Counting Down

Renewable Energy Reduces Living Costs

Background

The optimal energy mix in Australia has been vigorously debated in Parliament late this year, delivering vastly different proposals. Labor proposes a heavy reliance on renewables, and the coalition proposes a combination of fossil fuels eventually augmented with seven nuclear plants scattered around five states. Another, closely related, ongoing debate concerns whether Australia is on track to meet its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, and if not, how best to meet this target. Both debates reflect the concerns of Parents for Climate and The Climate Council that climate change is driving up the cost of insurance, and thus cost of living, pressing concerns for most Australian families.

Central to both debates has been the (properly measured) cost of alternative combinations of renewables, fossil fuels, and nuclear. Alternative costs are relevant not only for guiding investment and emissions reduction strategies, but also for their impacts on household budgets during what is being called a cost of living crisis.

Part I Renewable Energy

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has documented a 93% decline since 2010 in the cost of electricity in Australia. In addition, costs of electricity battery storage projects have declined 89% since 2010.

Since 2018, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) have been collaborating annually to update the costs of new-build electricity generation, storage and hydrogen production, projected to 2050. They find the cost range for variable renewables (solar PV and wind) with integration costs is the lowest of all new‐build technologies in 2023 and 2030. The cost range overlaps with the lower end of the cost range for coal and gas generation, even when the negative externalities associated with coal and gas with carbon capture are not accounted for. They also predict that advances in technology will cause the cost of solar PV and wind to continue declining and maintain their cost advantage through 2030. Nuclear small reactors (SMR) costs are predicted to improve significantly by 2030 but remain significantly higher cost than these other alternatives. They find nuclear power to be more expensive than renewables and the long development time would preclude it from making a meaningful contribution to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Neither type of nuclear generation can be operational by 2030. Cost ranges for alternative energy sources are illustrated in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

The cost advantage enjoyed by renewables has ensured that its usage is increasing. The renewable share of energy consumption has tripled since 2010. This technology-driven cost advantage has also ensured that the share of electricity production from renewables has increased nearly five-fold since 2010. See Figure 3 and Figure 4.

The continuing growth in renewable energy, and electricity in particular, has a significant consequence for households. Residential electricity prices are predicted by the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) to fall by about 13% over the next 10 years. Households that switch from gas to electric appliances, install rooftop solar, purchase an electric vehicle and charge it during the day when electricity is cheaper, may reduce their energy expenditure by more than 70%. Not every household can afford to switch. Inequality and poverty are persistent constraints to reaping the economic benefits of technological change in renewable energy generation.

It follows that since renewable energy prices are declining, and its usage is increasing, it must be exerting downward pressure on the cost of living for the vast majority of Australian households.

Part II The Cost of Living

A recent article in the Australian Financial Review summarised the issue succinctly, noting that “[T]he cost-of-living crisis in Australia is not only because inflation is high but because inflation is higher than the growth in nominal incomes, in which case real incomes are falling”. The “crisis” is akin to a two-sided coin, with household living costs on one side and household incomes on the other.

Fact #1 Household living costs have increased since 2020. The consumer price index (CPI) has increased by 20%.

Overall Inflation

Price levels as measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) consumer price index have increased every quarter from September 2020 through September 2024. During this period annual rates of inflation increased during the pandemic, reaching a peak of 7.8% in late 2022 before declining to a low of 2.8% recently. As a result, consumer prices are currently 20% higher than they were four years ago, as Figure 5 illustrates.

Fact #2 Prices of alternative goods and services have changed at different rates. Consequently, some households have experienced larger increases in living costs than other households.

Inflation for Alternative Commodity Groups

In 2024 prices of alcohol & tobacco, health, education, and insurance & financial services have increased by more than the CPI. Prices of clothing & footwear, furnishings, household equipment & services, and communications have increased by less than the CPI. Figure 6 illustrates the impact of inflation on alternative household consumption categories. Consumers of alcohol & tobacco and insurance & financial services, and parents of school-age children, have been particularly hard hit.

Fact #3 Alternative household types consume different goods and services, and so face different living cost increases.

