A steering committee that formed to establish a Cygnet Men’s shed, has progressed the initiative to a point where there is something worthwhile to report to the community.

About 20 interested people attended an information session held at the RSL on Monday 7th May where Bruce Barnett outlined progress to date. First and foremost the Huon Valley Council has provided a venue. It is now preparing a lease over the old kiosk at the Cygnet Recreation Reserve, and a planning application to use the premises for a Men’s Shed is well advanced.

The committee has been successful in obtaining a grant from the Bendigo Bank for funding to prepare building plans. It has also lodged grant applications with the Tasmanian Community Fund and council’s Community Grants program to help fund refurbishment and extension of the building.

The meeting established that there is strong community support for a Men’s Shed with offers of help with the building program coming from all those who attended.

Interested? You can contact the steering committee by phoning Bruce on 6295 1523 or email portcygnetmensshed@gmail.com Also keep an eye on the town’s public notice board for notice of the next general meeting.

The Australian Research Institute for Environment and Sustainability (ARIES) have put together a selection of online videos from around the world to educate, engage, inspire, perplex, enlighten, delight and stimulate debate about all things to do with sustainable development. There is plenty of good stuff, including one from local resident Paul Gilding. The link is http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/videos

Invitation to all to come along to the first public meeting of the Port Cygnet Mens Shed.

We need your input and your ideas.

Monday 7th May, 6pm, R.S.L. CLUB, Cygnet

Contact Bruce Barnett (62951523, 0417931683) or Keith Presnell (62950464)

The film that will be shown this month is Saving Grace. Saving Grace is a British film made in 2000 and stars Brenda Brethyn, Craig Ferguson and Martin Clunes.

A widow discovers after her husband's suicide that he has mortgaged everything they own and the banks are ready to foreclose. Faced with impending doom and little working knowledge except her ability to grow plants, she struggles to save her home. Enter her gardener, who is struggling to make a few marijuana plants grow in a hidden location and suggests that she use her green house to help grow the plants and sell them to make the money both need. The whole village, including the local constable, is well aware of the endeavour and is hoping for their success.

This is a wonderful feel good film about opening your horizons to solve problems and banding together when the boat of life gets rocky.

Once again, this is a great film about community and is hilarious in parts giving you a good laugh! And who doesn't love a good laugh?

Of course there is the wonderful Cinema Cygnet Intermission with tea, coffee and the infamous homemade organic vegan biscuits.

So come along to Cinema Cygnet which will be held on Friday 4th of May at 7pm in the supper room above Cygnet Town Hall.

Entry is by donation, bring a cushion and make some new friends in our community and/or catch up with old ones.

See you there!

For information and questions please email Theresa Daley info@inalife.com.au

A meeting was held in the Cygnet Town Hall on Sat 14 to float various ideas about the park to be developed opposite the roundabout and in front of Cygnet's magnificent new collection of unsold housing sites. Many good suggestions were made. For example, the park could be named 'Harvey Park' in recognition of the Harvey family's long connection with the area, and incorporate historical elements such as photographs and signage constructed from wood salvaged from the tree that used to stand there. A summary of the meeting can be found under the Project & Minutes menu.

There's a fundraising gig at the Republic this Friday night for the plastics cleanup that happens every year by the marine clean up group.

This report, which forms the basis of the IGA process, has now been released. It is massive, but can be downloaded in segments here. Over the coming months, every interested party is going to cherry pick bits of this huge report that support their cause. If you just read the summary report (31 pages) you could be better informed than 99.99% of them!

Here is a fascinating account of how the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals depends on the state of mind of the recipient. Touching on the crisis in which "Big Pharma" finds itself (crisis being a relative term), homeopathic and natural medicine, mass media and the forming of "pharmaceutical expectations", the placebo effect is just beginning to be understood in biochemical and cultural terms as well as manipulated for profit.

For example, soothing blue capsules make more effective tranquilizers than angry red ones, except among Italian men, for whom the color blue is associated with their national soccer team—Forza Azzurri!

Definitely worth reading if you have the slightest interest in health - Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.

"Stop wrangling over global warming and instead reduce fossil-fuel use for the sake of the global economy."

That’s the message from two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who say in the Jan. 26, 2012 issue of the journal Nature that the economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels. Have a look at the free-to-view Nature Commentary on the original article, or digest the self-explanatory Figure in the LH column of this page.

The Cygnet Arts Council presents the Flickerfest Short Film Festival, consisting of a selection from the top 100 shorts in the official competition. Cygnet, Friday 16th and Saturday 17th March.

