Parks are not simply useful for human recreation, they also help reduce air temperature and wind speed and replenish ground water supplies, all of which have knock on effects for the environment and the comfort of that most urban of creatures, you and I.
Findings from Portland Oregon last decade indicate just how dramatic the impact of green spaces in the city can be.
Key Findings:
Vegetated streetscape facilities (“Green Streets”) designed to handle runoff can filter water, remove pollutants, and reduce demand on stormwater infrastructure.
Green Streets can also serve as urban greenways that enhance the pedestrian environment, provide wildlife habitat, reduce summer air temperatures, and replenish groundwater aquifers.
Green streets have not reduced the utility for cars or pedestrians
Green Streets can be more cost effective than traditional pipe upsize and replacement projects.
Development of sample designs, standard details, policy, and technical guidance documents support implementation by the private sector.
Wild Law in practice was launched last night at Avid Reader
The big names in Brisbane’s environmental movement rolled up to Avid Reader last night to launch a new book Wild Law in Practice. Editor of the tome and National Convenor of Australian Earth Laws Alliance (ALEA) Michelle Maloney was joined byEmeritus Professor Ian Lowe and Steven White from Griffith University and Professor Douglas Fisher and Felicity Deane from QUT.
The thronging masses were given plenty of opportunity for questions and they flowed thick and fast. Clearly the time has come for a deeper understanding of humanities relationship with nature and that has moved beyond the activism of pioneers like Captain Paul Watson to the legal fraternity.
Interestingly for such an avowedly scientific bunch a lot of the inspiration comes from the work of twentieth century monk Thomas Berry.
Wild Law: In Practice is an edited collection by Michelle Maloney and Dr Peter Burdon. It aims to facilitate the transition of Earth Jurisprudence from theory into practice. Earth Jurisprudence is an emerging philosophy of law, coined by cultural historian and deep ecologist Thomas Berry. It seeks to provide the foundation for a radical shift in law and governance from an exclusive focus on human beings to recognition of human interconnectedness with the comprehensive Earth community.
This volume addresses a range of topics including the effectiveness of environmental law, the practical implementation of the rights of nature, the role of civil society in transforming law and governance, limits to growth and the connections between animal law and Earth jurisprudence.
The article starts with a 1030’s quote from Henry Ford, that it was a good thing that most Americans didn’t know how banking really works, because if they did, “there’d be a revolution before tomorrow morning”.
It goes on to say, “Last week, something remarkable happened. The Bank of England let the cat out of the bag … they stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong, and that the kind of populist, heterodox positions more ordinarily associated with groups such as Occupy Wall Street are correct. In doing so, they have effectively thrown the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.”
The challenge for us as ordinary citizens and borrowers, however, is exactly what we can do with this new knowledge.
On one level, we can use it to put pressure on governments to stop waving austerity measures as a stick to undermine social welfare programs and further enrich the already wealthy. The value of that approach is limited, though, because without the fiction of a balanced budget as a handbrake governments might speed up the process of robbing the poor to enrich the wealthy. A useful source of practical economic information along these lines is BillMitchell’s BillyBlog
On another level, we could use this evidence of the unreal nature of money to undermine the debt cycle that has most of us trapped as wage slaves. We could simply disengage from the banks. The divestment programs currently underway, take the first step in this direction, depriving the investment community of its lifeblood, cash. This e next question becomes, what do we do with our money now?
The capacity to live well without borrowing is something that we can manage in our communities by returning to the gifting economy and the social values that have served humanity well for about ten millenia before the renaissance invention of double entry book-keeping made economic rationalism possible.
We live in an era that was imagined and created by those far sighted revolutionaries of the enlightenment and our current social and ecological dilemmas prove once and for all that the WORSHIP of money is indeed a malevolence that poisons society.
The fact that the bank of England is now ‘fessing up to the illusions that have propped it up for so long means that something is afoot. There is a change in awareness that may well be the harbinger of real economic change. The reality is, though, this can only take place if we as individuals are prepared to make the real changes in our daily lives that will usher that change into existence.
Search Westender for divestment or feudalism to see some of the articles we have published on this topic. Keep them coming. Creating a new economic roadmap is a critical task for those of us taking responsibility for building the post-carbon world.
Minister for Small Business Jann Stuckey with Roger Federa
The office of Small Business in the Queensland department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business
and the Commonwealth Games – yes I’m serious, that IS where the government puts small business – reports that its guide to SWOT analysis is the hottest property on the website at the moment.
