The Mayor's Column
I have the most wonderful mother-in-law. Edna Wilton has just celebrated her eighty-ninth birthday, and so has lived through the Depression and World War Two.
She was born and raised on the family property at Walla Walla, near Albury, where her father quarried and sun-dried the bricks for the family home, where they grew their own food and the kids rode horseback to school. Water was a precious commodity and never wasted. Yet she has memories of a golden childhood in which nothing was wasted but nothing was wanting.
All her life, Edna has been frugal. When the four kids were growing up, she sewed and knitted their clothes, made her own soap, and kept chooks for eggs until they were nearing their last and became a special dinner. To supplement the organic vegetable patch she would serve boiled stinging nettles. I see now that gourmet green grocers are selling them at gourmet prices. Household cleaners have always been lemon, baking powder and natural products. Edna finds it very hard to throw anything away in case it can be re-used and recycles the stuff that many of us discard.
I used to think it quaint that she turned on the light only when it became impossible to see her knitting and any appliances were turned off at the wall. How could they be using electricity when turned off? She was right. They waste about 10% of household energy if not switched off.
Following her generation, we have become unsustainable consumers and wasters. The price is increased greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change.
In 2004/2005, Mosman Council conducted a study which measured our ecological footprint. It revealed that if everyone lived as we do, we would need another seven earths to sustain us. Six families took the challenge to reduce their own ecological footprint and shared with us how they did it.
In Mosman, we now have a chance to do something on a much bigger scale. The Nature Conservation Council of NSW supported by Mosman Council, are conducting the Mosman Climate Challenge. The first metropolitan area to do so, following the Clarence Valley and the Central Coast, we can be inspirational leaders.
The Climate Challenge provides easy steps for Mosman to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop creative initiatives to highlight the solutions to climate change.
We are aiming for more than 1,000 participants to take up the challenge from schools, businesses and households. Join the Challenge for information, inspiration, great prizes and fun, whilst also doing your bit to help the local environment. Register for the Mosman Climate Challenge today. Registration forms available at Mosman Council or online at www.climatechallenge.org.au
For more information contact Council’s Environmental Coordinator on 9978 4000.
Cr Denise Wilton, Mayor of Mosman
