SEASONS GREETINGS: Best wishes for a safe and happy festive season and a great year ahead in 2009

Urban NRM News will be taking a festive season break and will be back in your inbox/reader in January. Thank-you for your support and best wishes to you and yours for the festive season and the new year.

Bruce Boyes
www.retaggr.com/Card/BruceBoyes

CLIMATE: Release of White Paper, 'Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Australia's Low Pollution Future'

The Australian Government has released the White Paper Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Australia's Low Pollution Future. The paper outlines the final design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the medium-term, target range for reducing carbon pollution. This paper follows from the Green Paper, released in July 2008, which canvassed options on the design on the scheme. It takes into account the outcomes of a broad consultation and input from more than one thousand submissions.

CLIMATE: Earth Hour 2009 launched

Join in Earth Hour at 8:30pm Saturday March 28 2009!

In 2007, 2.2 million people took part in the world's first Earth Hour in Sydney Australia. Just one year later, 50 million people in 370 cities and towns, in more than 35 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour.

Earth Hour 2009 aims to reach more than one billion people in 1000 cities around the world, inviting communities, business and governments to switch off lights for one hour at 8:30pm on Saturday March 28 and sending a powerful global message that we care enough about climate change to take action.

CLIMATE: Brown Power Heritage website

Brown Power Heritage takes a humorous look at the future of coal-fired power.

CLIMATE: Don't waste your computer's idle time today - use it to help the Clean Energy Project at Harvard University

By signing up to the Harvard University Clean Energy Project, you can contribute your computer's idle time to assist vital renewable energy research.

The Clean Energy Project uses computational chemistry and the willingness of people to help look for the best molecules possible for organic photovoltaics to provide inexpensive solar cells, polymers for the membranes used in fuel cells for electricity generation, and how best to assemble the molecules to make those devices. By helping Harvard University search combinatorially among thousands of potential systems, you can contribute to this effort.

When idle, your computer will request data on the project from the project's server. It will then perform computations on this data, send the results back to the server, and ask the server for a new piece of work. Each computation that your computer performs provides scientists with critical information that accelerates the pace of research!

The Clean Energy Project is one of the projects you can assist with on the World Community Grid.

WATER: Creating Water Sensitive Cities in Australia Workshop Series, February 2009

The National Urban Water Governance Program at Monash University, in collaboration with the International WaterCentre is hosting a series of 2-day workshops in Feb 2009 focused on Creating Water Sensitive Cities in Australia. Participants will hear from leading water, climate and social scientists, urban designers and industry practitioners about the water related challenges and opportunities currently facing our cities. They will also have the opportunity to share their views and collaborate with other professionals in creating the vision and strategy for water sensitive futures in Australia. Outcomes from the workshops will be presented to the National Water Commission and other government officials in the form of detailed recommendations for local and national urban water policy development and implementation. For more information and to register, go to www.urbanwatergovernance.com

WATER: New Sydney WaterRight Gardens web tool

The WaterRight Gardens web tool, funded by the National Water Commission through the Raising National Water Standards Program, will help households apply just the right amount of water for their individual garden needs and local conditions.

This online resource can tell Sydney residents how often and how much to water, as well as when to stop watering because of rainfall or seasonal weather changes. It includes postcode-specific advice and popular plants species, and can determine the specific watering needs for different parts of their garden, depending on its plants and soil, wind and shade conditions. It shows residents how to maintain a healthy garden whilst avoiding wasteful and unnecessary watering.

The website can also be used to help design water efficient gardens, thanks to an informative series of fact sheets and guidelines. Links to the Sydney Water Plant Selector Tool will allow people to make plant choices best suited to local Sydney conditions.

Read the media release or access the web tool.

CLIMATE: The world is watching

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Poznań, Poland right now. Poznan can't be "just another meeting." Let climate decision makers know that the world is watching what happens. Join people from around the world and submit photos featuring your eyes. Poznan must result in a commitment to a fair and ambitious climate deal at next year's UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

FUNDING, CLIMATE: Google.org Geo Challenge Grants

Google.org believes maps are a powerful tool for non-profits of all kinds to communicate issues, understand needs, and create more effective implementation plans. Many of you have come to Google.org with compelling ways that maps can help you and your organisation increase impact, and Google.org wants to help you make your mapping ideas a reality. They're offering a pilot program of Geo Challenge Grants to organisations working in areas related to their core initiatives, which are: Develop Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal, RechargeIT, Predict and Prevent, Inform and Empower to Improve Public Services, and Fuel the Growth of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.

Geo Challenge Grants proposals must be submitted by 22 December 2008. However, Google.org intends to have future submission rounds in the coming year, so if you miss this deadline, stay tuned for details of the next round.

Google.org aspires to use the power of information and technology to address the global challenges of our age: climate change, poverty and emerging disease.

BIODIVERSITY: ANPC 2nd National Forum, 'Minding our own biodiversity: conservation on private land'

Thursday 30 April – Friday 1 May 2009
Halls Gap, The Grampians, Victoria

Are you interested in conserving native flora and fauna on your land? Do you have a management agreement or covenant over some of your land? Do you participate in conservation activities on local public land? Are you part of a network linking conservation across the landscape? Do you receive any support or are incentives available to assist your efforts?

The Australian Network for Plant Conservation (ANPC) 2nd National Forum will focus on conservation outside the formal reserve system, whether on small blocks or large landscape level efforts or cross-tenure projects. It will highlight the people and places involved and investigate the incentives and support available. The forum will include presentations, case studies, facilitated discussion sessions and field visits to project sites.

For further information visit ANPC conferences or contact the ANPC office on 02 6250 9509.

BIODIVERSITY: Results in from Sydney NatureKeepers BioBlitz08

On Sunday 28 September 2008, 150 survey volunteers worked with 30 volunteer Team Leaders to survey five Sydney parks for their plants and wildlife over a 24 hour period. The species data collected for the City of Sydney included 398 new records (some species types were recorded at more than one location or time). The data includes 189 different species. The results have been forwarded to the City of Sydney Council to assist with future park management plans. The species results are now available here.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY: CitySwitch Green Office

With a geographical spread representing approximately 70 per cent of Australia’s office space, CitySwitch Green Office works with tenants to improve office energy efficiency, thereby reducing the CO2 emissions attributed to global warming. One of the main reasons for choosing this way to save energy is that tenants can influence up to 50 percent of total energy use in office buildings.

CitySwitch Green Office is a national tenant energy management program run in partnership between the cities of Sydney, North Sydney, Parramatta, Willoughby, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane and state government agencies, the Department of Environment & Climate Change NSW and Sustainability Victoria.

FUNDING: Caring for our Country business plan information sessions

To help you find out more about the Caring for our Country investment priorities, what this means for your organisation and how to submit an investment proposal, the Australian Government is running a series of Caring for our Country information sessions where you can get more details about the 2009-10 business plan and put your questions to the Australian Government.

FUNDING: Caring for our Country Community Coastcare 2008-09 projects announced

The Australian Government has approved a total of over $22.5 million for activities under Caring for our Country Community Coastcare 2008-09. Proposals for funding had been sought against two of the six national priority areas, and particularly for activities that would be:

• protecting and rehabilitating Coastal environments and critical aquatic habitats; and
• enhancing community skills, knowledge and engagement with Indigenous Australians, volunteers and coastal communities.