.

I'm hoping that my work will entertain and enlighten. This year I'm also hoping to get to grips with timelines and trying to go that extra mile to turn something good into something very good. In the past I've over-committed and found that once the hatchet fell I'd fulfilled the briefs but I felt I could have done a bit better. By focusing on three smaller exhibitions I hope to have a bit more control and a bit less stress.

In other related news I'm going to be starting a short stint at the Science Exchange where I'll be learning about curating and running a space, managing a bump in and out and a marketing and media campaign as well as a whole bunch of other stuff.

There's a also session about Science Blogging at the Science Exchange that I'm really looking forward to next Monday.

As for the second part of thing number 22, the Climate Change Zine is Cass' and here she is!

The as yet untitled Climate Change Zine will be the third in an annual series of enviro-poetry zines presented by "Triple Bottom Line" - originally a trio but now a duo of environmentalist poets. (Why am I talking about myself in the third person?) When the three enviro-poets in question started the zines, we were all working as campaigners with different Adelaide environmental NGOs, but as of zine number two, there didn't seem to be room for both sorts of work simultaneously in our lives.

Jules remains with the Conservation Council of SA, and not with the zine, and Rachael and I are both studying higher degrees in creative writing at Adelaide uni, doing the zine, and no longer working at jobs in the movement.

I've been looking for other ways to stay involved though. Sustainable Communities is one, and this latest edition of the zine is another. It's going to be about the emotions involved in coming to terms with climate change and peak oil.

Rach and I also both take photos that have been part of the zines to date.

We were planning to launch it at this year's Format Zine Fair as part of the Fringe in March, but we have ambitious plans for length and content that make it seem more sensible to hold off until mid year. So we're now planning to release the climate change zine at a joint photo show, as part of SALA month in August.


Photo show meets zine and a powerful blend ensues!

Stay tuned, and please do come out to our fringe shows meanwhile!

Which reminds me, our friend Anna from next door has taken a challenge to go to as many fringe shows that her friends are in this year as she can! I'm planning to tag along to some as a way to narrow down the otherwise overwhelming options.

Things are good!

My journeying/travelling analogy from the last post seems to be ringing true.

The 31 Things "journey", if you will, really is generating all these positive changes or spin-offs in just the same way that a trip away from home opens up new perspectives, behaviour, brings epiphanies and insights and gives you energy to change for the better, and the space and insight to set new goals and be more like the person you really are underneath the daily distractions and crap.

The main changes we've noticed are these:

• We are having all these adventures, and I know why - it's from being open to trying new things.

• We're more open to talking to strangers in the community, more observant of everyone around us and everything, more curious and interested in them.

• We're spending more time being active in the present, rather than procrastinating, ruminating and being anxious or depressed.

• Ticking things off the list and the wonderful feedback from people we know, as well as others that one or the other of us have never even met, is giving us a fantastic sense of momentum.

• We've got past the initial "Christ, we've overcommitted!" freakout and have worked out how to fit the 31 Things challenge into the rest of our lives.

• Other people are getting inspired!

• Being in something together is bringing out the best in both of us.

Meanwhile, it's hot.

Most people who are following the blog are our friends in Adelaide, so you all will be very much aware that we're having another heatwave. Interstaters will have seen the weather reports too, but for Nicole, Chris, Em and anyone else in the northern hemisphere, it's so hot here.

Doing the challenge is helping us keep empowered while the evidence of climate change is melting our senses.

The heatwaves are coming in a pattern of on-again-off-again, around every ten or so days. By heatwave, I mean a few days over 40 degrees Celsius at a time. In between, it can be anything from low twenties to high 30s. Anyway, it's new and weird and messing up things like vegetable gardens and orchards, not to mention causing distress to the entire population, human, animal and vegetable. It's also starting to feel normal, as we adjust to the extreme weather patterns ("Oh, it's only 37 today, perfect picnic weather"). I resist this adaptability, even as I pride myself on my physical acclimatisation and crafty heat-repellent household routines, because this shouldn't be normal and I don't want us to slow-cook like the frog in the bath and suddenly realise it's 50 degrees out there for 3 months of the year.


The cat door snake attempting to keep the heat from the western sun at bay. All the same insulating techniques that you use in winter apply equally well to summer heat.

