13 May
2010
How come little Nuclear Free NZ, safely situated in the South West Pacific has become the focal point of Government agendas that were in most cases, not signalled at the last general election? Is this the way to ACT?
From out of right field NZers find themselves on the back foot as the Government maneuvers to place restrictions on the electorate and their freedoms, or on the other hand loosens them for exploitation.
Some see these actions as a blitzkrieg when most people are struggling to hold jobs, pay bills and give their children a good loving quality of life.
We are being asked to make submissions if we disagree with the agenda however, most find they are too tired at the end of the day to attend meetings, research their submissions and attend rallies to show solidarity.
Thus, the perception is that the Government is deliberately wearing the constituents down, but worse are only allowing 'we the people' a very short time span to respond back to the government.
Is this not strange? NZ has in most cases carried the moral high ground in local and world affairs, we have been seen as a fair country, an honest player, but where and who are the politicians who will stand in integrity and carry the flame of honest virtue working for the betterment of the community and the whole?
are 120 elected servants in Parliament, who will stand up to be countered? Watch this space!
And where are the Civic Elders, the Pillars of Society?
"Full Spectrum Dominance!" These below are some concerns that NZ is under pressure from:
DEMOCRACY: With the disbanding of 7 local Councils in Auckland by central Government as well as Environment Canterbury ... where is this heading?
Inclusive of this are 'we' going to experience:
1) More Genetic experimentation and possibly food grown throughout Aotearoa?
2) The Australian TGA and CODEX Alimentarius being enacted to stop natural health practitioners producing products and selling them here. Note: originally many National MPs supported health freedom, but the NZ bureaucracy is still forcing this agenda, compromising some genuine National MPs word.
3) Caving in and allowing whales to be killed globally because we are fearful of the Japanese yen?
The Security and Intelligence Bill being foisted upon a basically peaceful country which already has very secure borders?
5) Having overseas mining corporations extract minerals from conservation land, with minute royalties going to the NZ people?
6) Foreign Investment and countries overseas buying land into NZ, when NZers are not allowed to buy land in certain countries that are allowed to buy here.
7) Community owned assets like the airport and Auckland water being readied for sale to overseas ownership or 'contracted' to them for up to 35 years at a stretch.
8) Privatization of Prisons.
And more...
The list is growing, why is the National government steam rolling us with this agenda, when it has always been their stated aim to have as little government interference as possible?
These issues have to openly debated 'point for point' via local town meetings as well as TV but with a neutral host over the next 1 to 2 years, why the hurry and why give the electorate so little time to respond.
Are MP's not "our elected servants?"
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"description": "Weather forecasters and meteorological services are equally puzzled and in many ways shrug this off to 'climate change' and the increase of greenhouse\n gasses. Yet, some argue - this is an easy way out.
\nHowever, more astute researchers, albeit some amateurs among them are noticing many irregularities and are finding certain weather patterns incongruent\n with normal meteorological ones.
\nGlobal weather systems are definitely changing, but so is the geophysical realm as well.
\nIn this interview Nigel informs about some of the variables that seem to stand out as being very irregular.
\nHe also talks about his prediction regarding the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake in the South Island of New Zealand. Based around a supermoon and various weather\n patterns and ‘anomalies' that could not be explained and he tells how when he went to the NZ Met service to share his insights that they, in his words\n 'mocked him' when he tells them of his research .
\nHe uses the example of boom box stereo in cars – you know - boooom booom boombth boooom vibration that shakes the windows and floor of your car in the\n next lane – and there are also other frequencies that can vibrate at other levels. With seismic testing (in this case for oil) and the added influence\n of lunar forces, tides and gravity etc he said that: \"These earthquakes are not man made - but man induced\".\n
The interview covers new technologies from Tesla to HAARP as well as what the human race has to do to become aware. Especially that secret military\n budgets, are sucking up money that know one knows what it is being spent on.
\n Is Our Government Intentionally Hiding $21 Trillion In Spending?\n
Jul 21, 2018 - This column is co-authored with Mark Skidmore, a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University.
\n Also, that with such overwhelming information that we individually have to become 'fully resourced within.' That at heart we need to have a very strong\n determination not to allow these subjects to take us down. Having purpose and a spiritual resolve is an imperative during these tumultuous of times.
\n International Media
\n When the Earthquake happened in Kaikoura NZ on the 14 November 2016, Nigel received a lot of international media attention after his predictive Facebook\n post on 6th November. However, he talks of attacks on his character, both public and private. He said he just wants to know what’s going on in\n the world. He is just inquisitive to how nature and life works.
\n Note, Steffan Browning the ex Member of Parliament for the NZ Green Party mentioned that there was a large floating oil corporation ‘seismic’ barge\n situated off the East coast of South Island between Christchurch and Kaikoura around the time of the earthquake.
\n The interview covers Fake News but also a 'Heads Up’ to what may be actually happening.
\n Fake News is now a global phenomenon – that much of the MSN news, especially beamed to homes in the US and Europe is based on fear and terror.
\n Mentioned also is the HAARP facility in Alaska – High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (do the research) plus other international facilities\n and more new advanced technologies that are now being deployed. Though not mentioned in this interview, researchers think that there could be 100\n portable HAARP units being deployed globally. Not only in the USA. link is below *
\n That the tech is becoming so advanced that we do not know what weapons are being used - like space based weapons on orbiting platforms that are testing\n and using plasma technology.
\n Weather and Frequency Wars
\n When perusing photos of the sky zig zag patterns – and waves – can be seen plus seine waves – being curved and also sawtooth and triangular waves plus\n square waves or half rectangle – showing very crisp lines between clouds and blue sky – and these he states are not natural cloud formations. That\n they are perturbed clouds that in some instances make the clouds look like waves.
\n He mentions that NZ could be influenced by 'frequency systems' based in Australia affecting our Tasman Sea weather patterns and NZ being possibly having/relying\n on a certain amount or quotient of precipitation. (rain) This statement was not pursued, however this information may become more known in the\n future. He said that there are many non disclosed weather experiments happening. That time has to be taken in studying the large number of weather\n photographs and the complexity of how these systems constantly flow in and out. Plus he is not privy to many photos as they may be censored or\n just not posted on the web.
\n Secret Projects
\n Also discussed are 'dark projects' – of the secretive military industrial experiments – using high orbit space base weapons - that there seems to be\n some 'Directed Energy Events' involved with California's wildfires – that many people are realising could be caused by certain factions testing\n their technologies.
\n Called directed energy weapons – is one of the new technologies and Nigel gives a run down that says that the use of lasers, particle beam tech, plasma\n weapons, microwave and a whole assortment of direct energy systems are part of the US ‘defence’ departments secretive experimental arsenal.
\n It is important to know that weather warfare is not a new concept.
\n U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather - Space.com\n
\n Oct 31, 2005 - U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites compared “lights at night” images before and after Hurricane\n Katrina disaster. ... In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react\n ...
\n The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction: \"Owning the Weather\"
\n
\n For years now steering hurricanes in certain directions has been high on the military agenda.
\n On the West Coast of the US there has been devastating forest fires in the town of Paradise and previously in Redding and there are still ongoing investigations\n as to what were the really cause or multiple causes. That weather fronts flowing from west to east across the North Pacific ocean towards Canada\n and America seem to always be held back, as if hitting an invisible wall - that this ‘suspension’ of rain fronts are seen to be the cause of the\n droughts in California.
\n But is this at all credible? Who would believe such statements?
\n Then we talk about who would believe this – this is so dark that people just don’t want to know. Who would want to research such nefarious and subversive\n subject matter?
\n We then covered how to understand this subject without being taken down or becoming depressed.
\n Becoming aware yet staying strong and well fulfilled within.
\n So we talked about inner discipline – becoming well resourced so as to keep in our heart.
\n Also, to awaken people to the shadow side of life if we want to bring peace to the world especially for all children.
\n Nigel opens up to express how he sees existence - saying 'life is a game' – and we need to be one step ahead of the game – by knowing what is happening\n and that it is still unwritten. That we are the writers of the script – 'that we are spiritual beings having an earth experience' and so we need\n to always be beyond becoming a victim.
\n Honouring Activists
\n He tells of an award system he is developing called ‘Levelling the Playing Field’ honouring activists and being rewarded with recognition and prizes.
\n That when activists keep the subject matter in the public mind, eventually the Government will in the face of overwhelming evidence do something like\n ban certain deleterious activities
\n Asbestos, thalidomide and DDT - have seen to be detrimental to health and human life and finally become banned.
\n This was both an interesting as well as overwhelming subject to bring to the public consciousness. You will never hear national radio from all the\n differing stations across NZ discussing such a subject other than* to dismiss it or to contemptuously disparage it. However, with $21 trillion\n in the US been hidden from the public of that country, you would think that this would be an exceptionally subject that the media in NZ would want\n to bring to public arena. This is what we are dealing with today. Be it fake news (distraction) or censoring by omission which, is very predominant\n not only in NZ, but in Western media globally.
\n \n
Links
\n \n * www.RushFM.co.nz - state that they are the most alternative radio station in NZ. And on occasions\n play GreenplanetFM.com radio shows to their central Waikato listening audience.
\n \n Facebook page – weatherwars international https://www.facebook.com/groups/1310150419018802 Rick Duart
\n https://www.facebook.com/nigel.gray.5\n
\n https://sorendreier.com/jeff-rense-geoengineering-and-the-disastrous-ca-fires/ *
\n Dutchsince - https://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse\n
\n NOT MENTIONED: We must always be conscious that the use of super computers to run scenarios is always a major fundamental in the secretive defence\n and space based as well as financial scenarios.
\n These supercomputers situated in all major countries are being used 24/7 to work out ‘best case scenarios’ - or ‘worse case’ - depending on what devilish\n scheme or chain of events that are being envisioned.
\n We also did not get around to mentioning the assault on the world whales and dolphin population – the cetaceans.
\n The US Navy, but most probably other navies are using high powered sonar and other radar technologies to hunt for submarines silently submerged possibly\n half a kilometre down in the ocean depths.
\n These electronic intrusions are having a horrendous impact on the cetacean population as they have such ‘sensitive hearing’ that they are picking up\n mans increasing technology interference that is violating their right to live unharmed anywhere in the earth’s oceans.
\n",
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"description": "There is no such thing, as ‘public’ transport in Auckland.\n
\nThe trains, buses and ferry services are publically subsidised, but privately owned, operated and managed, passenger transport operators.
\nAuckland Transport won't reveal how many public millions are being paid to subsidise private passenger transport, on top of their private profits.
\nTheir books are not open - regarding the millions of public monies paid to subsidise these private passenger transport operators.
\nState Capture is where corporate vested interests get their way, at the policy level of council or government, in order to get laws passed that\n serve their interests.
\nWith whom are the policy analysts consulting, before legislation goes through the council’s machine?
\nThese are issues that both Lisa Prager and Penny Bright have been exposing.
\nHere’s an example: Auckland Transport has appointed Shane Ellison as its new Chief Executive. Prior to 2011 Mr Ellison was located in Paris with Transdev where he was responsible for global corporate\n development and innovation. Transdev (previously Veolia) runs Auckland’s trains!
\nAssociate Minister for Transport, Green Party MP, Julianne Genter is married to Peter Munns who is principal economist for MRCagney that advises Auckland Transport on cycle ways. Perhaps Auckland’s push to create cycleways, when our aging\n sewage system is polluting our harbours, shows an ideology that is not allowing for a balanced use of Auckland Council / Auckland Transport’s money\n but rather a determination to get people out of their cars. This Lisa explains is part of Agenda 21, which New Zealand, and Auckland, are signed up\n to.
\nLisa is a bike rider and is not against cycle ways. However when they go through shopping areas and take parking from local businesses they are destroying\n community and people’s livelihoods. Shops lose custom and so close down.
\nTheir landlords then have to sell their properties cheaply to developers who then build blocks of flats, says Lisa, and our Australian shopping malls will\n expand to accommodate the population.
\nMature trees are also being cut down. The whole cycleway project is ill thought out as shown in this article in Spinoff.
\nLisa is also concerned at the spraying of glyphosate by Auckland\n Transport’s contractors – Fulton Hogan. The WHO has labelled glyphosate as probably carcinogenic but there is evidence that problems don’t just end there. Yet Aucklanders are having it sprayed\n on parks and berms all over the city.
\nLisa Prager is an artist, sculptor, award winning documentary maker and proud co- owner of Garnet Station cafe/bistro in Westmere.
\nShe trained as an actor in the late 70's at Theatre Corporate in Auckland, but left to become a political activist & pop artist.
\nInvolved with Wake Up Auckland in the early 2000's she challenged Les Mills & Auckland Council's homophobic attitude towards the Hero Parade and homosexuality.\n She stood with others against John Banks and the sale of pensioner/affordable housing and the actions of Auckland Council & Auckland Transport\n to transfer public assets into private hands.
\nShe stood with others to fight the sale of airport shares, the privatisation of Westhaven Marina and the ideology behind the badly designed, unsafe, overpriced\n cycleways. Lisa supports a nationwide tree protection policy and replanting Native Bush not pines to fight climate change.
\nShe is Currently Spokesperson for Occupy Garnet Rd movement.
\nThis Link below explains the graphic on the top of the page
\nhttps://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12152507
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"Sub-Paragraph": "Lisa Prager explains her actions at Occupy Garnet Road and explains the bigger picture of why we are being forced to have cycle lanes, and how cronyism and vested interests are evident within CCO Auckland Transport and Auckland Council. She also has quite a bit to say around Auckland Transport’s glyphosate weed spraying programme.",
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"description": "\n
Whereas prior to the year 2000 we did not see such things however, especially since 2009, these trails are becoming far more obvious and this interview\n attempts to explain - why?
\n Why here in NZ and who would be involved? We see photographs of these in America, and they have billboards alongside freeways shouting out, “look up,\n they are chemtrails!” “What are they spraying?” - Yet why here in sleepy little NZ, what is it - that's really going on above our heads?
\n\nMalcolm Scott is an experienced and qualified researcher recognised by the NZ Tertiary Education Commission. He has authored several research reports for\n various organisations and is currently working on a thesis about people’s perceptions and experiences of climate change and chemtrails.
\nIn 2015 Malcolm began investigating correspondence with various New Zealand government agencies especially the Ministry for the Environment about the public\n reporting of alleged high altitude chemical aerosol spraying operations from aircraft in New Zealand. These are commonly referred to by the public\n as ‘chemtrails’ and since the late 1990’s - chemtrails have become a global phenomenon …
\nA great many middle aged NZers have been looking up into the usual clear blue NZ skies since they were born and have never seen - what they have been seeing\n since the early 2000’s and especially from 2009 onwards. These ‘long white cloud’ like extended trails can even go from near on horizon to horizon.\n They can stay there for a prolonged time before after some while, slowly spread outward to eventually become a cloudy haze.
\nNZ Authorities Deny All Knowledge
\nListen to how Malcolm has since 2015 been corresponding with the Ministry for the Environment, NIWA - the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research,\n the EPA the Environmental Protection Authority, the CAA, the Civil Aviation Authority and also the New Zealand Defence Force - And in Malcolms words,\n all of these organisations - one way or another - deny any knowledge or involvement with Geo Engineering - whatsoever in NZ.
\nAluminium, Barium and Strontium
\nYet all of these organisations have received correspondence from the NZ public - and some of them have received quite detailed evidence - photographic\n and video evidence. Some have even received analysis of rain water concentrations specifically demonstrating aluminium, barium and strontium and even lithium.
\nThat there is some very good research out of the USA by J Marvin Herndon published in 2015 - about military craft flying in a grid pattern in California.\n That these aircraft are specifically modified and designed for aerosol spraying operations - so they fly a grid pattern backward and forward with aerosols\n that over the course of the day spreads out to in effect, cause a dirty grey sky haze. If you go on line there is a lot of material posted by US residents\n on what they are seeing in their particular region. Search Geoengineering.
\nNZ residents are posting to social media
\nIn NZ it is nowhere on the scale that it is in the US, however NZ residents are still posting to social media almost on a daily basis. Also, they are sharing\n among each other and correlating what they see from different parts of the country and where certain airports are, including departures and arrivals.
\nMalcolm says that his correspondence with the NZ authorities is to establish what they know - and he said - “they know a lot.”
\nIt’s about long trails from nearly horizon to horizon that hang there even up to a number of hours and gradually disperse, into a haze what is commonly called chem clouds - these are not simply emissions from jet fuel - there is obviously other chemical components and factors involved in this, where they remain and persist in the atmosphere - that connect directly to the science of ‘geo engineering.’ \n
\nSolar Radiation Management
\nNote that over the last 3 decades that there has been a massive increase into the research of Geo engineering particularly the notion of ‘solar radiation\n management’ - which is the idea of spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to increase atmospheric albedo that reflects solar radiation back into space.
\nThis is to supposedly reflect sunlight back into space so as to alleviate ‘global warming.’
\nThis is a huge technology that has been growing out of the USA for the last 2 to 3 decades and apparently is being applied to many other countries around\n the world.
\nMalcolm mentions Geoengineeringwatch.org and also writer Elana Freeland and her many books. see https://www.aircrap.org - or https://byebyebluesky.com/elana-freeland\n
\nElana traces back to the early 1990’s to a CIA operation called Project Cloverleaf - do an online search. That it was a coordinated military operation\n since the late 1990’s (and in NZ the 2000’s) it has appeared to have escalated into a global operation that Malcolm says it has now morphed into complicity\n with ‘civil aviation operators.’
\nIn NZ many ordinary citizens are out and about and are taking photos because they are interested in strange cloud formations etc and are posting them online.\n It has been noticed that many of the aerosol trails photographed are from commercial aircraft - because people are able to use aircraft tracking platforms to identify aircraft.
\nMilitary Involvement
\nMilitary Aircraft turning their transponders off. (leaving no signature)
\nMalcolm has also found that there are some aircraft that are not visible on the - ‘on line tracking services’ - that identify aircraft.\n These are presumed to be military aircraft that are operating with their transponders turned off. Therefore they are not identifiable. As the military\n have their own rules they do not necessarily have to comply with the same regulations and that of certain civil operations.
\nSo military operators use unmarked aircraft - i.e converted aircraft with no military insignia and they are therefore hard to identify, however reports\n on social media say they have been seen in parts of NZ.
\nOverseas involvement
\nIn Malcolm's video presentation he mentions the US has taken 100 Boeing 757s and converted them for aerosol operations and according to William Thomas\n in his 2004 book Chemtrails confirmed - he confirms that the military have done this.
\nThey have bought up old Boeings and refurbished them for aerosol spraying. For possibly a global fleet that is leased out to certain overseas military\n organisations. However the military in NZ have declined any knowledge of such operations. Even though an Omega AC10 aircraft Ex Dc10 - (with ties to\n Evergreen International) which is said to be a US military operation, was seen and photographed on the tarmac at Ohakea air force base in Palmerston North many years ago. Payload is 145 tonnes of liquid. What sort of liquid would this aircraft be carrying as jet fuel comes to NZ by ship?\n
\n
\nMalcolm approached the NZ Defence Operations and said that as he was an Academic researcher was he able to take time looking at the aircraft that the NZ\n military have, like checking their log book and routes taken? This way he could confirm that they have nothing to do with aerosol operations and they\n flatly said No! This was from Gerry Brownlee who was the Minister of Defence for the National government and he in this letter denied any involvement\n by the NZDF in military aerosol operations in NZ.
\nThe interview covers:
\nDavid Parker the present Attorney-General of New Zealand who gave a categorical denial that there was no geo-engineering happening in NZ. He signed a letter\n stating as such.
\nWe are in a global experiment that is been conducted at altitude and also at ‘night time’ - to hide the activity of aircraft.
\nIs it going to produce more global heating or decrease global warming - professor Tim Lenton of Exeter University called this “an uncontrolled experiment.”
\nIt is being done without ‘our’ informed consent - and is being executed by unknown faces further up the military industrial system.
\nIt is weaponising the atmosphere - Elana Freeland - writes of\n weaponising space.\n
\n
\nThere is no public consultation in NZ
\n Watch US scientist David Keith - a head tripping geo engineer - and his infamous\n ‘free-riding on our Grandkids’ quote.
\nMassey University testing to gauge NZers awareness about Geo Engineering.\n Massey University Scientists talking it up? - 15th February 2014.
\n The Massey article.\n
\n
\nThat though there has been an increase in water/moisture in the atmosphere due to global warming - it cannot be used as an excuse that these ‘trails’ are\n a result of far more condensation etc. Because all these aircraft are flying in all climatic zones, seasons, times of day, pressures, altitudes and\n latitudes.
\nNOTE: In this interview we did not discuss as to how these spraying operations spray from the aircraft or how the liquids or whatever it is that is emitted\n from the aircraft - are stored on board. As photoshopping pictures can be too easily perfected. This dispensing subject will be left for a later interview.\n
\nThings to do:
\nWrite to the NZ authorities - every email or letter becomes part of the public record - this can be then connected to either a Parliamentary process or\n a court process - this procedure will be a public record that will substantiate what is taking place in NZ.
\nThis is ‘people power’ the same kind of people power that enabled NZ to become Nuclear Free.
\nChecking your rainwater storage tank
\nIf on rain and tank water do independent tests on your drinking water: Hills Laboratories are qualified professionals.\n
\n
\nWeb Sites
\nhttp://poison.bioenergeticspectrum.com/contrailschemtrails.html\n
\n\nhttps://chemtrailsnorthnz.wordpress.com/ - run by NZer Clare Swinney & Jim Reece
\nhttps://www.globalresearch.ca/video-overcast-an-investigation-into-climate-engineering/5623740\n
\nThe Swiss filmmaker Matthias Hancke worked on his first documentary OVERCAST for almost seven\n years. In 2007 he realized for the first time, that the man-made cloud cover was not a natural byproduct from aviation.
\n\n
\n16th of August 2018.
\nGeoengineering: An Interview with a US Air Force General ( Richard H. Roellig / interviewed by Dane Wigington ) where US General Charles Jones is also\n mentioned as being very concerned with what is going on.It is important to note that the US military and all Western military are “compartmentalised”\n - that they are only given certain information that is directly involved with their present station. They are kept out of the loop with all other operations\n - hence ‘they know nothing’ of other (secret) operations. This is standard practice, in all their operations and for that matter in banking too.
\n\n \n
\n Edward griffin\n
\n
\n \n Search for the US Air Force paper - ‘Owning the weather by 2025’ - stating that owning the weather is a force multiplier - The ‘original’\n has been taken down off the web, but do a search - there could be other independent activists who have a copy.
\n 1962 President Lyndon Johnson - raving about controlling the weather - project Popeye over Vietnam.
\n There is much more in this interview than written here, that it is imperative for you to listen to and make up your own mind. The children of today and tomorrow are depending on you!
\n This below is Malcolm’s excellent slideshow video presentation of 2017
\n \n \n
\n
\n
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"Author": "Tim Lynch",
"Sub-Paragraph": "Across the skies above NZ more and more people are noticing thin white lines of cloud emanating from overhead jet aircraft and many are now photographing them. Vapour trails, contrails, chemtrails - Geoengineering? What are they?",
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"description": "Though overstated, it has for an increasing number of New Zealander’s given us a wake up call - as to what do we want for our families and particularly\n our children in our country - so as to make our communities more resilient, and viable, but more so - economically, more friendly, as well.
\nTowns, Villages and City Suburbs working to becoming closer and safer.
\nScattered throughout many of our cities - and in towns and villages across NZ there is an unheralded movement towards ‘re-localisation’ where people are\n committing to work closer together, to communicate, share and do business based on goodwill and win win outcomes.
\nFrom ‘transition everything’ to, farmers markets, time banks, permaculture, holistic health, homeschooling, garage sales, and food buying co-ops - Communities\n are realising that localising as much as possible especially cooperative events, business and around food, learning and backyard growing activities\n …. It’s making small towns, city suburbs and rural villages far more cohesive and enjoyable. People are discovering their neighbours and creating\n deep connection and relationships.
\nIt’s about innovation and integration of small business modals and setting the template for a regenerative 21st Century where families and communities\n can thrive together.
\nThese growing number of aware NZers are realising that the global corporate era (error) is grinding on towards a very uncertain future – for not only our\n civilisation but the whole biosphere as well, So as a result of ‘thinking globally but acting locally’ many thoughtful NZers are taking an in-breath\n and renewing their focus on what is happening in their own neighbourhood and in particular to their local community.
\nThis re-localisation of group energy is unfolding many innovative ideas and models of working in collaboration. As previously mentioned in other GreenplanetFM.com\n interviews - a lot of focus is based around farmers markets, food growing, timebanks, buying and selling and cooperating at numerous innovative tiers\n and levels.
\nSocial Media Fundraising
\nSome are using social media like Give a Little - Kick Starter or Pledge Me to start businesses and the result is that the pledgers within the community\n can become shareholders in that communities construction for instance - like shops etc this gives locals a stake in what is happening in their immediate\n area.
\nThus less money flows out of the community to banks or insurance companies – mostly overseas and instead gives the residents a stake in their local community.\n
\nRelocalising is also very involved in food production
\nGrowers markets and organics extending into permaculture – including food forests, planting fruit trees on council land and in parks. Especially in Christchurch\n as there are large orchards and food forests as a result of people having to leave their houses and property due to the earthquake. These initiatives\n are sparking enthusiasm with locals and especially the youth.
\nHaving a Champion
\nAll you need is one champion and a movement can take place. Usually this comes about from someone having an enthusiastic idea and drawing people to assist\n and a way you go. Have a ‘Give a Little’ web page … many project like this can start quickly – once they get some momentum - with people coming\n together over shared or common interests – at a potluck get togethers … and it draws the community closer together.
\nAnneleise says it’s taking responsibility and making an investment in your community and also meeting your needs. Including involving oneself with ‘time\n banks’ or ‘exchange systems’ – that includes community education projects sharing ideas, and company.
\nTransforming Towns & Villages
\nRural Towns NZ a are in decline as well, how do we restore them again?
\nPeople are rising to the occasion to innovate. Forging a renewed sense of identity.
\nAround: Handcraft, wine, local tourism, wool products, pottery, cheeses – protecting a water way, riparian planting, picking up litter.\n All these projects build up the mana of the town and give cause for celebration and connection.
\nLike Oamaru in the South Island and their Victorian Festival, utilising the old architecture that they did not demolish - Pulling everyone\n together due to shared values or interest or attraction of their town. Giving the town a sense of identity and growing the best of us on many multiple\n levels. This is part of mitigating this traumatic contractual decline that we are in - collectively.
\nTirau in the North Island where 30 years ago it transformed itself from a very uninteresting village on the main arterial route from Auckland\n to Wellington by having all the exterior cladding of buildings being made out of painted corrugated iron - fashioned into the form of huge farm animals.\n This totally invigorated the village turning it into a roaring success and now is an important stopover for local and overseas travellers.
\nHousing
\nThis interview also covers Affordable Housing – Lyttelton is looking seriously as a community at this important topic. Top down and bottom up - Council\n and community are working towards a common aim.
\nListen to a new commercial development in Lyttelton that is very unique cultivating a win win win for the town and people - a community investment.\n
\nCrowd funded and the people who put money forward as investors become shareholders – and pays dividend back to the community investors – thus\n the ownership of the business is retained in the community.
\nThe Commons – commonly held land and resources become community held resources.
