Habari from Kenya

So here I am at last in Kenya. I had planned to come here last year, but the visit had to be postponed when I broke my ankle. I am staying with Sandy (whom some research participants will remember from Port Phillip Community Group). Kenya is marvellous, and we had a close encounter with elephants in Samburu Reserve last week.

Apart from enjoying the wonderful hospitality, scenery and wildlife, I have also been finding out about some of the voluntary work Sandy does here. Kenya is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with huge divisions of wealth and poverty. It also has much corruption, often linked with ethnic affiliation. I love the people I have met here, they are friendly, vital and hard working, but they face many challenges.

In partnership with Chris Ellard in Melbourne, Sandy has set up a breakfast program in two local schools. Not all families are able to give their children enough food, particularly at this time of year, which is the dry season, when there is not much growing in the shambas (the gardens or subsistence plots for growing fruit and vegetables). Providing breakfast not only helps the children's nutrition, but encourages them to come to school and ensures they are not too hungry to learn. Primary education for all children is a key national priority in Kenya.

I had the pleasure to visit one of the schools. Below I am showing some of the children and their teacher photos of Australia. The children particularly loved the photo of a kangaroo with a joey in her pouch.

Yesterday, Sandy and I went to visit the widow and three children of a local man who recently died, at only 46 years old. He was a mountain guide of many years' experience, and was dedicated to conservation and wildlife. With help from his former employer and workmates, his widow is managing to feed and care for her children, but it is clear that that she (and the children) have to work very hard to achieve this.

The two younger children, both boys, are still at primary school. The oldest, a girl, has recently completed secondary school. Like her father, she is passionately committed to conservation and wildlife, and her ambition is to train in wildlife management with Kenya Wildlife Service. The diploma course costs about $3000 AUD however, and without her father's income it is unlikely that she will be able to do so. She is a bright and impressive young woman, and we felt it would be good if we could assist her in some way. It would be great to support a woman entering this field in Kenya. One  of Kenya's most famous environmental and political activists was a woman, Wangari Maathai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Sadly, however, Kenya's environment and wildlife are under great threat, from climate change,  forest clearing and poaching, in particular

If anyone would like to know more, or offer support, please contact me on Valerie.Kay@monash.edu for further information. Please also feel free to disseminate this information to friends and contacts. Kenya is a beautiful and vivid country with beautiful and vivid people. From an Australian project dedicated to promoting equity and environment, to support people in a poor country who are working towards the same goals seems a very worthwhile aim.

I recognise that in a way the connection I am seeking to make with Kenya is a chance one, arising from the fact that I visited this country at this time. Yet I believe in building on chance connections. There are huge differences between Kenya and Australia. But if you look deeper, there are also profound similarities, such as our love of nature and wildlife, our desire to see children thrive and learn, and the quest for women's participation and empowerment.

Classified as: reflective journal, ideas, advocacy

Unfinished business - sexism in left wing politics

Classified as: reflective journal, politics, discourse, feminist theory, advocacy

So according to John Quiggin, my concerns about sexism on his blog are unfounded and arise simply because I can't tolerate any criticism of Julia Gillard:

"OK Val, I think we’ve established that your only concern about sexism on this site relates to your view that criticism of Gillard, even on policies which you are unwilling to defend, was automatically sexist"

Well I guess I'm just a silly emotional woman, probably unrealistic to expect anything better of me ...

For some time now I've been trying to write a post about the way certain left wing or "progressive" male bloggers reacted to the prime ministership of Julia Gillard. I've trawled through the blogs and I've engaged in on-line discussions with the bloggers and with people who comment on the blogs. I've done some background reading on the issues.

Nevertheless I can't write a definitive post at this time. What I can say is this: there are general themes and tendencies in the way anti-Gillard left bloggers and their supporters reacted to Gillard, and there are also general themes in the way they responded to critics like me.

These are:

• Their criticisms of Gillard were immoderate and often personal
• They saw moral failures (eg being dishonest) or being on the wrong side of politics (eg being right wing or neo-liberal) as the cause of her mistakes
• They blamed her personally for government failures or mistakes, but they did not give her personal credit for government successes
• They reacted to feminist criticism by refusing to address the substance of the criticism or by denigrating the critic.
• Where the critic was a woman, a very common response was to say that she was incapable of accepting any criticism of Gillard (as per John Quiggin's comment above - I don't think I ever saw any of them suggest this when the critic was male)
• Another common response was to say that the feminist critics were participating in a Rudd-Gillard "stoush" or similar

I'm not trying to do commentary in this post, but I find the last two points so interesting that I will make a quick comment. In my view, what the anti-Gillard bloggers and their supporters were doing was trying to reconstruct feminist criticism in terms of a patriarchal discourse of competing individuals. More on this later ...

Certain relevant points about the bloggers: they are male, they are Queensland based and they supported Kevin Rudd. In my view, these bloggers and their supporters contributed to the election of the Abbott government. One of the key reasons swinging voters gave for voting against the previous ALP government, as I've noted in a previous post, was that they saw it as chaotic and unstable. These bloggers contributed to that instability.