Friday at 7.30: Best Of Australian Shorts - a platform that showcases our amazing Australian film-making talents, including the hilarious
‘Fish & Chips’, a story about a young Pauline Hansen who goes on Chef Of The Universe to cook against Barry, Kim & Vlad; AACTA awarded animation ‘Nullarbor’; the moving WA drama ‘Crosshairs’; and 'Cockatoo', a delightful comedy/drama starring Matilda Brown winner of the SMH award for Best Original Australian Screenplay at Flickerfest 2012.

Saturday 7.30: International 1 - highlights include two short films recently shortlisted for the 2012 Academy®Awards, the moving and
humorous 'I Could Be Your Grandmother' from France and the intimate and heartfelt drama ‘Raju’ from Germany, following a couples journey to India to collect their adopted child. Also screening is 'The Palace' a moving political drama set in Cyprus recently awarded the MNC award for Best Australian Short film at Flickerfest 2012.

Have a drink at the licensed bar or a cup of tea/coffee before the start (doors open at 7pm), or during the break. Look forward to seeing you at the Cygnet Town Hall Supper Room! $12/10 per night. Rated 15+.

Presented by the Cygnet Arts Council.

Every week James Lord of Cradoc Hill Abattoir has good quality beef sausages available. They have natural casings, are gluten free, and are coarse grind. Price is $8 per kg.

This is local meat, processed by a local business, and local customers should be lining up at these prices!

Here is a positive story about the power of community action, and the intensity of community feeling that generated over 40,000 letters to New York state's Department Of Conservation. Well worth a read.

Fracking uses prodigious amounts of water laced with sand and a startling menu of poisonous chemicals to blast the methane out of the shale. Up comes the methane -- along with about a million gallons of wastewater containing the original fracking chemicals and other substances that were also in the shale, among them radioactive elements and carcinogens. There are 400,000 such wells in the United States. Surrounded by rumbling machinery, serviced by tens of thousands of diesel trucks, this nightmare technology for energy release has turned rural areas in 34 U.S. states into toxic industrial zones. But for once, this story isn’t about tragedy. It’s about a resistance movement that has arisen to challenge some of the most powerful corporations in history. Here you will find no handsomely funded national environmental organizations: some of them in fact have had a cozy relationship with the gas industry, embracing the industry’s line that natural gas is a “bridge” to future alternative energies. (In fact, shale gas suppresses the development of renewable energies.)

Read the whole story here.

An impending crisis? Many assure us there is. What are the issues and opportunities for Tasmania? How can we prepare and respond to ensure we ‘keep the lights on’ both metaphorically and physically? Come and explore the interrelated issues of finance, energy, resources, environment, psychology, population and real politik that make up our current multi-faceted predicament. An explanation of why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it.

Nicole Foss, Co-Editor of "The Automatic Earth" will speak in Hobart on Tuesday 13 March, 7pm at the Centenary Lecture Theatre, Grosvenor Street, Sandy Bay campus.

The RSS feed from her Automatic Earth blog is now listed on the left-hand panel of this page, so check out what she writes about. Alternatively, read this interview in Transition Voice.

James, the new owner of the Cradoc Hill Abattoir, has informed Kate Flint that he will have lambs from Sorrell for butchering this week.

Sides will be available for pick-up on Wednesday, January 25, and orders must be in by 9am Wednesday the 18th. The cuts can be viewed  at the Cradoc Hill Abattoir website. To order, email James. He will reply with a total cost. The lamb will be $8.50/kg. It is expected that the sides will average about 13kg. Quantities are limited.

The meat, which will be hung for a week, is not certified organic but is raised on chemical-free pasture.

James’s abattoir is the kind of business that is vital in making our local community more resilient in these uncertain times, so therefore  deserves our support.

The Tasmanian Forestry Intergovernmental Agreement is in trouble. To implement the Agreement, legislation has to pass through Tasmania's Upper House, however many Legislative Councillors have indicated their intention to block this reform. The Agreement is not perfect - everyone knows that, but it still represents the best chance ever to:

• Protect unique and important native forests
• Restructure and reform the native forest logging lndustry

• Support workers and contractors through change

• Diversify and revitalise Tasmanla‘s regional economies

If the IGA legslation, doesn't pass then there will be no funding from the Federal Government. This is hugely important for the Huon Valley which would otherwise garner a large share of the $120 million allocated for revitalising Tasmania's regional economy. These are funds which could support new and existing businesses, and provide solid employment opportunities for your friends, family, neighbours as well as yourselves.