Inflation for Alternative Household Types

During 2024 employees, the largest of the five household types defined by the ABS, and other government transfer recipients, have been most affected by price increases, and self-funded retirees have been least affected, as Figure 7 illustrates.

The main contributors to living cost increases, and their rates of inflation, for each household type are listed in Table 1. Insurance & financial services indexes have risen significantly in September 2024 for all household types, ranging from +14.8% to +17.4%. This result is consistent with the claim of Parents for Climate and The Climate Council that climate change is driving up the cost of insurance, and thus cost of living.

Household type	Main annual contributors
Pensioner & beneficiary	Insurance & financial services (+15.9%), Housing (+3.4%), Food & non-alcoholic beverages (+3.3%), Alcohol & tobacco (+8.6%)
Employee	Insurance & financial services (+17.4%), Food & non-alcoholic beverages (+3.3%), Alcohol & tobacco (+6.4%), Health (+4.9%)
Age pensioner	Insurance & financial services (+14.8%), Food & non-alcoholic beverages (+3.3%), Health (+5.0%), Housing (+2.9%)
Other government transfer recipient	Insurance & financial services (+16.8%), Housing (+4.1%), Alcohol & tobacco (+9.5%), Food & non-alcoholic beverages (+3.3%)
Self-funded retiree	Insurance & financial services (+14.9%), Health (+5.1%), Food & non-alcoholic beverages (+3.2%), Alcohol & tobacco (+5.3%)

Table 1 Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Selected Living Cost Indexes, Australia September 2024.

Inflation in Household Energy Usage

In Figure 6 inflation in household cost exceeded overall inflation, and then began declining to levels less than overall inflation. This has reflected high and stable rates of inflation in rents and new dwelling purchases, stable and low rates of inflation in gas and other household fuels, increasingly offset by negative and declining rates of inflation in household electricity consumption. Electricity prices fell 35% in the year through October 2024, as illustrated in Figure 8.

Since renewable resource use is increasing and renewable prices are falling, and electricity accounts for a growing share of renewable energy usage, declining household electricity costs are an inevitable outcome, offsetting other drivers of increasing living costs.

Part III Income

A comprehensive index of household income does not appear to be reported by ABS. Fortunately, it does report an index of wage income, the wage price index (WPI). Since employees constitute the predominant household type, and wage income comprises over 80% of household income, WPI provides an informative comparison with the household consumer price index CPI explored in Part II.

During the decade prior to 2020 wage growth slowed from an annual rate of 3.5% to less than 1.5%. Since 2020 the annual rate of wage growth has increased to a peak of over 4%, declining recently to 3.5%, as Figure 9 illustrates. This trend cumulates to an increase in WPI of 25% since 2020. Wage growth trends are similar for private and public sectors.

Fact #4 Employee wages have increased since 2020. The wage price index has increased by 25%.

Part IV Real Income and the Crisis

The data constraint makes it difficult to combine both sides of the proverbial coin to examine trends in household real income, income adjusted for inflation.

Over the past four years, household living costs have increased by 20% and employee wage income has increased by 25%. Households headed by employees earning wage income have incurred the largest increase in living costs of 25%. Other household types have incurred living cost increases between 19% for self-funded retirees and 21% for other government transfer recipients. This suggests that the real incomes of most households, far from declining to crisis levels, have increased.

Part V The Cost of Living Crisis

Over the past four years household living costs have increased, by anywhere between 19% and 25%, depending on household type and their consumption decisions. Foremost among the drivers have been insurance & financial services, and education. Electricity consumption is included within the housing category in Figure 6, and is responsible for much of housing’s downward trend during 2024. During the same period employee wage income has increased by 25%. This suggests that employee households earning wages have broken even since 2020, and all other household types (with their relatively smaller cost of living increases) have experienced an increase in their real incomes. All household types can thank the renewable resources sector of the economy for depressing living costs during this period, and in all likelihood for continuing to exert downward pressure on living costs for the foreseeable future.

This is a joint blog by J E Lovell and C A K Lovell inspired by recent Parliamentary debates on the optimal energy mix in Australia.

