Categories
Advocacy Environment Hired Moral Power Print Social Uncategorized

Cry Me A River

Cry Me a River (the book)
The account of one man’s journey to the heart of Australia’s water crisis

Cry Me A River is the account of one man’s journey to the heart ofAustralia’s water crisis. A lifetime engineer in the water industry and successful businessman, Steve Posselt put everything on the line to paddle or drag a kayak from Brisbane to Adelaide down the full length of the Darling and lower Murray so he could see, first hand, what is happening to Australia’s rivers.

Along the way he talked to school children, farmers and local councils about climate change, water management and sustainability, eliciting their visions for the future. He started out a water engineer with an open mind and some concerns. He ended up alarmed, ashamed and determined to change.

Cry Me Book CoverAccompany Steve every step of this 3,000 kilometre journey. Weigh up what he saw with what he was told. Experience the adventure with him; the highs, the lows and the occasional confusion. Enjoy the father and son relationship. Make up your own mind about the state of the rivers.

 

 

Steve Posselt calls himself a civil engineer who, he says, happens to be able to read the writing on the wall, telling us that our rivers are dying. And after his extraordinary journey paddling and walking thousands of kilometres along the Murray Darling river system which he so entertainingly chronicles here, he speaks with authority. While his journey is exhilarating as he sweeps us along in his personable style, the way he describes the beauty of our landscape and its devastation, becomes a wake up call to everyone in Australia.

We simply cannot continue as we have been – burning fossil fuels, putting in infrastructure to sell our resources to other countries, having questionable irrigation practices and simply taking and taking without heeding the laws of nature. Steve explains how wetlands serve a purpose, how our rivers are the arteries of our landscape and how we must share water wisely – with each other, the wildlife and the landscape and that long term management of the natural systems is a necessary condition of our survival.

Steve’s journey, his knowledge and experiences, are a beacon, a warning and, hopefully, the start of a solution. Join him on his travels through the pages of this book and learn, as I did, how close we are to midnight when our rivers will perish. Steve does not preach, but he is an acute and interesting observer who concludes. . .

 

“We all want build a way of life that benefits our children and our grandchildren. If what we build is not sustainable, then we have robbed them of their inheritance. From my observations that is exactly what we have done.
Our river systems are precious. If they die, we die. And they are dying.”


“Thank you, Steve – I hear you cry and I cry too”

Di Morrissey February 14 2009

“ This is a ‘must read’ for those interested in discovering how rivers really are the arteries of our country. Steve has chronicled his discovery of the current state of one of our greatest rivers and challenges us all to be a part of the remediation and protection of all rivers. It is a challenge that he has taken on with amazing courage.”
Mark PascoeCEO, International Water Centre

“One man’s amazing and selfless journey to highlight the plight of our major inlands river systems.
Queensland Canoeing wholly congratulates this effort to sustain the waterways for future users.
Mark PriestleyExecutive Officer, Queensland Canoeing Incorporated

“Steve Posselt is one of those amazing people that will risk all for an issue. He doesn’t just talk about the problems facing the planet, he goes and sells his business, gets out there amongst it, and draws attention to the crises that we face. In this easy to read camp fireside chat, Steve vividly highlights the dreadful damage that we have done to, and continue to inflict on our rivers. Highly recommended for anyone concerned about our environment.”
David A Hood, FIEAust CP Eng
Chairman of Australia’s College of Environmental Engineers
Chairman, Australian Green Infrastructure Council

Categories
Uncategorized

Staying secure

This is a proactive notice provided to advise our clients of an attack on many websites by robots.
Our password policy is quite robust and should withstand such attacks.
If you have changed your password to something that is easier to remember (especially if you are using the admin or administrator account) please review your password against these notes.
Our backend hosting service Quadrahosting has taken special measures to protect our clients. Those of you on other hosting services may receive similar messages.
The general text of the Quadrahosting message is below.
Categories
Uncategorized

Integrating cloud tools into your business

calendarAs Google and Facebook provide more robust services and better tools for developers to access them, the range of solutions available to small businesses increase significantly.

We have recently supported small companies (5 employees or less) build sophisticated calendar applications that handle bookings and payments across timezones, and link the website to the inhouse desktop productivity tools.

This is a powerful solution for small businesses that deliver services. If you would like to know more, comment below or contact me through the contact page.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

BBC Worldwide sells Lonely Planet to a Kentucky billionaire for a massive loss

By Patrick Stafford

After weeks of speculation, travel publishing group Lonely Planet has finally confirmed it has been sold to a media group owned by reclusive Kentucky oil and land billionaire Brad Kelley.

