Severe 'prune' for community garden

Mat Pember, director of Pop Up Patch, a
community garden
behind Federation Square faced with closure.

A thriving community garden at Federation Square used by CBD residents, chefs and students is facing closure, with square management calling for expressions of interest for the site.

Potatoes, strawberries, lemons, chillis, cabbages and rosemary flourish in 100 planter boxes at Pop Up Patch, a green oasis behind the square between Flinders Street skyscrapers and railway lines.

Mat Pember, whose the Little Vegie Patch Co runs the garden at a small profit – charging $25 a week per box – fears the four-year-old garden will be "cut down in its prime", in favour of a more lucrative helipad or car park.

Read Carolyn Webb’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Future of thriving CBD community garden under a cloud.”

(Yes, the last thing Melbourne needs is more parking spaces or even a “heliport”; rather, what it really needs is more community gardens such as this one at Federation Square that look likely to be sacrificed to profit – Robert McLean.)

David Suzuki’s thoughts on our warming world

D

avid Suzuki’s thoughts on our warming world –

David Suzuki.

My hometown, Vancouver, is in a rainforest, so we celebrate sunny days. People I talk to are enjoying the recent warm, dry weather, but they invariably add, “This isn’t normal”—especially with all the smoke from nearby forest fires.

With no mountain snowpack and almost no spring rain, rivers, creeks and reservoirs are at levels typically not seen until fall. Parks are brown. Blueberries, strawberries and other crops have arrived weeks earlier than usual. Wildfires are burning here and throughout Western Canada. Meanwhile, normally dry Kamloops has had record flooding, as has Toronto. Manitoba has been hit with several tornadoes and golf-ball-sized hail.

Unusual weather is everywhere. California is in its fourth year of severe drought. Temperatures in Spain, Portugal, India and Pakistan have reached record levels, sparking wildfires and causing thousands of deaths and heat-related ailments. Heavy rains, flooding and an unusually high number of tornadoes have caused extensive damage and loss of life in Texas, Oklahoma and Mexico.

The likely causes are complex: a stuck jet stream, the Pacific El Niño, natural variation and climate change. Even though it’s difficult to link all events directly to global warming, climate scientists have warned for years that we can expect these kinds of extremes to continue and worsen as the world warms. Some hypothesize that the strange behaviours of this year’s jet stream and El Niño are related to climate change, with shrinking Arctic sea ice affecting the former.

Read the EcoWatch story - “David Suzuki: The Realities of a Warming World”.