Interview: Ray Russell cruises silently into history on his revolutionary electric bike,, 'The Phantom'

A new podcast from the University of New South Wales, &quot;Preppers&quot; gives us a new take on an old idea. &quot;‘Climate breakdown’: State of calamity in Portugal as fires rage out of control&quot;; &quot;George Monbiot: Neoliberalism, Nature and Negative Consequences&quot;; &quot;I’ve studied geopolitics all my life: climate breakdown is a bigger threat than China and Russia&quot;; &quot;Victorian households are poorly prepared for longer, more frequent heatwaves – here’s what needs to change&quot;; &quot;Fossil fuels and industrial agriculture drain $600bn annually from climate-affected countries&quot;; &quot;Why native forest harvesting is the ‘zombie’ industry that won’t die&quot;; &quot;Internal documents show BoM escalated questions on climate and floods&quot;; &quot;Plibersek intervenes in giant ‘climate bomb’ gas project&quot;; &quot;Carbon ‘sharks’: How private companies are cashing in on ancient practices&quot;; &quot;A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought’&quot;; &quot;Wildfires more than double in a year, affecting 5.65m ha, survey says&quot;; &quot;&#39;Like an apocalypse&#39;: Europe&#39;s catastrophic floods in pictures&quot;; &quot;Warm winters are waking snakes early. Here’s what that means for them and us&quot;; &quot;Explosive FOIs – gas cartel conned Government, fixed high energy prices for all Australians&quot;; &quot;Scientists reviewed 7,000 studies on microplastics. Their alarming conclusion puts humanity on notice&quot;; &quot;Endure – or peter out? Here’s what Northern Rivers organisers and Stop Adani can teach us about building climate groups&quot;; &quot;E-scooter riders flouting rules, blocking footpaths and causing accidents? We need to use smart solutions (and bust the myths)&quot;; &quot;Australia desperately needs a strong federal environmental protection agency. Our chances aren’t looking good&quot;; &quot;&#39;Usually it&#39;s a harmless little river&#39;: Austrians struck by flooding reel from ruin left in its wake&quot;; &quot;Facts may not be enough to correct science misinformation&quot;; &quot;A small WA seaside town was forced to switch off gas, becoming a &#39;prototype&#39; for the green energy transition&quot;; &quot;Death toll reaches 16 as ‘dramatic’ flooding in central Europe continues&quot;; &quot;Locals in this capital are happiest with their public transport. How do Europe&#39;s cities compare?&quot;; &quot;Australia is a mess. Cop31 is a chance to redefine ourselves from climate laggard to global leader&quot;; &quot;Hurricane Francine Leaves 400,000 Louisianans Without Power&quot;; &quot;Trump Says Clean Energy Is a Scam. That Could Benefit China, Experts Say.&quot;; &quot;Biden faces criticism over his gas car ban. But he doesn’t have one&quot;&#39;; &quot;Climate Change Can Cause Bridges to ‘Fall Apart Like Tinkertoys,’ Experts Say&quot;; &quot;How Climate Change Is Making Tampons (and Lots of Other Stuff) More Expensive&quot;; &quot;‘Perverse’: Woodside, Shell spend millions getting into offset game&quot;; &quot;The Hague becomes first city in the world to ban advertisements for fossil fuels and high-carbon ser&quot;; &quot;Most cities are rainier than their surroundings due to heat and smog&quot;; &quot;Electric vehicles race combustion cars in &#39;battle of technologies&#39;&quot;; &quot;Mega El Niños may have played a part in the Permian mass extinction&quot;; &quot;Climate Lawsuits Are Exploding. Are Homicide Charges Next?&quot;; &quot;Home Sales in Flood Zones Are Booming. Here’s Why Buyers Take the Risk.&quot;; &quot;P<a href="https://theconversation.com/pacific-nations-want-ecocide-to-become-a-crime-heres-why-nz-should-support-the-proposal-238675?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%2

Mark Bachelder (pictured) orchestrates the community calls for the Foundation for Safe Climate from his home in California, reaching out to the world. I met Mark by chance and in an illustration of how small the world is, he and a recent guest on this podcast, Osprey Orielle Lake, know each other well. Mark is interested in climate matters and sees much of the solution to the present dilemma to be found through conversation and during our chat, I alerted him to the six-week series being organized by the Melbourne-based Conversation at the Crossroads - &quot;Ethics in Turbulent Times: How to Bring Society to Higher Ground&quot;.