Kudzu Republic – The Sequel

November 5, 2024 was a watershed moment in the history of American Democracy. With eyes wide open, and with 20/20 hindsight, the American people voted for Donald Trump to lead them through the next four years: a man “who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024” (David Frum, The Atlantic 6^th November 2024).

Former President Ronald Reagan liked to call America the “city on a hill” to describe his vision of America as an example to the world. This lofty city may soon become unrecognizable as Trump embarks on his extensive makeover plans. In the same way as the Kudzu vine has spread to cover much of the beauty of the native vegetation in the South, Trump, who has already made the Rule of Law unrecognizable, is set to reshape America in his own image.

Once we recover from immobilizing disbelief in the election outcome, our focus must be on what’s next. The New York Times editorial today urges citizens to exercise their First Amendment Rights: to assemble, speak and protest.

From my research into the relative performance of nations’ response to Climate Change, nations that learn to adapt and to develop resilience will improve their chances of success.

Americans who value democracy and the rule of law will have to find their courage to push back on any new policies that foster authoritarianism. They will have to adapt to the reality of a changed environment and promote resilience at all levels: community, State and business organizations.

At the end of Trump’s reign, how will you respond to the question, “Are you better off now than you were then?”

Making Hats

I’ve been selling my hat patterns from my Bandana Heads Etsy store for nearly 10 years and it’s time to close it down while I work on a new collection and revitalise some of my original patterns.

My first new recent project was to create an extra large bucket hat. Here’s the happy recipient. The Ikat striping for the hatband is an easier hatband than the original Mexican clay stamp design.

My three best sellers in my Etsy store included a cute crochet beanie inspired by the creations of yarn artisans of Rio, a crochet bucket hat I designed for my own travel comfort, and a knit visor cap inspired by the baggy green hat worn by our Australian cricket team. All three patterns can be worn by any gender.

**Crochet beanie with open check pattern**

**Crochet Bucket Hat with Mexican clay stamp design**

**Knitted visor cap – pattern inspired by the baggy green**

The rhythm from the repetitive action of knitting and crochet lulls the mind, calms the senses and cocoons the doer from falling into the swirl of surrounding turmoil.

Update: The three hat patterns featured in this blog are now available for purchase from Julz Lovell Designs on Ravelry. Or you may purchase directly from the links below.

Crochet hat pattern, bucket style with hatband

Summer Beanie Pattern

Visor Beanie Knit Cap

‘So all the cracks had gathered to the fray’

The title is a famous refrain from “The Man from Snowy River” by Banjo Paterson (1890) https://allpoetry.com/The-Man-from-Snowy-River. The highly valued colt from old Regret bolts to join the wild bush horses, ‘He was worth a thousand pound, So all the cracks had gathered to the fray’ to find him and bring him home.

Climate has bolted and will be exacerbated by global warming unless we mitigate it and adapt to the damage it causes. Those who value Earth and the quality of life of future generations are gathering to the fray to develop strategies that will slow the warming and rescue our climate from further irreversible changes. Already myriad lives, livelihoods, and habitats no longer exist because of the catastrophic effects of climate change.

In November 2022, more than 45,000 participants or ‘cracks’ attended the most recent gathering of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. No topic was more urgent than the inequities of national adaptation to climate change and, as the conference came to a close, an agreement was reached to provide funding for loss and damage to nations most vulnerable to floods, droughts and other climate disasters.

National adaptation is highly inequitable and needs a transfer of resources from nations responsible for global warming to nations that generate few greenhouse gas emissions yet suffer most from its impacts.

In the current issue of Resources, Vol 12, Issue 1, (an international, open access, peer-reviewed, journal of scientific studies related to resources and published monthly online), my family gathered to the fray and published a paper https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/12/1/1 titled “The Inequities of National Adaptation to Climate Change”. We are proud to have our inequity map on the cover of the first issue of the new year, 2023 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/resources

We provide a collection of adaptive capacity and adaptation readiness indicators and aggregate them to create a composite adaptation index (CAI) to empirically assess the relative adaptation performance of nations. Results suggest that adaptation performance is closely and positively related to both national income per capita and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita. The map below illustrates the distribution of composite adaptation performance among 134 nations in our data set, with developed countries performing relatively well and developing countries (that contribute least to GHG emissions) performing relatively poorly. The nations most affected by climate change are least able to adapt. The white gaps on the map in Figure 1 indicate nations with insufficient data to be included in the study. The best performing nations are located at higher latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres, and the worst performing nations are located in Africa and South Asia at lower latitudes closer to the equator. Our findings support the need for a loss and damage fund agreed to by the participants of COP27.

