Brisbane’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission launched a booklet of energy saving tips at an event organised by Caloundra Parish last Friday evening.
The booklet titled Hot Tips for Cool Solutions was first published as an electronic resource on the Commission’s website earlier this year. The publishing of a print edition ensures greater access to the resource which helps households to make a practical response to the problem of global warming.
The Commission, along with the Friends of the Earth (Brisbane) was invited to present a talk on global warming and climate change, the consequences of this environmental problem and ways in which people could take action.
The Commission’s Executive Officer, Peter Arndt, said that the publication enables people to make changes in their homes to reduce their use of electricity and decrease harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
“This booklet was made possible by the support of the Federal Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office who provided us with funds for our Cool Communities Project and by the Queensland Conservation Council which collaborated with us on the project,” he said.
The Cool Communities Project was a series of workshops run on the Gold Coast, in Brisbane, the Fraser Coast and in the South Burnett in 2003 and 2004.
During that time, over 360 households attended workshops in which they learned ways in which they could reduce their consumption of electricity and other forms of energy which require the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil.
The burning of fossil fuels is the major contributor to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and it is this build-up of greenhouse gases which is causing a warming of the planet’s atmosphere and climate change.
“We told the gathering in Caloundra that global warming is causing rising sea levels, more severe droughts and floods, more serious storms and the loss of people’s homes in places like Tuvalu in the Pacific,” Mr Arndt said.
“It was also an opportunity to say that responding to this environmental crisis is a matter of faith,” he said.
“The Church’s teaching stresses our responsibility to care for the Earth for the sake of everyone on it, both now and in the future,” he said.
“We cannot ignore the problems our lifestyles and our actions in the developed world are causing,” he said.
“Hot Tips for Cool Solutions is an excellent, practical resource which everyone can use,” he said.
The new print version may be ordered for a small cost of $4.40 from the Commission’s Office. Contact details for the Commission are:
Postal address: 84 Park Road, Woolloongabba Q 4102
Phone: (07) 3891 5911
Fax: (07) 3891 6944
E-mail: petercjpc@uq.net.au
For more information, please contact Peter Arndt on (07) 3891 5911 or 0409 265 476.
Released by the Catholic Communications Office