Mark Carter (pictured) from Flight Free Australia was clearly the first person to call when it was announced that Melbourne&#39;s Tullamarine Airport would receive Federal Government cash to make the complex&#39;s third runway a reality. A story in The Melbourne Age - &quot;Melbourne Airport’s $3 billion third runway cleared for take-off&quot; - told of this development. Mark explains how his group draws inspiration and sustenance from the European organization, &quot;Stay Grounded&quot; and is affiliated with the locally-based group, &quot;Climate Action Network Australia&quot;. High-speed rail is an alternative to flying and one view can be read in an article on The Conversation by Phillip Laird, &quot;High-speed rail plans may finally end Australia’s 40-year wait to get on board&quot;. The Geelong-based, &quot;The Sustainable Hour&quot; talked with Mark earlier in the year and this episode of &quot;Climate Conversations&quot; includes the audio from that interview, which happened before the confirmation announcement of the the third runway.

Shepparton&#39;s Ray Russell (pictured) and his Mooroopna business partner, Marty Rogers, built their first electric bike, &quot;The Phantom&quot; in 1987. Building the bike was, in a sense, the easy part, bringing changes to Victorian State Government road rules was truly the hard part - it took months and months of dedicated lobbying by many people, including a former CEO of Victoria&#39;s Bicycle Network, Harry Barber. Ray and Marty produced 80 Phantoms and one is presently on show in Shepparton&#39;s &quot;Museum of Vehicle Evolution (MOVE)&quot;. Ray, who is still enthusiastic about electric bikes, and recently graduated to a carbon fibre mountain bike, believes it is such things as mountain bikes with their go-anywhere capacity that can reshape human movement in Shepparton.

Osprey Orielle Lake (pictured) is passionate and committed to navigating through the &quot;keyhole&quot; of opportunity we have to avoid the worst of the climate crisis. Osprey founded &quot;The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN)&quot;, international, and through that organisation engages women and feminists across the gender spectrum worldwide in policy advocacy, on-the-ground projects, direct action, training, and movement building for global climate justice. Her award-winning book, &quot;The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis&quot; expands on what Osprey does with WECAN. Osprey is a busy woman and among other responsibilities helps humanity avoid the worst of this &quot;poly-crisis&quot;, she sits on the steering committee of &quot;The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative&quot;.

The Melbourne-based &quot;Conversation at The Crossroads&quot; opened its six-week series, &quot;Ethics in Turbulent Times: How to Bring Society to Higher Ground&quot; with broad and sweeping discussion and a presentation from the internationally known philosopher, Peter Singer (pictured). During his presentation at the University College at the University of Melbourne, Mr Singer mentioned the podcast with which he is involved - &quot;Lives Well Lived&quot;. Five sessions are yet to come in &quot;Ethics in Turbulent Times&quot;, an event you can attend either in person or virtually - I shared the first breakout room with several people, including a woman from Germany who was an enthusiast of Peter Singer&#39;s work.

Shepparton businessman, Sebastian Mangiameli (pictured), is thoroughly impressed with his long-range all-wheel-drive Tesla. The car, he explains is economical in every sense, and requires almost no servicing, has the latest in technology and most everything can be attended to in a virtual sense with upgrades being applied by the Tesla factory. This exciting, new and different way of buying and owning a car is explained on the Tesla website