For the last two years, we've had record-breaking two week heatwaves over 40 degrees, and I dread a repeat of this this summer. I guess we'll see.

We have an air conditioner as of this (very hot) spring. The serious alternative was going to be evacuating our two cats to my sister's place during extended heatwaves (last year one of them got heat stroke and had to be rushed away to safety!) and ourselves to Tasmania on a WWOOFING holiday. We were hoping to get housesitters to water our garden, but who would volunteer to live in an inferno?


Thanks for trying to kill my cat, Rudd.

The aircon is a strange wonder. We're trying to use it as efficiently and sparingly as possible, but for me it literally means the difference between being able to live here functionally or basically having to move away. Obviously it's not a long-term strategy.

Something for a near-future list has to be investigating insulation. Apparently there are government rebates that apply to rental properties (for example). We could also look at ceiling fans as a good alternative to aircon.

Longer-term we need to think about living somewhere else (either house-wise or geographically) that doesn't require aircon. A massive shout-out to those who are enduring this climatic craziness without aircon. Come visit.

For people without aircon or houses, the heatwave is just unbearable. We met a guy today collecting cans who was railing at the government spending on the Tour Town Under cycling race, as opposed to homeless shelters. He said that there are only three men's shelters in Adelaide and not enough places. All we could do was agree as we stood together on the sweltering footpath. I wish I'd got it together in time to offer him some money but he'd already stormed off down the street by the time my heat-slowed brain had thought of it.

I remember reading during the heatwave in 2007 about how terrible it was for homeless people. I hope there's at least some sort of van driving round with bottled water and sunscreen, and hats if there aren't enough places in shelters. Does anyone know?


Still high 30s at 7.30pm.

Even with aircon, our house is pretty bad. Last night, after a 40 degree day - with predictions for three consecutive days of 43 degrees to follow), John and I decided to get in a walk while we could.

We meant just to go around the block, but with our new 31 Things-inspired energy and openness to giving things a go, we soon found we'd wandered right into town. A nice adventure would have been to run into a random friend and maybe be shouted a beer! (we'd set out without any cash), but we didn't, so we picked up some information about massages, some cheap movie ticket vouchers and then, like animals drawn to water, wandered through the uni and down to the River Torrens.

Night walks! The ducks and carp swam towards us, hoping for a snack. We sat on the springy lush grass and talked about the way the river has been regulated since European settlement.

We've become interested in urban watercourses because they feature so heavily in our local area, where five heavily modified creeks cross under roads and through backyards to join the Torrens and eventually reach the sea.

The night before last, on the way home from dinner with John's parents, we took a short detour along one of the creeks. It was currently empty, concreted over and graffiti-ed with beautiful colourful pieces. Again the 31 Days Sense of Adventure, as well as some amazing lit up sunset colours, pushed us to check out a small section of this route that had, unbeknownst at least to me (John kindly didn't spoil the excitement by revealing he'd known about it for years until we were on the way home) co-existed the whole time with our usual walk between Norwood and St Peters. We turned back at a tunnel with no source of light visible at the end, that turned out on subsequent Google maps investigation to disappear under suburbia. (We couldn't actually find where it reappeared; it must have been after a long way).


The heavily modified creek. Don't try this at home because you can't get out the sides in the case of flash floods! (But we felt pretty safe given the current weather (we kept out of the tunnels).)

On the way home we met Kelly, from the Sustainable Communities group. Then yesterday we met Rapsodie in Foodland, shopping to keep cool. Eleanor, where are you??

While walking last night, we devised the best adventure yet. We needed to work out a way to integrate the 31 Things, especially blog posting, into our crazy January and February schedules, which are of the sort that make you so avoidant you...devise challenges for yourselves for the month of January that preclude you from addressing any of them.

Not this time! We decided to Face the Stuff We Have To Do.

Step 1.
Check weather. Discover that it is predicted to be hellish until next Tuesday.


Wait. How hot?

Step 2.
Call an emergency meeting for the following day, to simultaneously avoid the heatwave-induced household languishing/cabin fever and address the serious priority imbalance you have got going.

Step 3.
(Next day)
Get up early to avoid the heat. Make it fun by dressing appropriately.
Oops, this one didn't go as planned, and we found ourselves at the busstop at midday, a time where only mad dogs and descendants of colonial Englishmen go out in the midday sun.


