Tag Archives: Climate

The story of Lithgow Environment Group is a saga spanning nearly two decades of their heroic struggle against fire, local habitat destruction, weak government legislation and in particular, irresponsible mining practices.

In response to rising living costs, Western Sydney University’s Lithgow Transformation Hub is offering eligible residents an opportunity to take part in a unique informational study, which could result in huge savings as well as a better understanding of how to make more empowered choices about energy use.

'Middle Earth' is a remarkable off-grid paradise in the Kanimbla Valley, created over many decades by Hans and Tillie Coster. What was once a degraded grazing property has been regenerated, with its underground 'Hobbit Hall' built to survive all weather extremes.

Visiting Belgian medical graduate Louis Wauters reports on the recent visit by medical students from the Rural Clinical School of Notre Dame University to the Blue Mountains Planetary Health precinct in Katoomba, and what they learnt about the connection between human health and planetary health.

A Belgian doctor has journeyed to Lithgow and the Blue Mountains to learn more about Planetary Health and has also explored Lithgow Hospital’s use of geothermal ground-source heat pump technology as part of its strategy to provide ‘green power for health’.

The Forged by Fire Festival was not the ‘usual’ Bushfire recovery or resilience event. Instead of focusing on consequences of fire, the Lithgow City Council event focused on human relationships with fire. Tracie McMahon ran a storytelling booth at the event, asking, what does ‘Forged by Fire’ mean to you? The answers were surprising, uplifting and sobering.

During Summer 2022/23 Western Sydney University trained residents to use thermal imaging cameras to document surface temperatures in the local landscape as part of the Heat Detective project.  The images captured temperatures varying from 20°C to over 60°C, demonstrating both the urban heat island effect and simple solutions to reduce its impact.

Lithgow has changed dramatically since 1910 when the needs of a growing industrial City resulted in deforestation and pollution. We’ve taken drone footage to compare Lithgow in 1910 with Lithgow today and we discuss the encouraging progress we’ve made in regenerating our City.

At Provocations, the Seven Valleys Festival of Big Ideas, local high school students, Ollyvar Baker, Samara Kirkland and Jasmin Cole, performed poetry that communicated the future they want to see.

Chantelle Cambridge recently presented the final in a series of gardening talks hosted by Lithgow Library Learning Centre. Standing in the shade of fifty-year-old elms in a flowery white dress, she was Instagram perfect, but the journey that led her here would have flattened many.