A Summary of the Environmental Actions Taken by the Liberals Since Winning The 2013 Election. Complete with Humorous GIFS.

When the Labor Party came into government during 2007 the…

Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Climate Change Commission were established

Kyoto Protocol was commissioned

They committed to a 20% renewable energy target to be achieved by 2020

and after a LONG debate over the price on carbon they persisted and got it passed in the senate

I’ll admit it wasn’t all good

There was that poorly planned Home Insulation Program.

But the Liberals have been in 6 months and

The Renewable Energy Authority, Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Climate Commission have all been either dismantled or had severe funding cuts.

I campaigned with the Australia Youth Climate Coalition on their Repower Australia campaign to get the Clean Energy Finance Corporations $10b renewable energy investment fund passed through parliament. I rallied and had conversations with 100’s of people and then they’ve just scrapped it all.

Yeah, so ….Thanks Tony

They’ve reduced the renewable energy target from 20% by 2020 to a mere 5%

Something else activists around the country, including myself worked hard to achieve.

They’re drafting plans to abolish the Price On Carbon

and they say they’ll be ‘reviewing’ the laws around marine park no-take zones… but we all know what that means

Meanwhile we have a handful of wealthy Australians weakening our unions and buying out media corporations

Gina Rhinehart is sitting back earning $600 a second apparently…

She’s somehow made Andrew Bolt her pet monkey

Clive Palmer is meant to be earning a measly $1.1b a year …probably saving for his dinosaur theme park which is super important – much more important than having an equitable society, apparently.

Tony is sitting on the front bench like

This is me whenever I see our Prime Minister in the public eye

Aren’t we meant to be proud of our politicians? I’m embarrassed…

This is the truth, this is what we are facing with right now

Our current leader Tony Abbott was quoted in 2010 saying

“The climate change argument is absolute crap, however the politics are tough for us because 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger.”

Pretty much saying that they need to introduce policies targeted at climate change to win votes, not because he believes climate change is the real and present threat that it is.

Well Tony I’ll post some references to the scientific concensus supporting climate change at the end of this blog because I can’t stand having a Prime Minister who cannot understand straightforward scientific evidence.

I don’t blame you though because you also scrapped the science minister.

 I hope the Liberals start talking sense soon because I really don’t see whose votes they’re aiming for.

W. R. L. Anderegg, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 107 No. 27, 12107-12109 (21 June 2010); DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107.

P. T. Doran & M. K. Zimmerman, “Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Eos Transactions American Geophysical Union Vol. 90 Issue 3 (2009), 22; DOI: 10.1029/2009EO030002.

N. Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science Vol. 306 no. 5702, p. 1686 (3 December 2004); DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618

Chugging Along

Recently our hot water system broke down, at first we thought it was just the pilot light that had gone out but no. So now we are clueless as to what is wrong with it and have no hot water, except that which we boil the old fashioned way of course. It’s not much of a bother right now as it’s summer so having a cold shower won’t hurt, I’m worried about what we’ll end up doing though come April. The thing is, even if we weren’t doing BNN this would be a tricky situation as a hot water system is rather pricey… a new one is upwards of $500 from what I’ve seen, and a decent second hand one (decent meaning good quality and doesn’t give us the feeling it’s going to fall apart in the next 5 years minimum) can be $270 or more. We simply wouldn’t be able to afford one, and us not being plumbers I don’t have a huge amount of confidence in buying a second hand one… we don’t know what we’re meant to look for.

So that’s one of the challenges we’ve had recently which has been playing on my mind.

We have been active though, I made two outdoor seats out of some plastic bread crates and then found some pillows from an old outdoor setting we had in the garage, they’re really comfortable and a good size for sitting outside with some friends.

I also got a good deal on two used, vintage, women’s bikes. I’ve always loved bike riding and we’ve both been working on our fitness so bike-riding is something we’ve both been enjoying. I do have to take them down to the bike store though and get them fine tuned, one of them needs the inner tube of both tires replaced, the other one has a bit of surface rust – easily fixed and both of the brakes need tightening.