**Figure 1 Composite Adaptation Indices CAI by Nation**

We’ve been doing family research (2 Lovells and an Edmonds) on the environment for quite a few years now. Here’s some of our published research and conference presentations:

Papers in peer reviewed journals

“Productivity Decline in Australian Coal Mining,” (C. A. K. Lovell & J. E. Lovell), Journal of Productivity Analysis 40:3 (December 2013), 443-55.

“A Framework for Guiding the Management of Urban Stream Health,” (H. K. Millington, C. A. K. Lovell & J. E. Lovell), Ecological Economics 109 (2015), 222-33.

“A New Composite Index for Greenhouse Gases: Climate Science Meets Social Science,” (H. K. Edmonds, C. A. K. Lovell & J. E. Lovell), Resources 6 (2017), 62.

“A New Composite Climate Change Vulnerability Index,” (H. K. Edmonds, C. A. K. Lovell & J. E. Lovell), Ecological Indicators 117 (2020), 106529.

“The Inequities of National Adaptation to Climate Change,” (Heidi K. Edmonds, C. A. Knox Lovell and Julie E. Lovell), Resources 12:1 (2023).

Chapters in Books

“Assessing Stream Health with Respect to Ecological Connectivity,” (H. K. Edmonds, C. A. K. Lovell & J. E. Lovell), Chapter 5 in T. Ancev, M. A. S. Azad and F. Hernandez, eds., New Directions in Environmentally Adjusted Productivity Analysis and Efficiency Measurement. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar (2017).

Presentations

XII European Workshop on Efficiency & Productivity Analysis, Verona Italy 2011

VII North American Productivity Workshop, Rice University, Houston TX, USA 2012

School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 2014

Australian Agriculture & Resource Economics Conference, Brisbane Australia 2017

Nankai University, Tianjin China 2017

Grandma enters the Metaverse

All my Australian grandkids go to school now, and it’s a new era which takes some getting used to. My strategy to stay involved and connected with my grandchildren has been to immerse myself in the metaverse (not the real physical world), specifically the virtual realm of Roblox, an interactive form of storytelling and social networking that kids today are mastering.

The first step was to invest in an iPad Air (my first ever Apple product) and plunge in. It hasn’t been easy, but I have persisted and it’s starting to pay dividends.

Next I researched a few elementary Roblox tips and tricks to get me started.

Grandma’s Avatar

From the Roblox HOME page I searched for games for total beginners so I could practice movement and navigation: simple games like the Purple Jump Mat or Really easy Obby Parkour!

Once you are in a game, you can go to settings for help on how to get your avatar to move around and perform actions.

Virtual directional pads drive character movement. A circular button, visible on the lower left of the screen, operates like a virtual joystick – touch it and drag it in any direction.

The camera pans or rotates to change the avatar’s vantage point – hold and move finger around anywhere on lower right side of the iPad screen – near the jump button. Camera rotation makes navigation easier.

With some of the simple beginner games from the Roblox HOME page I stumbled upon how I could move my character more effectively – using the camera rotation feature to line up my avatar so the joystick button and my avatar are in better sync. The joystick button compass orientation is then ready for easy movement adjustments. For example, North for straight ahead, East for right, West for left and South for backwards. This solved a riddle for me – as I watched my young granddaughters using left and right hands simultaneously, I wondered what purpose their right hands were achieving. It hadn’t dawned on me that they were constantly adjusting their avatars’ orientation. I thought the camera adjustment was something you did occasionally.

The Jump button on lower right of screen always seems to be in view. Not only does it move the character over hurdles, but it also is used to jump off a seat or out of a vehicle. It is sometimes necessary to get the character started in a game.