So, I suggest that you think very clearly about the position that the Legislative Council is taking. If you want the IGA and the benefits that flow from it, write to Paul Harriss who is our Legislative Councillor (seat of Huon). The address is

Legislative Council Parliament House Hobart 7000 Phone: (03) 6233 2341 Fax: (03) 6231 1849

If you want to know more details, The Wilderness Society is offering face to face kitchen table briefings to small groups of people. Vica Bayley presented one to what might be termed the Petchey's Bay chapter of Transition Cygnet, and it was superbly informative and detailed. He would love to do more - http://www.wilderness.org.au/regions/tasmania/kitchen-table-briefings-on-the-tasmanian-forest-agreement.

I (Bob Hawkins) had a look at the Still Wild Still Threatened website (http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/) some weeks ago and noted that it was badly out of date in reporting on its own activities and about developments in the Tasmanian forestry industry.
 
I wrote to SWST on November 1, suggesting that, “if you are to retain public support, it is important that you show those of us out here who believe in the work you are doing that you are moving with the times on the PR front”.
 
On December 12, I got this reply from an obviously overworked 'Em':
 
Yes Bob
you are very right we have just been stretched so thin the last 6 months I haven't had time to work on it at all....
If you know anyone that could work in conjunction with me on it that would be amazing
em
 
As many Transition Cygnet readers will know, Still Wild Still Threatened describes itself as a “grassroots community organisation campaigning for the immediate protection of Tasmania's ancient forests and the creation of an equitable and environmentally sustainable forestry industry in Tasmania”.
 
I am wondering if there is anyone out there in the Transition Cygnet world who has both the skill to manage a website and the enthusiasm for the efforts and ideals of SWST to volunteer their services to Em (stillwildstillthreatened@gmail.com) to help bring http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/ alive again.
 
As an oldtimer (I’m 73), I am filled with nothing but admiration for the courageous work the youngsters who largely make up the ranks of SWST are doing in the cause of protecting/defending our already badly (I think criminally) mauled natural environment in Tasmana.
 
I’m all for a viable, sensitively managed selective-logging forest industry, but, until that day comes, I believe the guts and determination? of Still Wild Still Threatened volunteers need all the support that those of us who approve of their activities can give to them.
 
Is there anyone out there who is willing to put their hand up to help with the website, or who can tell Em where she/he can turn to for assistance? — Bob Hawkins

Professor Lyn Stout of UCLA is in Australia at the moment. She is one of the foremost thinkers on new models of corporate governance, and has a lot to say about the ethics and true value of companies. She has an opinion piece in today's National Times ("Little value in bankrupt ideology of share price"), and has written many academic articles exploring these ideas in depth. "Share Price as a Poor Criterion for Good Corporate Law" (UCLA Law and Economics Working Paper Series, UCLA School of Law) is a good start and only mildly academic.

For example (paraphrased from her National Times article):

" Most economic interests in corporate stocks are ultimately held by human beings. Some plan to own only briefly and care only about tomorrow's stock price, while others hope to hold shares for decades and worry about the company's long-term future. Many investors are willing to sacrifice at least some profits to allow the company to act in an ethical and socially-responsible fashion. Others care only about their own material returns. By pressuring corporate managers to focus only on today's share price, shareholder value thinking assumes away all these differences. Instead, it assumes the question of corporate purpose must be viewed only from the perspective of a hypothetical entity that cares only about one company's stock price today. This reduces investors to their lowest possible common human denominator. Consider the case of the BP oil spill. By constantly cutting safety corners, BP for years provided its shareholders with substantial dividends and a rising share price. If you were lucky or smart enough to have sold before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this strategy seemed a brilliant way to ''maximise shareholder value''. But if you also happened to work in the Gulf of Mexico fishing industry, or if you owned stock in other oil companies whose Gulf operations were suspended along with BP's in the wake of the disaster, or if you were a long-term investor who kept your shares until after the spill, or if you cared about the ecology of the planet, BP's quest to ''maximise shareholder value'' proved disastrous." Lyn Stout is not a "radical academic", and is in fact a prominent member of the USA's Republican Party. I think it is a fair bet that she might have some negative things to say about Gunns (our own case study in minimising shareholder value).

Many of you will be aware that HVC is planning new toilets for Loongana Park in Cygnet and has called for submissions as part of their consultation strategy. Submissions have to be in by the 25th of this month (email is OK), and there is more information about the various options on the HVC website. This has been a hotly debated topic, and now is the last meaningful opportunity to have your voice heard.