LittlePops bike

BigPops bike

 

So that’s what has been going on with us the last 10 days or so, what have you been doing? 

Writing Wednesdays

This week I attempted the 7 x 7 x 7 x 7 writing exercise.

Grab the 7th book from your bookshelf. Open it up to page 7. Pinpoint the 7th sentence on the page. Begin a poem that begins with that sentence and limit it in length to 7 lines.

I came across this idea and a few others I may use in a later post on the Huffington Post ‘Best Creative Writing Exercises’

The 7th book on my shelf was The Maze Runner (written by James Dashner), this is one of my very favourite books, it’s part of a series. I’m also very envious of its U.S. movie release this September – although I’m determined to get my hands on it some how.

So in bold below is the 7th sentence from the 7th page of the book and below it follow the poem which totals 7 lines (including the quoted text from the book). I’m not very good at poems, but I’ll give it my best shot.

An odd, dilapidated wooden building near one of the corners of the square contrasted greatly with the grey stone.

this place was strange, unfamiliar and eerie

But still he stood there, this was now his new home

So to make an impression he put on an act, acting happy and gleeful, not tired and weary.

It was time to begin, this was a fresh start

he sought refuge that night in the local tavern

and in the wee hours as the last drinks were called he finished is pint and preyed that this time he would not fall apart

 

Little Pop xx

TGIF

Reflections on our journey so far

I thought I would share from my view some lessons learned in 2013. I am not one to make new years resolutions, when I do though I try and be honest with myself and keep them realistic + achievable.

Our journey so far has been exciting, as a parent I have enjoyed watching Little Pop face her challenges. Our BNN commitments came about at a time when I was unemployed and Little Pops 21st birthday was approaching. I have always tried hard to encourage Little Pop in her hobbies. We are surrounded by a family of artistic folk. When I was young I wasn’t good at knitting, but my nan (bless her) was so patient with me. She followed the pattern to a T – right down to the last instruction, I would start with 10 stitches and end with 21with a few holes here and there.

During my 50th year (and Littles 21st) I received an early present. With no money for a present, Little Pop handed me a lifeline.
“Mum for my 21st is it ok if you don’t buy me anything, actually I would like me gift to be not buying anything new for a year, in fact I would like my present to be not buying anything new for a year…”
I contemplated this idea in my head over the month leading up t her birthday, I didn’t think it would be too hard seeing as we had no money anyway and what we did have was going towards our mortgage and utility bills, but is it that simple?

We have now been doing BNN for almost eight months. Thankfully during that time I did get employed in full time work. Its not the kind of job I had in mind, but it pays the bills.

Little Pop and I are not saints, there have been occasions when we have slipped and bought new things but they are few and far between. We have definitely bought less in the last 12 months than we would normally, which means less stuff coming into the house and vice-versa. As a whole we have become much more aware of our consumption habits and normally walk away for a bit and have a think before buying – do we really need this? BNN has forced us to be more creative and think outside the box, find new ways of doing things (we loved hard rubbish week because we could go around collecting things we thought would make good raised garden beds, these ranged from pallets to old book shelves)

Gifts have been one of our biggest challenges. Many people although they are supportive of our challenge, are not so supportive when receiving second hand gifts. We try our hardest to please others and have found that giving something edible is often well received. Little Pop LOVES making chutney and jams for others and so far that has been one of our best BNN gifts we’ve come up with.

