The Greening of Gavin

Archives for June 2008

Home Made Bread Rolls

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I didn’t want to write this post until we had perfected the recipe for our bread rolls, but now we have, here is the story.

Last Wednesday, Kim thought about making some wholemeal bread rolls for lunch. She though of it because she notice that there was a dough making setting on the bread maker, and wanted to see if we could make our own rolls cheaper than buying them. Usually we would have bought these from our local Bakers Delight, but as I didn’t feel very well, we decided to give it a go with what we had in the house.

Firstly, we already had some pre-mixed bread making flour, that we had already used in the bread maker. We use Laucke bread mixes in 5 kg bags, that are made in Adelaide. The flour was fine, but the loaves always came out a little bit too stodgy for our liking. The bread was not firm inside, and was a bugger to cut into slices smaller than a door stop. However, if you left the bread for a day it was easier to cut. But we wanted to eat it the same day we made it!

On the back of the bread mix bag were suggestions for modifying the recipe for moulded products i.e. bread rolls or pizza dough, so I gave it a go. I measured up 560 gms of bread mix, 370 ml of warm water, and 3 teaspoons of bread making yeast. I placed the ingredients into the bread maker bowl, in the order of water, flour, yeast, set the bread maker to the dough setting and pressed start. The cycle took about an hour and 30 minutes. I think that it has two rising phases in this cycle. Once completed, I took the dough out and placed it on a floured board and let it sit for 10 minutes so it was easier to handle. Then Kim worked her magic.

She cut the dough into eight equal portions, and then did a little kneading thing (she remembered how to do this from somewhere) and then rolled the top of the dough ball into some quick oats (porridge oats) to decorate the tops. She placed the unbaked rolls onto two pizza trays, oat side up, which had been sprayed with canola oil, and I placed warm damp tea towels over the trays. Here are the unrisen rolls.




As it is winter here, the dough would not rise by itself, so we put the gas oven on the “keep warm” setting for 5 minutes, then turned it off. This gave us the right temperature to make the rolls rise. Into the warm oven with tea towels on top of the trays, and we left them for 30 minutes to rise. Here are the risen rolls.


After the dough had risen, I took the rolls out of the oven and uncovered them. They had nearly doubled in size and were in between the size of a dinner roll and a lunch roll. Just right we thought. Then I heated up our fan forced gas oven to 190 degrees C, and after about 5 minutes put the rolls into bake. We baked the rolls for 18 minutes and left them to cool on the side.

Of course we couldn’t wait the 5 minute cooling time before sampling a steaming wholemeal roll spread with butter. It was so delicious, and both Kim and I said at the same time, “Why didn’t we try this before!”. We both laughed and kept eating the tasty morsel. Here are the finished rolls. Don’t they look yummy.


Since Wednesday, we have made bread rolls three more times, and have found that they go so quickly (into our tummy’s). Ben has had some in his lunch box, and we eat them when we have a stew or casserole for dinner. It certainly beats making bread in the bread maker or buying them from the baker and I figured out that it costs about 7 cents per roll if you cost up the flour, electricity and gas. Pretty good seeing that you can’t buy 6 rolls for less than $2 in Safeway, or 50 cents each at Bakers Delight.

Our success has given us the idea of making a hybrid loaf of bread. What I mean by that is, make the dough in the bread maker, and cook the dough in the gas oven in a proper bread tin. Don’t get me wrong, the bread maker cooks a decent loaf of bread, but it doesn’t look like a loaf of bread as it is a very tall loaf with a small top. We are going to give that a go tomorrow. It should be good, if we get the timing right.

Wish us luck!


Australia’s Deceptive Kyoto Target

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According to a media release (11 Dec 1997) by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Kyoto Protocol is defined as;

“The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the year 1990 (but note that, compared to the emissions levels that would be expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this limitation represents a 29% cut). The goal is to lower overall emissions of six greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons – averaged over the period of 2008-2012. National limitations range from 8% reductions for the European Union and some others to 7% for the US, 6% for Japan, 0% for Russia, and permitted increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for Iceland.”