I'm setting up a work-in-progress page on this subject, where I will keep my notes, evidence and analysis. Anyone who is interested to know more about this is welcome to trawl through that page when I set it up (soon) but I warn you it will be pretty random for a while, even though there will be a a lot there.

The reason I haven't tried to write a definitive post on this at present is that it's a huge task, and trying to get the perfect post done is blocking me from writing about other things that are interesting or important. So I will keep pursuing this issue, and ultimately I will tie it in to my thesis, but yep, it's a work in progress and will be for some time.

Community solar - energy of the future?

Update 20 January 2014*
Classified as: project updates - information, advocacy

Solar panels on South Melbourne Market roof - reproduced from LIVE website

 LIVE community power (solar) project:

"South Melbourne Market's new roof was completed in December 2012. The City of Port Phillip, who own the market, installed 136 solar panels. However there is room for 1000 more panels. LIVE is organising a project that will enable members of the community to have a financial interest in these 1000 panels. We are calling the project LIVE Community Power.

So if you rent your home, or own or rent an apartment, and can't install solar panels on your roof, then these community owned solar panels might be of interest to you.

It also might interest people who own their home, and already have solar panels, but who would like more. Or maybe you own a heritage home, and your north facing roof can be seen from the street, or your roof is shaded by a big tree, then your panels could be on the roof of the market."

For more information see LIVE community power

And an interesting story from RenewEconomy about crowd-funding community solar:

"  By Emma Fitzpatrick on 23 September 2013

A clean tech expert is hoping to tap into crowd-funding and community ownership models to help install solar energy and address the soaring costs of dirty fossil fuels in remote Western Australian communities.

Peter Hansford of Regional Cleantech Solutions, recently hosted a community solar forum at Notre Dame University in Broome. It attracted  110 people and $120,000 in pledges for community solar projects. ..."

To read the whole story see Crowd-funding could solve energy poverty in remote townships.

I imagine crowd-funding could support community solar projects in a variety of locations.

Community solar projects include those projects that are owned by members of a particular community or community organisations, and those run or funded by governments, businesses or non-government organisations to provide solar power to people who wouldn't otherwise have access to it, including people on low incomes.

One of the great benefits of community solar is that it offers an opportunity for people who can't have their own solar panels - whether because of low income, because they're renting, because they own a flat but there isn't enough roof space or the owners' corporation won't allow it, or because their roof is shaded or doesn't have the right orientation, and so on - a chance to buy in to solar power generation.

This is important from the perspective of this research project, because it's about social justice as much as sustainability. As such, I recognise that it may be difficult for some very low income groups (eg people on NewStart) to get involved with community owned solar projects, but I think the projects mentioned below would welcome ideas on how they could engage low income groups. I urge people to advocate to them where relevant, and to contact me if you would like support in doing this. There are also other possible options, including NILS (No Interest Loans Schemes), that can help, discussed later in this post.

Another important benefit, as I understand it, of community solar is that it is often generated and used within a limited (local) area, so there aren't large transmission costs.

Live (Locals Into Victoria's Environment) has a project to put community owned solar panels on the roof of the South Melbourne market. The Live website also provides a list of community owned solar projects throughout Australia

The Moreland Community Solar project is a partnership project between Moreland Energy Foundation (MELF) and Climate Action Moreland. The most recent brief update I have been able to find on it is on the Moreland Council website, here in July 2013. From what I have heard there is a lot of enthusiasm but also a lot of bureaucratic and regulatory challenges to meet.

Two other projects in Victoria which seem to be relatively advanced are Yarra Community Solar and Portland Community Solar.  All the projects, however, seem to face considerable challenges in getting from concept stage to power generation stage.

It's often mentioned that the key model for community owned power generation in Victoria is Hepburn Wind, which took about seven years to get get to power generation stage (2004-11) and came close to breaking even financially last year. If the carbon price is repealed this year, alternative energy projects will face greater financial challenges, as well as the many administrative hurdles they already face.

As well as community owned solar projects, there are also solar projects by government departments or commercial solar providers working with community members and people on low incomes to improve housing sustainability and reduce energy costs. These include initiatives in Windsor, Horsham and Carlton  by the Victorian Department of Human Services.

Some solar providers offer low interest or no interest deals on solar power  which could be useful to low income earners. No Interest Loans Schemes (NILS) can also be used by people receiving CentreLink benefits to purchase solar panels, for example through the Home Energy Saver Scheme provided by Good Shepherd. Potentially this could also include buying into a community owned solar project.

There are also solar projects in Indigenous communities and in rural and remote areas. There have been some problems with early projects, particularly in terms of reliability and maintenance, however this project in Mornington Island, to reduce costs in the local community run supermarket, illustrates the benefits for communities.

This community solar low income residential project in Colorado, USA, may also be of interest.

I urge all health and community organisations to consider supporting community solar projects, particularly for low income groups, if they are not already doing so. I would also be interested to hear from any that are already doing so.

(*This is an updated version of the very brief post on community solar which I did early in the New Year. I've changed the name to better reflect the growing content as I gather more information.)

Happy New Year

Classified as: reflective journal - updates, beautiful world

Happy New Year to everybody.