I have loved the BNN challenge, Little Pop has surprised me over and over again with her creativity. We have had many insightful conversations about how consumerism is played into you from such an early age through the media and making the conscious decision to go the other way by not buying into it has given us more time to enjoy experiences together which make us happy for much longer than any material item could.

we have done a lot of decluttering so far and I bite my lip at times when I see things she begged for being given away, but I also don’t see her asking for anything else. I also understand that if we hold on to everything we have we’d become hoarders, sometimes it’s better to just let go. I am very proud of Little Pop and what we have achieved as a team over the past eight months

We have a few projects on the go at the moment, we are cleaning out the third bedroom (formally the ‘stuff’ room… I’m not joking you couldn’t even get in there. We can see the floor now though!), I hope to turn it into a craft room where we can relax and enjoy our hobbies. We purchased a bulk lot of crates at the recycling centre and Are turning them into an outdoor lounge which we will share with you when it’s finished.

Do you have any good recycling projects going at the moment? We love hearing up-cycling stories for the garden, ours is small and we like to maximise it’s space.

Hugs and honey,

Big Pop 🙂

xx

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all :)

Well we here at ThriftyPop had a marvellous Christmas. We both love giving gifts even more so than receiving them and delighted in putting our heads together and making + buying second hand gifts for our loved ones.

Some of the things we came up with were

1. A personalised engraved wine bottle
2. Some first edition classic books (Big Pop received a collection of six first edition Enid Blyton novels, Gorgeous!)
3. A 1963 original copy of The Amazing Spiderman comic book
4. Big Pop also collects green Depression Ware glass so I bought her a nice bowl from the Waverley Antique Bazaar
5. Experience based gifts such as cooking lessons, pampering packages, and deep water diving courses
6. Charitable gifts to Oxfam and World Vision ❤

What we enjoyed the most was how little stress we felt going into the holiday season. We had a new focus, and that was spending time with our family catching up and connecting over the holiday period while we all had time to do so. Our gifts were all well received and it was wonderful to see how thoughtful others had been with buying us gifts we had many thoughtful gifts given to us including plants, charitable gifts, holiday park vouchers and locally made jewellery.

Coming into the new year I will not be making any mind-blowing resolutions, I think I will make an effort to start slowing down and enjoying life a little more, I’m going to learn to put my phone down… or more shockingly turn it off. I want to go on more walks, check up on social media less and stop putting so much pressure on myself because there are only 24 hours in a day and its not always possible to get everything done.

Related articles

• Hope You Had a Merry Christmas! (losangelesstory.blogspot.com)
• The Spirit of Christmas in every Child (letstellourthoughts.wordpress.com)
• 11 Easy Ways To Slow Down & Find Balance (http://www.mindbodygreen.com)
• 7 Tips To Help You Slow Down and Enjoy Life As It Is (http://tinybuddha.com)

No news is good news (I think)

Last night I lay in bed on ‘the thinking train’ as I like to call it (when you can’t sleep because your brain just won’t switch off) and my mind turned to this blog. I thought about how strange it is that our blog started as part of our commitment to buying nothing new because some friends of ours (The Fearse Family) who are embarking on the same challenge pointed out it would make us more accountable – and it sure has.

However I find that very few of our posts are actually about buying nothing new. I guess if we were constantly writing and whining about how we couldn’t buy the latest games console or something along those lines this would be pretty boring to read and would also show that we have learnt nothing from this experience, which isn’t true at all.

So I wonder, is no news good news?

Day one: gifts ideas we love

I thought about writing one post with all my non-gift gift ideas, but I think instead I’m going to spread them out and include one on each post leading up to Christmas.

First up: home made Jams

I’m a huge fan of jams, if you haven’t yet ventured into jam making before it might take you one or two goes to nail it but I’ve always found it’s good to have the ‘test’ jams as it gives me an excuse to keep them as a little gift to myself 🙂

Last year I made a tomato and chilli jam which I gave to my Dad, I got great feedback on this as it tasted so good.

When preserved properly jams  are able to be kept for around 6 monthes which really gave him time to enjoy it and not have to rush through trying and finish it before it goes bad.

The best part of this though was that it was a very cost effective gift. I purchased my jars from a local op-shop and they were going for something like 50c a jar (it’s best of you can get the jars that have the little pop up seal on the lid so then you know when it’s airtight. An even better way of accumulating jars is to save your old ones to use (unfortunately we were not so forward thinking at the time).