\nHemp
\nAnother ‘out there' community experiment is in Ruatoria near Mt Hikurangi in the East Cape of the North Island. Where a large commercial hemp farm is in\n progress. It was pulled together via another web based money raising exercise - and there is now the possibility of this working model - to be the\n initiator of a NZ wide hemp revolution across the whole nation. This is huge, as NZ has not been as fast on the uptake of hemp a it could, solely because\n of a countrywide conservative attitude. Hemp will definitely be a great financial motivator, as it sequesters Co2 out of the atmosphere, it can be\n used for a huge number of products, clothing, textiles, block building and halting erosion too - so this is an important environmental enterprise.\n
\nValues within our Communities - this is a very dear subject that Anneliese went at length to talk to.
\nThe diminishment of values as a result of an economic system that has winners and losers and also that over the last three terms of Central Government\n leadership being divisive and not telling the truth comes up in this interview.
\nWith poverty there was the scapegoating of minorities and the poor – who have been demonised – yet Anneliese states it is a manufactured situation.
\nListen this as gets really interesting.
\nIt is about Safer Communities for Children
\n- \n
- About the deeper level and the underbelly of NZ. \n
- Depression, violence plus bullying from higher levels of leadership. \n
- Gas lighting – the discord \n
Covering the; #metoo movement and #timesup - as this sexual abuse pattern has been brewing under\n the surface across NZ.
\nFrom the Wall St Occupy Movement – when people said - enough of the exploitation!
\nThis interview continues to cover certain psychopathic tendencies of the successful businessmen at the top of most corporations or countries.
\nThen Anneleise passionately states that ‘when we are a village – when we see a starving person we don’t deny them or blame them - ‘we help them!’
\nShe gives us statistics that 60% of our NZ state wards have been abused … by people who are paid by taxpayers to actually care for them.
\nMost NZers have no idea or any concept of the degree of child abuse that has been happening across the whole length and breath of our country.
\nThis silent horror has actively been engaged in for generations and for all children has been a nightmare that has traumatised their whole life.
\nThis is a shocking indictment on the NZ psyche as we are lead to believe that we are a good upright moral country, but behind closed doors another insidious\n dimension is being perpetrated on innocent children.
\nThat 1 female child in 3 is abused and 1 male child in 6 is very upsetting.
\nSo what this interview brings to our consciousness, is for we as a people need to courageously and honestly face the future, become engaged, have a strong\n and loving heart and realise that it is urgent for us to deal with all the challenges that surround us.
\nWhen we engage with our neighbours and friends in community, this also care and love to be expressed in action. With the biosphere at multiple tipping\n points, be it ecological, economic or societal - the urgency is now. We have to care for todays and tomorrows children - because we were once children too
\nThis is a lovely open-hearted narrative of being vulnerable in sharing her story.
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\nMany more NZer’s today are talking among themselves that there has to be a far better way for us to live, especially for our collective planetary future.
\nUp and down and across New Zealand, many 'kiwis' are slowly but methodically going about integrating with their local community - wishing to share at a deeper level, values that are expressed from the heart and from a place of honesty and courage.
\nFrom little villages, districts, towns, to suburbs in cities, farmers markets seem to be a key ‘nodal point’ where people can congregate and cross pollinate news and views of how community can come together - so as to become self reliant, and resilient as well as creatively taking innovation\n to a new art form.
\nAre you one of these cultural creatives? Who enjoys meeting people to talk deeply about how we can address the urgent needs within the biosphere of today.\n I trust that you are as the following interview I feel, will fill you with optimism and dear I say it, joy, which as you inherently know - we need\n to experience far more of - especially if we are aware of current world news.
\nJuliet Adams became a volunteer in Lyttelton (just beyond Christchurch) in the South Island, just after the earthquake that affected so many people’s lives.\n This came about because Project Lyttelton had a ‘Time Bank.’\n
A Time Bank - is a system that helps people to help each other, without money changing hands.\n
To join a local time bank - there needs to be a basic program on a small computer system so as to record what exchanges are being made. When you join you\n list the ‘skills’ you can offer towards the community and any other ways of helping people in the community to do things.\n
Plus, you will also ‘have some needs' as well where you would like some help.
\nFor example if you spent one hour minding a friends children, they will credit you ‘one hour’ on the time bank records. Then you can use that credited\n ‘one hour’ on your account to pay someone to do something for you. Like fixing the broken fence or mowing the lawns. etc.
\nSo it’s a matter of people exchanging their abilities and their time to help one another - without money changing hands.
\nWhat ‘time banks’ do is bring people and connection much more closer together. Where as money can be over convenient as in the human equation it may not\n play a ‘closer quality’ in reaching out to people and their inner needs. i.e good relationships that are far more healthy … where you spend\n time talking and making sure that everyone is warmly satisfied with the ’transaction’.
\nIn Lyttelton there is over 750 members in their time bank - so if these 750 people congregated all togther in a hall - there is huge potential and possibility\n with the collective skills that are there. Thus a time bank like this has 'vast social capital' that can be unleashed and put to good purpose.
\nCommunity Treasure Chest
\nThe ‘community treasure chest’ - is where people who belong to a time bank, donate and credit their ‘one hour’ to the community treasure chest - which\n allows other people who are going through a tough spell and need a hand up, can avail themselves of accumulated gifted ‘one hour' credits from the\n Community Chest.
\nSo that people who are not even time bank members can receive community assistance.
\nThis is the difference between a system that is built around people - rather than money.
\nProject Lyttelton is based on many projects
\nHaving many community gardens - you give some work time and you can walk away with some of the fresh produce.
\nGarage Sales - about 4 or 5 a week - are all organised through Project Lyttelton - having a well organised, publicised outreach.
\nSaturday Farmers Market - which is a huge success - and this is where town and country meet and much sharing and networking takes place.
\nHelen Dew of Carterton and and Living Economies, North of Wellington and Margaret Jeffries of Lyttelton went to ITHACA in New York in the US many years\n ago and learnt about ‘time banks’ and brought the concept back to NZ. http://livingeconomies.nz\n
\nToday more and more Councils and Central Government are actively supporting communities to assist them to become more cohesive and healthy to improve the\n lives of their citizens. Healthy, happy people, as a result are not dependent on health services and do not draw down on the community or economy.
\nLocally there are Time Banks in Christchurch, Sumner and New Brighton areas.
\nMinimisation of Waste
\nSaturday markets - you can borrow a cup - take it away full of a hot drink or soup and carry it with you, refill it and later on in the day drop it back\n at the market and one of the staff will happily wash it at the end of the day.
\nSame for plates, knives and forks - you can enjoy food and have no concern about disposing anything in the rubbish - food scraps go for compost etc. A\n very clean thought out action plan to minimise waste. The idea of washing up is easily achieved and you have no concerns either.
\nFestivals
\nMany festivals are run in the town that bring people together.
\nGroup Truck
\nBertie the truck, can be hired off Project Lyttelton PL for localised use.
\nFruit and veggie crates of fresh food are available every week.
\nThey have a Library where many leading edge books on community building, finance and success stories of what is happening around our planet are available.\n This is where Juliet volunteers her time. As volunteering is a large part of PL.
\nVolunteering is the glue to keeping the community cohesive and flowing.
\nThey also have shares in a health food shop that is owned as a coop called ‘Harbour Coop', selling\n healthy and organic food.\n
\n
Project Lyttelton is a wonderful fulfilling experiment of people working and playing together.
\nIt is also emotionally healthy as well as providing physical health for ones body.
\nIt in many ways is the microcosm of the NZ macrocosm - where ideals and warm hearted values coalesce into unfolding a better tomorrow.
\nhttps://www.lyttelton.net.nz\n
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When we listen to this powerfully stated interview we can for the first time in decades celebrate the dedicated work of farmers and other primary producers,\n activists, local mana whenua and Councillors to make Northland and Auckland region safe from risky outdoor GE experiments and releases.
\nAnd yes … this was a major battle.
\nThis is the story about how all councils from South Auckland to Cape Reinga (in response to their farmers/ primary producers and other ratepayers concerns\n about outdoor growing of GE/GMOs) took action to defend their region.
\nOnce it became clear (after 2003) that the NZ Central Government had no inclination to fix the serious deficiencies in the Hazardous Substances and New\n Organisms (HSNO) Act, local councils acted to put in place a much needed additional tier of local protection against the risks of outdoor use of GE/GMOs.
\nThe deficiencies in HSNO (as identified by Local Government NZ and many councils) include inadequate liability provisions and no mandatory requirement\n for the central government regulator (ERMA, now the Environmental Protection Authority) to take a precautionary approach to outdoor use of GE/GMOs.
\nCouncils of Northland, Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay took action (in the face of Central Govt inaction) to protect their constituents and the\n environment from transgenic pollution/ risky GE experiments.
\nThe councils of Northland and Auckland worked in a fiscally responsible, collaborative manner to create the innovative \"Inter Council Working Party on\n GMO Risk Evaluation & Management Options\", acting on their duty of care under the Local Government Act and the RMA.
\nThe National Party tried to thwart the good work of the councils, with former Minister \"for\" the Environment Nick Smith's nefarious attempt to amend the\n Resource Management Act (RMA).
\nThis was to strip local councils of their authority and jurisdiction, and destroy valuable GE Free Zones put in place by the councils.
\nBut he failed and in April 2017 Parliament (with the Maori Party staying staunch and refusing to support Nick Smith's ill advised scheme) recognised the\n right of local councils to create enforceable GE Free Zones (Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017).
\nRecognition by Parliament of the opportunity to create enforceable GE Free Zones has been enhanced by recent case law (Environment Court and High Court),\n affirming that local councils have jurisdiction regarding GE/GMOs and can either ban their outdoor use or make strict controls than the EPA requires\n under HSNO.
\nOne of the great advantages of Northland is that it is nearly an island, with ocean surrounding 99% of it. There is only a very narrow isthmus that connects\n it, being less than 2 kilometres in distance. This is between the Manukau harbour and Tamaki of the Auckland harbour.
\nNorthland is an ideal area to achieve the distinction of becoming a GE/ GMO Free Zone. Auckland City and region (because of its size), can act as the GE\n / GMO Free Gatekeeper.
\nA great victory, accomplished with the help of Taitokerau mana whenua and other allies. All Taitokerau Iwi authorities have strong precautionary and prohibitive\n GE/GMO policies for all their respective rohe, Bombay hills north to Reinga.
\nTogether we are stronger- keep it GE free, naturally :)
\nWe encourage you to both listen and share this compelling story of NZ sovereignty.
", "itemId": 16406148, "name": "Zelka Grammer: Nuclear Free NZ Now Working Towards Becoming a GE/ GMO Free Nation, in Law", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/zelka-grammer-nz-GE-GMO-Free-Nation", "url": "/greenplanetfm/zelka-grammer-nz-GE-GMO-Free-Nation", "releaseDate": "2018-06-14T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2018-06-13T22:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2018-06-20T13:07:21.86", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2018-06-20T11:07:21.86", "counter": 6, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/zelka-grammer-nz-GE-GMO-Free-Nation?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=16406148&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "6702365", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "This is one of the most important stories about the battle to keep outdoor growing of GE/ GMOs (genetically modified organisms) out of New Zealand.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2018/20180614-Zelka-Grammar.jpg", "tag1_id": "12808857", "tag1": "Food", "tag2_id": "", "tag2": "", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1448": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "This dialogue with Mark is a continuation of interviewing New Zealanders around the country based on ‘pulling the strings of localised community together’\n and linking them across the nation.
\nMark is a passionate change agent and realises the importance of having robust and resilient communities founded around: Farmers markets, permaculture,\n organics, green dollars and Time banks as well as building shelter and sustainable buildings, holistic health, homeschooling, mensheds and women’s\n cooperatives, plus other regenerative initiatives.
\nThat all of these connect the community into a vibrant, self reliant organism.
\nFor many years in some cases decades there has been a growing awareness by NZers - especially away from the largest cities - that in small towns and villages\n across the country, people still have/feel a sense of community.
\nThat people seeking both better connection, and environmental quietness away from the pace and size of urban conglomeration have gravitated more to a smaller\n town and or rural setting, that is also accompanied by being close to the sea or ocean in some way.
\nSo in apologising in advance, I trust that you forgive me and advise me accordingly if I have omitted your town, village of region below:
\nFrom Kaitaia up North, to Kerikeri, Hokianga, Whangerei and Kaiwaka.
\nTo Thames Coromandel, Raglan over to Gisborne, the Hawkes Bay Hastings region.,and to Wanganui, and Masterton.
\nTo the South Island of Nelson, Motueka, Takaka and Golden Bay, to Kaikura and Lyttelton, the West Coast and further South - people have steadily colluded\n together to build a cooperative commercial understanding around markets. Where today farmers markets are a key hub to community getting together to\n cooperate in other ways as the threads of community tie in so many other aspects from holistic health, to shared working bees, permaculture, organics,\n recycling time banks etc see list at the bottom of this article.
\nThames - Coromandel
\nMark's interview on what is happening in the Thames Coromandel starts with how people are addressing housing and shelter.
\nHaving many differing forms of life style, and various forms of building homes - Cobb houses , rammed earth, straw bale, lots of permaculture permutations\n - people living ‘off grid’ and largely self sufficient - other people living semi on grid whilst developing organic businesses - green businesses,\n lots of sole traders - that is going on at one level.
\nAt another level, also grappling with how to connect-up with other parts of the community that are more traditional - who have come there to retire and\n live in peace by the sea but are now becoming alarmed by sea level rise and climate change - eroding roads as over the last 18 months massive storms\n have come up the Firth of Thames and the Coast road up to Coromandel has been taken out. Plus lots of flooding on the other coast and at Whitianga\n as well.
\nThere are some intentional communities, as well as spiritual communities that are fairly well integrated into the larger community running meditation courses\n as well as extending into town as a shop presence.
\nThere are people looking at ways of cooperating to group together on the land and adding tiny houses etc.
\nBut in a sharing of care, Mark mentions there is also now on the other side of the situation about 30 homeless people living in Thames - sleeping in cars\n - or sleeping out at the back of the community garden etc and some of them have various addictions of some kind or another so there is still growing\n challenges around the dispossessed that needs to be addressed.
\nWhy? Because these people don’t have that sense of community and connection … and access to the resources to be able to change their lives - like\n to buy some land you are talking half a million dollars so there is definitely a different social strata around different degrees of wealth, resources\n and affluence involved. That amidst all this, correct choices have been taken.
\nMark shares from a humorous perspective how the people strive for success and then laughingly asks how does one define success?
\nThe current global and national economic system is not working
\nHe says how do we equate neo liberal economics with half a dozen people sleeping in a car outside your house …?
\nThat neo liberal perspectives are so interwoven into our society that often we don’t realise how embedded we really are, inside this economic model. Like\n a goldfish may have no concept of water!
\nAnd we need to gently bring the harshness of the neo liberal economic system to our leadership so that we can see what it is doing - especially in regard\n to the larger environment and its ongoing social implications
\nCommunity Care and Commitment
\nThe Thames Community Centre has gathered information and research on the needs around homelessness in the town plus the wider community.
\nThat addressing housing of those needing shelter and they have opened dialogue with a local housing company to see how they can build quality budget housing\n for these people - (Listen) Rent affordable home - a lovely initiative.
\nSubject covered in this wide ranging interview
\nTransition Town groups are working closely with the local authorities - in putting forward a vision - and saying wouldn’t it be great if ….? One\n example is turning an area in midtown Thames into its own square. Someplace where people can walk around, sell produce, meet each other a little like\n the agora the marketplace in ancient Athens.
\nProject Lyttelton comes up.
\n\nAbraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs\n
\nRedefining what it is to be an individual these days.
\nThis interview is of a caring and considerate person
\nFuture proofing the future?
\nMark gives a 'Shout out' for Tim Grafton the CEO of the NZ Insurance Council who has been going around the Coastline communities talking about climate\n change and what we need to be aware of. Originally he was taking to the business community but more and more he has been communicating with ordinary\n communities.
\nThe Thames Transition Town community brought him to Thames where the conversation will inevitably focus on the future where we will have insurance companies\n saying we are now going to stop offering insurance to homes and businesses that are too close to sea level. But Mark says we need to start a nationwide\n conversation to have this conversation now, so that we can creatively find a way through this and innovate our way into a more safer future
\nAlso included in this conversation are Maori, Hapu and iwi and working together to successfully replicate that model of cooperation.
\nCalling for humour and joy in among our daily work and challenges
\nThat there is a big insulation program happening for old cottages for no cost - listen
\nCommunity gardens - how a disempowered person found themselves with a purpose
\nHeart politics, that it is a summer conference that has been going since 1984 that is very inspiring.
\nAnchor points - what are they? listen
\nWe are part of a interconnected larger ‘system’ and we are waking up to our reason for living.
\nWe had lots of laughing during this interview :)
", "itemId": 16384483, "name": "Mark Skelding: Thames-Coromandel, Localised NZ communities which connect and prosper towards a shared outcome", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/mark-spelding-thames-coromandel-localised-nz-communities-which-connect-and-prosper", "url": "/greenplanetfm/mark-spelding-thames-coromandel-localised-nz-communities-which-connect-and-prosper", "releaseDate": "2018-06-07T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2018-06-06T22:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2018-06-11T14:57:35.19", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2018-06-11T12:57:35.19", "counter": 7, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/mark-spelding-thames-coromandel-localised-nz-communities-which-connect-and-prosper?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=16384483&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "6676983", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Eco-psychologist, Transition ‘everything.’ Mark is a spokesman for Thames / Coromandel area - which has been a Green Localised Economy for 40 years plus, that has quietly been building up.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2018/20180607-Mark-Skelding.jpg", "tag1_id": "12808829", "tag1": "Community", "tag2_id": "", "tag2": "", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1449": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "There is even more to this nuclear episode - that we are allowing concentrated uranium oxide shipments into NZ ports en route to other countries, for maximising.
\nDenys says that changes have to take place in the ‘consciousness and the sentiments’ of near on 5 million New Zealanders as well as the rest of the world’s\n population to address what is really taking place today.\n
\n
In 1974 FOE - Friends of the Earth started up in NZ so as to speak up for most environmental issues. Stating that social and ecological consciousness\n has to grow to be able to counter these increasing trends of disconnection from the planet that sustains us … and that we are also running into\n a generational problem that Bob hinted at in the introduction - of unknowingness of the issues by our youth.\n
Irradiated food entering NZ with poor or microscopic labelling.
\nYet, during this time NZ also became the first country on Earth to ban the irradiation of food - However in the 1990’s because we lost our ‘ sovereignty’\n through the CER - Closer Economic Relations with Australia - when both countries merged their regulatory authorities thus Food Standards NZ and every\n Australia State and Capital Territory got one vote only. It’s not like one vote one country like with the United Nations and so NZ had to go along\n with Australia’s Pro Irradiation stance, being out voted every time.
\nThe result means that a whole range of exported Australian fruit and vegetables are imported into NZ and becomes our diet - which is irradiated with caesium\n 137.
\nFirst they started off with mangoes which was regarded as a sweetener - and now tomatoes and capsicums are irradiated so are grapes, pip fruit and citrus\n fruit.
\nYet the labelling of such treatment continues to be poorly addressed and most people do not know that they could be eating nuclear irradiated food.
\nConcentrated uranium oxide shipments entering
\nAnother large but silent issue is about concentrated uranium oxide shipments through NZ ports en-route to other countries.
\nThis contravenes our Nuclear Free policy.
\nUp to 800 ton shipments of ‘concentrated uranium’ have been coming through the ports of Auckland - and the NZ workers at the port working on these ships\n were never told of these shipments - and this was completely under the public radar and unknowing NZ has no capability to deal with an accident or\n spillage inside these ships. The uranium is stored in the bow of the ship at the lowest levels and when asked why, was told that it is the furthest\n from the crews quarters - but that section of the ship is also the most affected area with storms at sea. FOE say that they have been shown photographs\n of containers of other goods that have been damaged by storms at sea and Bob says they look like they have been attacked by giant can openers.\n
\n
So these two issues are ongoing.
Logging of old growth forests
\nMost of the important matters of FOE are long term environmental challenges that are almost hidden from the NZ public attention - they are background issues\n and yet are of critical importance - for instance FOE’s first involvement was to halt the logging of vast beech forests in the South Island that has\n actually been an ongoing process of 30 years of activism. The fact that this indigenous forestry project that was halted took 30 years of focus to\n bring the worst aspects of that to a halt. But there are still dangers of that type of project happening again as there are signs of the reemergence\n of the idea that it is legitimate to log forests that are on public land.
\nAnother silent issue is: Gene Editing
\nGene Editing and Gene Drives and an acronym - CHRISPR which are now wedging their way into NZ and FOE says they are probably perilous technologies - they\n may have some uses - though it is surmised that this is going to be used for military application and the research is going to be financed by DARPA\n - as there is a weaponised dimension to this technology - and used on human populations in a negative way.
\nGovernment complicity forces punitive costs to lodging appeals
\nToday to appeal against any environmental or ecological assault in NZ has become very expensive - where it once cost $50 to lodge an appeal to save some\n ecological treasure in this country some years ago, the previous National administration made it more punitive to take an issue to court, that it now\n costs $500 under the Resource Management Act to protect our ‘taonga’ (treasures) - our heritage and for a small volunteer ecological group, it is debilitating.\n Then they have to put up surety of costs - that could then be up to $10 - 20,000 - but first the Government will take your $500 and you may never get\n to court. The game is rigged. It’s stacked against the people - by ’the system’.
\nBeing so, that both overseas and local business interests have been far more successful than environmental protectors. It’s unfortunate - yet that is the\n reality. There is no legal aid for cases brought about for the public interest, this needs to be addressed.
\nNote that a good judge and magistrate can determine in 5 minutes if this is a genuine case. Wherever an environmental case being brought is merely vexatious\n or important, Denys says it would not cost the Government very much at all to set up such a system, where important and authentic cases are heard with\n the help of legal aid.\n
This will allow the people’s voice to speak and to be heard in our own court system. Note that we NZers pay through our taxes for this court system\n as well as pay the salaries of the judges as well as the court rooms - as they are our courts.
Government Organisations not doing enough? \n
Just as the officials who are meant to be safeguarding the environment employed by organisations like DOC, (Department of Conservation) Ministry for\n the Environment, Land Care, etc- all these large Government organisations - we taxpayers already pay for them.They are actually our employees however\n they act as if we are asking them a special, favour to merely humbly knock on there door.
1080 another bogey that won’t go away
\nAt present there is a new exposee on 1080 and insect death - originally it was designed as an insecticide - yes it does cause insects to die - DOC knows\n this is so and this information has been suppressed - but under the Official Information Access - recently a researcher was able to get information\n released. The original scientist Dr Mike Meads was going to present some of these findings to the NZ Royal Society but 10 days before he was going\n to do his presentation DOC fired him and closed down the whole story.
\nHere is Mike Meads telling us prior to his death.
\n\n \n
\n\n
NZ was the first country to introduce an Atomic Energy Act not long after the end of the 2nd World War and the DSIR (Department of Scientific Industrial\nResearch) produced a booklet on it.\n
Atomic Energy Act 1945 – Radioactive minerals – Te Ara ...\n
https://teara.govt.nz/en/document/4781/atomic-energy-act-1945\n
Jun 12, 2006 - The purpose of the Atomic Energy Act 1945 was 'to make provision for the control in New Zealand of the means of producing atomic energy\n and for that purpose to provide for the mining and treatment of the ores of uranium and other elements which may be used for the production of atomic\n energy,\n
This insightful and shocking interview covers many other subjects as well.
If you have questions about Friends of the Earth
\nYou can contact our Auckland co-director, Bob Tait at the office by phone, Auckland 360 9149 or email, foenz[at]kcbbs.gen.nz. You can contact, denys.trussell[at]gmail.com,\n or on the Auckland landline, 308 9940.\n
\n
If you want to underwrite what we do you could send a small monthly payment to our bank account: ANZ 06-0158-0081074-03, Friends of the Earth New\n Zealand Limited. If you prefer, you can make a one-off payment to the same. Our present subscribers pay us on average $20.00 each a month. Even $10.00\n a month will help pay the bills.\n
\n
We do not have charitable status and these payments are not tax-deductible.\n
Like GreenplanetFM.com - Friends of the Earth are a volunteer labour of Love that continues by gifting of the self, as there are basically no other avenues\n for financing ourselves.
\nYou can help keep GreenplanetFM on air and Our Planet on the web with a donation to;\n
https://www.ourplanet.org/donate\n
Thank you,\n
Tim\n
\n
\n
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Whilst the US, has been distracted and immersed in ‘Neocon’ wars, especially in the Middle East and elsewhere it basically has no money to upgrade its\n own countries infrastructure.
\nFrom Communism to Consumerism
\nSince Paramount Leader Deng opened up China to far-reaching market-economy reforms in 1978, China has increasingly impacted the whole world.
\nWith 1.4 billion people, in comparison to the USA’s 320 million - we are now seeing the might of ‘the China effect’. This has far reaching implications\n for our planetary ecology and geo-politics. Will China’s appetite for growth and ‘soft power’ - also take us beyond the environmental global tipping\n point?
\nTim gives us a brief summary of his recent visit as to what is happening across the ever changing face of China and what portends to the future of quite\n possibly the human endeavor - in a world that is in need of wisdom, consciousness and leadership.
\nFULL TRANSCRIPT
\n\n
Tim: We need to be reminded that every day there is some event happening in our world that is actually very heartwarming, like the myriad numbers of people\n globally engaged in random acts of kindness.
\nWhere they do wonderful deeds to help someone out and in the process receive delightful smiles back. Resulting in a win-win situation that brings a little\n more light to our day or paying it forward.
\nWhere someone may offer to do you a favor of gifting you either time or money and you graciously decline but happily say please it's okay just pay it forward.\n And do a favor to some person whom you wish to make happy.
\nThese unheralded happenings are in many ways like the glue that keeps our society intact and coherent for like generous acts of goodwill and even volunteerism\n where we find ourselves in a peaceful disposition to feel that we can gift the community and world it makes a heartfelt impact. As this feeling of\n connectivity and connection radiates out into the community and the world at large.
\nSo we need to remember this ability to bring a little more levity and warmth to our daily life as it definitely feeds the soul and on more subtle levels\n we never know who our client actions may touch.
\nLisa: Kia Ora and welcome, today I have in the studio Tim Lynch who is normally sitting where I'm sitting but I'm going to interview him today on his recent\n visit to China. So welcome Tim and it's lovely to be interviewing you.
\nTim: Ni hao. Hello and Kia Ora.
\nLisa: Well Tim, last September you took off for about 12 days to join in my flying visit but then having been Air New Zealand crew in the past I guess\n you're used to flying visits?
\nTim: Very true.
\nLisa: But Tim tell me where did you go first?
\nTim: Well I went from Auckland to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong I took a quick flight up to Shanghai and from Shanghai then to Xi’an the ancient capital\n up in the Shaanxi province and then Suzhou which is a smaller city just west of Shanghai and then back to Shanghai Hong Kong to Aotearoa.
\nLisa: Okay so that sounds really quite interesting and a lot of places to visit, why did you go?
\nTim: Well there were a number of reasons though I used to fly as a crew at Air New Zealand and I came across Bruce Cathie who was a 737 cap and he has\n a long history of checking out unidentified flying objects or UFOs. And he was really right out there in the early stages of late 60s 70s and the 80s\n 90s where he worked out that there was a planetary grid. And he found out that a lot of UFO sightings were on this particular mathematical or geometric\n grid that embraced our whole planet that the Russians also seemed to have an understanding of. And he had looked at how the pyramids of Cheops was\n placed in Egypt as well as the pyramids in Mexico - Teotihuacan and he found a US Air Force photograph and war map of one sitting in the Shaanxi Province\n up in China. And I wanted to know more about it and way back in 1986 I'd gone up into China and looking for it.
