What do renowned Australian writer Jackie French, successful local actress Lara Cox and Julia from the Deep Sea Sirens have in common?
The answer is they all live in Canberra and they all subscribe to the Canberra Carbon Challenge.
Thanks to the support of the ACT government, the Canberra Carbon Challenge is the Canberra Environment Centre’s latest sustainability initiative.
It asks Canberrans if they want to make their homes more comfortable, save money on bills and get fit and healthy all at the same time.
The Canberra Carbon Challenge encourages kids, adults and households to step outside their comfort zones and commit to new, self-nominated challenges across a 90-day period.
Once these challenges have been registered online, participants are encouraged to monitor their progress and engage with others in order to go in the draw to win one of the many prizes on offer, which include retro bikes, LED home fitouts, ABC gardening hampers and magazine subscriptions and worm and compost farms, along with much more.
Canberra Carbon Challenge participants also get access to the very popular Sustainability Winter Workshop Series, with sessions including Planning Your Garden, Affordable Retro-Fitting for Renters, Heating Your Home and Vegetarian Cooking Class.
Canberra’s own Lara Cox, who has starred in Heartbreak High, Home and Away, The Lost World, Blue Water High and H20, believes the Canberra Carbon Challenge is a fantastic initiative.
”The Canberra Carbon Challenge is a great idea,” Cox said.
”Until I visited the website, I didn’t realise how big our environmental footprint was in Canberra compared to the rest of the country, so hopefully the competition will encourage people to become more aware.
”The prizes are great incentives too. I have to say I like the idea of getting a new cool shiny retro bike to scoot around on.”
Julia Johnson, lead singer in Canberra band Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens, thinks much the same.
”Considering we are the bush capital, I really like that we are still making an effort to reduce our impact on the environment, and there are projects like the Carbon Challenge that help remind us of all the little and big things we can do to live more sustainably,” Johnson said.
”Checking out the list of challenges on the website, you kind of realise just how many things there are that you can easily do to be more sustainable.
”I was surprised there were so many I didn’t know about, like the freecycle website - awesome.”
Jackie French, author of more than 130 books, including the much loved Wombat children’s book series, finds the Canberra Carbon Challenge website and the participants’ efforts inspire her to dream of a hopeful future for us and the environment.
”Humans forget we are Homo sapiens,” French said.
”We’re bright. We invent things. We’ve stepped on the moon. We watch Mars on our computer screens. Once the human mind is focused we have an extremely good record in achieving what we want. We think, we dream, we achieve, and find it fun.
”If humans can’t work out how to create planet perfect - or at least the planet that is good to live on - we don’t deserve our name.
”It’s so easy to dismiss things as impossible - much easier to say it can’t be done than do the work.
”But the Canberra Carbon Challenge does just that; it enables people to dream these things and more, and make them reality.”