Now we all know there are some bad characters out there in the metaverse, so it is advisable to use some of the parental controls. In some cases, it may be necessary to disable the in-game chat function or to use the player-list to report abusive users with the “report concern button”. The last thing you want is for your child to be enticed to give out their address, or any other private information.

Playing with my grandkids is very rewarding. I especially enjoy Themepark Tycoon, Escape Hotel Obby and Welcome to Bloxburg. My precious girls build me houses, drive me around in their cars and take me for stomach churning themepark rides – with the camera toggled for an adrenaline pumping view. Their own virtual houses are mansions. My eldest granddaughter has a separate tiny house out the back where she can entrap you and hold you prisoner – the door which cannot be opened from the inside has a window through which she can spy on you. Unsuspecting grandparents are easy prey.

Jumping obstacles is an acquired skill I haven’t yet grasped. But Fashion Show games are perfect for moving around practice. I was stunned when I was voted first in my first fashion show game – it wouldn’t have happened except for the boost my granddaughter’s 5-star vote gave me.

It will take a while for an old gal like me to truly get the hang of kid tech. Children today are born into it and they move around the metaverse effortlessly. Their character movements are spectacular. But I am persisting and while my progress is incremental, my iPad Air is a wonderful investment. Instead of feeling out of touch with our young generation, I feel as if I am a valued Roblox ‘friend’ when they invite me to join their games.

Scotty’s Road to Damascus?

He may not see the light, but no doubt he’ll feel the heat at COP26 in Glasgow next month.

Incoherent yabbering about plans and pathways, vague thoughts on targets. “Technology not taxes”, or is it “Technology not targets”? Hard to pin him down on a revised concrete emissions reduction target, much less a date.

Australia’s ambitions haven’t budged from its Paris Agreement Commitments made in 2015 (26-28% reduction on 2005 levels by 2030), apart from a vague proposal to reach net zero “as soon as possible and preferably by 2050”, although exactly how is unclear, and a pledge to support the production and export of coal “well beyond 2030”.

With the imminent climate talks in Glasgow, Australia is being cast as a climate pariah, a villain, as it stubbornly continues to produce and export more fossil fuel. We are regarded as one of the worst climate performers among developed countries. Under the Paris Agreement countries are to submit National Adaptation Plans. Over 100 countries have done so; Australia has not. Our flimsy National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy (https://www.awe.gov.au/science-research/climate-change/adaptation/strategy) has been rated last among 54 comparable strategies.

The Morrison Government’s unspoken plan for Australia is very clear. We will keep the fossil fuel industries alive and well, even if we have to use taxpayers’ money to do so.

We should all be alarmed by the UN Environment Program 2021 Production Gap Report that finds projected government planned fossil fuel production to be inconsistent with achieving a 1.5C or 2C cap on global warming; by 2030 this ‘production gap’ translates to 240% more coal, 57% more oil, and 71% more gas than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C (more than twice the amount required to close the gap). The graph below illustrates the fossil fuel production gap.

Source: https://www.unep.org/resources/report/2021-production-gap-report

Inger Andersen, UN Environment Program executive director, puts the global problem in a nutshell.
“At COP26 and beyond, the world’s governments must take immediate steps to address the production gap, while ensuring that this transition occurs in a just and equitable manner.”

Australia is a major source of the fossil fuel production gap, being the world’s second largest exporter of coal and third largest exporter of CO₂ emissions embodied in fossil fuels.

The Australian Government does not have a climate policy that addresses global warming. While Governments of other developed countries are designing green solutions to move their economies forward from the Covid-19 pandemic, with the inevitable employment gains associated with the new technologies, our government is promoting gas as a go-between fuel while renewable energies get established, willfully ignorant of the powerful warming effects of methane, a key component of natural gas and, according to the IPCC, more than 80 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20-year time frame. As the second-largest driver of global warming, anthropogenic methane emissions are responsible for around 30% of the temperature increase from preindustrial levels. The welfare of the planet is clearly not a top priority of the Morrison Government.