\nI found a number of pyramids there were actually tombs very close to Xian the ancient capital. You know I photographed them and climbed them but they were\n extremely small. But I didn't find this one that I really wanted.
\nSo I went back in 1990 about six weeks after Tiananmen Square and had another look. Now it's really interesting because it was very very peaceful when\n I was in China both those times. I hardly saw a policeman, I didn't see any army or guns or anything like that. The country seems to run really quite\n harmonious to the average eye looking.
\nAnyway so this time when I went back in 1990, I hired a bike and I used Bruce Cathie's Air Force map or photocopy of an Air Force map and tracked rivers\n and railway lines.
\nAnd after bicycling for about thirty-five k’s I found this pyramid and I climbed it and realized it was nowhere near the gigantic size said it was supposed\n to be. It was only around about 36 meters high and it had a base around a bit odd now around about 200 meters long.
\nAnd I thought to myself well this is definitely it but it's not the one that we thought was going to be there, the big eye-opener for the human race. And\n this pyramid is called the Maoling Mausoleum and one of the Han Dynasty Empress has been buried underneath it.
\nNow it's very interesting because there's supposed to be a lot of mercury being put onto that pyramid as well. Because the Han leader wanted longevity,\n he wanted to build up his life and so he was actually given mercury, thinking it maybe was the going to be the the answer to his life which cut it\n short instead. This is some of the craziness here.
\nBut anyway I came back to New Zealand and I told Bruce Cathie, I said look Bruce I'm sorry the great myth is busted, doesn't exist and so I lifted that\n and I had photos.
\nBut it was only a year ago that I decided to develop these photos I had just put them in storage and so I've got these pictures and anyway this is one\n of the reasons I thought I was going to go back up again and have another look at it and I was going to do a facebook video. And say “well here I am\n we can be rest assured that regrettably of a gigantic pyramid that's supposed to be in China does not actually exist”. So that was one of the drivers\n of me going to China.
\nThe other one was back in 2003, I was a teacher, a language teacher and well one of my students or my best student happened to be living up just out of\n Shanghai in Suzhou and she invited me up and say we'll look if you're going to come up to China I can be your translator. So that's how I ended up\n being in China because I knew that with the translator that’d be able to help me and another deeper level of finding out about the psyche of China.\n
\nLisa: Wonderful so a sort of two different reasons for going and twelve days to do it all in.
\nTim: That's right well I've previously been to Hong Kong about what now 15 to 20 times. And you know it and early ‘76 I've gone over and divisions in which\n you'll see the new Chinese development area it was an industrial zone.
\nThey were starting to realize that there's a whole lot of potential in that whole country and then I've gone over to Canton on about and I've had numerous\n trips up end to China. But in 2003 I was teaching up there for a number of months and I realized that what China was doing is that it was renewing\n or modernizing all the cities across China.
\nAnd so the authorities what they are doing is that I'd go into a city and then say we are sacred temples the sacred well the sacred hill the lake anything\n of cultural significance that put a ring fence around them and then basically level all the shanty buildings and start again. And that's what they\n had done and when I went up there last year it just blew me away of what I would say the physical process of modernization was profound and I can go\n into that in a moment.
\nLisa: Well they kind of learned from the West's mistake because in the West we've done things more gradually and over much more time and done a lot of\n things incorrectly and destroyed things of cultural value. They've been able to look at that and see what we didn't get right and then improve on that\n so that's why you'd have modern cities with beautiful ancient temples and things I would mention.
\nTim: Yes well I use Singapore in many cases the template because Singapore was a pretty much a shanty town. And when I first time when I went there was\n in 1972 and it was was a pretty rough area and Lee Kuan Yew had just come into power and he was starting to get some traction and making that city\n a modern city. So Singapore started off with a whole buildings have some very strong central planning and it has become a very successful city architectural-wise,\n etc.
\nNow for China, mainland China that followed that particular template and Shanghai and all the major cities are now very, very modern. What I noticed was\n that there were...I don't know where to start. But what I could say I'll start underneath.
\nWhen I went to Shanghai I noticed that that copied Singapore's subways and all the subways were clean and tidy and efficient and when I went upstairs at\n ground level there they had all these buses clean new buses and they were all tied in electronically at all the different bus stops. There was information\n as to where the buses were. But the Chinese people using the ubiquitous mobile phone could track everything across the whole city. And so they knew\n when to go and pick up a bus and just were quickly looking at their telephone.
\nAnd then further out on the outskirts of town that's what really blew me away they had brand new airport-like bullet train stations. And from there the\n bullet trains fanned out across the country and I realized just how much they had worked it all out. There was a lot of brain power brought in to make\n this country a 21st century country. And this is what the Chinese are onto.
\nLisa: Well I suppose it's possible to do that if you have a dictatorship authoritarian country because you don't have to go through all the regulations\n and red tapes that we'd have to do here to be able to do that. And also I guess everything isn't privatized.
\nTim: These...all these considerations are as mazes as the bullet train that I was on I'd look out at the countryside and a lot of it very green, a lot\n of gardens, gardens everywhere producing foods for cities. And I would say motorways that had been punched through into the countryside, three lanes\n on one side three lanes on the other and I realized that the authorities would have been able to get these put in place very quickly because it would\n be all strategic. And strategic for industry and strategic also in the case of the military.
\nAnd so yes there's all those sorts of things and on the other side of a coin - in all the cities they had electric motor scooters everywhere. They had\n these quiet little machines and they'd worked out the cities that in the main thoroughfare cars and buses would go down and then there would be a little\n separation from those and you'd have little lanes alongside where cars and trucks could bring in food and produce and and merchandize etc.
\nAnd in a next you'd have a footpaths and where people could walk and each one would be sort of divided by a little fence and a lot of trees a lot of trees\n in the city because they know they need trees. And this is going to be a big story for them in the future of getting trees to clean up the pollution.\n And by having electric motorcycles because there's a mega millions of them motor scooters shall I say that the air is a very important issue for a\n Chinese at the moment.
\nLisa: Well I mean Beijing's one of the most polluted cities in the world isn't it and that's why even here you see a lot of Chinese with masks over their\n faces when they're in the city because they don't want to breathe in all the carbon monoxide or whatever it is.
\nTim: Particulates all the different type of particulates that on a micro-level. Yes it's a huge problem and then after the air challenge they have also\n got to deal with water. Water is another one. And it was really interesting because I know when I was up in 2003 I went round looking at the water\n and I'd buy water at shops and believe it or not the best tasting water that I drank was from Coca-cola. Coca-cola knowing in the future that people\n are going to get wise to the junk drink that they put out have strategically bought up all the water companies around the world. And they had bought\n a very good water well or at least a spring and they were bottling quality water which I drank.
\nAnd I noticed that was very good and I was in Australia many years ago and I studied water and I realized what good water is because I also saw that Nestle\n was selling water. And when I drank that water I knew instantly that it was just filtered water from the mains or at least it tasted that quality.\n
\nLisa: All right well Nestle is trying to buy up all the water in the world as well and have made the CEOs made it very clear that we should not get water\n free.
\nTim: Not a human right he says.
\nLisa: But this is interesting because in China I would imagine that there is some sort of idea that everybody has a right to food and water.
\nTim: Well what I found is that the Chinese eat very, very well. So well in fact that I only saw one obese person and all the time that I was there I knew\n once that person and I thought they must have had a thyroid or a glandular challenge.
\nBut the food that they eat and I went to markets and I looked at all sorts of food very very good quality on the appearance. I mean I wasn't able to go\n in and check and see exactly where was the organic section or anything like that but the Chinese are aware that they have to eat good food. And but\n one thing did upset me was seeing a lot of squid for sale and I know that squid has picked up by all these squid fishing boats globally.
\nAnd I have there also been in touch of a person who used to work at AUT Auckland University of Technology who studies sperm whales and he said that there's\n a lot of sperm whales that they're finding with no squid and their tummies at all in their stomachs. Because of the fact that there are too many fishing\n boats taking this squid from the water. So we have to really look seriously at this because it's huge but the global fishing fleets are taking all\n the fish and we got to get right back to localized aquaculture if we want to get savvy. And if people will have protein from fish then we've got to\n take the fish from land or ponds and not from our oceans.
\nLisa: Yes it's a difficult one I'll tell you in Thailand I have never seen so many fishing boats, they were just about cheek-by-jowl. It was incredible\n so I mean I don't see how the fish have a chance.
\nTim: They don't, they don't. I've had numerous interviews of people here in the studio and they're using all the latest technology. So now they're tracking,\n they're tracking all these fish and they're corralling them. And yes we're going to have a crash by 2040 due to the fact that there's no real licensing\n there because we've got a as a humanity start cutting back on taking the fish from the sea. Yes.
\nLisa: Yes yes China is a country, it sounds like they are planning all the time for the future
\nTim: Oh yes
\nLisa: So I would think that they will actually eventually get to looking at fish stocks around the sea. Because there is definitely this idea of we've\n got to look after the environment, the air, the water and so I imagine the sea will come into that as well. But I hope not too late.
\nTim: That's right they are thinking about it I know because previous year I was actually there when they had their big huge conference. I saw it was a\n gigantic conference where he was able to consolidate power but he was also laying out a vision. He wants China to be a beautiful country and he knows\n that nature is part of this whole thing.
\nAnd I want to get into Taoism and the ancient mystical thought of how China came into being thousands of years ago but I want to be able to just cover\n also a few other things. I was amazed at all the bicycles that are lined up in the cities. And they've got the QR code, the quick response code, the\n matrix barcode decal type thing like a computer barcode that's stuck on all sorts of items these days and so that with a mobile telephone you can just\n go one click.
\nThat telephoning can follow through on that particular barcode and we can find out all the information on that particular item. And they use Alibaba which\n is the big Amazon of China to act as the banker so at all the people in China really when they want to buy something they just click click click like\n this. And it all automatically goes through Alibaba to their bank accounts and the bank account is debited whatever that particular item that they\n want to buy.
\nAnd so they're getting really, really organized. But get back to these bicycles they even had a little solar units on it as well to keep the lights etcetera\n going for the bike. But I have heard since that a lot of these bikes are ending up in dumps. People are for the first hours it’s free and so in that\n first day if they dump it they can walk away and no responsibility. After one hour you have to get your phone and then click on the button to get your\n barcode sorted and then they know who has actually taken responsibility for it. So they kinda have to tidy all this up.
\nLisa: They'll have to make it hang from the beginning because I saw on the news New Zealand news a massive dump of bicycles in Beijing. It's absolutely\n huge yes I couldn't believe it. And I thought how could these people be throwing the bikes away. So yes they have to recycle them all of course and\n repair them and change the system and not give them an hour free which is unfortunate but that's I suppose human nature, not really respecting the\n system.
\nTim: You've got it, this is true. When you give somebody something free regrettably, there are certain ones among us who does have got no respect for the\n goodness of what that gift is. And here so will this new QR coding it's going to is going to be able to make the people more responsible for everything\n that they get. Because they're finding to that if they throw something away or like a cigarette packet on the side of the street they can track back\n from that code too like the RFID code then see who bought it. And then find out who dropped it on the ground.
\nLisa: So really what you got going on in China you've got the the kind of Western materialistic capitalist type of thought coming through and that would\n be those people that would throw the bikes away. And then you've got the the respectful people who still understand the old ways maybe or who have\n been taught the old ways that would care about the community and not just about the individual.
\nTim: Here's an interesting one what shocked me and that really shocked me was wherever I went as far as the eye could see I could see these 50-storey apartment\n buildings and I couldn't believe the amount of them. And I was on the bullet train were going through the country whose see clusters of them all over\n the country and some of them I felt were a little bit too close to each other. But I have managed to be able to go into one of these and I was on the\n 12th floor and I went into a home and it was with only Onewa, my translator’s family and his sister and her husband and a new little daughter, lovely\n little daughter sweet one, Bella was her name. And I went in there and they cooked me up a magnificent feast and I was able to go in with my video.\n And the living room and the lounge were joined to the kitchen and there was ample room for bedrooms. And the little daughter she had her whole corner\n in the lounge it was her little special posi where she could she had a little fence around it and she had her dolls house and and all their toys and\n was it was delightful.
\nAnd I thought to myself if I had to live in a and this apartment would definitely fulfill my needs and so what is that the government wants to make sure\n that people in China have got very good accommodation. And so from that good we can definitely learn from this is a very very important issue because\n what they’ve done is that they’ve pulled up six hundred million people out of what I would say quite depressed situations of huts and houses that some\n would say would possibly squalid particularly in the rural sector they still got work to do there but it's happening.
\nAnd what really impacted me in this whole journey was that China has stolen a march on Uncle Sam. It has actually outflanked America by putting huge amounts\n of money into the infrastructure across the whole nation. And the reason why it's been able to do this is because it's got no wars going. America has\n got itself totally entangled in the octopus that it is and wars everywhere particularly in the Mediterranean and the Arab world.
\nLisa: Well Africa too - very quietly.
\nTim: Yes well that's right this challenge is about for years of in Somalia. So what America has done is it has squandered all its resources and put it\n into war and to the military-industrial complex and if you do note there's 21 trillion dollars in the last few months that is unaccounted for that\n has been lost within the military-industrial complex - 21 trillion dollars. And has come out of a big university in the United States so we're going\n to find out more about this. So Michigan State University and Professor Mark Skidmore are exposing this fraud. America has lost its opportunity.
\nI've been up to America in 2014 I was up there and I was astounded at how little infrastructure had been put in place and Trump was actually going to...he\n recognized that too and he was going to put all this money into the infrastructure and we just don't know what's going on there. But this is where\n it is now China is quickly becoming a very modern country for the last 20 years plus it's essentially hoovered up all cements and all the steel globally\n to build up the country.
\nLisa: Well it's a big place to build up isn't it?
\nTim: Fourth largest country land mass wise on earth yes
\nLisa: And yeah I was in the U.S. in 2014 too - and in well no it's in 2011 actually in New York and I mean the pavements were broken all over the place\n you have to watch where you were walking or you’ll trip.
\nTim: I agree with you I remember when I went there in 2010 I went down to a specific place on Lincoln Boulevard just before you go up towards the airport\n and way back in 1993 when I was in Los Angeles I saw this but they could part of the road I thought gosh this is terrible.
\nWell in 2010 I went back to that same place and it was still there and then I started photographing all the broken up footpaths. And the more I looked\n I thought this is terrible and I thought hold on, hold on stop photographing all this sort of stuff. I don't want to photograph the demise of America.\n
\nI want to see what what are the good things coming through the cultural creators and see if we can actually rebuild our countries and rebuild our planet.\n
\nLisa: Well it's running a bit slow in doing this unfortunately over there yes but going back to China how do you think they would have fared if they had\n not had a central government like that running it, would they have been able to do it?
\nTim: Well I don't think so I mean we've only now understand from government even going back to Chang Kai Shek and all the way back to the dynasties who\n always came from the top of the pyramid that what it is at the moment has said I have faith I came away with a feeling Lisa that China could also be\n a new light in the world.
\nBecause I found a lot of kindness with the people particularly all people that look at me and I'd look at my bushy eyebrows and and they couldn't understand\n who I was. And when my friend Onewa we went up to Shanghai, in the main street of Shanghai. I mean it was all dazzling lights and clean and tidy you\n had people always cleaners cleaning up after everybody. There's no cigarette butts on the ground and you know China was a great nation of smokers about\n 300 million, well that's starting to decline now.
\nBut when we walked through Shanghai she would say Tim, Tim they’re all staring at you they're looking at you and they think, well they know that you're\n not an American and I know that you're not because up here they just can't quite work you out. And I said well it's not often that they see a hobbit\n from Matamata in New Zealand. So there was so much in the way of I don't know goodness coming from the people.
\nI was on a train once and the Chinese wanted to share their food with me. They wanted to make sure that I was having a good trip and now we only communicate\n through sign language in this case, I could anyway. But again with Onewa’s family they just took me out to restaurant after restaurant and they wouldn't\n receive any money from me.
\nThey took me everywhere, they just wanted to be kind and it's really interesting because when I came back to New Zealand I met a Kiwi businessman who had\n worked and lived in China. And he said Tim, you know what those Chinese people who took you out they would have been really glad to have met you because\n they've never really met a Westerner who likes to reciprocate and be kind be thoughtful be mindful. They see us Westerners going all the way back to\n the Opium Wars as really wanting to exploit China.
\nAnd this is what really we have done. I mean China has always been on the wrong end of the bargain and when it has come to Britain, Europe, and America.\n I mean we've given China a hard time. And so the Chinese aren't too sure about us.
\nSo he said when a lot of the Chinese people now they're leaving China and going over to Canada and America and New Zealand and Australia, he said a lot\n of them have been able to get out of China because they've got a lot of money. They've been able to go into other countries and he said some of these\n other countries that they go to they're only seeing the entrepreneurial Chinese. The one Chinese who are really going for the money. And they haven't\n got really a lot of time to spend with community in their new country and sometimes you will see them has been focused only on money.
\nWhereas in China the ordinary people they're not just necessarily focused on the monetary thing. Yes they like the technology, they like the change at\n the scene. I am very very proud of their country because in a matter of years they are witnessing the upgrading of everything from transportation to\n housing and and the health is getting better.
\nThough I went to a Chinese health shop and I saw all the different leaves and roots of plants. And in Singapore you'll see even seahorses and it's right\n there tons of this and that and claws of bears and this is as you know the dark side of the house that these are still a balance here between Western\n health and Eastern health. And acupuncture is still an important thing
\nLisa: Well they have I know acupuncture at hospitals for example. So that's you know they've got the Western the best of the West and the East in a way.
\nTim: Very true yes I had a very dear friend who went to an acupuncturist here in Mount Eden. And he was Chinese and he used to fly back to Shanghai regularly\n and he was involved with open hearts surgery. And he was able to find the nodal points in that body so that they could have the operation without having\n to go through all the heavy injections. And God knows what else what we do to - what does it mean anesthetic anesthetics. So yeah well so there's a\n lot going on in this country that we don't know. And I'm just fascinated with where it is going to go bearing in mind that China and Russia are getting\n closer together. And in an actual fact America needs to find ways to put out their hand and say come on we all share the same breath we are a planetary\n culture we're a global family we need to work it all out so that we can be a planet of peace.
\nLisa: Unfortunately I don't see the U.S. doing that anytime soon. And what New Zealand needs to know is we have to look at who our friends are and that's\n really important in my opinion.
\nTim: You are listening to Lisa Er interview me Tim Lynch on my recent trip to China.
\nLisa: I mean I know in China for example if you disagree with the regime or whatever you're in big trouble certainly. And if you go overseas to try and\n get away from it they can still get you back one way in another. So there are some downsides definitely but overall economically and everything else\n I think that perhaps yes Russia and China should be our friends.
\nTim: It's a very interesting thing because I thought about it and this always...I'm an activist and if I see something that's out of alignment or there's\n a human right being violated or nature's been violated, I know this I'll I'll get in and I'll stand up for nature. And I realize that most probably\n I would end up in the eyesight of the authorities both in China and in Russia. So yes I can see that I could get into a tight squeeze in these countries.\n
\nAnd yet when I was in Russia only three years ago they treated me royally and I was with Russians for a whole month. And I never met an American or an\n Englishman or an Australian or at all or anybody from the West. So we're going to have another look at life and we've got to we need to go to these\n countries and spend time with the people. Because of people have a common denominator and I agree with you we need to have a far more open understanding\n of foreign relations.
\nLisa: We could do that actually in New Zealand because there are a lot of people from other countries in New Zealand and yet they tend to stick together\n because they're not invited into New Zealanders homes. There's no real not enough anyway community building between different nationalities here. And\n I noticed it very much actually because I have quite a lot of friends from different nationalities and also when I was working we had 29 staff we had\n 15 different nationalities. So it gives you an idea then as to how people will view things differently. And I think we could do that in New Zealand\n just build on that even if you can't go overseas and see the other cultures. We can learn here.
\nTim: I'm in agreement. I think been skilled and conflict resolution understanding how we can in many ways or find ways to communicate through all the difficulties\n reconciling opposing points of views. I cannot understand why New Zealand hasn't had a huge involvement and communication with the Scandinavian countries.\n We need to have been in Scandinavia for the last 30 to 40 years just learning from them because their social and their industrial ideas work towards\n getting the people on board working together. It's like having share ownership and things like that. So this may happen again China may come through\n with some very interesting ways of doing life and innovative business principles.
\nLisa: They could do I mean now you're allowed more than one child I think.
\nTim: That’s correct.
\nLisa: Because that was a really hard policy and put too much pressure on that one child. So the pressure on Chinese children to learn and to do well was\n really quite unreasonable I believe. So hopefully that will relax now but there's more than one child.
\nTim: I would think so I'd like to think so too. Kiddies need need a brother and sister they need somebody to play with and it balances up everything otherwise\n they could we know in other countries a single child can become quite precocious. But what I'm really trusting on Lisa is that once the Chinese people\n gets full of material things and especially consumerism and realize that they only serve a certain purpose that they will then start self reflecting\n on who they are as a civilization and go back to how the early Taoist and the Buddhists live and look at all the different spiritual qualities.
\nBecause there's a thing like Tai Chi and Chi-gong (Qigong) Tai Chi Chi-gong Kung Fu these have an understanding of Chi. Chi is a hidden energy that we\n in the West haven't been able to grasp at all. But acupuncturists can because they know that Chi flows through our body and by strategically placing\n certain needles in their body they can unblock the energy at a Meridian nodal point to allow us to have a flow in our whole physical configuration\n that'll help us heal.
\nAnd so then is the I Ching the I Ching for defining very very interesting method of being able to tune into certain forces. I mean this Feng shui is how\n you put a house together, how you put your rooms together, how the land has worked with when you put trees and stones and walls and that sort of thing.\n They understand they have this particular sense and there are many other unique spiritual qualities to the Chinese Way of life.
\nAnd I know one of the things that shocked me when I was up in China the Simpsons had come to China and Bart Simpson was on TV every night. And up to possibly\n 300 million young Chinese were watching Bart create mayhem and break all of the taboos of life every night. That he was in many ways single-handedly\n he was deconstructing and pulling the rug out from 2500 years of Confucian thought.
\nLisa: Well my problem with Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson well the Simpsons is that it's very poor role model for boys.
\nTim: Completely, you bet.
\nLisa: And that's it's quite interesting we've had quite a long time of The Simpsons here in New Zealand and boys have been outperformed by girls at school.\n And it just makes me wonder how much influence the television has? I suspect it has huge influence on the children seeing the boys are dumb and the\n girls are bright because that's what the Simpsons were showing.
\nTim: Very much.
\nLisa: Not very good if it does that in China either.
\nTim: That's right well I don't know I didn't ask at the time was were the Simpsons on China. I somehow think that they have been pushed aside because when\n I was teaching them the language school here in Auckland the Chinese came down they flocked down in 2002 and 2003. Auckland was a mess the main street\n of Auckland at lunchtime was essentially 75% Asian and about 25% Auckland solely because the language schools were in the city and that what was happening\n is that all the youngsters at 17, 18, 19 year-old they would end up at the casino, they would end up at all the strip clubs, they found out that they\n can go into the pubs and they get drunk and there is dope there's all sorts of things and what happened was that the Chinese parents realize that their\n children were learning things that were very, very frowned upon in China.
\nAnd so they withdraw all of their children and they wanted the teachers to then go back up to China and teach. Therefore the children will be away from\n all the indulgences and distractions that basically everywhere in our Western society.
\nLisa: Right so that's how you ended up going to try not to teach then.
\nTim: That's right yes
\nLisa: Okay yes yeah it's pretty sad but I'm just going to take you back to when you were talking about Taoism and everything and I'm I'm wondering why\n do you think the Falun Gong persecuted. Because they believe in a lot of this sort of things that you were talking about and yet they're persecuted.\n
\nTim: They're supposed to be around about 70 million people who have become followers of Falun Gong. What they didn't do is they needed to just keep on\n growing and keep on growing but the leader wanted to confront the establishment in China. And that's where they made the wrong decision.
\nThey thought that they could use a bit of muscle and start to shift the dynamics of China and they came up very strong against the political apparatus\n of China. Now had they been more savvy and the guy I think he's still in New York or somewhere in the States who essentially set it all up.
\nIf he said just let it run and just let it work his way in so that all the neighbors in the end would come out of the apartment building and they'd be\n doing tai chi or chi gong out in the park. That would have then started to extend right across the whole country but he used it as a power play far\n too early because I think he might have he want to get political.
\nLisa: Okay so it was timing really it's like wanting the change that you're talking about but trying to push it when society and the government wasn't\n ready. So did you see any people doing Tai Chi or whatever in in the parks.
\nTim: Not as much only because I was short of time yes but when I was up there but previously in 2003 I did Tai Chi with people in the park.
\nLisa: Lovely
\nTim: Yes and I've also done a lot of Tai Chi in Taiwan and there as well. When I used to go up so Taiwan so outside outside China these martial arts or\n these soft martial arts are still here to get the people to be flexible to breathe deep and bring in the Chi. Yes.
\nLisa: Right so how do you think having that sort of lifestyle will work with the very high tech China that's the other aspect of it.
\nTim: Well it's really interesting because at the moment, China has the fastest computers on earth. They're doing mega billions of computations a second.\n They've beat America. They're well in advance and was really interesting because when I went up to China the first time this is really I think one\n of the most interesting stories in 1996 I went to Xi’an and I happened to turn on a TV set and I was watching a TV and showed an airplane I think was\n PanAm 747 flight landing somewhere in China and the cameras focused on some stairwell being pushed up to this aircraft.
\nThey didn't have air bridges in those days because China was not in the game plan at all. Anyway three suits came out of this 747 Chinese men went up shook\n hands and they walked down stairs over the tarmac towards where the camera was. And was just focused on these three American men with suits. And then\n they did a right-hand turn and one had a briefcase and they zoomed in on this briefcase it had the initials IBM. America and IBM had come to China.\n
\nAnd when I was there that particular time in the railway stations that destination systems were so archaic they were so completely dilapidated. Anyway\n I went back again in 1990 just after Tiananmen Square and they had all modern signs in the airports and so we jumped up now. And then and about 2005\n Lenovo, the Chinese corporation, Computer Corporation went and bought IBM's desktop division and took that over. And then finally they've now got the\n fastest supercomputers on earth.
\nLisa: Oh well
\nTim: So what it was there the State Department in America would have given IBM the authority to take this technology to China but the State Department\n were not savvy because as soon as this information came the Chinese would have had at least 10,000 technicians and engineers working 24/7 on it and\n understanding everything they could about computers.
\nNow I want to jump across in New Mexico there is the Santos Laboratory and is also the Los Alamos laboratories, two military laboratories each with 9,000\n scientists in each working on the defense armaments etc or on GA. So what it is these big military laboratories were are in America same in China.\n And so the People's Liberation Army would have said right let's put all our people into. They could have had a hundred thousand different Chinese technicians\n for I know looking at all the ways on how to deal with computers.
\nNow China at the moment is really really the leader and so it all stemmed possibly from that IBM trip way back in 1996.
\nLisa: Oh and I have a Lenovo computer so… and it’s very good.
\nTim: Yes well you see and we don't know if there's a backdoor entry to all these computers. We still don't know and this has freaked a lot of Americans\n out now too because they're buying Lenovos. And so the Chinese could be actually coming through the back door.