The devastation of Super Typhoon Rai showed a whole generation of Filipino youth the impacts of climate change, according to youth activist Grace Ann Enriquez. Now in Canberra, she&#39;s joining First Nations climate activist Eduardo Maher and other youth campaigners in calling for the federal government to take stronger action on climate change &quot;&#39;I lost my childhood home&#39;: From disaster to climate action&quot;; A powerful presentation by Canadian Naomi Klein in 2014 has long been one of the most powerful and memorable presentations from &quot;Sydney&#39;s Festival of Dangerous Ideas&quot;; &quot;Applying the Framework for Ethical Decision Making to the Issue of Climate Change&quot;; &quot;Almost 68% of Australia’s tourism sites at major risk if climate crisis continues, report says&quot;; &quot;Ethics in Turbulent Times: How to Bring Society to Higher Ground&quot;; &quot;Sharing and Reflecting on our Common Future&quot;; &quot;South Australia to enshrine 100 pct net renewable target in law as BHP looks to double smelting capacity&quot;; &quot;Climate disasters challenge right to safe and adequate housing&quot;; &quot;As climate disasters grow, early warning systems become essential&quot;; &quot;Electric Big Rigs Are Poised to Revolutionize the Trucking Industry&quot;; &quot;Climate Change Is Making ‘Last Chance Tourism’ More Popular, and Riskier&quot;; &quot;Solar Farms Have a Superpower Beyond Clean Energy&quot;.

Bill McKibben (pictured) writes in The Guardian about the danger of Donald Trump winning the U.S. Presidential election - &quot;Donald Trump gets everything wrong about the climate crisis&quot;; &quot;Hottest summer on record could lead to warmest year ever measured&quot;; &quot;Households, EVs to the rescue as Australia’s emissions cuts stagnate&quot;; &quot;‘Make good on what they promised’: Greens ultimatum on Labor’s signature policy&quot;; &quot;Fossil Fuel Funding Is ‘Embedded’ Across Academia. What Does That Mean for Climate Research?&quot;; &quot;How Oil And Gas Companies Infiltrate Higher Education to Maintain Influence&quot;; &quot;Fossil Fuel Lobbyists and Major Polluters to Sponsor Labour Conference Events&quot;; &quot;Big Oil Sold Stuff They Knew Was Dangerous. There’s a Law for That.&quot;; &quot;The Deteriorating Environment Is a Public Concern, but Americans Misunderstand Their Contribution to the Problem&quot;; &quot;Environment: Earth system tipping points threaten our stable environment&quot;; &quot;Urgent review of Woodside billion-dollar WA gas project needed to protect threatened snake, government advisers say&quot;; &quot;Here’s what the hottest summer on Earth looked like&quot;; &quot;African Nations Are Losing up to 5% of Annual GDP Due to Climate Change, WMO Finds&quot;; &quot;As Climate Threats to Agriculture Mount, Could the Mississippi River Delta Be the Next California?&quot;; &quot;South Australia is aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2027. It’s already internationally ‘remarkable’&quot;; &quot;The enduring and elemental importance of natural history&quot;; &quot;The Killer Climate Disaster That Has No Name&quot;; &quot;Winter heatwaves in the southern hemisphere&quot;; &quot;Australia has just been handed a map for getting to net zero. Here’s how it will guide us&quot;; &quot;Conservative governments protect more land while socialists and nationalists threaten more species&quot;; &quot;Ford Pulls Back Its Electric Vehicle Push&quot;; &quot;Mercedes-Benz delays electrification goal, beefs up combustion engine line-up&quot;; &quot;Why nuclear-powered commercial ships are a bad idea&quot;; &quot;BMW to start selling hydrogen cars from 2028&quot;; &quot;The vanishing mangroves of El Salvador: ‘All our efforts may only slow the destruction’&quot;; &quot;Australia may delay release of 2035 climate target as world awaits outcome of US election&quot;; &quot;Hope for North America’s Most Endangered Bird&quot;.

Kelsie Williams (pictured) has a key role with Farmers for Climate Action along with Paul Stark, a Policy and Farmer Engagement Officer with the group, who represented the organisation on the Thursday, September 5, screening of the movie, &quot;Farming Forever&quot;. The screening was held at the University of Melbourne&#39;s &quot;Melbourne Connect&quot; building. Among the small crowd was Kevin Rassool representing &quot;Allfed&quot; - Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED). On its website, the group introduces itself by saying - &quot;We seek to identify various resilient food solutions and to help governments and companies implement these solutions to feed everyone in the event of a global catastrophe. We focus on events that could deplete 5% or more of global calorie output, or access to those calories&quot;. The co-founder of Allfed, David Dekenberger, can be heard on the podcast &quot;80,000 Hours&quot;.