Here’s a Christmas present. Check out the trailer to this interesting documentary about Christmas Lights (and why people do it.)

Video:
Christmas Lights documentary trailer. The film is on the ABC tonight at 10pm.

Related story:
Our recent post Christmas Month v. Earth Hour has more on the energy irony of it all.

Merry Christmas. See you in the new year.

Audio:
Have a listen to our Christmas lights podcast. In it we hear from people with ‘over-the-top’ Christmas lights on their houses to find out why they’ve done it.

It seems pretty obvious the root of our environmental problems comes back to one key thing – consumption. And there’s one time of year when it really hits you in the face – Christmas.

Mostly I’ve stayed clear of the shopping centres myself, but one thing you can’t avoid is Christmas lights. Every year there seem to be more houses getting into it. And every year they seem to be more over-the-top.

It got me thinking – how does this stack up against Earth Hour? If Earth Hour is meant to be a symbol people do care about the planet – by switching their lights off for an hour, what does that make the whole month of December? A time when not only do people festoon their houses with Christmas lights, consumption is well and truly king.

Television:
The film clip in our podcast is from the documentary ‘Christmas Lights’. It premiers Wednesday 24 2008, 8.05pm on ABC2 and Thursday 25 December 2008, 10.05pm on ABC1.

Video:
Click this link for more over-the-top Christmas lights video – this house is brilliantly synchronised to music. But wait there’s more … ‘OTT’ video. (This house got the same idea.)

And don’t forget not long til the official Energy Wasting Day! (1st April.)

More photos and where to see more Christmas lights:
Click these links for more photos and locations of houses with over-the-top lights in Sydney – from our learned colleagues at The Telegraph and 2GB.

Archie and my big Christmas lights adventure was to Matraville. The shot below is a house complete with Sydney landmarks in Franklin Street. Nearby Barwon Cresent is a mind explosion (for kids) of lights on every house. You should also check out – Hodge Street, Hurstville.

I’m sure there’s plenty more near you.

Merry global warmed Christmas.

Snow is looking increasingly unlikely for Sydney.

This last photo and the first (feature) photo courtesy of Screen Australia.

Lots of people dream of making a ’sea change’ to escape the rat race of the city. Some people even do it.

But how many leave with the intention of living sustainably? To live on the land, grow their own food, generate their own power and water, and even restore their new patch closer to its original, natural state. James Woodford and his family are working on just that.

Audio: Interview with James Woodford about his new book ‘Real Dirt’.

And no James, isn’t a hippy. He loves sushi as much as any inner-city dweller, and for a long time was an ambitious journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald.

Just how he came to be living on a beautiful stretch of the South Coast and slaughtering his own chooks is documented in his new book ‘Real Dirt: how I beat my grid-life crisis’. It’s a very personal account of “what you have to go through to get to where you want to be.”

I read it recently and got decidedly itchey feet myself. I then spoke with James by phone – at the place he now proudly calls home.

Useful links: This and other books by James Woodford are available through Text Publishing. There’s more of his James’s writing on his blog – Real Dirt. And here’s an excerpt from the ‘Real Dirt’ book – recently published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: James Woodford, environment journalist and “footprint changer”, at his true home on the South Coast of New South Wales.

Watch the FuelWatch commercial.

But really, it’s a drop in the ocean compared to how much water goes into the products we consume.

Now an Australian academic has proposed that the amount of water used in making food and other items be clearly shown on product labeling. Listen to the interview with James Hazelton.

To see how much water goes into making different products, check out www.waterfootprint.org.

Above is a link to a great video on YouTube. It provides a good, simple explanation of how and why old-fashioned commerce is damaging the planet. (Part 1 is first up. Click on the ‘menu’ to bring up the other parts after that. Each is a few minutes long.)

What’s the answer? Bring on the second (smarter) industrial revolution where business works in a cyclical way like nature. More on this idea in Hawken’s book ‘The Ecology of Commerce’.