Last weekend my family and I visited some interesting places during Sustainable House Day. This year there were so many houses on offer, it was difficult to choose which ones to visit — our time was a bit limited because we had a four year old and a small baby with us.

We chose the Hawkesbury EarthCare Centre, an owner-builder house constructed from interlocking concrete blocks and a new house using many clever environmental elements.

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This Saturday (March 29) at 8pm don’t forget to turn off all your lights and unused appliances at the switch to show your support for Earth Hour.

The event, organised by WWF, began last year in Sydney where over 2.2 million residents and over 2,100 businesses turned off lights and appliances for one hour to help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas pollution. WWF says that this lead to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city.

This year the event has gone global with another 23 world cities formally signing up.

With 24 global cities on board for Earth Hour, WWF anticipates that more than 30 million people will be involved this year.

If you haven’t already, sign up for the event on the Earth Hour website. You don’t have to be in one of the 24 cities to show your support.

Not sure what I’ll be doing yet. I think another candle lit dinner with my family.

What are you planning? Or what did you do for Earth Hour?

Although it’s in the UK, I just love this site. Such a great idea and many of the ideas in this online animation are similar to what is being, and can be, done in Australia.

Check out Greenpeace UK’s EfficienCity - an example of how towns and cities across the UK are using cleaner energy to fight climate change.

Postcards have hit the cafes and newsagents of Sydney showcasing a new initiative called ‘Sustainable Sydney 2030‘. The City of Sydney is looking to deliver a plan to guide the development of the City of Sydney for the next 20 years. On the website we can get a feel for what they mean and find out how we can contribute to the plan over the next 6 months.

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During my lunch hour today I viewed the most amazing photography exhibition called Earth from Above, displayed for free and outdoors at Darling Harbour in Sydney.

The images, taken by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, are a series of aerial images focusing on our planet and sustainable development. The images are truly incredible and if you’re in Sydney or passing through Darling Harbour then definitely take a look. The exhibition runs until December 26, 2007.

These days there is a lot of talk about to how to reduce our own personal impact on climate change. And it seems that many people are listening and trying to do just that.

However, I’m not really sure how many of our politicians are really listening or planning to make changes in their policies to help combat climate change.

Luckily, there is a new website called The Big Switch that provides a way to find out where politicians stand on climate change. The site also provides an avenue to politicians to let them know we want action.

You can also sign the pledge to help create a clean energy future for Australia plus find loads of information about reducing your own greenhouse gas emissions, avenues to take further action, ways to contact local climate action groups, discussion forums and climate change news.

The Live Earth concert, which kicks off in Sydney, is just over a day away. It sounds like it will be great with such a fine line up.

I was meant to be attending to cover the concert for a US based blog, but the press pass fell through.

Never mind because Live Earth will be transmitted worldwide by Intelsat and the concert will also be streamed live online through MSN.

Is anyone going? Let us know how it went. David Jeffery over at Oikos has a few spare tickets if you missed out.

I couldn’t help but have a bit of a chuckle when I saw Cheat Neutral. Based on the idea of carbon offsets, however, instead of offsetting your carbon emissions you can offset your infidelities.

Yahoo!7 is on the lookout for Australia’s most worthwhile environmental initiative and reward it $50,000.

To do this Yahoo!7 is asking “How would you spend $50,000 to create a more sustainable environment in Australia?”. If your answer is the best Yahoo!7 will donate $50,000 to an environmental organisation that will put the funds towards implementing your idea.

While anyone can answer the question, in order to be eligible to have your answer funded you’ll need to register your details with Yahoo!7 using this form.

Thanks to Priscilla Brice-Weller over at Solidariti, I discovered Ripple today.

To quote Priscilla: “Ripple is another one of those “search with us and we’ll donate to a good cause” services, a la Everyclick, Goodsearch, and Magictaxi (there are plenty of others). These three search facilities donate 50 per cent of their revenue to good causes.

However, Ripple is better for two reasons. First, it donates 100 per cent of its revenue to four selected causes. Second, unlike the competition, Ripple’s causes are all based in Australia.

So get clicking to maximise that ripple.