Australia’s greenhouse gas target as specified by the Kyoto protocol is 108% of 1990 levels by the year 2012. That is an increase, yes an increase my friends! We were the only country besides Iceland (110%) that were allowed an increase in greenhouse gasses (GHG) during the foundation of the treaty. It was known at the time as the “Australia Clause” and was allowed due to the Australian delegates claim and dogged insistence that Australia had undergone extremely high levels of land clearing in 1990, which meant that our baseline was quite high compared to other countries.

That aside, the basis of the protocol is to reduce GHG, that have been found to cause man-made climate change with an increase in global temperatures. I have written about climate change in many of my blogs posts. Our leadership at the time went against the tide, citing that the protocol would cost Australian jobs, due to our high levels of trade with countries such as China and India who did not have any reduction obligations. They also claimed that the Australian Government had pledged funds in their budget to combat climate change. So to keep the Australian delegates at the negotiation table, the rest of the world allowed us to increase our emissions during 1990 to 2012.

What a sham, and such narrow minded thinking. We, as a nation, have been allowed to continue spewing GHG into the environment, without any strategy or incentive to decrease our national emissions. We were the biggest emitter on a per capita basis back in 1990, and we still are today. Sure, we have reduced our per capita emissions by 13.8% from 32.6 to 28.1 tonnes CO2 equivalent, but only because our population has increased. Nothing has changed in 12 years since the protocol was formulated, with little incentive to cut our emissions, and certainly nothing forced upon us by legislation from the Australian government. As I stated in my previous post, the Emissions Trading Scheme will change all of that, but, oh my god, there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, or in the case of Victoria, no water because of our states reliance on brown coal to provide the population with electricity (and of course because of a bloody long drought).

So what has happened since 1990? Well this table says it all. I have taken the data from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2006, which was release this month;

Emissions Mt C02-e

Percent change in emissions

1990

2006

1990 – 2006

Energy

286.4

400.9

40.0%

Stationary energy

195.1

287.4

47.3%

Transport

62.1

79.1

27.4%

Fugitive Emissions

29.2

34.5

18.1%

Industrial Processes

24.1

28.4

17.7%

Agriculture

86.8

90.1

3.8%

Waste

18.8

16.6

-11.4%

Land Use Change

136.5

62.9

-53.9%

Forestry

0.0

-23.0

NA

Australia’s Net Emissions

552.6

576.0

4.2%

To read the full report, click here.

We have increased our emissions by 4.2% and still have 4 years remaining before the end of the protocol. The only category that has really saved our bacon has been Land Use Change, and if we weren’t allowed the “Australia Clause” during negotiations, we would have increased our emissions by at least 50%. That is a dreadful result, and one the we as a nation should be ashamed of. However, seeing that the USA is still to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we shouldn’t feel too bad. Why would the worlds single biggest emitter of GHG want to sign something that would actually make them act, and change from the business as usual situation they are in? And as for China and India, the next emissions treaty needs to include them, and in fact all nations of the world, or it will just be a worthless piece of paper.

One can only hope that with the change of government in November, the USA will act, and act swiftly to reduce their emissions. Now, as for Australia, I can only hope that the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme due to be implemented in the next year or so, will have enough teeth to force all sectors to reduce emissions drastically, without the flow-on effect of punishing the low income workers. I have read that the government will ensure that scheme takes care of the so called working family. You can read about it here. If ETS is a toothless tiger, we are not in for a good time in the next 20 years. The planet will make sure of that!

So all in all, a disappointing effort regarding climate change for Australia, and as an Australian, I am ashamed. The European Union seams to be pulling out all the stops to attempt to meet their allocated target. If they can reduce their emission, I am sure as hell, we can. At least in the transportation sector we will see a reduction due to the escalating price of oil!