Cass wills the bus to appear, but it is on the Saturday timetable.

Step 5.
Hold your breath as the bus breaks down due to a heat-related computer error, but restarts. Arrive in town. Walk a few city blocks in your finery, complete with sun-shielding parasol, and arrive at your destination...

The Hilton Hotel Adelaide!


Chin chin! Still a little pink, John declares the meeting open.

Why didn't we think of this before? Ensconced in comfy chairs by a delightful fountain, we immediately ordered G&Ts and settled in for a serious planning meeting and the rest of the day.

Actually we made some really good schedules and plans, proper meeting style (thanks TWS for all the on the job experience in strategic planning and facilitation). I think we were slightly nuts; we did the whole meeting thing in our hippie-ish attempted dressed-up outfits (at different times we decided we had been mistaken for part of a wedding party, or the entourage of the Tour Down Under, or perhaps not for anything other than the eccentrically innovative climate refugees we were. (I think the drinks waiter smirked when he said goodbye).)


Booze was confined to the initial G&T and this very tasty local beer from the Barossa Valley, that somehow involved shiraz grapes.

We stayed til 6pm, resisted the urge to put our drinks on the wedding party's tab, were assisted in infiltrating the 18th floor of the hotel to check out the view by a friendly guest with a swipe card, and worked out among other things that I need to spend 3-4 days a week on uni work, 1 on everything else (a zine, this blog, and a photography show for the Fringe), and the weekend on leisure (and overhang, I guess). John has to go to a course, do work experience at the Science Exchange, make work for 3 art shows in the Fringe (this one, this one and this one) and do the blog.

So there'll be some changes around here!, but we're not stopping the challenge. We'll do a "thing" every day or so, but probably report less frequently, or maybe as frequently but much more briefly. Hurray for balance, and thanks to the philosophy of permaculture for realising that, as I paraphrased in the gym post, your own house has to be in order first before you can functionally tackle the outside world.

Please stay tuned for follow-up posts on the shower timer, the gym (yes! we went back on Friday), and new, teed-up or started "things" we haven't had time yet to blog about (research peak oil and the depression, Tiny Towns, Peter Singer, the smoke alarm, worm poo, John's haircut and have a meal at Stirling Organic).

And thank you again for your wonderful feedback. It was a factor in us wanting to keep going with the challenge. That and the fact that it's SUCH GOOD FUN!


Adelaide bakes. From the 18th floor of the Hilton Hotel.
CLIMATE ACTION NOW!

Thirty days have September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31...

Hey there,
We are Cass and John, a couple living together in Adelaide, South Australia. We are artists, writers and environmentalists.
Where we live, the weather has changed noticeably in the last ten years, and in the last 5, the changes have been dramatic. We've known about climate change for years, but suddenly it's too hot here, not just summer fun heat, but regular heatwaves that burn our gardens, and trap us inside for days at a time. There's also less water than there used to be.
There's also the knowledge that this is a global situation and that for most people it's going to be a lot worse than fried lettuce, buckets in the shower and aircon guilt.


Our little town-city, on the plain between the hills and the sea.

At the moment we're trying to balance the fun and excitement of making a house and garden together with our attempts to come to grips with what can regularly feel like an overwhelming crisis. (Just a nod here to Peak Oil, the cousin of climate change in terms of scariness and the potential for generating sustainable behaviour.)
If this introduction seems to be seesawing between cutesy optimism, and genuine freaked-out grief, it's because that's how we're feeling. This blog is our attempt to marry the hope we have for the future with the knowledge that this future is being shaped right now and that our current activities are a part of it.
We think it starts at home, so the fun times around the house are part of our active local response to the crisis.
The 31 Days thing came about through a neighbourhood group we joined last year that's part of a global movement to build resilient communities. It's very similar in concept to groups that are part of the Transition Towns movement; both are about sharing skills and knowledge, supporting local businesses and communities, reducing our dependence on energy and our ecological footprint, all on a very local scale.
We meet once a month, and at the December meeting we decided that in January we'd all take a challenge to do something sustainable.
Now it's the first of January 2010 and we have a list of 31 things we're planning to do this month.
So this will be a very short, very frequently updated blog.
Please feel free to comment!

Cass Flanagan and John Willanski