\nLisa: Oh well
\nTim: Yeah there's a lot going on and America has accused China of hacking into so many things particularly a military establishment. And we don't know\n yet the full story there's a whole new game going and all we have to do is just to make it really clear we've gotta work together. And I I wanted to\n say one small thing when I was teaching here in New Zealand some young Chinese kids came into her classroom and they said we're ready for America.\n And I said what do you mean? Oh you know when China's big enough now we can take on America. And i say are you sure?
\nYep so I went up to the blackboard and I drew the outline of a nuclear submarine, just an outline and I said in that submarine name is 2020 ballistic missile\n Basel or launch areas. So that’s 20 missiles in that one submarine and they have eight multiple re-entry nuclear warheads and I says okay eight 20s\n what does that come to, they worked it out 160 warheads and I says that's just one American nuclear submarine. And they've got something like about\n 16 of these as well as all of the Bombers and all the the Minutemen sitting in silos up in Montana and God knows what else. I said you're learning\n English I want you to learn English to go up to an American put your head out shake hands and say hi brother let's see how we can all work together\n to resolve all the challenges that we have as a humanity if we want to have world peace and we want to have a children have a future and that includes\n you.
\nLisa: Well it's a very good idea. Unfortunately the last couple of days the US has flown into Chinese airspace around the islands in the South China Sea\n and China is not happy. So in America's sort of thing pupu is not important. Yes we're going to still have to watch American and Chinese relations\n very very closely. Because the US as it always does is pushing hard.
\nTim: Yes it was a difficult the American and military-industrial complex which Eisenhower talked about and which possibly Kennedy wanted to curtail or\n at least dampen down has stolen the ascendant at the moment. And as I said if it was 31 trillion dollars we just don't know what's going on. All we\n do know is that citizen diplomacy is the answer. Lisa, we have to as New Zealanders instead of going to all Paris and to London we need to actually\n go to Moscow and to Beijing and to Shanghai and start communicating with all sorts of people to say right we all share the same breath we all love\n our children we want a future for everybody that we can really enjoy and go into a light of their own true selves as a global family.
\nLisa: We absolutely have to do this or we're not going to survive we're not going to survive the risk of nuclear war we're not going to survive climate\n change if we don't work together. So the whole idea of people of the world working together is essential for our survival
\nTim: So true you see that we're looking at 20% of reforestation throughout China. This is a real big one and they're looking at renewable energy and they\n say that very shortly up to 20 percent of China's energy is going to come from renewables. When I was at the school in 2003 in a place called Yuyao\n which is between Ningbo and Hangzhou and for want of a better place to clarify, we had solar hot water systems on all the school buildings. This is\n in 2003.
\nAnd I saw windmills big gigantic windmills when I was there as well and taking over. So what it needs is we need to be really creative and wanting to find\n ways to reach out and meet all these different peoples of the world and say we've gotta take care of today and tomorrow, for our children and our grandchildren.
\nLisa: And in New Zealand I think particularly a lot of New Zealanders are pretty anti-chinese. So I hope that you've listened to the interview with interest\n because it's not just about all those Chinese coming in and buying our land or you know oh we're selling our water over to China. It's not just about\n this there's a much bigger picture and it's important that we all get on together.
\nTim: I'm in full agreement.
\nLisa: Well Tim we're just about at the end of the interview, we've got a little bit more time.
\nTim: Oh good
\nLisa: What would you really like to say about China, your real most important impressions.
\nTim: That in my travels I've found that 85 to 90 percent of the world's population are essentially good people good people. They just want to get on with\n family have a good job have a holiday have a house and a car and communicate with family members relations etc. and see the world. And so look for\n good and everybody be prepared to put your hand out and be open to their coming back to you and sharing that’s the first thing. I think also learning\n a language is important. My Chinese students used to laugh Oh Tim’s going to be Chinglish soon and Chinese and English combined but it's imperative\n for us to be able to know particular greetings and thank yous and a few other key words prior to us going to a country so that we can set up a good\n resonance between us and call on the goodness of people.
\nBut also I think it from New Zealand standpoint we need to have a far more broader approach to life. We need to have lots of New Zealanders who are adept\n at conflict resolution, going out and living with some of these families, hanging out with them.
\nI don't know what sort of cross cultural ties we have particularly with education and what sort of scholarships we have. I mean we used to have American\n filled scholarships and I think they still go. We need to have these with China with Russia with in many cases of countries that are in need of just\n knowing how the other part of the world live. Because I've seen videos of people who have come to live with families in New Zealand and go to school\n this is the glue that holds our whole global community together as when we are going in with living with a family somewhere else. And we just let the\n love flow. We really get to an understanding that they're different but they're good.
\nAnd if we can find the will to do this the will is required to make that effort, go out of our comfort zone and we come to an understanding that we all\n share the same breath. We are brothers and sisters and we are a global family.
\nLisa: Well I think you've really said it so thank you so much for coming into the studio and talking to me instead of you interviewing somebody else. It's\n been really lovely and I look forward to listening to this again as I edit.
\nTim: Well I thank you Lisa because I don't get the chance to talk. If this is the first time really I'm allowed to get into the flow of things usually\n I just ask the question because all I'm doing in many ways is giving a platform for somebody to let their light out to share what they wish to offer\n to the world. And so I can find myself with a very limited expression but you've given me a little bit more rope so this is wonderful and I want to\n thank you very much for asking me and keeping me on track and see if we can have GreenPlanetFM.com offer up a far greater opportunity for people to\n come together so that we can make our world the place we want to be.
\nLisa: Thank you very much Tim. This interview was sponsored by the Awareness Party.
\nTim: PostScript: In understanding China and it’s 500 years of history back through the mists of time we also have to take into account that they also have\n a mystical dragon that is seemingly a benevolent being that they even incorporated into their 12 yearly astrological moon calendar.
\nThat to the ordinary person who lives on the Western Hemisphere is outside the norm. So there definitely is an enigma as to who and what do the Chinese\n people offer to the world and where it is going.
\nSo what is China's destiny to the Chinese and the highest echelons of government many of them think it's their time to take a leadership role and even\n step right out in front as a planetary leader.
\nWhat is now being realized is that President Xi Jinping who has just been voted in to take extraordinary power to become the president for life we asked\n what does this portend especially when we realize the stupendous challenges and difficulties he endured as a young boy all the way through into his\n thirties.
\nYes, a myriad of questions confront such a gigantic country many among them beamed their agreement to the United Nations Agenda 21 and the implementation\n of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
\nSo today with the predominance of CCC TV and biometric identification advancing exponentially coupled to fifth-generation telephone networks, the peoples\n of the cities of China will need to still have rest and recreation in the rural sector and countryside and parks and also breathing the most freshest\n and purest of air, drink the most cleanest and vital of water and naturally eat organic food bypassing factory and Industrial food.
\nSo they're huge challenges to surmount, especially equal pay and opportunity for woman and that the Chinese people become self-realized and self-disciplined\n as they go about their daily life.
\nFor with this dynamic country many possibilities are very ripe for their civilization to become mindful yet creative culturally, yet from a regenerative\n perspective takes us closer to unity consciousness on a planetary scale whilst retaining their own country's sovereignty.
\nYes take a trip to China and see and experience for yourself. You will be amazed.
\n\n
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Regenerative & (Biological) Agriculture
\nRegenerative & (Biological) Agriculture can be and needs to be initiated very quickly over the face of all arable land in all the major countries on\n earth. This common sense system needs to be championed by all academics, farmers, and environmentalists - then the human society - if we want a future\n for our children.
\nRegeneration of the soil
\nThe regeneration of soil through non chemical fertilisers with the conscious choice of mineral applications using regenerative and biological agricultural\n practices, can be and has to commence as soon as possible - it need not be delayed any longer.
\nWhat Phil Gregory PhD is saying has already been initiated by pioneers Graeme Sait, Ardern Andersen, Susan Jones and Elaine Ingham. We now have the answers\n - what we need now is the education and the will to implement this model of land management - and finally take down this C02 bogey - once and for all.
\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3rhjqzVrRc\n
\nDOWNLOAD THE FULL TRANSCRIPTION
\nDownload the full transcription as a PDF\n
\n
Taking down sequestering Co2 and building up soil
\nThis is no longer a problem without a solution - Regenerative and biological agriculture is the solution and formula to global warming including soil loss\n and unhealthy animals and food chain.
\nThe time is to start as soon as possible - with Government support across all levels of agriculture - and this needs trumpeting at the highest levels of\n government, business, and especially the media.
\nPushing back the barriers of unknowingness.
\nPhil, Gregory was an astronomer who as part of a large scientific team used to study the night skies and during his later years was part of a huge awakening\n that there were planets orbiting stars in our galaxy. That in the last 25 or so years astronomers using the latest technological breakthroughs have\n found thousands of new planets - which is a gigantic step in breaking out of the isolation of the scientific mindset that did not or could not believe\n that there would be other planets circling stars not only throughout our galaxy of a 100 billion stars, but all the other billions of galaxies in existence\n as well. He also surmises that in 30 years time we may know if there is life on these planets.
\nOnly 60 years of Farming Left if Soil Degradation Continues
\nAfter retiring from his chosen profession of Astronomy, one day whilst browsing through a Scientific American journal he read a piece by the UN Food and\n Agricultural Organisation that there is only 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues ! 60 Years - that’s no time at all, he exclaimed!
\nSo this immediately caught his attention - for having 14 grandchildren he realised that we would be leaving them in a very unstable world and so he committed\n to finding a way to taking carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it into the soil - that in turn supports the microbes which then assists in\n roots growth and plant life prospering.
\nGlobal Food Security - what are the issues
\nThis 60 year only timeline lead him to also research all aspects of desertification and animal grazing - that are all imperative issues towards global\n food security.
\nAccessing Free use of Global Data
\nAs an ex university professor he had free access to all the global literature on earth - so has been able to cast a wide net that enabled him to work out\n what is happening with the soils, the atmosphere including rainfall, erosion etc, etc.
\nWhereas all the professional agronomists he came across, unless they are affiliated directly with a university - it costs them hugely - up to US$17.00\n to read just one paper - whereas to become more knowing you need to read hundreds of papers - so this means that the agronomists are so far behind\n in their understanding of nature and in particular soil science and microbial activity.
\nProfessional Agronomists lack knowledge on micro flora and soil
\nThis shocked Phil, because in the process in communicating with them, he found them woefully ignorant about current knowledge. Especially, of how soil\n bacteria and fungi actually work with plants, in taking out of the atmosphere carbon and the mechanisms of breaking down soil compounds making them\n more available for roots hairs to feed plants the required food for growth, etc
\nSoil structure and micro-organisms and what they do - (has been a complete eye opener for Phil)
\nEven if we stop burning fossil fuels today - the gases (including methane escaping the permafrost) are still going to remain in the atmosphere for a long\n time. - They are still going to continue warming our planet for hundreds of year into the future - so not are we having to stop putting gases up into\n the atmosphere - we have to bring them back and get them out of the atmospheric envelope that surrounds our planet.
\nThere are Natural Solutions that can solve Global Warming.
\nOnce he stumbled into the literature he started making connections and one link lead to another and as he followed these ’natural’ connections he became\n very excited - and though he found very little info from the Canadian authorities - he found a large amount of interesting information and material\n within the branches of the US Department of Agriculture especially in the natural resources - services section where they had many tutorials on the\n soil food web by Doctor Elaine Ingham one of the pioneers.
\nThis video link is of Phil Gregory telling his important story.
\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWILIYSf5ts
\nHe also found on Ted Talks - Allan Savoury from Zimbabwe - it made sense - it is not necessarily animal numbers - it’s the timing of the seasons that is\n important.
\nThe US Department of Agriculture - especially in the natural resources - services section made a large contribution in the connection in the dots for Phil.\n
\nDon Rocoski - no till no Till - Washington Post 11.9.13 by Brad PLUMBER No till farming is on the rise …don rykovsky No turning of soil at all
\nDon Rykovsky powerpoints
\nThis link - that is a power point is a superb contribution and statement as to what needs to be done http://www.phas.ubc.ca/~gregory/papers/GregoryBowenIslandPresentation24Jan2017sht.pdf\n
\nSaskatchewan Soil Conservation Society
\nAlso early on in his research he found that in Saskatchewan up to 60% of the framers were engaged in no till farming - which means no turning over or ploughing\n the soil - Now today nearly 100% of them have gone no till.
\nThis was also seen as a possible avenue of obtaining Government subsidies for soil sequestration - even though they were a little way ahead of the govt\n at the time. So spent a lot of time in measuring how soils carbon could be requested and they now have good data from 167 farms over a span of 14 years\n and these farms are fairly large. What they have deduced is that the farmers can sequester around 1 tonne of carbon per hectare per year. Which translates\n to the equivalent of taking 21 million cars off the road.
\nThus the Saskatchewan farmers who only had one cash crop every two years were able to then have one cash crop per year and they went from the red into\n the black - and making money
\nThis took Phil deeper into his quest for regenerative agriculture - where you not only sequester carbon from the atmosphere but you restore the biology\n to the soil, the microflora - and you move away from the chemical paradigm to a biological paradigm, which after all - this is how nature evolved .\n
\nNature has all the microbes in the soil and that hidden universe which as up until very recently has been a hidden universe. These microbes mine all the\n nutrients that these plants need - from the rocks and silt and clay - and nitrogen from the atmosphere - you get the works - all for free -without\n having to pay money to plough your fields or pay money for the chemicals - if we are conscious enough to learn and copy nature.
\nThe next step is to inoculate the soil with a real good fertiliser and get those microbes back active again.
\nBy only putting NPK - nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium the plant (sort of) thinks that it has some ‘party food’ here, that I do not need to share with\n the microbes and any of my root exudates - I can instead hold onto those, because I am addicted to NPK. So that the barter system that existed between\n the plants feeding the sugars and the carbon - the energy pills to the microbes starts to fracture - And the microbes in return supplying all the other\n trace minerals and all the other elements that the plant needs - that barter system is ‘now broken’ - its interrupted because the plants become addicted\n to the easy life - but of course these salts that have been put on - these fertilising salts that have been put on, dissolve in water and 80% of them\n wash off into the rivers causing all kinds of problems - algae blooms - nitrates in the water are very dangerous - they reduce the amount of oxygen\n that the blood can transfer through the body - that there was a Nobel Prize was won when they realised that this was the basis of cancer - and Phil\n goes on to say that we have created mountains of problems basically though ignorance with the use of these chemicals.
\nListen to Phil talks about the predators and prey and even predators that prey on the predators - in a very dynamic system at a micro level - which is\n natures way - this high diversity of creating stability.
\nSo the bacteria and the fungi they are at the base of this system - they are being fed ‘carbon pellets’ (if you like) - through the sugars from the plants-\n who are attracting them to their root system - so the bacteria and fungi they will - if there is any NPK nitrogen , phosphorus and potassium they will\n love that - they will just gobble that up and store that in their body together with the4 carbon that they are receiving from the plant - and they\n will also take in any dead plant or matter and recycle that - plus they secrete also biotic glues as enzymes and organic acids.
\nThese organic acids in the case of fungal hyphae - these invisible strands that spread outward everywhere as mycelium networks - hold for example is a\n myclillium network - whist the individual hyphae are quite invisible - but if you take some common rock like feldspar and slice it - then polish it\n and you look at it under the microscope you will find all kinds of tiny microscopic tunnels - these are tunnels that have been made by the fungal hyphae\n - they are actually burrowing in to the rock - and mining the elements - the basic elements that that rock is made of - pulling these laments back\n into their bodies and they eventually transfer these elements to the plant. Which in Phil’s words is quite magical.
\nIn 2015 Scientific American article states that in its title - the Biggest mining operation in the world is carried out by fungal networks.
\nSo all these fungal networks are pulling in all these resources and in return for the carbon - but you have to keep it mind that those fungi and bacteria\n - they like the elements as well and they need them in high concentrations to exist in nature. So they are also not readily wanting to pass on these\n or give them up - and this is where the predatory protozoa of bacteria and fungi come along and feast up - and they end up with an excess of nitrogen\n - too much is toxic so they excrete it out - poop it out and they happen to be right next to the plant roots - because the plants are attracting and\n feeding their prey and all are in extremely close proximity - as they are wanting carbon that the plant extracts from the atmosphere.
\nSo that at any given time in an agricultural field - 99% of the elements that the plants need are locked up in the bacteria and fungi - and only at the\n rate that which the plants need it (as the plants are orchestrating all this) do the predators come along and covert by eating right amount of bacteria\n and fungi - create the correct amount of poop with is then taken up by the root hairs and feed the plant.
\nSo this is one of the mysteries that the chemical world has not appreciated (Big Pharma) because they do not really want to know the biological understanding\n of how to unlock the secrets of the soil. They just want sales of nitrogen and chemicals to drive these into the plants - so that they can up production\n - and eventually get their money back - with zero respect of the land, soil and the microflora in the soil. Which degrades the soils that eventually\n either erode in floods or is blown away by the wind.
\nBacteria and fungi help open up the ground so that both air and water can percolate deeper allowing for roots to penetrate down to greater depths into\n the soil - thus able to withstand drought and flooding
\nListen this is fascinating stuff that every farmer and gardener needs to get their head around if they wish to become far more self reliant and resilient\n in the face of rapidly changing climate change and weather fluctuations.
\nCovering how microflora create soil structure - to get oxygen and water deep down into the ground - because plant roots will only grow deep if they have\n access to wattle and oxygen. Plant roots can grow well over a metre deep - thus can resist long periods of drought as there will be both food, oxygen\n and moisture down there. So the imperative is for NZ farmers to study and research this and not be talked into continuing the old paradigm of more\n chemicals being added to their farmland.
\nWhen North America was being opened up in the pioneering days of colonial expansion the farmers dug down following certain grass roots to over 30 feet\n down .
\nDr Rlaine Ingham - the soil food web inc -
\nListen how trees can have 150 foot deep roots and that a tree fed on the surface can transport this liquid matter down to its roots 150 feet down in a\n matter of 10 minutes!
\nPlough causing a compaction layers just below the depth of the plough and this hardens the soil. At the same time when ploughing you ares slicing and dicing\n the fungi networks destroying all the magnificence of soil structure - what the bacteria and microflora have magically put in place.
\nThese are like underground cities and as Phil cals them buildings and networks that the microbes have created - were annihilated and the soils loses its\n integrity as all the fungi and biotic glues from the bacteria just dry up - so that it is free to be both blown and washed away!
\nIt's only in the last 30 years have we realised the damage that we have been doing … added to this it is only via microscopic instruments have we\n been able to study also what these microbes are doing - what is theirtr role in nature.
\nThis was in 1985 when Elaine Ingham and her husband in 1985 exposed this knowledge to the world.- And that paper was not received immediately very well.\n Many did not beleive that nature had this ‘bartering system’ that was going on. It was not dod eat dog and survival od the fittest - but a more cooperative\n notion that old ideology refused to acknowledge.
\nThen in 1991 others rediscovered their work and it has expanded vastly since then.
\nPhil did a university search on root exudate or plant exudate which is a key part of she discovery - now 2016 over 2000 papers on this coming to light.-\n focussed on the bartering system
\nDr Teage and 14 other authors - sequester carbon in the soil
\nSoil erosion resulting form agriculture is actually a large contributor to greenhouse gases = 28% of the problem of greenhouse gasses
\nAgriculture is producing 14 - 15% of greenhouse gases - but soil erosion
\nbut what about the rest - 72% - thats fossil fuel burning?
\nYet regenerative agriculture in all its aspects - animals and crops - not mono culture but diversified crops - including cover crops so that there is always\n green material with roots in the ground - plus old farms had orchards, gardens pigs goats cows, sheep and horses - very diversified - resulting in\n the regenerative management of animals
\nif we did regenerative agriculture planet round we would instantly remove that 28% - but you would ake down 120% of the greenhouse gasses from all sources\n that are being released - back into the ground so under modest assumptions over the entire earth - we would be requesting 150% of the GHG we are currently\n putting up now!
\nTo the degree that water a time we would have to slow this down so as to not have our planet cool too much - a delightful dilemma to be in
\nListen to Phil spell out the maths and the assumptions that include all forms of GHG from transportation - energy lighting - you name it - deforestation\n and methane expelling.
\nBased on 3 tones of carbon sequester for every hectare - every year
\n*Gabe Brown - browns ranch.us
\n*Dr David Johnson in Arizona - rapid sequestration up to 24 tonnes per hectare - with the US Department of Ag doing the measurements for carbon - maybe\n only 20% of the arable land needed to pull this carbon out of the atmosphere.
\nSinging Frogs Farm - California.
\nListen - the French scientists are very switched on a bout regenerative agriculture
\nWhy are academics sleeping this one out? They are a collection of specialists - Suzanne Simard fungi network
\nThe Magic of Soil - by Phil Gregory
\n\n \n
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\nIt’s called Kauri dieback.
\nKauri dieback is the deadly kauri disease caused by Phytophthora taxon Agathis. Following DNA studies, this fungus-like disease was formally identified\n in 2008 as a distinct and previously undescribed species of Phytophthora. Kauri dieback is specific to New Zealand kauri and can kill trees of all\n ages.
\nMicroscopic spores in the soil infect kauri roots and damage the tissues that carry nutrients within the tree. Infected trees show a range of symptoms\n including yellowing of foliage, loss of leaves, canopy thinning, dead branches and lesions that bleed gum at the base of the trunk. Nearly all infected\n kauri die. In the past 10 years, kauri dieback has killed thousands of kauri in New Zealand.
\nKauri is NZ’s canary in the coal mine with this organism and there are hundreds of different phytophthora around our planet.
\nThe potato famine in Ireland was cause by a phytophthora and there is one in Australia called cinnamomi that is devastating forests in South West Australia.
\nMels states that NZ authorities are not yet serious about this and our inaction is enabling this disease to spread
\nBecause ecologists call kauri a keystone species - it is just not one species - as it changes the soil type underneath a kauri forest over the millennia\n to something called pod sol - which is a very leached soil type and they do this to support themselves and support other organisms that like to live\n with kauri (symbiosis) and kauri becomes surrounded by its friends. Up to 17 different species that can survive along side kauri. And this symbiotic\n relations is totally unique globally and if we lose our kauri, we will lose all these other organisms that depend on kauri as well. Thus she says it\n is not much of a stretch - that if no action is taken we could have extinction right throughout Northland. As this die off is doubling every 5 years.
\nMonitoring Report faults foot traffic for spreading it.
\nIn August of 2017, the Auckland Council released a monitoring report showing that the places with the most foot traffic, particularly Piha and the Cascades\n and especially Piha have a risk of kauri going extinct in the next 5 years. Because the spread now is so large and has increased so much that if it\n doubles again - that in the next 5 years there will be no kauri in Piha.
\nThe Auckland Council report - states quite clearly and in stark terms that if we do not change the management of our kauri forests in the Wairakere ranges\n - we risk losing all of the kauri.
\nThe problem - These spores are carried by foot born human traffic and also mountain bikes that are then used in other areas of the forest. These tiny spores\n in the soil and mud, cling to our shoes or bike tires and the spread becomes easy.
\nIt’s a bio security crisis affecting all of the kauri in NZ
\nThe range of Kauri in NZ is less than point 1% of what is was originally.
\nBefore people settled in New Zealand, forest containing kauri covered much of the Coromandel Peninsula and northern areas throughout North Auckland. Today,\n the remaining 7,455 hectares of mature kauri forest is scattered in remnant patches.
\nDrastic Action Required
\nThere are up to a million visitors walking the Waitakere Park annually.
\nMels states the if we do not take drastic as the management has been sporadic and patchy - and do nothing - we will lose our kauri.
\nShoe cleaning stations are on many/most tracks to disinfect their shoes & boots, but unfortunately many people are not doing this small practice -\n the cleaning stations are quite rudimentary and people are spraying their muddy soles thinking it is a magical spray. But, as a somewhat benign spray\n it is not killing this organism. It needs to be a really, really good clean of your shoes and then a spray … and due to the poor condition of\n many of the tracks - mud is going to be moved around and deposited along these tracks and this is the crux of the problem.
\nThe tracks in the Waitakere ranges Mels says are in an exceptionally deficient state. For up to 20 years they have had very little attention. She mentions\n that where stands of kauri are there are strategic scrub and spray stations - that the imperative is to use them every single time you came to one.\n Not just one scrub and spray before going into the forest or one when you are leaving the forest. Because these ‘stations’ are strategically placed\n around all the different kauri and if you do not scrub and spray - when ever you come to one - you will just spread the contaminated mud to where the\n healthy kauri’s are - and there lies the problem - people are too unconscious to make a real effort, hence the rapid increase of this dieback.
\nVisitors are not using scrub and spray stations
\nSome of the Auckland council sites have been monitored for compliance - however it has been estimated that of the one million visitors year only 20% are\n scrubbing and spraying.
\nThis translates to 800,000 people wandering around with this disease on their shoes - causing this problem to rapidly spread.
\nRats, possums, birds and pigs are being blamed for moving this disease around but the monitoring has proved that it is always along the tracks that pass\n by kauri is where all the die off is happening.
\nAuckland Council has completed 2 major surveys of the Waitakere ranges in 2011 & 2016 and clearly find that it is human foot traffic that is going\n up to trees, as these are the trees that are dying off. Trees that hide away from the tracks seem to be doing very well.
\n22,744 trees have been surveyed by helicopter and locked in by GPS and survey teams have checked each tree to do a health analysis.
\nNote: It is not known how long it takes from infection until symptoms are expressed.
\nSee the Tree Council Facebook page - check the map - it’s like a cancer spreading along the tracks.
\nThe Hillary Trail is badly infected … named after Sir Edmund.
\nThe Cascades are bad too - with over 20,000 people a day in summer - Piha has a lots people as well. Very popular with runners too - hence this all adds\n to the infection along these tracks.
\nPigs, rats, birds and possums are not to blame.
\nStating that it is not pigs, rats, birds or possums that are the cause as we would see are far more even distribution of infected kauri all over\n the ranges - but this is not so, as this contamination is happening all along the track network.
\nThese animals do not exclusively use the track network like humans do. This makes it clear that it is a human problem.
\nThe surveys show that 75% of trees infected lie within 50 metres of a track. Pigs are a problem, and need to be sorted but not the major cause by any stretch.\n But they are less than 25% of the problem and we humans are 75% of the problem and this is what we need to address.
\nMels says that we humans need to own this and get it sorted. Accept responsibility for it and stop making excuses and take action.
\nShe says that we would not see the doubling of the disease if it was only animals doing it.
\nThe Hunua’s are another Auckland Council area forest that has no kauri dieback - so the imperative is to make sure that this dieback does not happen there\n - It has been surveyed exactly like the Waiitakere ranges - and the Tree Council is confident that there is no infection in the Hunua’s.
\nThe Coromandel has a tiny number of infection sites - Northland has some infection but has not been surveyed like Auckland council have done, thus we do\n not know the scale of it, but it’s in Waipoua Forest and Trounson Park and on Great Barrier island too.
\nInfection of other forests - Mels says is a matter of time, not if …
\nMaori have said enough!\n
\nThis is what Te Kawerau e Maki the local iwi (tribe) - the mana whena for the Waitakere’s have said - Enough! \n
\nSaying we need to get humans out of the forest and let it heal and for us to take action.
\nThis is the forest they are kaitiaki of - that they are the guardians - to lose the kauri, the Te Kawerau e maki - lose who they are …\n
\nThey want a ‘rahui’ placed on the whole Waitakere area
\nRahui is a closure and an exclusion of people from their normal activities - to let natural systems heal and regenerate - wanting us to respect the forest\n for this process to take place. They will be doing this very soon. Having asked the Auckland Council to action this under the sanction of a 'controlled\n area notice' under the BioSecurity Act. Anyone found inside this exclusion zone would be in breach of the BioSecurity Act.