The office offers a range of useful and popular guides to business, ranging from the basics of marketing to dealing with complex human resource issues. THe information is totally free and relatively in depth.
The information I have included below is from one of six pages about the SWOT analysis tool. This page is a guide to a successful SWOT analysis. The others discuss what it is, when to use it, the benefits and limits of this tool and how to do it as well as a worked example.
Throughout the text there are links to other guides and in-depth information elsewhere on the department site.
Westender thoroughly recommends the site to our business readers and partners in the Chambers of Commerce which we support.
Tips for a successful SWOT analysis
Before conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, decide what you want to achieve with it and consider whether it is the best tool for your needs.
If you decide a SWOT analysis is the best tool, the following tips will help you get the most out of it.
Keep your SWOT short and simple, but remember to include important details. For example, if you think your staff are a strength, include specific details, such as individual staff and their specific skills and experience, as well as why they are a strength and how they can help you meet your business goals.
When you finish your SWOT analysis, prioritise the results by listing them in order of the most significant factors that affect your business to the least.
Get multiple perspectives on your business for your SWOT analysis. Ask for input from your employees, suppliers, customers and partners.
Apply your SWOT analysis to a specific issue, such as a goal you would like to achieve or a problem you need to solve, rather than to your entire business. You can then conduct separate SWOT analyses on individual issues and combine them.
Look at where your business is now and think about where it might be in the future, as well as where you would like to be.
Consider your competitors and be realistic about how your business compares to them.
Think about the factors that are essential to the success of your business, and the things you can offer customers that your competitors can’t. This is your competitive advantage. It’s useful to keep these in mind when conducting a SWOT analysis.
Use goals and objectives from your overall business plan in your SWOT analysis.
Helen Abrahams hosted a meeting of West End residents at South’s Leagues Club on Saturday to go through the South Brisbane Riverside Neighbourhood Plan and its implications in detail.
Under consideration are the development sites south of Davies Park along Montague Rd which represent thousands of new apartments and residents. Westender recently reported Councillor Abraham’s challenge to the Brisbane City Council to explain the discrepancies between the revised draft City Plan and the approved Neighbourhood Plan. At the time she specifically focused on the changes to designated parkland along Montague Rd at what was the Distance Education Building. Instead, parkland appears on the plan where residents of Raven and Rogers St currently live.
Lord Mayor Quirk has formally replied to Helen, claiming that he has never said there would be parkland along Montague Rd and that Council has never said it would resume houses and has no intention of resuming houses to create parkland any where in West End or elsewhere Brisbane.
Councillor Abrahams presented a number of versions of the plan and pointed out to residents in attendance that various recent statements by council had referred to many different versions of neighbourhood plans including an old Wollongabba plan that was superceded more than eight years ago. “We can only presume their intention is to confuse the issue,” she said, advising residents it is up to them to review the documents, avail themselves of the facts and ask council directly for answers to their questions.
“I will help you as much as I can, but many of these matters are more effective when there are lots of questions coming directly from concerned ratepayers,” she said.
President of West End Community Association, Dr Erin Evans, advised residents that WECA has a strong vision for the area, based on input from a wide range of residents and developed over many years and she looks forward to working with residents to see that vision become a reality.
The residents have organised working groups to facilitate responsea to council including opposition to the revised City Plan itself. More information is available through Helen Abrahams office and WECA.
The government’s deregulation profile has been focused in this website.
The Federal Government’s campaign to reduce regulation and thus streamline business in Australia has gone live online. The Cutting Red Tape website outlines the thinking of the government’s approach to red tape and the key components of changes to regulation.
While the primary purpose of the site is to promote the government’s deregulation stance it also facilitates the process of actually making a submission to see regulation repealed. Aimed at public servants, the guide and handbook outlines why regulation is important and how creating, changing or repealing regulation should be approached.
The Office of Best Practice Regulation is responsible for the process of checking new regulations and was moved from the productivity commission to the Department of Finance and Deregulation in 2007. It is now part of the Deparatment of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and promotes deregulation as an initiative of the Prime Minister. The style of the Cutting Red Tape website and its approach differ quite markedly from the standard bureacratese of the department responsible for its activities. http://www.dpmc.gov.au/deregulation/obpr/
The interactive components of the new site are limited to a feedback form and a simple submission page. By following the steps in the handbook aimed at public servants, however ordinary citizens can effectively make their case for the removal of foolish regulation. A long way from citizen referenda, the goverment has taken the first steps toward using technology to provide a direct link from the citizenry into the corridors of power.
