#csugreen

[adventures-of-a-prevetstude-blog]

August 26th, 2017.

[raphallwright]

A Greener Christmas

I had a look at an internal Green newsletter from December 2013 and saw a reference to the below article from the CSIRO. It has a number of good ideas to have a Greener Christmas. Consuming sustainably at Christmas from CSIRO (http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Environment/Population-Sustainability/Sustainable-Christmas.aspx) Find out how to celebrate Christmas in an environmentally sustainable way. (This feature article by Andrea Wild may be reprinted in full or part without permission.) 17 December 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011 Christmas is a consumer's paradise, but as CSIRO research shows, changing our habits toward more sustainble consumption is the key to a healthy economic and environmental future for the whole planet. Fortunately, we can celebrate Christmas in a sustainable way and still enjoy unwrapping our presents and spoiling each other a little bit. Gift ideas Consuming services rather than manufactured goods uses up fewer resources but still contributes to the economy. This Christmas, you could consider giving a voucher for services such as: a massage dinner at a cafe or restaurant gardening or house cleaning tickets to a performance like a jazz band or a ballet. If you don't have much to spend on a gift, you could make up vouchers for your own services. Even young children can perform simple services like watering pot plants or feeding pets. Making a present yourself can also be more sustainble option, if you are careful about where you source your materials and what they are made of. Some purchased gifts are obviously more sustainable than others. For example, buying a wooden toy made out of a sustainable timber source by a local craftsperson: uses a renewable resource supports a local business has minimal transport miles associated with it requires no energy to operate it even stores a little carbon. Contrast this with buying a battery operated plastic toy (most plastics are made from oil) imported from overseas. Other more sustainable gift ideas include: drought tolerant garden plants local produce or products like preserves and Christmas cakes handmade clothes and crafts from local markets items made of wood from sustainable sources framed paintings by local artists gifts or vouchers that support a charity items that last a long time and will be kept rather than thrown away. Other options for a more sustainable Christmas Buying a tree in a pot that you can reuse each year is less wasteful than buying a cut tree, which in turn is less wasteful than buying an artificial tree transported from the other side of the world.

Another idea is to wrap your presents using fabric and safety pins instead of paper or foil and sticky tape. Swap over from plastic ribbon to fabric ribbon and reuse your wrapping supplies each year, or let your friends and family keep the wrapping and ribbons so they can reuse them too. CSIRO and The Limits to Growth Published in 1972, the controversial bestselling book The Limits to Growth published MIT modelling linking the world economy to the environment. The Limits to Growth predicted that if the world does not substantially reduce consumption and increase technological progress toward sustainability, the global economy will collapse by the middle of the 21st century. To date, the recommendations of The Limits to Growth, which included fundamental changes of policy and behaviour for sustainability, have not been implemented. CSIRO compared the forecasts in The Limits to Growth against 30 years of real world data. Key findings are: real-world data shows that for the first 30 years of the model, the world has been tracking along the unsustainable trajectory of the book’s business-as-usual scenario contemporary issues like peak oil and climate change resonate strongly with the book’s business-as-usual scenario the forecasts of global environmental and economic collapse by the middle of this century are still on track. Finding out how Australia can address the challenges of economic, environmental and social sustainability is a key focus of CSIRO's research. To find out about literally consuming less on Christmas Day, take a look at Christmas and the Total Wellbeing Diet.