The Essential Forest-Gardener – chapter 2
Robert Guyton continues his series on life in a Riverton Food Forest.
Environment
“This is my act of love” – the shut down of the trans Canadian/US pipelines
The words of the climate justice activists and why they are stepping up.
Nothing’s Going to Happen.
A wee reflection on our psychological fuck-edness.
Water and community
In coming together around a common need to protect water and land, community forms.
International Days of Prayer and Action with Standing Rock
What we know is coming largely from outside the mainstream. Which is how it should be.
The Essential Forest-Gardener
Robert Guyton begins a weekly series on life in a Riverton food forest.
Water and cultural values
Day one of the International Days of Prayer and Action with Standing Rock. Here’s a post on NZ’s relationship with water, and whether water is a resource or a taonga.
Why we need to stand with Standing Rock
For seven months the next movement of social and environmental justice and resistance has been growing. We should be paying attention.
Clinton vs Trump; Debate 1
The first Presidential kicks off this arvo. Who will win? Do we care? Should we care? Stay tuned Standarnistas, it’ll be a doozy!
When the levee breaks…
Bar the ear-worm, nothing to do with Led Zeppelin.
Maui embarrassment
The government didn’t make much of a show of Conservation Week – which was probably for the best the Conservation stories coming out weren’t exactly positive for it. US wanting us to do more on dolphins, the Kermadec sanctuary, fish dumping…
The Kermadecs and racist environmentalism
This week has been a revelation in how willing Pākehā are to throw Māori under the bus for the sake of environmentalism.
Delivering the Green New Deal
London-based macro-economist Ann Pettifor will speak on this topic at Wesley Church, 75 Taranaki Street, Wellington, on Tuesday 20 September at 5:30pm. Ann is a member of the Green New Deal Group, whose proposition is designed to power a renewables revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs and rein in the distorting power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities. All welcome; more info inside.
Conservation Week
It’s Conservation Week. We should all go and enjoy the great outdoors this weekend… but be careful of the polluted rivers and the wallabies. But at least we’ll be pest-free by 3300…
Fortress NZ
TS regular Tony Veitch has some practical ideas as to how we insulate NZ from the ravages of neoliberalism and climate change. Readers may agree with some, none or all of the suggestions. However, whichever way you look at it, the time for hand wringing is over. It’s time for action.
Maori Party to make a stand?
The Maori Party are threatening to pull out of their confidence & supply agreement with National. This would leave National with a Hair-thin majority in the House. The Kermadec Sanctuary, if handled with competence instead of arrogance, should have been a massive win for National.
Big Oil in plain packaging
Big Tobacco was hit this week in New Zealand after Parliament passed laws requiring smokes to be sold in plain packaging. The science about the health threats posed by smoking is settled, as is the science over climate change. When can we expect laws being passed against the oil companies?
PETITION: Stop Govt. funded river pollution
Help get the petition to 45,000.
Race, Class, Global Warming and Democracy.
Nothing and no-one is separate in this world. Nothing and no-one is more important than anything else or anyone else; no voice greater and no voice lesser.
On the whiner’s excuse “but we are so small”
Damon over at civicanalysis wrote an interesting post over the weekend “How New Zealand can help save the world” (and then pointed my attention to it 🙂 ). It looks at what we can do to structurally alleviate climate change. But also looked at some of the economic benefits
Can a national park be a person?
While New Zealand trashes its water and argues over whether we are allow to say ‘dairy cow’ at the same time, this 1 min video on The Guardian Facebook page about the Rights of Nature in NZ gets 2.4 million views
Festival of Dangerous Ideas
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI) brings leading thinkers and culture creators from around the world to the Sydney Opera House stages and online to discuss and debate the important ideas of our time.
World Water Week
Never heard of it? Neither had I.
Water quality too important for bird-brained excuses
Nick Smith’s latest excuse for inaction on water quality is birds. Yes birds. You couldn’t make this shit up.
For a dose of blessed sanity, watch the (10 min) webcast by Dr Mike Joy explaining what the real problem is.
NRT: A death-knell for Ruataniwha?
I/S at No Right Turn writes: If the ruling stands, it won’t just kill the dam, but also National’s policy of trying to crack open reserves for development through an ideology of “net conservation gain”.
The elephant in the room
Fair and sustainable economics
Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter starts a conversation about post-neoliberal economics.
Abrupt climate change: CO2 equivalent now at 485 ppm
We are now at 485 ppm CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations, up from 250 ppm in the 1700s. And climbing fast.
“Flushing flows”
A new phrase is about to enter NZ’s clean green image lexicon.
Key vs science on water quality
Watershit Down
John Key has announced an inquiry into the Havelock North water crisis. But has it been set up to fail the residents of the Central Hawkes Bay?
Take back our communities and create Jobs That Count
So often we lose sight of the fact that local government is about much, much more than rates. We’re launching a Jobs That Count ticket to change that.
The Friday dump on Havelock North
What a surprise that the news that NZ’s worst ever waterborne disease outbreak is most likely caused by livestock should be the subject of a classic Friday 5pm news dump.
Clean up our water!
What if there were only 34 more whitebait harvests left?
Water is life not merely wadeable.
Charles Hugh Smith – The Ultimate Long Game: Autarky and Resilience
Today, electronic numbers in electronic bank accounts are the most important things to the people who lead NZ. That’s going to have to seriously change. The country’s capacity and resources in terms of food, energy, water and cultural/social resiliency is what actually counts.
The Christchurch Commons
Meanwhile, down in Christchurch the plan is to put water back in the centre of our physical, cultural and spiritual lives.