About 200,000 households will be able to get cheap loans of up to $10,000 from a Labor government to install solar panels, water tanks and other ”green” climate friendly devices, Labor leader Kevin Rudd promised today. Check out the Sydney Morning Herald for more details.

According to WWF on its Futuremakers blog: “showers are the biggest users of water in the home, and your hot water service also consumes around 15 per cent of household electricity. So by reducing the length of your shower (or installing a AAA-rated shower head) you can reduce your water and electricity bills, while also conserving a precious resource.”

I have a small suction timer in my shower, care of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Green home program, which helps me keep my showers short. Plus a bucket in the shower to collect the cold water before it gets hot. I then pour this onto the garden.

However, if you don’t have a timer in your shower never mind because all you need to do is sing a song that is under four minutes long.

Peter Garrett shares his top 10 favourite shower songs that come in under four minutes with the Daily Telegraph just for this purpose. So get singing - there has never been a better excuse for it!

I just love it when I get given or find things for free that I can reuse in my garden. Two such fabulous things recently came my way - a worm farm and a big blue barrel.

My council has a fairly regular clean up day where people can leave all their junk and green waste out the front of their house for collection. People usually start putting their stuff out about a week before pickup so until the council collects it, it’s fair game for who ever wants it.

One night when I was out walking I stumbled across a worm farm. It was one of those round multi level worm farms. Everything was in tact - it had two levels, legs and a lid, no worms though. What a find! (more…)

This July Live Earth concerts, featuring over 100 top musical acts, will take place in seven continents to help trigger a global movement to combat climate change.

The concerts are part of the recently launched Save Our Selves (SOS) campaign for a Climate in Crisis. SOS aims to engage more than 2 billion people through television, film, radio, the Internet and the Live Earth concerts on 7 July 2007.

All proceeds from the concerts will go towards creating a foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis led by The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Vice President Al Gore. SOS was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8.

The concerts will take place in Sydney (Australia), Shanghai (China), Johannesburg (Africa), London (UK), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Tokyo (Japan) and New Jersey (USA).

Tickets have already gone on sale and some of the performers been announced for the London and New Jersey concerts, Sydney is yet to be announced.

Do you find that public transport just doesn’t cut it when you need to get somewhere? However, you don’t really want to have to drive everywhere - particularly to work? Well car pooling could be your answer.

Car pooling is where people travel together in one vehicle to:

• reduce costs in petrol, tolls and parking;
• share driving;
• take advantage of transit lanes; and
• reduce pollution.

Cool the Globe has a handy website where you can contact other people interested in car pooling.

Can ordinary suburban households help save the planet? Find out by tuning into the Eco House Challenge, which begins April 11 on SBS TV at 7.30pm.

The show features two families trying to radically reduce their consumption to live more sustainably. The challenge — without warning four environmental hotspots (energy, water, transport and waste removal) are shut down until further notice. Both families are high consumers but will have eco coach Tanya Ha to help them out.

Viewers will also have a chance to take part in the challenge. Find out how.

Below is a list of aquaponics resources. This list is a work in progress and by no way a representation of all aquaponics resources in Australia. To add a link, please post it in a comment below or email me at: greenfoot at email dot com. Or visit the feedback page.

Aquaponics
Info about aquaponics and equipment.

Aquaponics HQ forum
Good discussion forum.

Aquaponics basics
Good explanations of aquaponics.

Backyard aquaponics
Good information about setting up a backyard system.

Green backyard
An experiment in backyard aquaponics.

Practical aquaponics
Commercial and backyard aquaponics business based in Brisbane. Good info about set up and equipment needed.

Well Earth Hour went by without a hitch in our household. A simple meal with my family by candle light. WWF estimates that more than 2 million Sydney residents took part by flicking the switch.

According to Energy Australia, residents and businesses across the city showed their support for Earth Hour resulting in an impressive 10.2 per cent drop in energy usage across the usually glittering CBD.

This is double WWF’s anticipated energy saving and represents a reduction of 24.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide - the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for an hour. Earth Hour is the start of an ambitious campaign to cut Sydney’s greenhouse gas emissions by 5 per cent for March 2008.

I think Earth Hour is a great idea, not only in helping Sydney reduce its greenhouse gas emissions but also to help raise awareness about climate change. It is a great conversation starter and a simple way to spread the message about how easy it is for all of us to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It would be great to see Earth Hour as an annual event across all of Australia. See more statistics on Earth Hour. View and upload your own images from Earth Hour. David Jeffery has also listed a whole load of blogs documenting Earth Hour experiences.