\nThus is backed by the Tree Council, Forest & Bird Society and the Friends of Regional Parks and the Waitakere Protection Society. They have all said\n this is what Auckland Council needs to do.
\nMels say that Auckland Council must get in and move this whole initiative forward and if not the NZ Government may see fit to come in over the top of the\n Council - and force it to implement the closure, and then Auckland Council will lose all control over this process. Listen \n
\nStating this is a national crisis for this toanga - treasure this keynote species that is unique that grows for up to an estimated 2,000 years.
\nShe says it is not about spoiling every ones fun or being a killjoy or exaggerating the scale of the problem - this is a critical time - it’s about the\n survival of a giant mega flora species.
\nShe wants the tracks to be brought online again once the tracks have been upgraded so as to not facilitate the spread of the disease - this way we can\n get people back into the Waitakere ranges for bush walks to once again to bathe in the magnificence of the cool shade and beauty that the Waitakere\n forest offers.
\nWe must remember that is was only in 2007 that Kauri dieback was first noticed.
\nEducation
\nEducation of New Zealanders is important. Because she does not want people to be closed out forever, it’s just a necessity now .. a temporary closure.\n To then rebuild the tracks and make them safe, bio security wise.
\nMyrtle Rust another very recent problem in NZ.\n
\nMyrtle rust is mentioned too as an airborne disease and this now has been found in various areas of NZ - A great danger to NZ Christmas tree the pohutukawa.\n If seen - don’t touch, just photo and call the appropriate bio security authorities or Auckland Council.\n
\nThere is another fungal disease in Hawaii discovered in 2014 - called the Ohi which lives in the soil, causing leaves to turn black and fall off killing\n a tree in a matter of weeks. They find that human movement is the cause of spreading this disease. They say that NZ pohutukawa tree could be at risk.\n It has affected about 75,000 acres of forest on the big Island of Hawaii and has now spread to Tahiti.
\nMels says we have to future proof our forests - infrastructure that has to last another 50 years has to be planned for and put in place. \n
\nCall to Future Proof our Forests
\nThis disease in some ways is an opportunity for humans to step up and wisely future proof our forests, our infrastructure and tracks, our biodiversity\n and get on top of biosecurity at every entry point in NZ.
\nShe says one of the reasons she came to live NZ was to walk and hang out in NZ bush and forests and show them to friends and overseas visitors.
\nMels say that this disease may find other hosts other than kauri and we are finding that tanekaha is being affected - so this is why the urgency for NZers,\n Councils and the National Government to get in and educate the masses to support a major action to save what we cherish.
\nKauri root systems are shallow, sensitive and close to the surface making them vulnerable - listen.\n
\nMels then tells of the biological story of the roots and how a forest giant of a kauri succumbs to these tiny microorganisms cause starvation to the colossus\n above.
\nThat Kauri cannot evolve fast enough due to the rapid appearance of this disease to build up its own immunity once again. \n
\nGermination of seeds happen that then grow around the base of the Kauri as in a nursery - that may stay very small for 30 years or more - when a nearby\n tree dies and falls then the seedling take off and grow in the space provided to fill that gap.
\nKauri does not keep its seeds for long - it instead has this ‘live’ nursery that stays within the umbrella of the above foliage - but with this disease\n the seedlings cannot withstand it and they die - so there is no generation alive to take off and grow when the parent kauri dies.
\nShe wants urgent Council action - before summer of December 2017-18 as there will be 100’s of thousands of people tramping more disease around
\nGet behind the Rahui
\nAuckland Council is to spend $51.48 million on kauri die back over the next 10 years.
\nWaitakere Forests are in many ways the ‘Jewel in the Crown of Auckland.’
\nShe says that after the rahui - this process of opening new tracks etc can happen in stages - this is not a bad news story.
\nIncrementally open tracks once the fundamentals are in place.
\nMels spells it out - the strategy the mindfulness to get it right - with the education and championed by the Auckland Council in symphony with Maori.
\nMels states we need all the firepower of NZ’s science - as we do not know what else this disease infects and how to actually destroy and eliminate it.
\nThese 2 fundamental questions have not even been started in the last 9 years - Mels socks it to the scientific ineptitude in dismissing the urgency of\n what is attacking our venerated kauri - under the NZ Government’s MPI - the Ministry of Primary Industries.
\nInvestment is needed into our future
\nShe lets it rip in the end.
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", "itemId": 15902390, "name": "Mels Barton: Kauri dieback - what we must do to save our iconic New Zealand Kauri trees", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/mels-barton-kauri-dieback-what-we-must-do-to-save-our-iconic-new-zealand-kauri-trees", "url": "/greenplanetfm/mels-barton-kauri-dieback-what-we-must-do-to-save-our-iconic-new-zealand-kauri-trees", "releaseDate": "2017-11-30T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2017-11-29T21:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2017-12-03T20:43:03.09", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2017-12-03T17:43:03.09", "counter": 11, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/mels-barton-kauri-dieback-what-we-must-do-to-save-our-iconic-new-zealand-kauri-trees?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=15902390&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "5993082", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Aotearoa, New Zealand is having one of its most profound ecological challenges yet - Our great forest icon the mighty kauri is in major trouble. This could affect the whole of the country if we do not rise to the occasion.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2017/20171130-mels-barton.jpg", "tag1_id": "12804895", "tag1": "Conservation", "tag2_id": "13092574", "tag2": "New Zealand", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1453": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "
Professor Emeritus Don Huber, formerly of Purdue University states that there are three facts that everyone needs to understand about GE or GMOs:\n
\n- \n
- despite what the media and so-called “experts” proclaim, there are NO peer-reviewed scientific papers establishing the safety of GMO crops \n
- epidemiological patterns show there’s an identical rise in over 30 human diseases correlated with our increased usage of glyphosate and the increased\n prevalence of genetically engineered proteins in our food, and \n
- genetically engineered foods, as well as conventional crops that are heavily sprayed with glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide\n Roundup), have lower nutrient density than organic foods. \n
Don Huber who spoke with me at the PlanetFM studios two months ago, here in Auckland opens with the statement that NZ farmland is still basically free\n of GE and GMO’s and relatively unpolluted with its attendant spray - glyphosate, however he states we need to make sure GMO’s don’t breach our borders,\n and that we need to keep NZ - GE Free and to make every effort to scale back our use of glyphosate - urgently.
\nSoil is a living entity
\nThe soil is a living entity in its own right - it’s not just dirt. Every time you step on an acre of soil you’re stepping on up to 10 or 20 tonnes of living\n matter. Bacteria and fungi and the micro organisms of life. (just like the trillions of microorganisms in our intestines keep us healthy too)
\nA Cleaner Greener New Zealand
\nDon says that NZ can still be an answer to the world - because we have not contaminated a lot of our soil- yet he admits that we have some excessive chemical\n use in some areas - he sees that clearly and also the lack of knowledge of what these chemicals are doing. That their use makes life easier in some\n respects - but when farmers look at the long term process, the impact that it has on the individual, the family and the society does not actually make\n life easier. He says we still have an opportunity to have a working relationship with the soil, and capitalise by offering up quality organics with\n nutrient dense food that the rest of the world needs.
\nControl of World Food by Vested Interests
\nHe states that there is an overt attempt in many areas of the world to destroy this opportunity. The desire of vested interests for monopoly, control and\n power without regard for the overall consequences of these practices needs to be recognised. That we are seeing our increased vulnerability - and a\n lot of it is because people have forgotten - he says that where we once had simple land practices - modern day scientific farming has brought us inflammatory\n bowel disease , end stages kidney disease and diabetes plus the extreme epidemics that we are seeing in the US and other industrialised countries.\n
\nHe states we have not had to experience these because we have maintained high nutrient dense food products for our animals - grass fed and not necessarily\n corn fed animals etc. Stating that this is the message and the information that the world needs.
\nTaking Traditional Breeding to a New Level
\nThe message that Don Huber is sharing is that we are only harvesting 25 - 30% of the genetic potential of our best crops - and he said if we took the time\n and energy (it does not come free) we can develop ‘that expression’ of that genetic material and do it by a traditional breeding manner, rather than\n the virus type of approach that we see with genetic engineering. Because we have no idea what the unintended consequences that can occur with that\n - are. He says we have all the systems in place to be able to do it this traditional breeding program properly. The constant looking for a ‘silver\n bullet’ is a mistake and it takes us further away from the natural harmony that we have been embedded in for centuries and millennia.
\nImpacts on Farming Communities
\nSociological impacts of small farms being bought out and amalgamated into large corporate farms is depleting the rural sector of families as people sell-out\n and leave the district. This is affecting farming communities across the board in NZ, the US and Australia. That the model which is growth and bigger\n and larger farms is not human or community friendly. The bigger the farm, the less time the farmer has to interact with one’s neighbours and the community\n loses out. Because you are not able to spend enough time to really get to know each other and interact as neighbours.
\nHarmony of the Land and Community
\nBeing able to manage the ecology and living in harmony is an imperative. He talks of community and also that not only do crops grow but everything grows\n including the community in a magnitude that meets the needs of a society and the individual - so that vegetables and animals plus families can all\n grow together.
\nAs a Colonel in the US Army Reserves
\nAs an US Army Researcher (1957-1998) he also studied many aspects of bioterrorism. Mentioning what the military thought was a critical component of a good\n defence was diversity - that to make sure that all our crop species were not of the same genetic makeup, as in 1970 and 71, where 70% of American corn\n hybrids were attacked by a fungus that developed a mutation and all 70% of the hybrids were susceptible to that disease. Yet he carries on to say that\n 98% of soybeans, 70% of corn, 100% of sugar beet and cotton are all 1 green or 2 gene characteristics and those genes are all to promote disease susceptibility\n - not resistance - none of them are designed or engineered for greater disease resistance - everyone of them have to be more susceptible to the diseases\n so that you can get the expression of the genetic engineered trait - that the mode of action for some of the chemicals like glyphosate - its whole\n mode of action - is to give the plant a bad case of aids - then they are susceptible to all the soil born pathogens and that is how “round up” for\n instance works - it is to destroy the disease resistance of those plants that receive it that haven’t been engineered with an alternative.
\nHe states that all it would take is just one simple mutation to make cotton, alfalfa, corn, soybean and canola - all those with the ‘roundup ready gene’-\n to be totally susceptible to a very severe disease. There are now documented over 40 diseases that are much more intense when associated with the glyphosate\n herbicide - because of the increased disease susceptibility - which he says leaves the US extremely vulnerable from a bioterrorist event - or for a\n natural event as per the Northern corn leaf blight epidemic in 1970 and 71. - Listen to the full extent of this, it is very important
\nThreats of Legal Action
\nHe talks about GE crops being a Trojan Horse and that every farmer who sows GE seeds has to sign on the dotted line that they take full responsibility\n for any accident or cross contamination or anything relating to that crop. Letting the GE Corporation off, of being liable if anything does get out\n of control. Listen to the introduction in the very 1st minute of this program
\nFood Essential Human Right
\nHe talks about agriculture being the basics of human society and survival and that that humans have to have carbohydrates, proteins, fats, plus have minerals\n and vitamins - without these the individual does not exist - so that when they are patented and controlled by corporate interests in the power controlling\n manner that we are seeing - without any liability or restrictions or controls - it leads to the downfall of the society.
\nThe Demise of the Precautionary Principle
\nDon says the precautionary principle has been thrown out the window, when once it was a very valid and viable aspect in risk management - but today there\n is now no consideration for it at all.
\nThe Escape of a GE experiment gone wrong in the USA - now entering the Pacific
\nhttp://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2017/01/grass_seed_industry_fearful_ab.html
\nProfessor Huber mentions the escape of ‘creeping bent grass’ - ‘roundup ready’ - engineered used primarily for golf courses - that escaped field trials\n up in the US - and that these grasses are very promiscuous and move along with the wind and it hybridise with other grasses and now it can not be contained.\n It got loose from 2 small private research locations and now is endemic in Washington, Oregon and Idaho - it’s now along the Snake River in Southern\n Idaho and Oregon into Washington and is now totally resistant to glyphosate - the rivers flows into the North Pacific and Don says the Pacific ocean\n will now take it far further into the Pacific basin and that it could even be a worldwide problem. Because it plugs up irrigations systems and drainage\n systems - ending up as an extremely invasive weed.
\n\nThe company Scotts Miracle-Gro - who allowed this GE experiment to escape the laboratory has been unable to eradicate it and now that it has basically\n contaminated the above States, farmers who have been growing organic alfalfa for instance, and then exported it to China have had China reject and\n return it due to the GMO contamination and there is a total legal wrangle around this due to a corrupted agenda by the status quo not being upfront\n and honest in taking responsibility for this unpublicised continuous disaster that continues to this moment.
\nInnocent Organic Farmers are Being Affected
\nThis means that those who have a living and a livelihood around organics are being affected by this spread and that everyone who is finding their product\n contaminated with this GMO bent grass, are having to bear the loss of income and or OF their business. That those who have been negatively impacted\n by this, need to be compensated - and so this is where the battle lines are drawn on the lack of indemnification. This is also what MSM - mainstream\n media remains very hushed about and as a consequence middle society either in the US, Canada, Australia or NZ know nothing about. To our collective\n detriment.
\nDon calls these so called GMO - silver bullets - as time bombs waiting to go off.
\nHe says we have had enough time to witness the destructive behaviour of the generic experiments that have been going on around the planet.
\nHe sees them and the deterioration of the soil - and the increased diseased problems in our plants.
\nGE & GMO’s a Coming Major Tsunami of Health Problems
\nThe deterioration in the health in our animals and in humans to the point that he says we are on the threshold of a major tsunami of health problems.
\n- \n
- Cancer \n
- End state kidney disease \n
- Inflammatory bowel type diseases \n
- Celiac \n
- Crohn's disease \n
- Gluten intolerance \n
- Leaky gut \n
The situation is becoming so dire that slowly over time - like the frog sitting in the hot water - nearly all the young doctors, veterinarians, plant pathologists\n just out of university and basically programmed to not think, but only regurgitate what that have been taught - think that the above diseases are now\n just normal diseases and are unable to connect the dots to the onset of the GE and glyphosate insertion into the health system - especially in the\n USA.
\nThis insightful interview covers:
\nSpontaneous abortion or miscarriage of pigs, goats and cattle - on land that has been sprayed with Glyphosate in tandem with growing GE Foods.
\nThat it was now normal for many women to have numerous miscarriages before they can have a live birth and that even worse - that the doctors are not doing\n any autopsies on miscarried fetuses - instead just quietly incinerating them - Listen to this interview !
\nHis wish for the future
\nhe wants his grandchildren to have the opportunity that when they wish to have children that they do not have to go through the heartache of multiple miscarriages\n etc. He says we have to make a stand and that time is now.
\nHe states that in El Salvador 25% are expected to die from Glyphosate poisoning of their kidneys - he mentions Sri Lanka and Brazil and that the people\n are suffering there too.
\nDr Joseph Mercola link
\nhttps://nz.pinterest.com/pin/126030489545794596/
\nJoseph Mercola food integrity gmo don huber
\nEuropean Parliament: Green Members of Parliament tested for glyphosate in April 2016.
\n48 Green Members that took part in a symbolic urine test ahead of the European Parliament vote last month to oppose the EU Commission’s proposal to relicense\n the controversial toxic substance until 2031.
\nThe inspiration behind what was labelled the #MEPee test was the results of a recent study in Germany which found that 99.6% of people tested were found\n to have glyphosate residue in their urine. According to ELISA test results from the accredited Biocheck Laboratory in Germany:
\nThe results reveal that every MEP tested has been found to have glyphosate traces in their urine, with the average concentration being 1.73ng/ml. That\n level is more than 17 times the safe limit for drinking water. The lowest level found among the group was 0.17ng/ml, almost double the safe level.
\nNow most Greens will be drinking the best quality water, eating organic food and yet this is what is happening. What will this do to our DNA, semen and\n ovaries over time and future generations and in our babies and infants? Are you asking this question?
\nhttps://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/05/13/green-party-meps-peed-off-with-glyphosate-test-results
\nGlyphosate’s half life can be up to 22 years in the soil - which appears contrary to the advertising.
\nThe US Geological survey in Florida shows that many of the Counties in that state have as much as 4,200 pounds of glyphosate per square mile.
\nThis affecting all invertebrates, bacteria, bees, earthworms, fish the whole ecology is being impacted by glyphosate.
\nLake Erie one of the Great Lakes is being studied by scientists at the University in Wisconsin and found that 1 third of a pound of phosphorous in Lake\n Erie, comes in for every one acre of ground (area) that is in the watershed.
\nHe says what is few million acres? - do the maths - and that’s why we have a green Lake Erie, with dead carp and dead bluegill and other fish?
\nLawsuits are piling up ready for Court
\nListen to hear how many Lawsuits are waiting in the wings as class actions become more common - so as to compensate people who have been affected by poor\n health and that they are looking for the cause.
\nGlyphosate is found in the air, surface water, run off and well water because it is a highly water soluble compound and has been found in animal, human\n and plant tissue.
\nIn NZ some farmers are spraying Glyphosate on grass, then 4 days later letting their cows eat this foliage - cows are then being milked - result is NZ\n milk, butter, cheese etc is going to the NZ and world market place. Professor Huber states that Glyphosate bioaccumulates - in cows hearts, brains,\n liver, kidneys, bones, and the milk.
\nNote that cheese has difficulty being manufactured, because it is a fermenting process and Don has seen cheeses that have failed due the the death of the\n microorganisms during fermentation.
\nThe same with malt barley and fermentation for brewing beer - the microorganisms suffer when heavy use of glyphosate is used.
\nProfessor Don Huber has hopes for New Zealand
\nEncourages us to hold the line - for as an 80 year old with 50 years in the game - he has seen this track history of GE and GMO and sees that it is a twisted\n tale of avarice and deception.
\nThis is a wake up call for New Zealanders who care about their health, happiness and our ecology.
\nUS Military Service Researching Bioterrorism
\nFrom 1963 to 1971 he was assigned to the U.S. Army Edgewood Proving Ground and Ft. Detrick Biological Laboratories in Maryland for research in chemical\n and biological warfare. He became Operations Officer (S-3) in a USAR Medical Group before moving to Medical Intelligence (business) Department Of Defense.
\nIn 1973 he took command of a specialized Strategic Medical Intelligence Detachment (MIDS) assigned to The Office of the Surgeon General and U.S. Army Medical\n Intelligence and Information Agency, assisting in formation of the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (now NCMI). He carried out these duties\n while serving as a professor at Purdue.
\nThough technically in the Army Reserve, Dr. Huber, whose expertise was in the Soviet Union’s biological warfare program, was part of elite nine and ten-person\n teams of specialized world scientists. In this capacity he commanded MIDS for eight years. Most of these scientists including Dr. Huber worked overtime\n without pay.
\nHe moved from command of MIDS to Senior Medical Intelligence Analyst and then as Associate Director of the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. Retiring\n from military service after more than 41 years, he continues work with our intelligence community, where he actively participates in oversight security\n of biological weapons programs and threat pathogen concerns.
\nDr. Huber teaches courses on anti-crop bioterrorism and serves as a consultant on biological weapons of mass destruction and emerging diseases. He advises\n U.S. agencies on bioterrorism and biological warfare.
\nHe currently serves without pay as the American Phytopathological Society’s Coordinator for the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System program and\n is an active member of the Threat Pathogens Committee.
\nA message from Tim - Let those that scathingly criticise Professor Don Huber ‘walk a mile in his shoes’.
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\n
The whole living systems practice behind these artworks, informs Cabal’s wider role as an integration facilitator, contributing to complex city-making projects by supporting project teams to grow the capability to work in full reciprocity within their unique community and place.
\nI first met Caroline at Dave Breuer’s - Anew NZ ‘group mind gathering’ - at AUT - Auckland University of Technology. There she had a huge blank art board\n at this visionary function that let her visually translate the stories that speakers covered, to that very engaged audience. This enabled people to\n see how intellectual concepts and mental information can be elegantly transcribed into a visual form that was holistic in intent and that lead us to\n explore as participants, how we the people can become involved and renew our whole country.
\nBased on Measures of Genuine Progress (and “genuine economic success”), as a challenge to the misuse of GDP, via the measurements of social, cultural,\n economic, environmental and governance wellbeing - with the public shared visions determining the goals of wellbeing. (See at the bottom of this posting.)
\nMeasuring Human Joy and Contentment
\nDr Ron Coleman from Canada was at this function to explain and Dr Marilyn Waring http://www.marilynwaring.com/ as an Ex National Party Member of Parliament\n (who went/rebelled against the National Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, many years previously) introduced Ron as she had been doing work on the ’true’\n cost of living index and how do we measure success - particularly our decision making process at a governmental level. Known as the ‘genuine progress\n indicators' - meaning not just managing the gross national product and financial benefits from across the country - but also understanding what makes\n us flourish - what brings joy and happiness and peace as well as bringing balance in a holistic way.
\nToday, Caroline as an extraordinary creative artist - is still very much aligned with the notion of ‘genuine progress indicators’ she remains very interested\n and curious about what are the conditions that we need for life to flourish within our homes, within our communities, our nation and our planet.
\nCommunity & Connection
\nAsking the question? - How do we create a flourishing for all of life - including ourselves?
\nFood being a conductor of getting together to eat and share … gatherings around eating and sharing - being a universal common ground - and in the\n world of today that needs to be more unified - Caroline's focus is - how do we bring this all together?
\nSo what is it we need to improve? Like how do we re relate to each other - connect the fragmentation and those who have been isolated from each other?\n How do we best do this? So that we are working all together as a more dynamic whole?
\nBecause the processes of regeneration of rebirthing of healing is becoming paramount as there's a lot that is out of balance and in crises - there is much\n that needs to be addressed.
\nSo what is the journey we need to take to come back into wholeness and that everybody has a role to play in this.
\nAnd with the experience and the practices that she brings to the conversation.
\nThe Land and Sacred Place
\nCaroline is very aware of place and the historical implications of how did that particular area come into being - the terrain, the living matter, the water\n sources and courses - the Maori tribes or iwi that were present prior to the coming of the white man - the sacredness of life over a very broad context\n .
\nThat there are many areas of land in Auckland that housing and buildings sit on - yet underneath these houses are a hidden creeks where a spring once was.\n That in today’s urbanised sprawl a little rivulet - or tiny creek, can be a wonderful play area for young children - where the water is clear, healthy\n and cool. Kids can see their reflection, see the stones or marine flora around it, maybe cockabullies or kura - freshwater crayfish - yet today’s developers\n will most probably put pipes in this area and pipe all the water away underground and thus the stereotyped boring industrial housing complex - hypnotises\n us into a thousand high priced houses looking basically the same, on a treeless landscape - scraped of nature - is the NZ culture of homogenous sameness?
\nAuckland Connection -Tamaki Makaurau
\nComing from a Taranaki farm near Stratford in the rural landscape, that had many different animals - gave her a deeper sense of nature and its richness.\n That when she arrived in high density housing Auckland gave her cause for reflection.
\nTamaki Makaurau - Auckland, gave her another understanding of place - of the Maori, the mauri (essence) and going deeper and feeling the grief of the landscape\n and ecology of what has been lost - in the vast forest of what was once Auckland and the covering up of water courses or arterial waterways by burying\n them and piping that water to the sea as per the Horotiu stream for example that used to run down the centre of Queen Street in Auckland.
\nThat there are springs or puna that are even very close to the PlanetFM radio station that emanates pristine water that bubbles up out of the volcanic\n rocks and lava - very pure water - and there are around 51 volcanoes that comprise the whole city of Auckland. With numerous cones that we can climb,\n dotted around the city.
\nPublic Domain and Community Involvement
\nCaroline has a feeling for public domain and community projects
\nShe has been involved in the Panmure and Glen Innes suburbs of Auckland for the master plan for the town centre - bringing story of people and place, including\n geological and ecological activity so as to define and development projects.
\nIn this process - getting to know each other as humans is so very critical. if we are to develop trust - mana - wairua and mauri - all are integral to\n deeper connection.
\nLiving Earth Papatuanuku
\nThe mentions Te Urewera in Tuhoe country - as a park with human rights - that for the Tuhoe people and the NZ Government acknowledge at some level that\n ‘the land is a living being.’ Papatuanuku - Mother Earth.
\nCaroline is focused on find a space for people to work out the complexities of the challenges that are facing us - and allow them a way to work themselves\n out.
\nRegeneration
\nIn this regenerative practice it covers working out complexity - that there is a harmonising energy within nature that has the ability to work things out.\n Caroline says it is in many ways ‘beyond consensus’ - and in ‘trusting the wisdom of life.'
\nIt knows how to work complexity out - all we need is the space to take the time to connect - and communicate - share the breath and weave family - and\n though this sounds philosophical there is a very pragmatic quality to it - see her sculptures along the motorway in Grafton gully in Auckland - where\n the artwork has an intention to speak to the resonance of that place and its history and respond to that.
\nShe says that the art does not need to be a sculpture - that it can be a building as in the Living Whare in Taneatua - In Tuhoe country - it could be a\n roading project - even a skyscraper - (Listen)
\nThat everything we do - needs to become an art form.
\nThat the universe is a work of art - that our planet and all its biota and landscapes are an art form - thus the importance for us as humans is to create\n our homes on our home planet into art forms that embed beauty and geometry as a reflection of the magnificence of creation and of what we can evolve.
\nSomething that Caroline says meets all of our needs at once … be it every building built - every community developed can be part of a regeneration\n into a greater whole. Economic - social, cultural - spiritual and our human developmental journey they can all coalesce together - it is possible.\n
\nThat the universe is a work of art - and our planet and nature is one too
\n\nThe Living Building Challenge - has a ‘check out test’ where if you are an architect and/or builder you have to use only materials that are ecologically\n sustainable and non polluting?
\nThey have a red list of 25 chemicals, that cannot be in any building materials.
\nFirth Concrete in NZ now have a product that is biologically safe and comes up with a big tick.
\nYou can now check your home building products - https://living-future.org/declare/declare-about
\n‘A Declare Label’ Answers Three Questions:
\n- \n
- Where does a product come from? \n
- What is it made of? \n
- Where does it go at the end of its life? \n
The Regenerative Economy is becoming a renewed mantra for today and tomorrow.
\nhttps://medium.com/@designforsustainability/towards-a-regenerative-economy-bf1c2ed6f792
\nRegenerative Building - One being finalised in the Wynyard Quarter here on\n Auckland Waterfront Educational Centre for Sustainable Coastlines.\n
Biophilia - living in accord with your home that is embedded in nature and all of life.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis
\nThis interview covers Homelessness too
\nThe amount of homeless in this country is a crisis here in NZ. That there are ways forward on this important issue for people to have a home and be safe\n and secure Not only warm and dry homes but homes that become temples of belonging - places where we can really belong and be and developed ourselves\n … We can do many things, we can build good homes, we know how to live on and with the land - grow gardens and quality food - let’s have a conversation\n about the larger NZ - where we all live. So that we are really regenerating life. (Listen)
\nOmaru stream Glen Innes Auckland - One of the few remaining streams that have not been piped and buried.
\n“Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au.\"
\nThe whakatauki above, translated into English, says
\n‘I am the river and the river is me'.
