From Tree Hugger:

Lights Out in Sydney for Earth Hour

by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 12.24.06

In about three months time nighttime Sydney is expected to become sea of darkness. For an hour of no power. Also known by its organisers as Earth Hour. The aim is to get office blocks and householders to turn off their lights for a mere 60 minutes between 7.30 and 8.30 pm on 31 March 2007, with the intent of moving folk to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by five percent. If they can manage this, it would be the equal of removing 75,000 medium-sized cars from the road. The commercial sector is being targeted because the campaign organisers, which include WWF, believe CO2 emissions attributable to lighting could be reduced by 80% just by turning off office lights and installing energy efficient lights. One calculation suggests that if all city office blocks installed motion sensor lighting the power saved could supply 13,000 homes for a year. City of Sydney’s Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, is of the view that, "Australia's commercial business sector is responsible for around 10 per cent of national greenhouse gas emissions,” so she wants businesses to get behind the campaign, while 22 year old Sarah Bishop, (pictured) will walk the thousand kilometres (1,200 miles) from Brisbane to Sydney to raise the same issues in smaller communities, in the two months preceding . ::Earth Hour, via the Sydney Morning Herald.

Cycling Rail Trails a Boost to Local Economies

by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 12.24.06

Rail trails are based on disused railway lines being ripped up and their relatively level trackways being converted to recreational applications like walking or cycling. The idea really started to gather steam in the mid-eighties in the US, where these days the Rail Trail Conservancy supports about 13,600 miles (~21,900 km) of rail-trails. The concept of railway reuse has spread around world. In Western Australia, for example, old logging lines were converted to make sections of the almost 1,000 km (620 mile) Bibbulmun bushwalking track, which in turn inspired the Mudda Biddi bike trail. On the Australian east coast there is the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail, of which a recent study found that cyclists had brought $2.3 million AUD in eco-tourism to local economies, over a single holiday weekend. As the head of the bicycle advocacy group put it, “It probably cost $4 million to build the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail so they can say they’ve got half their money back in one weekend.” The 94 km (58 mile) trail is a bitumen sealed track utilising the gentle gradients of unused rural railways to bring tourists to a country area, the financial impact of which was described as the same as introducing another crop to the region. ::Murray to Mountains Rail Trail, via the Border Mail.