The true cost of fossil fuels has never been paid in Australia. A series of Coalition Governments has refused to countenance carbon pricing. Private profits of fossil fuel companies are possible only at the expense of the rest of us. The enormous external costs of fossil fuel production are nowhere on the industry’s balance sheets. They use their ill-gotten wealth to shamefully and loudly lobby the Australian Government to steer climate policy for their benefit.

Fortunately, in the yawning vacuum left by the Morrison government, Australian States and Business leaders are already a long way down the renewable energy pathway. Despite the neanderthal think tank operating in federal government, dragging on us like an anchor, Australia has seen the renewable energies wave coming, has got on board and is riding it to a sustainable future. A very current and exciting example is the green hydrogen energy project happening in Central Queensland.

Mining billionaire, Andrew Forrest (Twiggy), known for his successful Fortesque iron ore company, is investing in green iron ore and steel. He knows the risks are real, but he wants Fortesque to be a first mover to test green hydrogen at a global, industrial scale. Green hydrogen can be fed into a fuel cell to make electricity or burnt to produce heat.

This month Mr Forrest announced that Fortesque Future Industries (FFI) will build the world’s largest hydrogen manufacturing facility in Central Queensland. There are 6 steps planned for this $1 billion-plus operation; the first stage, expected to be completed in 2022, will build the infrastructure and equipment and manufacture electrolysers required to split hydrogen from water to produce emission-free energy. Employment projections for this first stage include 120 construction jobs and 53 operational jobs.

The FFI hydrogen-equipment manufacturing facility will be built on Queensland government-owned land in Aldoga, near Gladstone. One of the draw cards for locating here is that Queensland Premier Ms Annastacia Palaszczuk had already been steering her state toward a green hydrogen future by establishing a $25 million hydrogen investment fund (last year $10 million was added to an earlier pledge of $15 million).

If Scott Morrison fails to see the light on his road to Glasgow, he risks becoming irrelevant to Australians and the world. He will be a legendary failure. He came along at the right time to seize the opportunity and take Australia along the path to a renewable energy SUPERPOWER (the title of a recent book by Professor Ross Garnaut, consultant to the Australian Government on climate change). But Scott Morrison is the wrong leader for the challenges of our time.

(This blog post is a collaboration between Julie and Knox Lovell)

Resources

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1462901118306592

https://www.unep.org/resources/report/2021-production-gap-report

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-01-23/green-hydrogen-renewable-energy-climate-emissions-explainer/13081872 James Purtill

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-11/qld-hydrogen-capacity-explainer-hydrogen-green-twiggy/100528046 Phoebe Hosier

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-10/qld-palaszczuk-andrew-forrest-hydrogen-gladstone/100527670 Phoebe Hosier

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-22/boyer-lecture-andrew-twiggy-forrest-green-hydrogen-climate/13077070 Andrew Forrest

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-20/united-nations-fossil-fuel-gap-report-australia-data/100551662 Michael Slezak and Lori Youmshajekian

Wake up Mr Morrison

The planet is burning

Mr Morrison, how do you sleep while our planet is burning? The time has come to face the facts. You do not own the planet Earth, you are a caretaker, a very poor caretaker. When markets fail, governments are obliged to intervene and find ways to help the price mechanism find equilibrium at a more efficient quantity of the product. Surely you understand that when the price is too low, too much of that product is consumed.

The chorus from Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning says it clearly

The time has come

To say fair’s fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come for Australians to take into account the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of the goods they consume and export.

The time has come for you to govern by reason, Mr Morrison. The international community is not impressed with your track record, with your lack of ambition in dealing with the reality of an overheating planet, and they will turn up the wick at COP26 in Glasgow in November.

Carbon tariffs are now being considered an appropriate climate strategy in countries that are ambitiously targeting emissions reductions. Countries such as Australia that lack adequate climate policies, will soon have a tariff slapped on the price of goods they export to reflect an estimate of the greenhouse gases emitted during their production and transport.

As an example, the European Union of 27 members recently raised its 2030 emissions reduction goal from 40% to 55% from 1990 levels; and one of their key proposals to help achieve this target is a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, essentially a carbon tariff, on certain imports from countries with lax climate-protection rules.