Haven't done much on this blog for a while, because I was busy leading up to Christmas and now I'm on holidays in Kangaroo Island. However just want to say there are two posts I will do soon - the long promised post on community solar, and reflections on gender, feminism and sustainable futures (largely inspired by the closing down of Larvatus Prodeo).

Back soon with more ...

So here's a photo of the beach, anyway

Solar panels for apartment owners - my story

Classified as: reflective journal - advocacy

Solar panels on apartment roof

(Update 7 December 2013 - just changed the title of this post to reflect what it's about better)

I had solar panels installed on the roof of my apartment block on Tuesday (3 November 2013). Several people have expressed interest in how I managed this, so here's some info.

First, I should say that I live in a small apartment block in inner northwest Melbourne. There are ten one-bedroom flats in the block and it's two storey. My flat is on the ground floor. The block overlooks a park, and the roof orientation is almost due north (yep it's a great location, I know I'm lucky!).

Owners live in five of the ten flats, and most owners come to the annual Owners' Corporation Annual General Meeting (AGM), so I know most of them. We've had our differences, but most of us have pro-environment attitudes (which are common in this part of Melbourne). I've also been here a while so I guess people trust me.

That's all background to say that my story is not going to be relevant to all apartment owners, many of whom would probably face far more barriers. However I think what can be achieved in a situation like this may also provide a precedent for people in bigger blocks and less supportive social environments.

The roof, like all external parts of the building, is common property. This means that to put anything on the roof, you have to get permission from the Owners' Corporation. I first requested permission at the AGM in 2012. We had talked about sustainability related measures at previous AGMs,  including expanding the garden area and allowing owners to grow (small) fruit trees, vegetables and herbs (agreed and done) and putting in water tanks (agreed but not done, as yet).

As my request was for an individual to make changes  to common property, it had to go to a postal ballot. The AGM agreed that a postal ballot could be held and that I should provide background information, so I contacted Moreland Energy Foundation (of which I'm a member) and Positive Charge. Positive Charge is a not-for-profit organisation, set up by Moreland Energy Foundation to help people get "smart energy solutions". It is supported by five local Councils in Melbourne, including Moreland, where I live. I also contacted eight solar energy providers, and got quotes from several of them.

I then wrote a summary of the information, including links and a pamphlet about solar provided by one of the companies. I also included my contact details so that anyone could contact me for more information. The company that manages our Owners' Corporation administration distributed this with a postal ballot, and the eventual result of the ballot was six in favour, one against, two abstaining (because they wanted more information at the next AGM) and one not voting.

On this result I could proceed, but I waited until after this years' AGM to do so. I couldn't attend that, but the issue was discussed a bit further. Some owners had expressed interest, and I was hoping some might join me in putting in panels. There is an additional cost for installation on a two storey building, so it would have made financial sense. However although people are interested, no-one else feels in a position to do it yet. The estimate I have been given is that solar will pay for itself in about four years, so I will keep my neighbours informed about how that goes.

My electricity usage is very low for most of the year. The block is a solid 1960s double brick construction with external sun blinds on north facing windows, and I have gas hot water and cooking. I also have floor-length curtains with wool-felt lining on the large windows. Most of the year my daily usage is less than 2kWH (kilowatt hours). The only time I use a lot is in winter, because I have an electric space heater, so for June-August it goes up to about 8-9kWH.

I have a 1.5kW system, and on Tuesday, which was partly overcast and partly sunny, it generated 3.3kWH in half a day. Yesterday, which was overcast and raining a lot of the time (good old Melbourne) it still generated 1.4kWH. Today is cool, partly overcast and partly sunny (uh oh now just starting to thunder, rain and hail!) and it's produced 2.7kWH by 12.30 PM. So it's looking good for me financially.

Obviously the financial incentive of solar is greater for resident owners, but it would also increase the value of rented apartments, particularly for those on the first floor which get hotter in summer, as it would greatly reduce air-conditioning costs.

The only hiccups so far are, firstly, that the installers didn't quite get the frame flush with the boundary of my flat (and the one above it) so possibly there could be a lack of space for my upstairs neighbour if they decide to get panels also. There is space for ten 1.5kW systems on the north facing roof, but it is pretty tight. The manager of the solar company believes there is still enough space, but has assured me they will move the frame free of charge should that ever become necessary, so hopefully that will be ok.

The other issue was that I was told, when getting quotes, that cabling and the inverter could be installed internally, but in the event that wasn't possible as the flats have concrete floors and the cable couldn't go through from the first floor to ground floor. So the installers put both cabling and the inverter on the back external wall of the flats. The back wall only faces a fence, but nevertheless the system is more visible than I originally expected, so I hope other owners don't object to that.

These are (I hope) not major hiccups but they do show some of the traps when dealing with communal property, so are worthwhile for other people to know about.

Two other points: people who live in apartment blocks of over two stories would most likely not have sufficient roof space to install even a 1.5kWH system per apartment, even if the Owners' Corporation allows it; and renters are dependent on owners to install roof top solar. My next post will look at community solar projects, which offer some possible solutions for renters, people in big apartment blocks, and people on low incomes who can't afford the up- front costs of solar.