\nCall to Action
\nCaroline says: “climate change is a deadline for humanity …”
\n\nIntroduction to Regenerative Development (5 short videos)
\nhttps://vimeo.com/album/4650028\n
\nAs per in the introduction of Dr Ron Coleman - Genuine Progress Indicators.\n
\n\n
", "itemId": 15358786, "name": "Caroline Robinson: Regenerative Development - the Art, Science & Beauty of Co-evolving Place & People", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/caroline-robinson-regenerative-development-the-art-science-beauty-of-co-evolving-place-people", "url": "/greenplanetfm/caroline-robinson-regenerative-development-the-art-science-beauty-of-co-evolving-place-people", "releaseDate": "2017-08-24T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2017-08-23T22:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2017-08-24T16:24:17.733", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2017-08-24T14:24:17.733", "counter": 13, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/caroline-robinson-regenerative-development-the-art-science-beauty-of-co-evolving-place-people?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=15358786&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "5671049", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Caroline Robinson is the founder of Cabal, a creative studio exploring and advancing new pathways for regenerative development. Results of Cabal’s public art collaborations can be seen across Auckland City and beyond.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2017/20170824-Caroline-Robinson.jpg", "tag1_id": "14920527", "tag1": "Change Agents", "tag2_id": "13092574", "tag2": "New Zealand", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1455": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "
Project Lyttelton http://www.lyttelton.net.nz - in the South Island could be deemed one of the\n more unique communities in NZ - as enterprising people are doing effectual things as they build warm community relationships that support each other\n in their daily life.\n
\n
Situated on the other side of the Port Hills only a few kilometres from Christchurch.
\nWhy does a community come together?\n
\n
Because these people enjoy warm hearted company that belongs to a creative and caring organisation. One that has the component of Time Banking being integral\n and is within the umbrella of Project Lyttelton - it is in many ways the glue that along with mindfulness and love - hold this little community together.\n
\nWhen the Christchurch Earthquakes struck 6 years ago - Project Lyttelton was already in operation and they were in many ways pivotal in assisting in many\n areas of this disaster.
\nThat as a community it is very open to ideas - if someone comes to them with a concept they will first - run it past their ‘vision’ - and if it fits and\n if there is a champion of this vision - they will take it on and support that idea. The important component, is having a champion to run it - as often\n ideas do come up, but if they have no champion it fails because no one is ‘eating breathing and being it.’
\nWhen they take on an activity or enterprise, Project Lyttleton also puts an advisory group around it, as it can be quite lonely, and this advisory group\n can then offer ‘group wisdom’ to support and assist it in steering this idea or concept into fruition.
\nMind Maps & Time Banks Are Important
\nSo they draw up a Mind Map to get a spatial plan of what ideas come up - many of them innovative and what Margaret has found that time and again, that\n a Time Bank is integral in nearly every mind map that they draw up - because a Time Back has the names of people who have the skills and the know-how\n and connections to make projects happen.
\nTime Banks, Margaret says, are the blood supply or the nervous system of the whole area - that as a singular person championing their own project where\n you have to be your own lawyer, accountant, marketeer, artist, salesperson, go-for - when you are part of a team - you draw from the collective skills\n of your Time Bank. This is the gift and magic of organising a time bank in your localised area. You are resource rich!
\nIn NZ Time Banking is based around people’s secondary skills - that are not their main form of income - as they are taxed if they are following their primary\n financial means of earning a living.
\nFor example - if you are a builder who can do hedge cutting by swapping an hour with a florist who is prepared to paint your garage - one hour of each\n doing what they are ‘2nd best at’ - is how time banks are structured here in NZ.
\nIn the USA and the UK - time banks are exempt from tax - so NZ is very behind with the times on this issue. Where in future there may be an opportunity\n in NZ when more Time Banks become ubiquitous across the country - there may then be legislation passed that allows an accountant to swap an hour of\n their accountancy time to have one hour of lawn mowing done, by a full time lawn mower - in return.
\nA Large Membership for Their Area.
\nThe localised Lyttelton Township has a population of 2,500 and around the broader basin it’s naturally a lot larger - yet their Time Bank has around 780\n members - which offers up a very broad area of skills that can be drawn on.
\nThey also have Savings Pools where people save collectively and yet lending to each other interest free - and the trust that is around this unique way\n of pooling money is very abiding.
\nHuge Amounts of Trust
\nMargaret says that one of our biggest blocks is around how we think and that we need to have a totally new look at how we bank, because we have in some\n ways a large collective block on how we see banks these days - from the large ubiquitous commercial banks and our unknowing-ness around Savings Pools,\n Cooperative Banks - Trust Banks Time Banks and Green dollars.
\nStrong Values Base
\nProject Lyttelton is strongly values based - which they don’t actually name - but have a postcard with pictures of these values on - which ‘hint’ as to\n what these values might be. Margaret talks a lot about love and also generosity and kindness and the practice of generosity does amazing things and\n to offer things to people - not expecting anything in return - allow marvellous things to happen.
\nRebecca Solnit’s book: A Paradise Built in Hell - Extraordinary Communities that Arise from Disaster - http://www.onthecommons.org/paradise-built-hell#sthash.R8lu4JYo.dpbs
\nWhere in disasters people do come together - Whereas Hollywood may show mayhem and everyone running amuck but in reality - people all pull together - they\n sense a deeper connection - Margaret says that when a disaster happens, everyone ‘drops their stuff’ and only think about helping their neighbour -\n that before the authorities finally show up - that little window before - is like paradise (group mind connects) - because everyone is working together\n - and now today, with that disaster behind them - many people go back to how they were prior to the Earthquake and forget what once was - and Margaret\n understands that - because our world is run on a financial model - that earning money and getting money to buy things is the central thing - and this\n brings about disconnection again.
\nListen to Margaret talk about how the Time Bank came to be of huge assistance in the Earthquake that also affected Lyttelton - big time.
\nAssociate Professor Lucie Ozanne has written a document on Time Banking -
\nhttp://timebanks.nz/resources - That during the time of a disaster, was actually documenting\n the Lyttelton Time Bank before that disaster struck and was able to follow through giving major insights to its efficacy - as there is very little\n research on a group being monitored prior to and during a disaster. This document has gone worldwide showing that a Time Bank can be pivotal when disaster\n strikes.
\nChallenges
\nThe NZ Authorities acknowledged and appreciated what Project Lyttelton accomplished during and after the Earthquake with no financial support.
\nHowever Margaret says that Time Banks need to be acknowledged in such a way as to pay the administrators, because they cannot live on just credits alone\n etc - as there is rent to pay and all the other costs in living are many.
\nShe says this needs to be changed (because at another level they can act as an auxiliary Civil Defence) and it’s too hard for Time Banks to just exist\n without greater support from the established order.
\nAs Time Banks can run far more efficiently if there is someone working in a paid role. This way the community would become far more cohesive, mindful and\n caring.
\nFunding for local initiatives like Project Lyttelton is becoming more difficult to obtain too - for reasons unknown - community initiatives of closer knit\n neighbourhoods is very difficult to enable Government officials to comprehend - so she and the Project Lyttelton team are looking at social enterprises\n to enable them to support themselves.
\nSocial Enterprises
\nTheir farmers market falls into this category - on good Saturdays they have 50 plus stalls at their market - which all pay a fee that pays the Farmers\n Market manager as well as supporting the community garden.
\nThat Garage Sales* are another social enterprise - and this is continuing from strength to strength. (Listen to this interview) People will give stuff\n and earn ’time credits’.
\nPlus Project Lyttelton have rented an earthquake deserted (but safe) building where people also bring all their items* that they want to sell.
\nCommunity Group Involvement
\nIf you are a community group you can come and run that Garage Sale with that group officiating and at the end of the day they can receive the ‘profits\n of the take' etc and that is the way community groups can piggyback on outreach of Project Lyttelton's goodwill. For example $500 profit was taken\n on one particular Saturday.
\nAnd they can have 4 Garage Sales a week. They have two part time employees - so they are providing work. People who are in real need - they don’t have\n to pay … Margaret, says she loves this model and it feeds people at multiple levels - and the people who run it get to know who needs what in\n the community. (listening is best)
\nTime Banks Again - there is not a model that suits everyone - as all situations are different - however the general principles apply - transplanting one\n model to another area though good in theory - always needs to be revised and changed for that other area or region.
\nLiving and Thriving in the Community
\nMargaret gets her weekly shopping from the Farmers’ Market - due to it being organic and fresh - not from the supermarket where a lot of produce is packaged\n cartoned and tinned.
\nA Local Co-Operative
\nProject Lyttelton has a ‘friendship’ partnership in a Co-op in Lyttleton which has whole foods and it is owned by 200 people in Lyttelton - this is where\n Margaret obtains her whole foods, etc - so she shops at the Farmers’ Market and the Co-op. That the Co-op also acts as a conduit for all the localised\n farmers and producers that can sell their products into it and whatever organic produce that they only grow in a very short season - they can bring\n it to the Co-op.
\nSocial Interaction
\nThey do a lot around food - and shared events - Farmers Market on Saturdays are the best social bumping space to meet people.
\nProject Lyttleton has a board meeting once a months and they eat and discuss things - paid staff and volunteers meet every week and there is always food\n there - the savings pools meet every month over a shared meal too.
\nAnother fun event is called grow your own - and a dinner of your own growing - (Listen)
\nThe important Essence or Ingredient of Community is:
\n\n
- \n
- Openness - being open with all your accounts - let everyone know where you are getting your money from. \n
- Being Truthful \n
- Love \n
- Being Values based \n
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And Appreciative Enquiry - looking at what is going well and seeing why it is going well - and transferring why it’s going well, to other things and projects\n - and while it is going well including values, like looking at clear communication and acting kindly towards each other.
\nIncluding understanding conflict resolution - not that they have had real conflict but to embrace the skill of negotiating through goodwill. Gaining skills\n to work between and with each other.
\nThe Significance of Appreciative Enquiry
\nPut up an idea and the very next question is, where’s the money? - Project Lyttelton very seldom gets that question now - listen to how they manifest their\n money - note it is very inventive and novel …. Margaret says if they have a dream - put it out there - drop all attachment to it - and then\n it starts happening … and all sorts of possibilities come into being … keep talking to people - because they may have skills and they\n may be the answer.
\nWhat NZ needs to involve themselves with, is that each NZer is encouraged to find what finds them joy and what they feel drawn to and follow this notion.
\nAs this is an Election Year we need to be more involved at a national level and raising questions as to what we would like NZ to become … and raising\n questions.
\nBe involved in letter writing, submissions - attending meetings even marches and rallies Margaret said she is not drawn to such things, but when times\n require it she has done it from time to time.
\nThinking Global and Acting Local - is where her passion resides.
\nPresent Focus
\nProject Lyttelton are in the process of running a repair cafe … and remoulding plastics … looking at their waste stream - educating people\n into the finite nature of our resources - using things wisely and effectively - plus recycling, reusing and reducing items.
\nShe mentions Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth\n
As we are taking and extracting far more from our planet’s resources - some say we are taking far more than our planet actually can replace.
\nBecoming aware of our ecological well being - our mental well being and our spiritual wellbeing. Deepening our connection with life.
\nThe Global Commons - recognising that the global commons belongs to no one except the biota of our planet - The Global Commons is the opposite to a corporate\n raid.
\nConnection at a Higher Level
\nMargaret wants to see a method where ‘groups’ can be in contact and develop the skills in linking organisations together so that we can share - be more\n cohesive and connected with each other - especially spokespeople.
\nBy building the capacity to communicate nationwide across the sectors - grassroots groups - organising for a common purpose. So that we network our vision\n to more and more New Zealanders across the country, pulling the threads of community closer together.
\nSuch as ‘Not for Profit's’ in Christchurch need to form a Time Bank and all work together - and start linking up with expertise and material things like\n a shared truck or digger as an example.
\nIn a Future Scenario Margaret would like to get rid of party politics - as it locks down initiative - and that we are now caught up in the games that are\n being played between various parties - as there is no real discussion - (which she admits is a sweeping generalisation) but we understand what she\n is saying. That the issues have to be debated in a far more open forum.
\nInstant Localised Internet Voting
\nShe would also like to see ‘instant localised voting’ on a ’safe, non-hackable’ system that allowed people to vote on initiatives at a very localised level\n - that are binding - in that smaller regions could have more control over their affairs - and possibly voting on Daily Issues even - they would come\n up on your computer at specific times - maybe every day and this would involve us in ‘Participative Democracy’ and we could vote on the issues. (Listen\n to the interview)
\nShe also wants a group of people within the localised community to become ‘the voice of the community’ - so that instead of having one person speaking\n on behalf of the community that these ‘elected people’ - from youth to elders - can then speak - knowing that at heart they have the communities blessing\n - Margaret says there is a lot of wisdom embedded in her community so why her? And when you get this group together - you can pay them in time credits\n
\nThis is a very thought provoking and empowering interview of bringing ‘conscious’ care to you localised area and community.
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New Zealand needs to face up to the widespread use of chemicals that are applied in agriculture, either topically or coated on seeds, and how the chemical affect our food and therefore our health. There is a toxic plethora of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, along with artificial fertilisers that make chemical companies masses of money, but are not to the benefit of us, the consumers. \n
\n
One might think that a so called clean green country, like New Zealand, would be keen to show itself as just that, but instead we apply toxic chemical\n after toxic chemical all over the country.
\nIn one evening meal, that is not organic, you could be consuming as many as 17 different agro - chemicals in small quantities. Research on how they all work together has not been done. New Zealand’s chemical assessments are not being based on science.\n
The Formal UN Recommended Organisation SAICM (Strategic Approach to International Chemical Management)\nstates that highly hazardous pesticides be phased out and replaced by agro-ecology. (Agro-ecology is known as organics in NZ.) However, although 170 countries\nare involved and send delegates to the meetings, incredibly New Zealand has not chosen to be involved, and seems unaware of the serious repercussions of\nchemical use. Meriel states that the heads of the Departments for the Environment, Health and Agriculture (Primary Industries) need to attend to learn,\nand realise the critical situation that NZ is in.\nWhere is the powerful influence that keeps the toxic chemicals in use? Here’s an example from the US.\n
\n
Dow Chemicals has given a million dollars for Donald Trump’s campaign fund. Dow are makers of Chlorpyrifos. This pesticide has been banned by Sri Lanka\n and Yemen and US scientists have identified it as a major concern, but of course after that donation, the hopes of getting it banned in the US have\n been dashed.
\nIn New Zealand we are unsure of the influence by companies like Dow. However the pesticide Chlorpyrifos is used here in New Zealand. There is not much political will to ban it, and although home gardeners are not allowed\n to use it, the government still allows its use on farms, and by commercial gardeners.
\nChildren are especially at risk. Chlorpyrifos is an acute nerve toxin and suspected endocrine disruptor that has been linked to numerous health issues.\n It has been found in human cord blood and is known to cause foetal damage and neuro-developmental disorders. Most recently, it has been linked to an\n increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.
\nChlorpyrifos is found at particularly high levels in children. It is prevalent in fruit and vegetables; also in dairy products, nuts, cottonseed, wheat\n and wheat-based products such as bread and pasta, rice, maize, chickpeas, fish, muesli, jam, olive oil, pizza, hamburgers, raisins; also soft drinks\n and drinking water.
\nHAVE YOU EVEN HEARD OF CHLORPYRIFOS? Before this interview, I hadn’t.
\nSo why does our government lack the political will to put a ban on chemicals like chlorpyrifos, glyphosate / Roundup,\n 1080, and the bee threat neonicitinoids?
\nAgriculture is the largest sector of the tradable economy in New Zealand. This means that farmers have a strong voice around decisions made that affect\n them. They and the large chemical trans-nationals will undoubtedly have influence regarding decisions made, that could affect them. However we the\n public need to have a voice about what affects us – namely some very toxic chemicals.
\nNZ’s Government Department NIWA , the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, tested\n the water of Auckland harbour and were very concerned at the level of glyphosate in the water - Yet the Government is ignoring the aquatic environment.
\n“Our soils are sick from greed-based, irresponsible agricultural practices, pesticides, chemical fertilisers, erosion and mineral depletion, all\n of which stop or reduce adequate microbial activity in the soil, rendering them sick and/or dead and sterile. Sick soils make for sick plants and sick\n plants make for sick humans and animals.,” Says the president of the US National Health Federation, Scott Tips.
\nIf the soil is poor, not enough micro-organisms are taken up into the plant. So we are replacing nourishment with chemicals. The answer to growing good\n strong healthy plants that do not need chemical assistance, lies in the soil.
\nWe cannot put the entire blame on farmers, says Meriel. The whole approach to pesticides has to change, from home gardeners, to household use as well as\n farm use. We can’t very well demand farmers change without stopping using fly spray, for example. Fly spray is made with synthetic pyrethrum and is\n carcinogenic.
\nThe level of cancer is soaring around the world and yet we are not informed about agricultural and industrial chemical use, and its effect on human health.
\nNew Zealand is, in Meriel's opinion, between 10 and 20 years behind in understanding the side effects of pesticide use. This is unacceptable.
\nShe challenges which ever government is in power to create a caring state and ensure the health of all people throughout the country. One main way\n to do this is to walk away from the chemical cocktail that affects us all.
\nDr Meriel Watts had a Bachelor of Agricultural Science and a PhD in risk assessment of pesticides and the consequences of its flaws for pesticide\n policy.
\nShe has been working on behalf of civil society for 27 years on pesticide issues and safer alternatives – including for Greenpeace and the Soil & Health\n Association. Now she works (since 1993) for Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a global network of about 600 civil society organisations in 90 countries\n – coordinate PAN Aotearoa NZ, Senior Technical Advisor to PAN Asia Pacific, the regional centre in Malaysia, and represents the global network at UN\n chemicals conventions, agreements and technical groups.
\nMeriel has been involved in NZ’s organics sector for about 24 years – including helping to establish and run Organic Farm NZ – a low-cost certification\n scheme for growers supplying only the domestic market. Together with her partner, she runs a certified organic farm, on Waiheke Island, supplying locals\n with fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and olive oil.
\nAuthor of 5 books on pesticides, Meriel has contributed to numerous other publications including monographs e.g. on both the glyphosate and chlorpyrifos,\n act.
\nHer most recent book = Replacing Chemicals with Biology – Phasing out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agro-ecology - is about why we need to phase out\n chemical pesticides. That successful growing without pesticides is possible and is now being proved globally and what policy changes are needed to\n get us there.
\nThe websites mentioned in the interview:
\nPesticide Action Network of Aotearoa New Zealand.
\n\nReplacing Chemicals with Biology: Phasing out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agroecology: http://pan-international.org/resources
\nand
\nUN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, report on pesticides to UN human Rights Council, A/HRC/34/48: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/Annual.aspx
\nAlso of interest may be:
\nPAN International List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides: http://pan-international.org/resources
\nPAN International Consolidated List of Ban Pesticides: http://pan-international.org/resources
\nPAN International Monograph on Glyphosate: http://pan-international.org/resources
\n------------------------------------
\nThis interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party\n
\n
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Clyde Graf and his brother Steve were introduced to the outdoors by their father, Egon. For a period spanning 30 years, Egon Graf was\n a professional deer hunter, based in Te Urewera National Park.
\nIn 1996, Egon’s youngest son Steve made a trip to Canada, with his video camera, captured some amazing wildlife footage. Upon his return he teamed up with\n his brother Clyde, and together they began to make The Graf Boys' videos.
\nSince then, The Graf Boys have produced six hunting and outdoors DVD titles, and two documentaries. Their documentary, Poisoning Paradise,\n has won four international awards (England, Ireland, Japan, and Culture Unplugged online festival).
\nSee their You Tube Channel The Graf Boys.
\nThe movie Poisoning Paradise is about the aerial dispersal of 1080 throughout New Zealand in order to kill rodents, mustelids and possums. This poisoning\n now has become a highly controversial topic with conservationists, environmentalists, and members of the public.
\nWhat is 1080?
\nSodium fluoroacetate, known in pesticide form as 1080, is the organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH₂CO₂Na. This colourless salt has a taste\n similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a metabolic poison.
\n1080 is extremely toxic to all air-breathing organisms. It blocks the body’s muscle and organ's ability to absorb energy from its food, and results in\n a slow and inhumane death, typically 8 -24 hours for birds, 2-4 days for large mammals. There is no known antidote for this deadly poison.
\nControversy
\nNot only is 1080 highly toxic to mammals, birds and insects- one scientist has even discovered that it is toxic to plants and so forests do not do so well\n after 1080 drops.
\nThe former may be controversial, but in general 1080 and its effects on animals through primary and secondary poisoning, and on humans through water supplies,\n is not well researched, especially considering the huge amount of 1080 poison tipped from helicopters over our forests. If there are any unanswered\n questions about its use and the results, then more research must be undertaken, not only by DoC (Department of Conservation) but by independent scientists, preferably from overseas, to avoid any collusion.
\nIn this interview Clyde gives important information on the New Zealand government’s financial interest in 1080. New Zealand uses 80% of all 1080 used in\n the world. In fact it is banned in most countries overseas.
\nBird Deaths
\n19 different native bird species have had corpses test positive for 1080 after aerial 1080 operations, however, it is known that the small sample size,\n and the lack of a control group needs highlighting. There is a need for long term population monitoring. These concerns are completely absent in DoC\n summaries.
\nBirds reported killed by 1080 poisoned cereal baits include morepork, weka, tomtits and grey warbler, and fauna known to eat cereal bait include kea, kaka, little spotted kiwi, kokako, saddleback, kakariki, pukeko, insects, koura and lizards.
\nPossum Numbers
\nThe number of possums in New Zealand was estimated at 47.6 million in the mid 1980’s. When possum control is taken into account, the number of possums\n has reduced to an estimated 30 million as of 2008/9. This is not a very large reduction when considering both the environmental and the financial cost\n of the large scale poisoning operations.
\nIn a Landcare Research document 2009 it states:\n
\n“Control of possums alone may not always have net benefits for native biodiversity because, for example, of the increase in rodent numbers, and hence predation\n on native animals, that can occur when possum numbers are reduced (Ruscoe et al. 2008).”
\nThis is important because once the ecosystem is no longer managing itself and is interfered with by humans, it no longer functions so effectively. “It\n takes one year for rat populations to come back to pre-poisoning levels. By the second year rat numbers were higher than before the operation”, Dr\n Ruscoe from Landcare said. Scientists warn that this paves the way to rat plagues.
\nPoisoning from 1080 occurs through eating the dosed baits (cereal pellets) or from the flesh of poisoned animals. Carcasses remain poisonous until they\n are completely decomposed, which makes 1080 particularly lethal to dogs.
\nDog Deaths
\nThe Life Style Block (LSB) website states regarding dogs and 1080:
\n“Dog owners should take particular care near areas where 1080 poison has been used as dogs are extremely susceptible to the poison.
\nThere is no antidote and it causes every appearance of extreme distress in dogs, and the signs can last for hours before the dog dies. It’s very distressing!
\nPoisoned carcasses can remain poisonous to scavenging dogs for many months if they have been preserved in very dry conditions.”
\nDeath from 1080 poisoning typically involves nausea, vomiting, convulsions, pain and foaming of the mouth, and can take anywhere from 1-72 hrs, depending\n on the species and the dose. From an animal rights perspective, we should not be allowing such an extremely painful death. Possums stoats and rats\n are not the only animals to die this way. Other wild and domestic animals become unintended kill, and it persists through the food chain.
\nAnimal rights organisation SAFE has concerns over 1080 use and calls it a “cruel and indiscriminate\n poison”.
\nDo we as humans really have the right to kill sentient beings in such a gruelling manner?
\nDrinking Water?
\nClyde is now involved in a new web site www.watersourcenz.org which will become live shortly\n ( if it isn’t already). On the home page it asks the question, “Do you drink bottled water sourced from New Zealand forests?” The question is relevant\n not only about bottled water but about water coming to us from such places as the Hunua dam in Auckland, which is fed from streams that have been in\n 1080 drop areas. Can we trust the DOC and health board information we are given when we know that government has financial conflicts of interest? Listen\n to the interview for more on this.
\nScientific Overview
\nIn 2009, Scientists Pat and Quinn Whiting-OKeefe presented to Taupo District Council on 1080. They included the following information:
\n“First, there is not a single scientifically credible study showing that aerial 1080 when used on the mainland is of net benefit to any species of New\n Zealand’s native fauna. Thus the upside for native species is entirely unproven, despite 15 years of increasingly desperate attempts by DoC to show\n one.
\nSecond, there is overwhelming evidence from DoC’s own research that aerial 1080 is killing large numbers of native animals, including birds, insects and\n other invertebrates. Moreover most native species remain entirely unstudied. Thus there is plenty of proven downside for native species.
\nThird, there is not a single ecosystem level study. That is, we don’t have the slightest idea of unintended consequences and secondary negative effects\n of which ecological science assures us there are many.
\nFourth, while it is probable that possums, if unchecked, would in time cause some shift of tree species in our forests, the degree of that shift is not\n great and fear of canopy collapse is wholly unwarranted.
\nFifth, DoC’s 1080 research is generally of poor scientific quality, is biased in favour of DoC’s agenda, and DoC chronically and systematically misrepresents\n what their own scientific research actually shows.
\nSixth, regarding bovine tuberculosis (TB), AHB’s own research shows that there is a clear alternative: ground-based baiting with species-specific bait\n stations. Plus possums as a vector for bovine TB can be controlled by trapping or ground-based baiting solely at the forest pasture margins to a depth\n of 3-4 km.”
\nClyde points out that New Zealand is classed as being free from TB, and that only 50 possums have ever been found to have been infected with TB.
\nThe Whiting-O’Keefe’s are two retired PhD scientists from the USA were interviewed about the problems of 1080 by GreenplanetFM.com - in 2010.
\nAlternative Strategy
\nIn an article in The Otago Daily Times, rheumatology professor\n and keen tramper Fiona McQueen gives a solution to New Zealand’s pests, after being shocked at what was seen in Fiordland.
\n“An alternative strategy would be to incentivise possum trapping, boosting the fur industry and relieving unemployment in areas such as the West Coast.\n This could be achieved without the grim reality of ‘‘by-kill'' and allow our international ‘‘clean and green'' image to regain some credibility.”
\nThis interview with Clyde Graf was sponsored by The Awareness Party\n
\n
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This interview exemplifies Steffan’s courage at talking truth to power as he exposes the sham of what neoliberal agricultural policies are doing to NZ,\n but he also speaks of some very good grass roots initiatives happening right across our country.
\nSteffan’s days as an MP are engaged and occupied
\nMeeting with meat inspectors - beekeepers as well as the incursions of disease through our biosecurity such as myrtle rust - he says there is always something\n to do with regard to protecting our environment.\n
Also, that as NZ is a primary producer of food being isolated from the rest of the world, away from many global diseases that the imperative for us is\n to have an alert and well funded bio security system. This has not been happening - especially over the previous years of the National Government administration.\n where today we are battling to deal with numerous incursions - due to these Governmental funding cuts. Though very recently there has been a little\n more funding - especially to respond to myrtle rust for example. He notes that the focussed staff at biosecurity are overworked and whilst there has\n been a 70% increase in foot traffic coming through airports and ports, there is not really a commensurate increase in funding.
\nMyrtle rust is now a growing problem - and yet we still have no national plant control forbidding sending seedlings and plant material anywhere within\n NZ. At present we are now still on the back foot in dealing with these new diseases.
\nIt being imperative that we protect our country’s natural integrity and biodiversity.
\nHowever the main two projects that are resting with Stephen is around glyphosate and the Country of Origin - the Food Labelling Bill. This is a carry over\n from the petition of 37,000 signatures that ex Green MP Sue Kedgley initiated in 2007 - that was not able to get the ‘cross party support' to make\n this law. Steffan has made some slight modifications to the bill she originally drafted back then and it is now moving forward.