While you sleep Mr Morrison, the EU is further proposing to extend their Emissions Trading Scheme, Europe’s Carbon Market, beyond steel, cement and energy industries to heating and fuel. To ensure a just transition they plan to create a Social Climate Fund so that the costs of decarbonisation can be shared equitably.

You bring shame on us Mr Morrison. You are the enemy of climate action, dismissing the reasoning of school students better educated than you on the facts of global warming, and being the puppet of the people responsible for your current political power.

Radio-controlled

It was grandparents’ day in Brisbane this week, and along with other grandparents I was invited to my granddaughter’s Prep class to chat about memorable toys from our time as children. It was a Science class event with emphasis on materials that were used in the construction of toys. I prepared a short story in three Prep-sized chapters, about a toy boat named Phantom. It begins with the childhood of my father, Winston.

Chapter One: Canoes

When my father was only 12, he began constructing canoes so he and his younger brothers could have some fun paddling on the Manning River; a mighty river that ran by their dairy farm in NSW. He used a large sheet of galvanised corrugated roofing iron which he flattened out a bit with the help of the heavy roller at the local tennis court. He shaped and folded both ends then rivetted them in a few places. To give the canoe its shape he made wooden spacing pieces and gunwales along the top edges. After the top decking was added front and rear, he soldered the ends to make them water-tight.

When Dad was 15, he won the local canoe race on the Manning River. The following year another guy won it; in one of Dad’s canoes. His canoes were popular and his mother had persuaded him to make some for families of her special friends.

Chapter Two: Radios

Almost 100 years ago radio was the new, emerging technology. In his early years at high school Dad was fascinated with the technical details of radio, preferring to read ‘Wireless Weekly’ rather than ‘Modern Boy’, a popular magazine with stories of mystery and adventure for boys in those times. Now to be able to tune in to radio you needed a broadcast receiver, but very few people had a receiver in these early days. It was a time of great hardship for many families and money was scarce; Australia was in the grip of the Great Economic Depression.

Dad was able to convince his parents to buy the components he would need to build their own simple one-valve receiver. It was such a success that they eventually funded him to build a more elaborate receiver. Following the instructions in “Wireless Weekly” Dad built a “New Era Three” – a three-valve receiver that allowed them to hear important news broadcasts and music programs. Dad’s mother loved tuning into the old-time dance music broadcasted all the way from Melbourne on Saturday nights.

It is no surprise that after Dad left school he moved to Sydney to study and work in the field of Radio Engineering.

Chapter Three: Remote-controlled toys

Dad and Mum had four children: boy, girl, boy girl. I was the youngest. The most memorable toy we had as children was a radio-controlled boat built by our father Winston, and named Phantom – a name inspired by the comic strip super-hero, “the ghost who walks”.

Remote-controlled toys were not available in shops when my older brother and sister were very young, so Phantom was unique. We were the only kids in Australia, that we knew of, to have a remote-controlled toy of any kind. The controls were made out of telephone parts. A telephone dial activated the battery-operated motor which caused the rudder to turn the boat left, right or straight ahead. The control box was made out of wood and the boat itself was a smaller version of the canoes Dad perfected in his childhood. The receiver, with its valves and other components, was safely covered up inside the little tin boat. With imagination and skills developed in his childhood, Dad was able to build a wonderful toy that made us feel loved and lucky.

Today, my granddaughters have remote-controlled monster trucks that are brightly coloured with giant tyres and can do all sorts of tricky manoeuvres and stunts. The girls can turn the wheels of the truck from a distance (remotely) using a specialised transmitter which sends radio waves to the receiver. The receiver, located inside the truck, identifies the signals and activates the motor to move the big wheels the way the girls choose.

The monster truck is a modern version of their great grandfather’s remote-controlled Phantom.

Epilogue

With Covid-19 protocols in place, grandparents were stationed on a number of work spaces and 24 children, two by two, visited each station to chat. A tinkling bell signalled them to move to the next couple of grandparents. It was much like speed dating – lots of fun and fast paced.