The move comes several years after the company’s original founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, sold the former Melbourne-based business to BBC Worldwide, and left the day-to-day operations entirely.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sustainable Engineers Conference – advertisement

Ebono Institute was hired to pull together a 45 second ad for the 2013 conference based on the title Looking back – Looking forward and making use of the footage from previous conferences.

A review of the previous footage revealed few compelling images and so a script was developed based on the notion of looking back – looking forward. We found some fantastic archival footage that fitted the concept and selected a key 10 seconds of that to build the advertisement around.

To save the client money, the development was staged with the board having approval at script, storyboard and first cut stage. Thefirst cut went for final treatment at a professional studio at a fraction of the price that a full studio would have charged for development from scratch.

Footage was sourced from a range of places including:-

123RF Stock Photos and archive.org

clipimage
Click the image to watch the Sustainable Engineer’s conference advertisement

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Over 50, and Under No Illusions

Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

Clare Novak was running out of work as a management trainer. Then a business contact tipped her to a job in Pakistan; she jumped at the chance.

By CAITLIN KELLY

IT’S a baby boomer’s nightmare. One moment you’re 40-ish and moving up, the next you’re 50-plus and suddenly, shockingly, moving out — jobless in a tough economy.

Categories
Uncategorized

Danny’s push to send Aussie wool north

Send warm aussie wool to the frozen north this Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danny’s Knitwear is offering free shipping world wide, until Christmas 2012. This means that you can give Australian knitwear to your friends and family in their winter for the same price as you buy it at the Victoria Markets

Categories
Uncategorized

Cutting your losses

One challenge for business is making a decision to cut your losses.

The theory is simple, if a deal/transaction/relationship is costing you money instead of making you money you should get out.

We all know the problem, though.
1. I have invested so much time/money/effort I do not want to throw it away ….
2. We are nearly at the critical point. As soon as we … things will turn around.
3. The fundamentals are good, this is just a short term problem.

We justify the situation based on instinct and then rationalise that instinct using whatever numbers we can find that support our instinct.

So how do we make that decision more intelligently?

It helps to have a few simple and strong criteria.
1. How much is this costing me? Not a gut feel, an actual number please.
2. How else can I obtain the strategic value this is supposed to bring? If we are brutal, a lot of our pet projects are really only pet projects by accident. Some one gave us a tip over dinner, we picked it up at a seminar, someone we respect did it in their business. There are probably much more logical ways to achieve the same objective. Stand back and have a good look at what you are setting out to achieve.
3. Are my core values being compromised? It’s a pretty simple yes or no. If you’re not sure, that’s a negative.
4. What is the trend? Use your statistical nouse. Check the long term rolling average against the short term. Something that has been consistently getting better for months but had a bad week last week is not the same problem as something that it dribbling along and last week was worse than usual. If the long term trend is okay but the short term trend is about to start pulling it down, it is time to act now, not after the rot has set in.
5. Am I having fun? Seriously! If you are not, then you are not going to put your heart and soul into it. If your business is a chore, get out of it. Now!

We are all prepared to compromise one or two of these simple criteria to get major benefits in one or more of the others. My recommendation is that as soon as two of these look shaky, though, it is time to get out – or at least stop putting any energy/time/money into it.
There is nothing worse than looking back at a month and saying these figures are bad because I was distracted. This is a tool for dealing with those distractions earlier than our emotional self will generally let us.
Categories
Uncategorized

Ebono MD enters political fray

Ebono Institute managing director, Geoff Ebbs, has been preselected by The Greens to run against Kevin Rudd as the candidate for Griffith. As we have no control over the date of the election, David James, Dave Fregon and the team are preparing themselves to take over the reins when the election is called.

We are aware that our clients come from all manner of political persuasions but remain sure that our integrity and hard work are more important to you than any philosophical differences.

Categories
Uncategorized

Siesta now official policy

The quest for a robust work-life balance eludes many organisations.

Ebono Institute managing director, Geoff Ebbs, has decided to re-institute the siesta as a sensible and healthy way of achieving this elusive end.

In summer, the Ebono Institute will be open until 12:00 midday EST (1pm EDST) and will re-open at 2:30pm (3:30 EDST).

Clients will be able to join Ebono Institute staff for lunch, exercise and rest, but no work will be done during this midday break. Phones and emails will not be answered.