\nSteffan said that even the Labour Government in 2007 we’re not going to push it through - then not long after they were out of power they changed their\n mind (consumer pressure?) or just snatching some Green policy points?
\nWhat Steffan finds is that the political acceptance to this has changed markedly because of consumers growing concerns - especially now with the ruling\n National party allowing it to pass its first reading and go to a select committee. He says that as all parties voted for it - it's a very good omen\n - with ACT the only party voting against it. Their reason being that they want to make a stand as being ‘always more right than that of National’ our\n so called centre right - Governing Party.
\nHe says that this Bill’s further progressing - will go through some due processes - but he said it has some interesting ’support’ behind it.
\nSaying that it should go through, but the window is closing before this general election - however - no matter who is in power - it should pass into Law\n shortly - so this is a major blessing for food consumers here in NZ
\nSteffan mentioned that sometimes the universe does provide and that serendipity sometimes shows up …. listen for the rest of this.
\nHe is also following up on the Food Safety Law Reform Bill within Parliament to get GE Food as well as irradiated food monitored and enforced as intended.\n Because it has not been! So it's a wait and see situation. Because this food component has not seen the labelling of GE or Irradiated being enforced\n since 2003.
\nSteffan asks readers and listeners that of they see a product that has on its label ‘GE or Irradiated’ to contact him … C/- Green Party.
\nIt is a known that GE soy is coming into NZ - a lot of it for animal feed - some going into our bread as well as tofu. Being food for poultry and pigs.\n This is an ongoing story in itself and need investigating.
\nSalmon Fish Farming:
\nPresently salmon farming in the Marlborough Sounds is an increasing ecological problem. There are in some cases too many fish in too smaller confined net\n area and the fish are defecating to such a degree that it is laying waste to the seabed below. Plus fish are also suffering diseases as well as general\n production problems due to basically - unhealthy conditions.
\nLike intensive dairy farms they have far too many fish in the one space. So the fish mongers are now wanting to expand into outer lying areas of the Marlborough\n Sounds where tidal flushes are better, however these are areas that they previously agreed not to go into. (They are wanting to shift the goalposts.)
\nSteffan notes that the industry is expansionist and every few years wants a bit more and a bit more …
\n50% of the world’s fish are consumed from fish farms especially in Asia. However the reason that salmon is being farmed is because we have over the years\n abused the wild salmon industry here in NZ and extracted too many fish that it has not been able to sustain itself.
\nHere the King salmon farms feed on a mixture of anchovy caught off the South American coast - other fish waste and also animal waste from our freezing\n works and more and more vegetable protein as it’s cheaper. However this feed mix changes the omega 3 and omega 6 in the makeup off the fish and it\n is nowhere as good as they suggest it is. Steffan recommends that we look at other South Island salmon companies further south to source more healthier\n fish.
\nHe states this whole fish farming scenario has been a huge emotional and financial cost to NGO’s and the Marlborough Sounds residents as a result of this\n particular salmon company. He says that even democracy has been compromised and that we need to be building up and restoring the wild fishery and being\n majorly conscious of focussing on strong sustainability, instead of saying ‘it’s stuffed’ now let’s move on to the next unsustainable practice …
\nOrganics
\nIn NZ organics is growing by 10 -11% a year, however we have no government champions - in that they in many ways come close to sneering at the word ‘organic’.\n Whereas in Denmark the Government has organic targets and is very supportive of the industry, that they are going to have 14% of their food growing\n production organic by 2020 - and this is what we need here in NZ. Mandated targets and conscious government enthusiasm. Plus the Danes have included\n pesticide reduction strategies as well.
\nSteffan also met with Dutch officials in the Hague and they have some very good initiatives happening in the Netherlands too. As does Germany - but these\n countries are still using many pesticides as well! Austria is also pushing organics as a new way forward.
\nThe NZ wine industry is working towards 20% organic wine by 2020 - Steffan states that they may not get there, because there is such a proliferation of\n non organic grapes being produced that is diluting (no pun intended) the sector because of their increasing numbers.
\nVilla Maria here in NZ, a large family owned business are doing very well in this organic sector and will be 50% organic by 2020.
\nThe so called Sustainable Wine Growing NZ group - Steffan gives them a slap - as dragging the chain and being more words than action. Having a low bar\n as their target - but Steffan ever the commensurate community activist says that they have done one good thing and that is they now have ‘integrated\n herbicide management’ - so instead of automatically spraying every 2 weeks they actually monitor and see the need for spraying - before they go about\n doing it.
\nBut when he recently checked, and they have been around since 2007 - that last year 70% of the whole Marlborough viticulture area - and it is huge - 70%\n of the surface area including just inside the gate and the headlands - not just under the vines and between the vines - was herbicided in spring as\n they try and get a little 1 degree or half a degree of frost protection by having bare ground warming up in the sun and that warmth would slightly\n emanate at night and thus reduce the frost a little more.
\nBut the organic guys don’t do that, yet they still succeed just as well. So there is an outrageous level of glyphosate being sprayed to the degree with\n have glyphosate resistant ryegrass there because they have been spraying it so regularly. So sustainable wine growing is not what it says it is. But\n he says they are slowly lifting the bar and he applauds them as it is still only by voluntary means. In taking this further Steffan drops a bombshell\n in relation to the PR that is being pushed out and that it is profoundly unethical. Listen to the interview.
\nThere is good organic growth in the horticulture sector and pipfruit and kiwifruit.
\nDairy
\nSteffan talks about dairy and the huge price differential between ordinary conventional farming and intentional organic dairy farming. Fonterra’s last\n public price for organic milk solids was around $9 per kilo whilst the non organic farmers are starting to cheer because their price has crept up to\n $6 again after being around $4.
\nBut our Minister and successive Ministers (have lacked the vision and courage) to grab this opportunity and get in behind NZ farmers and make farming more\n profitable at the same time cleaning up the water and sequestering more Co2 out of the atmosphere. Why? Because they are so market infatuated - and\n market forces will rule. However in Parliament Steffan was able to get National MP Ian McKelvie
\nthe Select Committee chairperson who was keen to look at the ONZ Organic NZ market report that Brendan Hoare prepared and it was very well supported and\n received at that level of Parliament.
\n\nBut even today - NZ has no government regulation around the word organic and there is nothing to stop anyone calling anything organic - So here we are\n 2017 and we still have no legislation - (so you can see why it’s been so difficult for organics to be accepted in the public consciousness because\n by far the majority of our politicians have no idea of what it signifies - what so ever.
\nGlyphosate - Monsanto
\nEuropean Parliament: Green Members of Parliament tested for glyphosate in April 2016.
\n48 Green Members that took part in a symbolic urine test ahead of the European Parliament vote last month to oppose the EU Commission’s proposal to relicense\n the controversial toxic substance until 2031.
\nThe inspiration behind what was labelled the #MEPee test was the results of a recent study in Germany which found that 99.6% of people tested were found\n to have glyphosate residue in their urine. According to ELISA test results from the accredited Biocheck Laboratory in Germany:
\nThe results reveal that every MEP tested has been found to have glyphosate traces in their urine, with the average concentration being 1.73ng/ml. That\n level is more than 17 times the safe limit for drinking water. The lowest level found among the group was 0.17ng/ml, almost double the safe level.
\nNow most Greens will be drinking the best quality water, eating organic food and yet this is what is happening. What will this do to our DNA, semen and\n ovaries over time and future generations and in our babies and infants? Are you asking this question?
\nhttps://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/05/13/green-party-meps-peed-off-with-glyphosate-test-results
\nNZ Glyphosate
\nSteffan says that Glyphosate is made up of many other chemicals called adjuvants and thickers and spreaders and emulsifiers that go into a formula - some\n of these will penetrate the waxy cuticle the skin of a leaf - there are others that will make the spray spread evenly and there is a range of different\n compounds that go into a full formulation and come up with a brand name like ‘Roundup’ from Monsanto.
\nThere are also other surfactants and formulas that are part of this concoction.
\nIn this interview Tim mentioned that he knows of an agricultural professional in Waikato who told him that farmers wanting to clear away grass so as to\n sow a summer crop. So they will spray their grass with a glyphosate product and after 4 days cows and other animals are allowed to then eat this sprayed\n grass.
\nIn checking with this professional on 26/06/17 it was reaffirmed that some of these cows will be milked and that milk becomes a dairy production commodity\n - like milk, butter, cheese and milk powder. Hence Tim only sourcing organic milk products since he learnt about this a few years ago.
\nWeedMaster TS540 is one such product that is on the NZ market. This is what the Directions State:
\nAfter application of Weedmaster TS540 a withholding period for grazing stock is not required (except where ragwort is present). However, it is recommended\n that grazing or cultivating is delayed for 1 day after treatment of annual weeds or 3 days if perennial weeds are present to ensure absorption of Weedmaster\n TS540
\nThere are 91 glyphosate based herbicide products registered in NZ but according to official information that Steffan has access to, it may only be about\n 80% of glyphosate products that are out there on the market within NZ.
\nIARC the International Agency for Research on Cancer says that Glyphosate was probably carcinogenic in humans.
\nhttp://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVolume112.pdf or see Wiki
\nCheck POEA in Europe it is effectively banned - as one of the adjuvants was so highly toxic in its own regard - let alone as a mixture in the formulation\n of glyphosate.
\n\nAlso, Steffan mentions - it must not to be used as a desiccant that is sprayed on crops ahead of harvest. See above
\n75% of Glyphosate products in NZ have this highly banned toxic POEA adjutant in their sprays and when Steffan asked Nick Smith the Governmental Minister\n in charge, what herbicide sprays in NZ have it? Nick Smith replied that he cannot allow this information into the public arena - due to commercial\n considerations!
\nThe EPA (Environmental Protection Authority) is now an ‘Economic Protection Authority’
\nListen to how the EPA sent a retired toxicologist to do a glyphosate report and pull apart the strengths and weakness of the IARC report (and because he\n was retired he had no need to worry about future tenure) - who with his credentials was able to basically fob the report and give Glyphosate a free\n pass - by stating ‘it fulfilled industry standards’ or words to this effect.
\nSteffan mentioned that the Official Information Act showed that there was some kind of collusion between big business and Government Agencies including\n the Ministry for Primary Industries as to having edited this report as well.
\nYet Steffan stated that he knows scientists here in NZ who counter all the statements that this report uses to get glyphosate off the hook. He is calling\n for a thorough investigation of the EPA to the full extent of the Law.
\nThis interview goes on to include Methyl Bromide fumigation of export logs at ports.
\nSteffan talks about the ongoing need for recapture of this gas instead of letting it blow away in the air stream.
\nThis information below gives you an understanding, however due to the scope of this I Tim, as a volunteer doing this by myself am copying off the web information\n that I trust will give you a greater understanding.
\nPort’s decision a win for workers and environment. From Scoop.co.nz
\nThe Green Party is applauding the decision by the Ports of Auckland to require total recapture of the toxic gas methyl bromide at the port by the end of the 2017, and says other ports must now follow suit.
\nExposure to a gas being used on an industrial scale at Port of Tauranga evidently doubles the risk of contracting motor neurone disease, new research has\n found.
\nThe revelation states that methyl bromide gas to fumigate logs at the port may pose a health hazard to people in surrounding areas.
\nMr Browning said the ports in Tauranga, Whangarei and Napier were \"carrying the burden\" of methyl bromide fumigation. Fumigators at other ports, including\n Wellington, recaptured the gas after use so that it could not escape into surrounding areas.
\nMr Browning of the Green Party called for a new facility to be built at the port that would allow safer fumigation.
\n\"If it's not methyl bromide it will be something else, so we need recapture,\" he said. \"It can't go on like it is.\"
\nMethyl bromide is used to fumigate logs for export. Exposure to the gas, when it’s not safely recaptured, can pose serious risks to people’s health and\n contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer.
\n“We’re really pleased by this decision. The Green Party has been campaigning for years alongside workers, community groups and many others to end the exposure\n of people to this toxic gas,\" said Green Party pesticide spokesperson Steffan Browning.
\n“Methyl bromide, if inhaled, can have long-term impacts on the brain, and increase the risk of cancers and neurological issues.
\nFinally this interview finishes with Steffan telling us about the Security and Intelligence Bill that was pushed through NZ’s Parliament in 2013 under\n urgency - at the same time that Eric Holder the US Attorney General was in NZ, along with the Attorney General’s of Canada, the UK and Australia along\n with a contingent of FBI officials - all present in NZ whilst PM John Key railroaded this Law through Parliament without the deeper context of an informed\n parliamentary and nation wide debate.
\nWatch this Eye Opening video that can also be also accessed on YouTube.
\nhttp://www.ourplanet.org/perspectives/steffan-browning-security-intelligence-loss-of-sovereignty
\n23 August 2013 in Parliament you said:
\n\"I implore one of the 61 MPs who has previously supported this legislation to change at this vote and allow a full inquiry first. The Government has failed\n to provide a real justification for this fundamental attack on our democratic rights and freedoms, and the legislation facilitates the legal establishment\n of a surveillance State in New Zealand\".
\n\nSteffan finally finishes with some of the highlights of his political career - his love for what he does in the organic world.
\nHe is drawn to hands on projects that people are doing … closing the environmental loop and being so close to the land, with passion and love.
\nMeeting wonderful people and his love for his family and friends.
\nThis is an important interview to be able to understand the courage and measure of this man. Download and listen, it shows that we as NZers have to be\n very alert to what is happening in this land of ours.
\n\n
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He is a Professor of Law and Director, New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, University of Auckland; Chair, IUCN World Commission on Environmental\n Law Ethics Specialist Group.
\nWith all the mounting ecological challenges, climate change, melting tundra, ocean acidification etc, that face us today, these are finally being acknowledged\n as the logical symptoms of a disease and Klaus reiterates this - a disease that is permeating our society as a result of economics gone mad.
\nAs an extension of the Chicago school in the 1970’s and then policies by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher we are left with posing the question - who\n will look after the planetary environment?
\nThat economics having been the main and in many ways the only fundamental agenda over the last 35 - 40 years that we (even ordinary NZers) are realising\n we are now in deeper trouble. That without factoring urgent ecological solutions and taking action - we are to experience environmental blow-back of\n increasing proportions.
\nWe have been going backwards over this time especially as we have added another three and half billion souls to the planetary population. In doing so -\n the web of life ‘Nature’ - that embraces and integrates all the ecosystems that are layered over each other from the micro to the macro have been put\n under unprecedented stress. All due to the increase in mans dominating nature especially around deforestation and pollution at all levels - that has\n been so overwhelming that our planet’s biota, natural systems and feedback loops are unable to cope with the rapid changes that are upon us.
\nIt’s all happening far too quickly and our biosphere can not adapt fast enough in the time available. Thus, with multiple tipping points being reached\n the possibility of cascading problems is an extreme urgency that has to be addressed. Biosphere collapse has to be avoided!
\nToday, business people in general when we sit them down and talk ‘one on one’ they will agree that the commercial sector are grabbing and extracting voraciously\n from the earth, however when they go back to their corporation they cannot or are unable to initiate change. The main reason being that the business\n world in general has failed themselves by still being ‘ecological illiterate.’ This being predominant in the extreme in the global political arena\n as well.
\nToday the concept of sustainability has so often been distorted, co-opted, and even trivialized by being used without the ‘ecological context’ that gives\n it its proper meaning. So, it is worthwhile to reflect about what “sustainability\" really means.
\nWhat is sustained in a sustainable community is not economic growth or competitive advantage, but the entire web of life on which our long-term survival\n depends. In other words, a sustainable community is designed in such a way that its ways of life, businesses, economy, physical structures, and technologies\n do not interfere with nature’s inherent ability to sustain life. It may be also likened to‘durable prosperity’ - that nature will last ad infinitum.
\nThe first step in this endeavor, naturally, must be to understand how nature sustains life. It turns out that this involves a whole new conception of life.\n Indeed, such a new conception of life has emerged over the last 30 years.
\nCalled ‘The Systems View of Life’ it is grand synthesis\n of this new understanding of life.
\nLooking back.
\nHistorical Limitations.
\nKlaus reviews Western civilisation over the last 3-4,000 yearsand though we as a Western material culture have ‘seemingly’ benefited hugely from our endeavours\n we have gradually committed so much ecological and cultural damage - that we are now belatedly realising that there is a limit to growth on a finite\n ecological - planetary system - that we are now teetering on overhang.
\nWhen we go back to Greece the word oikos means household and nomos means management. Oikonomos, economy, is thus - those things concerning the management\n of the house or home as on our ‘home' planet - earth. Note that eco for ecology and economics also have the same root prefix.
\nThinking in terms of relationships is crucial for ecology, because ecology —
\n(as mentioned above - derived from oikos) is the science of the relationships among various members of the Earth Household. Many indigenous cultures embody\n profound ecological awareness and think of nature in terms of relationships and patterns.
\nLooking at what the Western model has brought to the world.
\nDualism: Can be seen as another Western construct.
\nThe separation between the human sphere and the natural sphere. Where once we were connected to the earth - the wind whispered, the trees sighed, the brook\n gurgled and oneness within nature permeated much of life from as far back as neolithic times. We were embedded in natural forces.
\nThat over time the academic Greeks started to quantify and measure and objectify things and dualism and ‘separation’ gradually came into being. We put\n up walls and insulated and isolated ourselves from the environment.
\nAnthropocentric (humancenteredness): that we can measure everything through the lenses of human experience and that we only look at the\n environment for its usefulness.
\nMaterialism: the predominance of measuring any reality in the terms of matter as against energy or spirit - or the intangible. Having\n things and measuring success by ‘owning’ things and stacking them up all around us.
\nAtomism: and our modern science where we are very proud “knowing all about very little and losing the ability to learn a little about\n everything” … A shift from a more general understanding to more precise expertise - and thus not seeing the larger context. Locked into reductionism\n and reducing everything down to the mini particle and eventual invisible energy packets.
\nGreed: when individuals and materialism come together and the so called ‘enlightenment’ - celebrating the idea of individual freedom -\n another European invention - (has a lot of good things going for it - like human rights and even democracy and so forth) - the dark side is individualism\n that came into being and - taking it all - with no limits becoming a norm. This translates that one does not have a sense of collective interdependence\n and responsibilities anymore - and when you combine these with capitalism and materialism we see the 001% of the 1% express what they are doing at\n the top of the power structures of today.
\nThis is what we have today. We have a great deal of separation - living in buildings doing our best to experience some sort of community yet people have\n in many ways - just become consumers rather than citizens.
\nEconomism: that we measure everything through the lens of economic cost benefit analysis - time is money - be it Local or Central government.\n How much is that worth? How much did you win, how much did you lose? My net worth is ………..
\nAdd up the 1st letters of these 6 words and they equal = DAMAGE\n
\nThis European experience is totally out of step of non European cultures thus the need to heal our planetary systems and be more open to listen ….
\nWe need to become citizens of the earth see ourselves as brother and sisters with other parts of our planet. We are in this together - so we need to know\n what is it like to articulate what it is to be human on this - our beautiful planet earth.
\nThe necessity now is to have a Nationwide Conversation and talk about long term strategies.
\nWe are all integrated within the web of life - even if we do not realise it - and with all biota. However, with climate change upon us and the invisible\n membrane of our atmosphere that envelope’s our planet as the only barrier between us and deep space.
\nThe imperative is to understand we are together - breathing in and out - this invisible barrier that is fundamental to our survival as a species. As Chief\n Seattle the American First Nation medicine man stated “whatever we do to the web of life - we do to ourselves.”
\nThat we as humanity need to understand what the ‘Global Commons’ is and then how to honour it and respectfully work with it. This is when\n we learn to become ‘Ecologically Literate.’
\nRead the Earth Charter Indianapolis Talk;\n
http://earthcharter.org/virtual-library2/images/uploads/Korten%20Earth%20Charter%20Indianapolis%20Talk.pdf\n
Having enticed Helen Bayes into the studio, this interview covers not only the story of these staunch seniors, but also explains something of Quakers,\n and their peace testimony.
\nAs part of Peace Convergence 2015 'Quaker Grannies for Peace' set up a tea table blockading the access road to Samuel Hill / Shoalwater Bay military base,\n which is used for the Talisman Sabre military exercises.
\n(Talisman Sabre is a biennial joint Australia-United States military exercise. It involves joint exercises performed by the Australian Defence Force and\n the United States Military across six locations in northern and central Australia, the Coral Sea, and in Honolulu, Denver, and Suffolk, Va., though\n the bulk of the exercises are concentrated at the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area, and other locations in northern and central Australia.)
\nGrandmother of thirteen, Helen Bayes explains why they would protest this: \"Our Quaker peace testimony from 1661 says 'We utterly deny all outward wars\n and strife and fighting with outward weapons for any end or under any pretence whatsoever.”
\nThe grannies set up a table and chairs and prepared tea and cake in order to engage in dialogue with military personnel.
\n\"Negotiation is not currently part of the war rehearsals, so we are drawing attention to this missing element,\" said Helen, \" Yet it essential to achieve\n peace.\"
\nThe Quaker Grannies said they came \"with the conviction that a world of increasingly destructive weaponry threatens our continued existence and that nonviolent\n strategies are essential to our survival\".
\nAfter being arrested by military police and handed over to local police, the Grannies were convicted, on July 14, 2015, of trespass, and fined $500 each,\n with no conviction recorded.
\nIn 2016 “Quaker Grannies for Peace” set up breakfast on the road to Pine Gap, and invited military personnel arriving for work at the base to sit down\n with them.
\nThe action was one of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the secret US military facility at Pine Gap, by groups advocating for the base’s\n closure.
\nFounder of the Quaker Grannies Helen Bayes said: “We are asking Australians whether it is appropriate for a foreign country to be operating a secret facility\n with no transparency on Australian soil; a base that may well be implicating Australians in wars that our government has not entered into.”
\nLocated half-an-hour's drive south-west of Alice Springs, Pine Gap is one of Australia's most secret sites. It collects various kinds of data from the\n Asia Pacific and the Middle East, including targeting data for American drone operations and assassinations.
\nPartly run by the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S.\n National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Pine Gap is a key contributor to the global surveillance network ECHELON.\n (New Zealand’s Waihopai Spy Base is also a part of ECHELON, or Five Eyes. It is a secure communication facility, located near Blenheim, run by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).)
\nHelen Bayes is a Melbourne based English-born activist who won the Australia's Human Rights Medal in 1999.
\nShe was born into a Quaker family in Northern England and migrated to Australia in 1966, at age 22. She has 4 adult children and 13 grandchildren. She\n holds a BA in Social Work and BA (Hons) in Social Administration, and had a 15-year career in the National and State Public Service in the areas of\n Social Policy and Community Services.
\nHelen resigned from the Public Service and set up an international child rights advocacy NGO called the Australian Section of Defence for Children International,\n and has served that organisation in Australia, in Geneva, and on the International Council for 20 years. Helen Bayes was awarded the Australian Human\n Rights Medal for this work in 1999.
\nHelen's concern for the rights of children grew into a fascination with early Quakerism. As Eva Koch Fellow at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, she\n researched the views of the earliest Quakers on the nurturing and guidance of children and young people. She was the James Backhouse Lecturer in 2002\n (the Australian equivalent of the SP Gardner Lecture), entitled Respecting the Rights of Children and Young People: A New Perspective on Quaker Faith\n and Practice.
\nOn a lighter side, Helen collects Quaker bonnets, one of which she is wearing in the above photo.
\nNews
\nhttps://www.greenleft.org.au/content/quaker-grannies-blockade-road-pine-gap-breakfast-spread-dawn
\n\nQuakers – who are they
\nhttp://www.fgcquaker.org/explore/faqs-about-quakers
\nAddendum
\nYou can about the book, “Dangerous Allies,” by Malcolm Fraser, (Australian PM from 1975 to 1983) which argues that the time when it was in our strategic\n interest to have a strong military relationship with the US is over, and that now Australia would be better off with a more independent foreign policy.\n (New Zealand too!)
\nhttps://theconversation.com/book-review-dangerous-allies-by-malcolm-fraser-25995
\nand
\nhttps://www.aspi.org.au/publications/reassessing-malcolm-fraser/SI89_Malcolm_Fraser.pdf
\nand our Greenplanet interview with Murray Horton on why New Zealand needs an independent foreign policy:
\n\nThis interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party\n
\n
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Being a staunch advocate of recycling for most of my life, that when talking to Warren, I concur that to get the 'Powers That Be' to make recycling mandatory\n - nationwide - has to become an election issue - so as to show the younger generation that adults do care for our children’s future.
\nThe Great Kiwi Bottle Drive
\nWarren and friends have just launched the Great Kiwi Bottle Drive.
\nWhere the small town and community of Kaitaia in the Far North recycled 20,000 bottles and cans in 4 hours. Exceeding expectations.\n
\n
Where at the Kaitaia market - many people supported this ideal - with a very community spirited input.
\nChildren were involved - many very young and it was heartwarming to receive their bottles and give the kiddies some money in return.
\nThey filled a large curtain-side truck with empties. People cleaned up streets, roads, harbours and beaches and their uncles back yards and brought all\n the empty containers to get a refund.
\nNow this initiative is heading South to more towns and communities throughout the whole of NZ. Parliament being one of the stops.
\nWith the idea of creating up to 2,500 plus jobs, savings for Councils, money for families and community groups. Including almost tripling our recycling\n rates with over 1 billion bottles saved from landfill, streets and our oceans!
\nCash for container schemes - are going well around the world however NZ is lagging behind world opinion. Warren's team are about to change this!
\nGlass, aluminium and all plastic containers, plus the cardboard juice and milk containers need to have a deposit paid so that the loop is closed when they\n come back full circle to be either reused, or broken down and made into another item, or product.
\n‘Reuse’ stores are now popping up in communities here in NZ especially with clothes that have been outgrown etc.
\nWarren says that the police have mentioned that recycling depots helps keep kids off the street and involved in an active cause.
\nThere is a very good Zero Waste program that Maori are involved in on marae throughout Aotearoa\n NZ.
\nFacebook. https://www.facebook.com/parakore\n
FB page has many members – and it’s about growing the awareness\n
\n
Five Golden Rules to help solve your recycling dilemnas.\n
\n
We have to get serious with our waste!
\nWarren states that Recycling is not enough – that we have to embrace ‘product stewardship’ or 'extended producer responsibility' where the producer of\n a product has to be responsible for the whole life cycle of their products.
\nThe New Zealand Product Stewardship Council has to be supported and understood.
\nAt present South Australia leads the way in Australasia with a very enlightened approach that has been in practice for over 40 years.\n
\n
Waste in NZ Landfills.
\nHere in our country -186,000 cubic meters of space is taken up by bottles and cans etc thrown out in NZ each year.
\nNearly 200 metres high by 200 metres long and 200 metres in width. All this is potential money, being thrown away!\n
\n
Call to Action
\nWhat works around the world is “refundable bottle deposits”.
\nWarren and team are pushing for a national deposit bottle scheme however, the packaging and beverage industry have successfully lobbied against one for\n 25 years … or more. This is why we have bottles, cans and containers scattered all over our clean green country image!\n
New Zealand would have had a bottle deposit system over 20 years ago if it were not for the packaging and beverage industry lobbying against it.\n
Also there is e-waste – tires and batteries that have to be factored into dealing with this vexing problem of waste.
\n
Little do New Zealander’s know that we already have container deposit legislation – that was under the Labour Government's Waste Minimisation Act 2008.
Where the Minister can declare a product a ‘priority product’ for a product stewardship program – a mandatory one - like for tires, e-waste, batteries\n but the National led Government Ministry has made them all voluntary and it is not working – because … Listen to this startling interview to\n find out the reason why?
