1. It takes 9 calories of fossil fuel-based energy to provide 1 calorie of food in Australia.
2. Each day the average Australian family uses 15 to 20 kWh of electricity created primarily from burning coal, the production of which creates 5.5 to 7.3 tonnes of CO2 a year.
3. In developed countries the average daily water use per person can be as low as 30L. The world average is 139. In Australia, the driest country in the world – it’s 300L!! But our use doesn’t stop there, industry and agriculture consume much larger amounts on our behalf!
4. Most families turn over 200L of drinkable water into sewage a day. That’s 73,000L a year.
5. Every L of petrol used creates enough emissions to pollute 10,500L of air!
Source.
I chose each of these stats to put on the post as each one of them we can have a direct influence upon in the way we live our lives.
My Answers –
1. Grow your own and buy local grown produce.
2. Be wary of your own consumption, and look at alternate ways of generating your personal energy – we are looking at solar.
3. Put in a rain water tank, use it for the garden, dig up as much lawn as you can, it uses way too much water, put buckets where you have taps and catch the water.
4. Put a flippin’ brick in your cistern, and even then only flush with a half flush button. In fact we have gone even further and flush our toilet with a bucket of water from our shower. You could go the extra mile and look into some of the amazing domestic dry toilets on the market now…NO they don’t smell!
5. Sell off one of your cars, catch more public transport, ride your bike, walk, buy a scooter!
No Guarantees 
and I discovered recently that our vegetarianism (which is a family lifestyle choice, and not something I would ever foist on anyone else – but man is it cheaper, tastier and healthier!) has more of a positive impact on the environment than driving a hybrid car!
cheers to all
“the gutless peaceactivist”
I love having a vege patch. My only regret about our place is that I don’t have more vege garden – although I have been toying with the idea of converting the front yard to vegies.
The only car we have is an object I resent, but for the moment a necessity. I must confess that I was disappointed the Rudd only suggested $300m to help householders add solar panels and water tanks to properties – I am now of the view that every house should come with a solar hotwater system – boosted if necessary but the energy equation is simple. It takes one joule of energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree. So if your solar system at least gets your water temp from 16 degrees to 30 degrees then you are still saving half the energy you would have normally used to heat the water.
Great to see you weighing in on this Vawz – Oh, and drink dry processed coffee!
I like the idea of going vegi, I think I might experiment with just eating less and less meat.
I do love it though!
Maybe just in small doses from now on…T-BONE hmmmmm