The best way to tell if your jam is of the right consistancy is to place a plate in the freezer before you start cooking the jam and periodically put a slither of jam on this leave it for 30 seconds or so and then give it a little poke. If it’s still runny then you know it isn’t quite ready, when it’s sort of sticky (normal jam consistancy) then congratulations it’s time to start canning! This may take a bit of time so have a patient mindset going into this.

Also if your going to be making jams try and get your hands on some Jamsetta, you can normally find this in the  supermarket around where the gelatine is kept. It helps make the process a lot faster and easier for us ammeter jam makers 😉

When sterilizing your cans place them in a pot of water and bring it to the boil, periodically check to see if the lids have popped in. Once they have it’s time to put them in the fridge and allow the jam to set overnight before labelling. Then all that’s left is to kick your feet up and wait for Christmas day to arrive 🙂

I hope this has given some inspiration.

If you want some extra tips taste.com has a nice little list.

Also Google as always has many ideas and recipes for jam recipes.

If you’ve got a good jam recipe or story we’d love to hear it!

Little Pop xx

Fashionably late

Many appologies for our absence… Basically to sum up, we’ve been inexcusably lazy!
But not to worry we have many BNN storys saved up, and can’t wait to share them all 🙂

Here’s a snippet of what’s been going on:

the veggie garden we wrote about in a previous post during winter when we planted carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, beans and garlic did reasonably well (for amatures like us anyway!) The carrots were the most successful… I would say we ended up with just under 100. They weren’t very big, or straight (this was due to our soil being a bit clay like) but they tasted like carrots and that’s all that matters anyway 🙂
This is a pretty accurate photo of what they looked like… Too bad I didn’t get a photo at the time 😦

Photo courtesy of Hazels-homegrown
Unfortunately the broccoli and beans got eaten by birds… So now we know to put some kind of netting up to prevent this reacurring.

We had a period of time where we struggled with gifts for peoples birthdays, especially as this year was little pops and most of her friends 21sts. But we have always found ways around this by donating to charities on others behalf, making something ourselves, finding an antique collectable of some kind or even the cliche of giving someone a big key for their 21st which lucky enough are a relatively affordable find at antique stores.
Hmm this sea of gifts has got me feeling rather christmassy, save this spot I think I’ll make a thrifty gifting post for Christmas 🙂

We have had the sewing machine out alot and have had many successes and a few failures along the way. But we have definitely figured out how to alter clothes when they become too small, big or you simply want to change them up a bit and bring them back to life.

We have found a fantastic op-shop (actually it’s more like an antique warehouse) in Glen Waverley of all places. This place is seriously big and if you want to have a really good look through everything I would recommend setting a few weekends aside as I cannot explain the size of this place.
Check out their facebook page here you will not come out empty handed I assure you.

Other than that we have been just doing the same old thing, work/study/sleep repeat.

Anyway we will return shortly with our promised gift post!

Happy Monday!

Little Pop xx

Great finds

We went out this week and did our rounds at the local op-shops. We can prepared and had a list, we needed new work shoes for Little Pop, a new handbag for Big Pop which would also be appropriate for work as she started a new job this week and a warm coat for Little Pop which she can use when out walking the dog and during work placements ( because she is studying environmental science almost all field work is in the outdoors and with winter well underway sea starting I feel the cold!)
So off we went … And we actually did really well! We got everything on our list (Shoes and bag $4 each and jacket
$6) the bag is a perfect size for Big Pop to take to work and has plenty of pockets and storage, and Little Pop loves the colour of her new (old) jacket. We even got something which wasn’t on the list… Little Pop found a great little insulated ‘lunch sack’ to take to work and uni and it was only $1!

Also here are some of the pictures from Little Pops most recent work experience with Philip Island Nature Parks… She had a fantastic time but is now home and oh so tired! 💤💤💤