Scientists claim that the efforts of climate change are accelerating, and that we have even less time to reduce global GHG emissions. I dare say that once the summer Ice cap on the Arctic Ocean is gone, the effect will speed up even more. Fingers and toes crossed, and with some concerted effort on mankind’s behalf, we may avert the catastrophic climate change that threatens our existence.

If it were not for Hopes, the Heart would break.
– Thomas Fuller.

Bring On a Low Carbon World

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A low carbon global economy strikes me as a good thing, but I think that some just don’t get it yet. I was reading this article in the Sydney Morning Herald titled “Bracing for the new, low carb economy“

The article states;

“Bankrupt power generators, regular blackouts, abandoned cement and steel factories, a 10c a litre jump in petrol prices, spiralling electricity bills and unaffordable air travel – welcome to Australia in 2010. An emissions trading scheme has just been introduced and the worst fears of Australian businesses have been realised.”

Now this is of course the worst case scenario, but with typical media flare and sensationalism, I believe it paints an overly grim view of the upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Petrol jumping 10c a litre? Well its not like that doesn’t happen every week anyway due to the end of cheap oil!

The article goes on to say that;

“The introduction of a carbon price will affect every company in Australia, boosting the cost of electricity, transport and fuel. It has been likened to the GST and globalisation in terms of the impact it will have on the economy.”

Of course it will have an effect on every company, and tell me again, why this is a bad thing? The big emitters of Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gasses will have to pay more because they pollute more. So, inversely that means that companies that reduce their carbon footprint or are based on sustainable and renewable practices will be the big winners because their bottom line will be lower. The public will win, if he or she purchases products that have a low carbon impact, which will encourage people to find alternatives in their lifestyle, hopefully for the better. And what is this rubbish about the cost of electricity soaring. Maybe, just maybe, it will spur electricity generators or investors to start building more wind and solar farms which will benefit by the ETS because they are basically carbon free investments once the cost of the embedded carbon used to build them is generated by the system itself. Renewable energy should drop in price and Fossil Fool based energy will rise. Well, that is what I am hoping will happen. Whatever the outcome, my PV system continues to chug away, reducing my energy bills even further. Maybe more people (including governments) will understand that home power generation is also a good thing for them as well as the human race and is not a case of who can or cannot afford a system!

The SMH article was typically one sided, with comments from the CEO of Cement Australia, who, funnily enough has a vested interest in the ETS and the way it is constructed. The process of making cement is a large emitter of CO2, so why wouldn’t they want articles like this one in the press, used to confuse and place fear into the minds of the average Australian. I have also noticed the same sort of stories in other newspapers that have comments from Coal companies, Coal fired Electricity companies, and of course Oil companies, but little in the form of a balanced view by looking at what good will come from an ETS. It reminds me of the Tobacco industry all over again. All these companies are losers in a low carbon economy. These type of smear tactics make me sick to the core, as does the lobbying by these companies towards every government on the planet. The future of the human race as we know it is at stake, not the planets, for gods sake! The planet still will be here long after we have killed ourselves off, or at least a considerable number of us. Profits should not come before people and their ultimate survival on this planet! Nero fiddles, whilst Rome burns, literally.

So get your act together, all you polluters, stop whinging and lobbying, and actually show us your green credentials by determined actions, and make us and future inhabitants of this wonderful planet proud. You can do it, I know you can, because companies have souls, and the souls are the people that work there. When enough people have the courage to stand up for what is the right thing to do, then good stuff happens.

Change happens. There is that scary C word again, I love it. So much self inflicted change (for the better) has happened to me and my family in the last two years, and the musings of this blog is testament to that, so what is another one? Bring on the low carbon economy. I am ready for it, and so are many others like me. We must all remember that we only have one place to live in this big wide universe, so lets treat our tiny blue green marble with the respect it deserves, and stop stuffing it up for our grandchildren and future generations.

BRING IT ON!