What does the State Government do when it receives an environmental assessment that it doesn't like? No, we are not talking about the pulp mill, we are talking about the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, the Huon, and other waterways around the state (especially Macquarie Harbour).

In April this year, the Marine Farming Planning Review Panel rejected Tassal’s proposal to expand their lease area at Soldiers Point in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel on grounds that it would adversely impact nearby reef habitat. Last night the Labor and Liberal parties (but not the Greens) voted to pass the Marine Farming Planning Amendment Bill 2011, which gives the Primary Industries Minister (Bryan Green) power to bypass community consultation and the independent panel overseeing aquaculture development applications. The Minister can overide panel decisions that are based on scientific, social or economic grounds, and will not be required to take community concerns into account, and no third party, including community members, tourism operators or others, can appeal against his decision.

Sounds a bit like business-as-usual doesn't it.

Are you an arts and/or heritage practitioner or participant; do you volunteer for arts and/or heritage events and projects; and are you a consumer of these cultural pursuits. Everyone falls into at least one of these categories at least some of the time, even if they don't realise it. The HV Council Arts & Heritage Community Workshops and survey is an initiative to find out what works in our valley, and what could be made to work better.

Workshops are scheduled for Geeveston, 22 November, 1-3pm, Geeveston Community Hall; Franklin, 23 November, 5-7pm, Franklin Palais Theatre; Cygnet, 24 November, 12-2pm, Cygnet Town Hall; Huonville, 30 November 1-3pm, Ranelagh Memorial Hall; and Dover, 30 November, 6-8pm, Esperance Multi-Purpose Health Centre. RSVP by email travis@pocopeople.com.au or by phoning 0488 004 230.

Alternatively, complete the online survey.

The U.S. Department of Energy has released new figures for 2010  showing that the global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record. This means that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago, and demonstrate how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

According to John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, the world pumped about 564 million more tons of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009 (a 6% increase). That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases. However, there is something good in these emissions figures. The developed countries that ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limiting treaty have reduced their emissions overall, and have achieved their goals of cutting emissions to about 8 percent below 1990 levels. The USA did not ratify the agreement. In 1990, developed countries produced about 60 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, now it's probably less than 50 percent, according to John Reilly.

Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab, commented that "from an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over". He said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change. India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.

In 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.

Even though global warming skeptics have attacked the climate change panel as being too alarmist, scientists have generally found their predictions too conservative, Reilly commented. He said his university worked on emissions scenarios, their likelihood, and what would happen. The IPCC's worst case scenario was only about in the middle of what MIT calculated are likely scenarios. Chris Field of Stanford University, head of one of the IPCC's working groups, said the question now among scientists is whether the future is the panel's worst case scenario "or something more extreme."

The Huon Valley Council will be running Face 2 Face Township Forums over the coming months.

Attend one and tell the Council what you want for our Valley!

Geeveston Monday 7 Nov, Geeveston Community Hall, 6.30pm
Cygnet, Tue 8 Nov, Cygnet Scout Hall, Burtons Reserve, 7pm
Franklin, Tue 15 Nov, Palais Theatre, Huon Hwy, 6.30pm
Huonville, Tue 22 Nov, Council Chambers, 40 Main St, 6pm
Dover, Thu 24 Nov, Esperance Multi Purpose Health Ctr, 7pm

Contact Julie Alderfox/Angela Turnbull on 6264  0300 for more details

The Cygnet Herb, Health and Organic Expo will be held Sunday 30th October 9am-4pm, at Cygnet Town Hall & Carmel Hall. Admission $3 for Adults, kids under 12 Free.

Some of Tasmania’s famous names and experts (including ABC Gardening Australia's Tino Carnevale) will share their knowledge and expertise. In addition, there will be a large array of stalls and exhibitors showcasing Tasmania’s finest natural products and services including leatherwood honey, essential oil soaps, herbal medicine, information on organic farming and gardening, permaculture, sustainable living, herb and veggie seedlings, delicious locally sourced seasonal food, and so much more. This is Tasmania’s premier Organic festival.

According to the 2010 Revision of World Population Prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the planet's population will top 7 billion on October 31, 2011.

UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund) is planning a 7-day countdown, starting on 24 October, United Nations Day, and leading up to the birth of the 7 billionth baby a week later and the launch of their "State of World Population (2011)" report, which will analyze challenges and opportunities presented by a world of 7 billion.

