Hello friends!
First, something important. There's currently an e-petition on the Australian House of Representatives website, calling on our government to officially declare a climate emergency. When I signed there were 55,000+ signatures and rising fast. The more signatures, the more chance that this will garner serious media attention and (more importantly) force an actual discussion in parliament. To put it in context, the largest petition ever submitted had 1.2 million signatures, and the one in second place had 790,000-ish signatures (that one was about taxes on beer - Aussie as.) It would be amazing if we could top that! The petition is open to Australian citizens and residents until 16th October. If you want to get on board, sign here and share the link. WHAT a week. Trump impeachment proceedings! Boris Johnson misleads our Queen! Australia is the laughing stock of UN climate summit! I'm thinking of renaming this FORGET ABOUT IT FRIDAY because srsly, we need one day in the damn week where we can just block our eyes and ears and calm down. I marched for the Global Climate Strike in Brisbane on Friday. There were so many amazing things about the day, but one significant victory I'll mention here - the tone of mainstream media coverage is shifting from ridicule to empathy. Here's a great piece from 7 News about the day. Finally, some news from the climate crisis that made me laugh out loud. I was so happy to discover this existed. The Comedy Wildlife Photography awards is exactly what it sounds like: quite good photos of animals peeing on each other, falling over, making hilarious faces and so on. Here are the 2019 finalists. I love this idea for a surprise gift. Super memorable, and yay for gifting experiences over stuff! This tiny house in Japan is so beautiful, and thanks to clever design it looks unexpectedly spacious. Hard recommend for an instagram follow: Lord Birthday makes me laugh in a weird way and cry a little bit (click through the multiple pics on that last one - I'm pretty sure this is based on a real season in the artist's life. Yep.) The other day I remembered the Nazca Lines exist and was wowed all over again. Anybody else LOVE unexplainable phenomena like this? I could read Wikipedia all day long. Book recommendation: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie looked really heavy, but it was actually really beautiful and easy to read - I'd go so far as to call it unputdownable. Heart-opening. I also recently read The No Spend Year. It was a little OTT in some respects (I wouldn't want to go a year without buying anybody a gift) but so, so good for putting spending in perspective and showing how much it's possible to save when you just don't consume. I've been leaning into my passion for television. It's my favourite art form and such wonderful escapism, which is important when you're facing potentially the end of the world as we know it. If you have Netflix, Anne with an E is not as awful as I first thought (if you can push past the arrogant anachronisms, there's a lot to like about it). We also just started watching The Office (American version), which we somehow missed most of the first time around. If you haven't seen the British version, run, don't walk to the library to request it - I still think it's the greatest piece of television ever made. Have fun this weekend! Watch good television! Sign that petition! Surprise somebody with generosity! And do something nice for YOU. xx
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TL:DR: I was nervous about going to a protest march but it turns out they are generally legal, well-organised, safe, fun and funny. And at the moment, they're necessary. Join one next time! (My favourite signs from the day at the end.)
TL;DR: In Australia we dump perfectly good food while some Australians experience food insecurity; food waste in landfill emits a significant proportion of the world's greenhouse gases; instead of buying "new food", it's cheaper and more fun to buy rescued food; tips for finding a rescued food source or rescuing unwanted food in creative ways. Yay!
Happy Friday, lovelies!
I spent the morning doing boring banking and insurance stuff with Mick over a lovely cup of coffee. We always try to make the most of life administration by turning it into a date. (If you can make something funner, why wouldn't you?) Tomorrow we're going to a TEAR Australia conference around the issues of climate justice and advocacy, and what it looks like for Christians to respond to issues of poverty and injustice. Sunday will be for resting and binge-watching silly TV. I hope your weekend plans are similarly delightful. This wasn't exactly good news but I thought it was really beautiful: yesterday people of faith gathered in a peaceful blockade of the Adani mine site, in solidarity with the Wangan and Jagalingou people on whose traditional land the mine is being built. (6 of them, including 3 ordained ministers, were arrested.) From their statement: “Instead of demonising protesters, the Queensland Government would do well to promote their plan to diversify the local economy, so that no one is left behind as the world moves away from coal.” The UK and Germany are already transitioning to a renewable economy, showing Australia what's possible. (Germany managed to close down its coal industry without any forced redundancies!) Australia's first rescued food supermarket has opened in Sydney! We get a lot of our food from a rescued food store at our local community centre. It's a way to contribute to the community and get a lot of high-quality food for super cheap, preventing it from going into landfill. If you can find a rescued food store near you, definitely give it a go. If you CAN'T access a rescued food store, here are some other ways you can prevent good food from going into landfill: - Buy "ugly" vegetables and fruit - Buy off the "dodgy produce" shelf at the fruit shop (you know the one I mean, where everything is marked down and sad). Soggy vegetables can be made into soup and curry, and fruit can be chopped up and frozen for smoothies or baked into muffins and cakes. - Buy products that are close to their use by date (most things can be frozen before they expire if you can't eat them right away) - Buy from the "reduced to clear" sections at your supermarket - Consider if something is edible or useable before you automatically discard it. We often chuck out the leaves and ends of vegetables when there's absolutely no reason not to eat the whole thing. (I recently discovered you can eat cauliflower leaves and I'm so into it.) Citrus peels can go into your cleaning products or be zested into cakes, and even banana peels can be eaten. - Be the person who unashamedly takes home the leftovers from parties, events, dinners etc, and then actually freeze or eat them so they don't get chucked away. - Do a monthly no grocery challenge. Okay, now for silly stuff: I got an email from my friend Lucas this week containing, among other things, this absolutely delightful poem. Recipe to try this weekend: I want to make these baked tofu bites so much! They're coated in nutritional yeast, aka crack for vegans. Speaking of tofu: this documentary film produced by Arnold Schwarznegger and Jackie Chan looks SO MEGA. I get an adrenaline rush just from the trailer! Graaarrr! I want to lift something heavy! (It is coming to Australian cinemas soon.) If you have kids (or just watch The Wiggles a lot for some reason? No judgement) you might enjoy this piece ranking the Wiggles by how much the author is embarrassed for them. (Thank you Leesa for bringing this to my attention.) This week somebody asked me how you know if you're living in alignment with your values. Here's an exercise for that. I'm sorry if this is too sad for Good News Friday but it is amazing: the museum of broken relationships displays objects from love that is no longer. And in case you're getting over something and you need to hear this: there is no rush. Go forth and do good things this weekend, everybody! xx Kamina P.S. Could you go meat and dairy-free, car-free or plastic-free for 21 days and try to make it a habit? The 1 Million Actions for the Planet challenge starts on Monday. <3 TL;DR: I've always loved my car and the freedom driving brings; I thought ditching my car would be "less-than", but it's opened up an amazing new lifestyle; 8 unexpected things I've gained from living car-free.
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