The kids in the Prep class were fabulous hosts. They entertained me with their inquisitiveness and their thoughtful hosting of a fruit break as a way to wrap up the morning.

I had my father’s book with me to show what we can achieve as adults when we let our interests and talents as children guide us in career choices.

The book is Australian Radio: The Technical Story 1923-1983 (ISBN 0949924822) written by my father Winston T. Muscio soon after he retired from his Radio engineering career.

The control box with telephone dial to direct Phantom left, right, straight ahead

Phantom, the radio-controlled boat, on a Sydney waterway

Self-settling

At any age we can benefit by observing what distresses us and finding ways to tune out and self-settle. Even though I live on the other side of the world, following the long, drawn-out US election process has been sufficiently distressing that I was becoming agitated.

Observant and savvy parents can usually pick up on ‘tired baby cues’ (unless they are too sleep-deprived themselves) and help their baby fall to sleep in their own little cot by self-soothing (without the inducements of full-body contact or feeding). Perfecting a bed-time routine with patting, stroking and repetitive shhh shhh sounds to help baby self-settle may take a while, but it has enormous rewards for the whole family.

My self-settling process involves finding a new, short-term project that engages my mind and challenges my creativity. I was feeling very uneasy about the elections until I stumbled on the idea of making tiny clothes for my grand daughters’ naked Barbie dolls. And I knew exactly where to start, PINTEREST!

Pinterest ( https://www.pinterest.com.au/ ) is a marvelous resource for great patterns and many of which are FREE. After a while I was able to come up with my own designs and by the time Joe and Kamala were declared the projected winners, I had a lot to show for my foray into Barbie doll fashion:

I started off with a knitted skirt, top and short dress for Barbie. I used long circular needles because I like a seamless finish. The style was inspired by designs from https://www.stickatillbarbie.se/

2. My Fair Isle knit skater dress, boat-neck top and shorts for a Barbie Halloween party. The cute crocheted shorts were inspired by a pattern from https://www.linmaryknits.com/2014/06/barbie-clothes-free-crochet-pattern-for.html

3. Crocheted Barbie summer dress featuring a pineapple motif and contrasting belt. The strapless bodice was inspired by a pattern at https://feltmagnet.com/textiles-sewing/Barbie-Doll-Crochet-Clothes-Strapless-Bodycon-Dress-A-Free-Pattern

4. Crocheted midi length dress with ruffled hem and neckline for Skipper Barbie. The neckline was inspired by a pattern from https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/barbie-giselle-dress

5. Knitted fairy dress for a small Barbie Skipper doll from the sports range. My own design built on a knitted saw-tooth edge and continued with long circular needles. My younger grand daughters like the numerous joints in these young Skipper dolls.

So, while the whole world, still gripped by Covid, held its breath in anxious anticipation of the US election outcome, I could at least enjoy the small pleasure of feeling productive as I made these small doll’s clothes for my cherished grand daughters.

Anxious Kids

I’m reading a book called ‘Anxious Kids: How children can turn their anxiety into resilience’ by Michael Grose and Jodi Richardson (2019). I bought it for guidance on helping my grandchildren navigate the current COVID-19 pandemic and the changes to climate from global warming – not entirely unrelated concerns.

On the anxiety-calmness continuum I usually sit in the middle, but I can be triggered into a higher state of anxiety from time to time. My mind can be nudged or triggered to entertain negative thoughts and worst-case scenarios.

By my age most of us have had our share of anxiety-inducing circumstances and by one way or another I have managed to pull through most of them, not perfectly, but adequately. I still have a lot to learn and this book for anxious kids could be helpful, not only to my young grandchildren, but to me as well.

To help explain anxiety to young children (ages 5-12) the authors recommend a book by Karen Young, called Hey Warrior. I ordered it online and had it posted to my oldest granddaughter. The little Warrior character turns out to be our amygdala. Soon after reading it and learning how her amygdala operates to protect her, my granddaughter was inspired to create her own illustrated story to explain how anxiety feels to a 10 year old:

I especially like the image of the amygdala warrior (the anxiety friend) reduced to a puppet under our control when we remember to breathe deeply to restore our calm.