The 20th Richard Jones Memorial Lecture, "How We Got Here... and the Pathway to Sustainability", will be delivered by film maker and ecologist John D. Liu. Tuesday 8th November, 2011 - 7:45pm for 8:00pm, UTAS Stanley Burbury Theatre. Free public lecture.

John will look back at geologic, evolutionary, and human history to see the baseline of how we got to where we are.  He will then explore what we understand about hydrology, fertility, natural regulation of weather and climate, long term evolutionary trends and how to align human society and economy with these forces to envision a development trajectory that ensures that all forests, wetlands, grasslands, coastal regions, oceans will eventually be restored to near pristine conditions.

The lecture will take a species approach and a global perspective.  It will feature video from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.

The entire lecture will be evidence and solutions based; describing a vision of a new era in human evolution that seems to be dawning.  John will present the beginnings of a process that removes the perverse incentive to degrade ecosystem function and addresses ancient mistakes.  This is based on analysis of relative values and requires the audience and humanity to see and be the change that is required.

The massive use of fossil fuels is leading to greenhouse induced global warming with a high probability of major damage to the global environment and the world economy. There is an urgent need for new ways of electric power production free of greenhouse gases. However, use of uranium fuel in nuclear power plants is not an option for rational people.

Dr Reza Hashemi-Nezhad of the School of Physics, University of Sydney will present an ANZAAS Lecture on thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel. At  the Stanley Burbury Theatre, University Centre, Churchill Ave, Sandy Bay, 8pm on Oct 26.

His  blurb states:

"A thorium burning Accelerator Driven Subcritical Nuclear Reactor (ADSNR) avoids many of these problems. The reactors cannot melt-down, there is minimal production of long lived waste, diversion to military use is very difficult, reserves of thorium are almost inexhausible and costs are expected to be lower than for uranium fuelled reactors. Additionally it can also be used as a radioactive waste incinerator. If an ADSNR is fuelled with fissile material, bred from abundant natural thorium it can provide the world with an almost unlimited amount of clean and cheap energy.

The known thorium reserves of Australia is 300,000 tones. If this thorium is used as nuclear fuel it can provide Australia's electricity needs for about 10,000 years at today's consumption rate."

Is this too good to be  true? Could it be part of a clean green future? Find out what the technology is and what one expert (proponent) thinks before coming to your own conclusion.

The Franklin Progress Association has organised a "Meet the Candidates Forum" at the Palais Theatre, Franklin, on Monday, Oct 10, 7pm.

This is a good opportunity to assess the qualities of the candidates — for councillor, mayor and deputy mayor. Each candidate gets three or four minutes to say why they should be elected, and then they have to take questions from the floor. It could make for quite a revealing evening, and will be much more entertaining than staying home and watching television!

On Friday 7th October at 7pm, Carmel Hall Cygnet. The only thing hotter than the curries will be the entertainment! Cost is $12 or $35 for families, and includes dinner and the show. Numbers are limited - bookings to Rosalie Woodruff 6295 1907 or zieria@intas.net.au.

This is a fundraiser for the Huon Valley Council election campaigns of Liz Smith (standing for reelection and for Mayor) and Rosalie Woodruff (standing for Deputy Mayor). Both are endorsed Green candidates.

Starting on Monday Oct 24 (note the changed start date) at the Schoolhouse Toy Library in Cygnet, Strengthening Families is a FREE program for any and every parent and carer who is raising a young person aged 10-14 years.  Over 6 weeks, parents will be invited to discuss a variety of perspectives and strategies, sorting through what they feel best suits their unique situation and family.  The program is NOT about telling people how they should parent.  Parents will quickly realize that their input, experiences and insights are a valued part of the program.  Strengthening Families happens in a friendly, comfortable safe environment with lots of food and laughter! Please call 62141481 or email jessicad@colony47.com.au for booking or further information.  We welcome parents/carers to come the first week and see how they like it!  If someone misses the first week they are also welcome to start during the second.

Cath Leith comments:

I’d like to emphasise a few points about the program:

This program is about thinking and planning ahead to help ease the young person’s transition to adolescence.  This is a universal program and great for all families. Strengthening Families is based on a program that has been running successfully at full capacity in Hobart for 7 years.  During these 7 years, the program has evolved and continually taken on board the insights and feedback of parents and carers to become a high quality program that parents and carers enjoy greatly. This program involves sharing ideas about parenting but is not a therapy group.  We encourage parents and carers to keep their children’s names out of any discussions and to keep it a confidential space as possible – no one is required to share personal information with the group.  Very important in a small town!