\nNZ used to be ahead in so many sectors of the Environment and ecology - etc , but now we are well behind.
\nBottle banks – what happened to them? Listen to this!\n
www.recycle.co.nz click on the half crushed and you can read:\n
\n
\"Compared to other developed countries, NZ has a vague and scattered approach to achieving zero-waste status. This website aims to help us recognise and address the problems before it is too late.” \n
\n
What a whopper of a statement! \n
\n
Nowhere in the world are they getting more than 40% without having a bottle deposit scheme.\n
http://www.cashforcontainers.co.nz\n
\n
Recently at the last local government annual conference in support of DDS Container Deposit System - 90% of Councils agreed to have a deposit scheme set\n up on all waste containers here in NZ . Plus a recent survey of NZ said 91% of NZers wanted it.
\nBut the lobbyists have been going around all the mayors and sowing discord … The narrative has been twisted to suit the status quo - time and time\n again, we have government by lobbyists (Shades of the USA)\n
\n
Lobbyists Undermining the Political Will.
\nLearn about how NZ breweries and Cola producers fight tooth and nail not to have a deposit system here in NZ and also Australia – (an eye opener)\n
\n
Listen to the down right deceitfulness and lies in this battle against the drink giants as they target and discredit good honest people doing their best\n to enable a cash deposit to be gained from returning of containers after use.\n
\n
Now Northern Territory in Australia has adopted CDS and also New South Wales and Queensland – so the whole of Australia is coming on board except NZ. Because\n of the big breweries and soft drink manufacturers!\n
\n
See who the major culprit is … (No wonder I have not gone out and purchased their unhealthy sugar products for over 40 years.- I was correct! Tim)\n
\n
Plastics in the Global Ocean!
\nMicrobeads what are they? Microbeads are manufactured solid plastic particles of less than five millimeters in their largest dimension. They are most frequently\n made of polyethylene but can be of other petrochemical plastics such as polypropylene and polystyrene.\n
\n
Microbeads have become so ubiquitous that an estimated 808 trillion pieces swirl down American drains every day.\n
\n
They are now floating in the water column everywhere at different levels – when containers fall off ships – toxic chemicals and micro particles of plastic\n are 10 or 20 times more than the amount of plankton in certain parts of the ocean – fish eat them … This is a terrible story that needs action\n at every level of Government, in countries that have shores or outlets to the sea.\n
\n
We are overloading our world and particularly the oceans with plastic.\n
\n
Today many small groups in NZ are coming together and are putting in for waste and recycling contracts – most are holistic thinkers and co-operatives.\n They are community oriented and believe that by thinking locally they can achieve many good things for their localised environment.
\nRaglan is one such community.\n
\n
Sign the petition – please …\n
\n
Watch this disturbing footage of a snake regurgitating a plastic bottle. \n
\n
\n \n
I enjoyed this interview, because Warren showed what we the people can do and it was very enlightening because we now know where the challenges lie and\n that we need to commit to organise. By taking action we can bring about a major change in policy to get NZ up there as a leader in conservation, and\n environmental concerns.\n
\n
\n
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\n
Right from his landing in NZ Jonathan noticed that the sky was so much more brighter here than he had seen in the Northern hemisphere – even from Hawaii\n in the middle of the Pacific the horizons were now unclear.
\nNoticeable for him on most occasions here were the clearly defined razor sharp horizon lines when looking out to sea. He has not seen anything like\n this for 15 years due to the massive recent industrial outpourings north of the equator. That for New Zealanders, the lack of atmospheric pollution\n is taken for granted whereas Jonathan is becoming used to witnessing a yellowish haze that blurs the horizon line when looking out anywhere in\n the Northern hemisphere. Even when he in an airplane at 30,000 ft it’s basically the same.
\nWhereas in the Southern hemisphere Jonathan states that there is a better chance for us in this hemisphere to have a healthy and comfortable life style,\n without atmospheric pollution - by introducing new clean steady state solar technologies
\nThough solar energy comes from a fusion reactor that could be very dangerous, however fortunately it’s situated 93 mile -s away journeying through\n space. So we are basically safe, and that the atmosphere of our planet essentially can act as a shield without causing us to much harm.
\nDue to the ozone level over NZ and the lower latitudes of the Southern hemisphere being thinner – more intense sunlight there is a higher number of\n watts hitting the ground per square metre - especially when compared to the Northern hemisphere – so it is a natural move for us in NZ to start\n utilising this solar energy to power up our country.
\nGermany is far closer to the North pole than NZ is to the South Pole – so if the Germans are the top global solar country, then NZ has a huge advantage\n and opportunity to take this to the next level. Jonathan says NZ can easily do this and it would be cheaper as well, due our closer position to\n the equator.
\nStorage:
\nPump water uphill … for night time gravity driven generation use. Having a central storage dam that can be used on demand. Tesla’s name came\n up briefly as being able to tap into our planet as a spinning dynamo. Plus the large battery packs now becoming available.
\nJonathan then tells us that he has been working on stored energy for the last 35 years and it is not just sun light – it’s light energy that we can\n extract energy out of. Even when it is cloudy – light energy always hits the earth. So when there is light it can be turned into electricity.
\nHe states he can store electricity in batteries that can now last 25 years on a solar system of his own design – and for the very few times that the\n days were heavily clouded – have a small generator just in case.
\nAlso, that he has never had a power outage with his solar energy system. i.e no stoppage or failures.
\nClean Power.
\nThis is a major benefit as well as eye opening information!
\nSolar energy also has a very good advantage in that it gives you very clean power – that there are no surges or spikes as it evenly distributes the\n flow from the battery to all the appliances that need power. As a result he has never had a light bulb burn out or a stereo stop working or a washing\n machine or hot jug – because there is no surge or spike. This is where batteries and solar energy can save all your electrical appliances - from\n burning out. The unrecognised beauty of solar energy from batteries is that all appliances will last an exceptionally long time.
\nIn NZ where we have 230 volts they can spike up to ten times higher - up to near 2.500 volts when the power surges along the lines. These are instantaneous\n and just blow many appliances out. This can occur for example when a very large refrigerator compressor in a supermarket turns on – and there is\n a huge ripple along the power lines and the knock on effect – results in spikes and thus the appliances can get fried.
\nHe said that where he lives in Hawaii, he is still on the grid, but may only take 1 and a half % of power off it, just to cover heavily cloudy days.
\nMeaning 99% of electricity comes from the sun and the other 1.5% from the grid and in the USA, China and Australia this displaces an enormous amount\n of Co2.
\nListen to Jonathan as he spells it out.
\nHe further states that he can produce a solar energy panel that includes all the electronics - a small computer and batteries that will last for 25\n years for $600 US. That is correct ‘everything’ lasting 25-30 years. What the electricity companies need to do is get in and do solar units too\n – there is good cash in this. Plus, they have the finance to further the research and paradigm, however they are suffering from stranded investment\n – being that they have already invested in their own future and have to now hang in for these next 30 years to extract whatever they can from their\n investment.
\nCosts Coming Down.
\nWe may have plenty of hydro and windmill power generation here in NZ which is renewable – however solar is now delivering electricity at 8 cents a\n kilowatt hour – which Jonathan says is about a third of what we are paying here in NZ. Even with hydro power at 70% of power generation for NZ\n - it’s a high maintenance operation. Solar power has virtually zero maintenance in their operation. Now and then wipe the solar panels.
\nToday solar panels are being made with over a 50 year life time and inverters that change DC current to AC with a 25 year guarantee. Which mean if\n something mechanical happens to it, you do not have to pay to replace it.
\nSolar is all solid state – with no moving parts and no friction – virtually zero wear and tear.
\nOther Subjects Covered.
\nCells that can come in rolls like wall paper and that you roll them down your roof. At present they only last about 5 years.
\nIn the next 20 to 30 years - Worldwide there is going to be a huge percentage of electricity demand that is going to be met by renewables - especially\n solar – mainly because it will outperform static combustible technologies including nuclear.
\nTransport of the future where practical – Tesla batteries & long haul trucking by GPS navigation.
\nLack of space for car parking in cities be it in the CBD or having room to park and house cars in a family of two adults and two teenagers in the city\n … No parking on the street?
\nMore people will opt for more public transportation in the cities and hire cars from drop centres if one is urgently needed. In Munich Germany - electric\n BMW mini smart car 33 cents a minute swipe your Credit Card and get in and start driving – you finds the car by a smart phone App in a street station\n near by.
\nAir transportation is being designed as well with specific air corridors to keep some sort of order - Germany -Lilium
\n \nTesla - Elon Musk – Hyperloop ground transport at high speeds
\nListen to this conversation about transport that is electric, clean energy and silent
\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop\n
\nPart Two
\nThe Human Condition
\nEspecially a durable prosperity that goes a step beyond sustainability.
\nThat human beings can exhibit the highest elements of our nature and have faith that the forces of lightness gain predominance and make things better.\n
\nIt is incumbent for us to utilise our creativity to improve the world or use it that ends up having so many negative consequences that future generations\n are having to pay for.
\nTo be conscious of what choice we make when we wish to improve our world and planet’s biosphere.
\nPeople be trained in schools about consequences.
\nThat corruption of our inner being is expressed in the outer world – because we have not listened and taken into account our conscience
\nListen to the end of this interview to Jonathan as he opens up on taking us into conscious thoughts and conscious actions - as we bring more light\n to the world.
\nhttp://www.lightontheearth.org/index.html\n
\n
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Back in the 1990’s Rev Billy noticed a more overt method of marketing products that was being pushed into people’s lives and as a vulnerable consumer it\n engaged him by appealing to his status and power, good looks and youth – and he was tricked into it. And it kept turning his head.
\nThen somehow with the help of friends and teachers and the fortune of the luck of the draw - he decided to resist! He was just tired of getting rolled\n over by the glam and whizz bang of seduction and the dazzle of neon super models when he walked through New York’s Time Square. So out of these circumstances\n he emerged out of the pavement - as a preacher on the Broadway sidewalks of Times Square.
\nAnd with help of some cohorts created a theology in which Mickey Mouse was the antiChrist. Then he placed himself in front of the Disney store and began\n to encourage and exhort people, that if they entered the Disney store and shopped - they would be sinning! You will have to listen to Rev Billy rage\n against the machine – ‘that they are all sweatshop products’ – and that type of preaching would go on for hours and hours . And he received all sorts\n of different responses … and he got better at it. And he got what preachers got … your whoop – yes your whoop! …. And after some\n months he got his whoop up to speed and that he could preach at a thousand bored listless tourists, drifting like cattle and get them to consider to\n go into the Disney store - OR NOT. And this is when Billy’s Ministry began.
\nIt began in his own self-defence, but also a willingness to appear foolish and he encourages all his listeners (he laughs) to be foolish and we have to\n cross-over from that character that we have been ‘conditioned’ to be.
\nThe American comedian Steve Martin in the movie “Leap of Faith” came up and Billy said that he was influenced in this role by comediennes, rock and roll\n and jazz. He would also go to Evangelical and Pentecostal ‘performances’ where there would be grandmothers passing out on the altar and people screaming\n - and then he states that many of those churches were right wing in their content. So he turned off the content and just learned how to preach. Listen\n to Billy, wind up and show how it’s done!
\nYet Billy did not really want to be a preacher, because he was brought up by abusive right wing Christian parents. However he in the end could not resist,\n because having the backup of a choir and great music made the message even more compelling. So when he really got good at it – the Church of Stop Shopping\n had to have a choir – and he found many people who agreed with his contention that consumerism is the devil – starting to sing his lyrics. – He doesn’t\n really know how it actually happened - he said he was lucky – it was a blessing - out of the blue – it just became.
\nSurmising that it was partly persistence, stubbornness and the willingness to let go and be foolish.
\nBilly states that we have to be open to the mysterious and the earth telling us in whatever subtle ways we can perceive - that the indigenous peoples have\n been telling us from day one that consumerism and everything that it entails is not the way forward in our relationship to our great sustainer, our\n planet. It is not the indigenous people way to just make money and conquer nature.
\nVisiting Standing Rock in North Dakota
\nListen to Billy tell us what happened up in Standing Rock in North Dakota where he took his Stop Shopping Choir and that so many other indigenous tribes\n from around our planet had converged in support of the First Nations of North America. He finds himself with the Aotearoa NZ Maori and in particular\n their haka - he realised that they had a deep connection to the earth. Listen to here his tell his story.
\nHe said all other tribes were singing water related songs that were so very moving – that he and his Choir started crying.
\nHe mentioned that the songs seemed to have Beethoven’s 9th beat - that he felt his life changing …
\nAnd right next to him and the Savitri D were 15 Maori who when they dropped into their Karakia (prayer) followed by a Haka ‘it scared the hell out of Billy\n and his group” … that knowing about other first peoples from around the world makes a huge difference to how he saw life.
\nThat Rivers are becoming recognised as entities
\nHe then mentions the Whanganui River (awa) as having recently been given living status and classified as an entity. This he said was wonderful and that other countries like India are following\n suit.\n
He sees that the reengaging with this knowingness, that the Whanganui river is an entity – shows that the global neo-liberal economy has a limit. That\n this emergence of such an event means that indigenous cultures can now take the higher ground in seeing that the earth is both living and sacred. See\n India recently passing legislation as well as what has been happening in Bolivia and Ecuador etc.\n
Billy sees this as an Earthalujah! moment in our history - this is what we are waiting for …
\nBilly states that he is very grateful for the leadership that has come his way. (It takes huge courage, especially in the USA). He is grateful that the\n indigenous – earth peoples have survived the extraction and murderous ways plus the diseases of our European culture. To still be here as carers of\n the earth – that which lends us bodies in which to live, plus free air, water and until recently a free food chain.
\nWe need to drop the old story of conquest and empire and consumers consuming our planet and allow the old stories of pre ‘city-state’ culture, to come\n in. That the word natural needs to been seen as far more sustainable than cultural and allow the earth to re-enter our consciousness.
\nBeing mindful in one’s actions
\nBoth Billy and Savitri D his dearly loved wife are very mindful and respectful of the lives of humanity and are very caring of how they language their\n connection both to people and our planet as a whole.
\nHe intuits that the uprising on earth today is more than a message to him it is an instruction – that the earth is giving a signal to join her – in this\n uprising …
\nCovering:
\nThe present situation in America and what leadership is required.
\nWe have to come back to the living earth.
\nI then interview for 25 minute Savitri D - Billy’s wife and leader of the ‘Stop Shopping Choir’
\nThe Church of Stop Shopping is a radical performance community of about 50 people.
\nWho are united around their values …
\nAnd recently they have been going inside banks to show their resistance as consumer activists. For example they even travelled to North Dakota to the Standing\n Rock - access pipeline. In super of the First Nation peoples.
\nTheir strength is their creativity and communal energy which focuses on political activism, being radical earth activists with heart and soul.
\nBeing earth oriented they look at natural systems for clues - such as a healthy bio-system is diverse. They look for resilience in their human community\n as much as they do in their physical landscape – some would say a permaculture view – a very broad view of integrated designs of things.
\nYet a lot of their work involves standing on police lines protesting … and doing it with song and hilarious preaching plus ferocious preaching too.\n Disrupting the normal tone of protest – adding clever and artistic props that they make themselves. Plus, over the last 15 to 20 years they have developed\n a broad vocabulary to add to their protest and resistance – using every different strategy they can imagine. One continuous strategy is focus on climate\n change and to keep it in the public consciousness all the time.
\nThis with keeping fossil fuels in the ground, trees deeply rooted and animals healthy … to reduce human chauvinism in its industrial effort to extract\n the last of earth’s gifts out of her. Is what they are here to protect.
\nSavitri says she and her troupe are wild people who live in the city – being the human wilderness of New York city.
\nAnd New York is the entry point of the USA and the road is unknown – but people show up as they find a way to divine a way to survive and make a new life\n for themselves. As an artist it is very exciting but for an ordinary person too, just wishing to become financial stable.
\nCultural creatives hare challenged to come together. As the arts now are becoming very commodified and institutionalised – and it is difficult for an artist\n to be political – as sponsorship option evaporates instantly – and has always been that way.
\nPeople in New York are in a hurry – but they are open …
\nSome of the protests were:
\nSinging about Monsanto and honey bees, neonicotinoids and pesticides, plus being pollinators where they dressed as honey bees – and the fact the the Stop\n Shopping Choir is so diverse that there are always creative input to their shows.
\nBP comes up for some attention … Marktown East of Chicago – is supposedly a cancer cluster area – so they went and sung to the people of that area\n – about capitalism and the extraction the fossil fuel industry – and these people are going through hard times so ‘the choir’ has to communicate with\n them in a gentle and respectful way – without undermining the value of what they have put into their own life – albeit working for a corporation that\n is basically only profit motivated.
\nThat though in a hostile territory the payback was that they were very well received as they both educated and healed these workers by showing that they\n cared.
\nWhat are we to do?
\nStart sharing deep story with each other – being caring and insightful – be open to change and don’t get sucked in by mainstream media – it is not productive\n at all.
\nWhat will make people more active and engaged?
\nCommunity holds us up and supports us – community is powerful and capable of profound things – someone gets tired. But there is always someone having an\n up day and they come in alongside you and lift you up. Tend to your garden and nourish all your relationships.
\nGather together to work with you affinity groups = people you know and trust and build strong cohesive relationships. It’s a long game and the challenges\n are not going to go away tomorrow.
\nYet Billy states that in the USA things have never been darker yet things have never been brighter … yet we need Noble courage to stand up!
\nThe present president is showing to the public face that the macho fundamentalism is bulldozing and extracting every last drop of what the earth can supply.
\nWhat was interesting was that Bernie Sanders presidential bid was largely an Occupy Wall St platform.
\n\n\n
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\n
As a ‘systems thinker’ Anneleise Hall’s insights are invaluable to all people who are wanting NZ as a whole - to prepare itself to become far more\n robust, sustainable and resilient.
\nWith a fast coming future descending on us - we need to really commit to ‘conscious action!’ Not only for our biosphere and all biota, but especially\n for the sake of our children and grandchildren too.
\nMany years ago, Anneleise was working for a local newspaper in a small region on NZ’s West Coast where she basically had full control of the content\n of that newspaper and as she was there for many years she got an overview of the makeup of this small town and she noticed that after the extractive\n industry of logging was closed down and the subsequent good pay-out by the NZ government - it interested her how this small town responded to losing\n major income streams – and how they innovated.
\nSo in putting together the newspaper she grew an awareness of other ways of entrepreneurship such as the West Coast wild foods event, which went on\n to a film festival then tourism and art - resulting in boosting their own income and the local economy.
\nShe ended up teaching young teens skills how to get a job and build up their self-worth that lead her into community work – then it was noticed that\n a lot of kids had fallen through the cracks – that if there was no sport, there was not so many options – so she started up a trust to get music\n into schools and the smoke free rock quest.
\nBecause of the lack of interest in some of the challenges of the youth and the teachers of the schools unable to have the time etc, that she noticed\n another small town nearby that had a ‘green dollar’ group and they were having markets in the weekend and it was quite active. It was here that\n she enjoyed getting fresh organic produce that were traded – and use the ‘various credits’ for other things and people were building tiny houses\n and rebuilding busses as a sustainable community was growing up on her periphery .
\nYet on the other hand, Anneleise still in her newspaper role, was harvesting stories from around the world of other small towns that were doing very\n exciting and innovative things to mitigate the so called perfect storm of global circumstances. With globalism creating massive change even if\n it was not necessarily in everyone’s awareness at that time – she said that she was just led there without really being conscious of how it would\n unfold.
\nAs she was in an industry where she was able to get all the news-feeds from around the world via news-wire and in doing so, receiving torrents of information\n that she could choose from. She was in a microcosmic situation of a little NZ town – looking out towards all the other towns globally in the greater\n planetary macrocosm – and how these towns were changing to meet the ever changing global circumstances.
\nOne thing she became aware of just how creative people are and what is the potential when you start to think outside the square by creating real long\n lasting positive change – and this empowered her – in realising that these small towns and regions could really progress.
\nThat when one town creates an innovative model – it gives other towns a blueprint and an ompetus as to how they too, can reinvent themselves.
\nThen Anneleise talks to the fact that she is a system – of breathing heart, lungs and this is her immediate ecology – and then in her family unit that’s\n another ecology and then her community - it is an even larger one – and all the parts interlink and interweave and if we are healthy, that little\n local microcosm is too. That there is a correlation that if our wellbeing as individuals is healthy, there is a very good chance our community\n will become one too.
\nUncertainty and faster change affects us all.
\nShe noticed that the more uncertainty and faster pace of the world affected our levels of stress, depression and anxiety - plus fear of the future\n increased.
\nAs a result of the changing global dynamics, she is also seeing more fragmentation and mistrust – as we haved moved away from our innate humanity and\n the ability to cooperate, when we as a species are really social creatures, and have been basically interrelating since the beginning of time.\n Whereas the current program that we are being inundated with is having the best, the brightest always winning, “we have gotta have this” mentality\n … and it’s turned into such a competitive mind-set that it’s now a case of the haves and the have nots. The winner and the losers and that\n can be seen nearly everywhere especially in the 2nd decade of the 21st century.
\nYet in our hearts:
\nYet in our hearts there is another thing happening, people are moving back to really basic ways of being, that she finds very exciting. That all this\n has been seeded over the last 30 to 40 years – that was quite fringe back then – is now becoming more and more mainstream as people look at a ‘time\n bank’ or green dollars and a community garden, a local food growing project, an energy project like a car pooling project - all being ways to counterbalance\n the status quo. Especially as the resources on the ground cannot keep up. (i.e - be sustainable).
\nSo when the Christchurch earthquake happened, over the hill in Lyttleton the ‘time bank’ that was set up was able to quickly jump into action and able\n to be utilised by the emergency services because they had their own telephone tree and were already embedded and known throughout that community.
\nThis is where PLAN B comes into it.
\nProject Lyttleton cherry picked all the other pilot initiatives that were happening anywhere\n in the world, to see how they may be integrated into their localised situation
\nThis is where Anneleise then noticed that the mainstream newspapers were not interested in printing any articles on ‘time banking’ – that Project Lyttleton\n Initiator, Margaret Jefferies could not interest these local corporate newspapers into covering this innovative method of enabling the community to become more resilient and\n self reliant.
\nShe noticed there are little pockets in areas where inspired people inhabit and come together – however how do you communicate with these people when\n the mainstream local newspapers do not wish to help you? (hint, they are not here to bring community together ‘they’ are here just to make money\n and keep the status quo – Tim)
\nIt took a while to build up the time bank – because the whole concept of throwing ‘money’ out the window and instead trading on ‘time’ was so new!\n “That one person’s time was exactly that same as another person’s time – so that every bodies time - is equal.”
\nThat everyone has something intrinsic to offer and everyone’s time is equal.
\nDr Edgar Cahn – Time bank guru.\n
\n
It was a way to not use our national currency the NZ dollar, especially if we were short of cash and instead at a community level get things done with\n just a giving of one’s time.
\nAnneleise says that from a systems thinking process, it is a rich ecology where there is a much greater choice when the community engages in a community\n wide ‘time banking’ system. This is because there is an amazing range and depth of talents and skills plus expertise that when you connect into\n and access this community you have this goldmine of real knowledge and wisdom.
\nThat time banking is really a facility to go beyond our instinctive ‘modern’ mistrust of each other and start to rebuild both networks of community\n that Anneleise says, were once far more prevalent back in the past.
\nSo the key here is to have some clear, accurate and balanced communication forms going on.
\nIn the UK the Time Bank system expressed itself differently as the Government allied them to health centres – in giving assistance to old people in\n their homes and by helping out the elderly in their house, it meant that they could stay and live in their home longer instead of having to move\n to a retirement village for example. Also in Britain’s Prisons – (listen to hear the story)
\nThe Non Market Economy
\nThe ‘non market economy’ can be seen as up to 40% of the economy – like child care, care for the elderly, civic participation – volunteerism – all\n of this work is not contributing to GDP and it is not measured – yet it is the glue that holds our communities together.
\nSo these activities are the foundation of our healthy human existence - yet under our current economic measuring - they are completely ignored.
\nLove comes into it !!! What is that worth?
\nSustainability is a whole system – of many interlinking components that is inclusive of ‘closing the loop.’
\nEven the garage sale and car boot sale are parts to this whole. Where you are reusing and recycling things they are all integral to your community\n functioning at a social and at an economic level.
\nHaving connection in your community is critical.
\nHaving a network of friends and kin is imperative! (listen)
\nHealing was another imperative !
\nTransition Towns
\nMalicious propaganda via mainstream media like sensationalism of war, terrorism, crime etc – we must not let it undermine our sense of community, undermine\n our sense of connection, undermine our humanity and our caring for other people - and to where this leads us …
\nSystems thinking and healthy children growing up with healthy boundaries, that have healthy connections to each other and our world – this requires\n a lot of modelling. Modelling what the adults are doing in the community. So if adults are heart centred and aligned with a very balanced intent\n – positive change can ripple throughout the community.
\nShe mentions Bruce Lipton’s understanding of ‘conscious evolution.’ See www.brucelipton.com\n
\nFinding that laughter and connection is in community.
\nFinding that little quiet place in nature or meditation – this is so essential to us in bringing us back to our basic humanity.
\nLetting go of stress, letting go of the negative media programming.
\nAs a ‘serial researcher’ :) … these are other things covered by Anneleise:
\nWe do not know what will eventuate until we go out into the community and involve ourselves.
\nWe need to commit to make things happen
\nThere is a richness of people who have skills talents and gifts to share.
\nWe need to get together – share ideas and rebuild trust as well as rebuild a collective energy – where we work together in a cooperative movement and\n collaborate - as against competition
\nThere is a document on http://lyttelton.net.nz – called ‘our story’ – which is like a blueprint or template, of what you can do.
\nAnneleise would also like to see a reduction of poverty and incarcerations, better health care, swimmable rivers – even a universal basic income …\n plus curtailing foreign land investments and what we need to do in regard to the election cycle.
\nTime banking and other community financial methods can be found on:
\n \nAn extremely vivid overview of someone who has thought deeply of how community comes together - 5 Stars. A must listen for anyone wishing for a greater\n cohesive community connection.
\nEmail: anneleise(at)gmail.com\n
\n
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Dahr has been here in NZ checking on some of the key areas and tipping points’ within our localised ecology. The diminishing glaciers in the southern alps\n being very noticeable. The other being acidic oceans. Plus the strange weather patterns that are skewing the seasons of spring, summer and autumn.
\nA third of the permanent snow and ice of New Zealand’s Southern Alps has now disappeared, according to our new research based on National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research aerial surveys. Since 1977, the Southern Alps’ ice volume has shrunk by 18.4 km3 or 34%, and those ice losses have been accelerating rapidly in the past 15 years.
\nSame for the Northern Hemisphere
\nMethane in the upper northern hemisphere is outgassing from the melting tundra. - in Russia, Canada and Alaska.
\nPermafrost is decaying rapidly not only in the arctic but right across the top of these northern countries.
\nIs the science letting humanity down?
\nThere are 2,500 international scientists that are doing projections and they always work to the lowest common denominator. They play it conservatively.\n This is a problem as many of these scientists are Government scientists and they are beholden to their employers for their pay checks - they are frightened\n and will not tell the truth as it is.
\nThe Great Barrier Reef
\nLooking at impacts of global warming and that the reefs wellbeing, recently in Australia and the Great Barrier reef is in trouble … remembering\n it is ‘an organism’ that due to human impact on the environment – we are causing changing environmental conditions that the reef is being ’bleached’\n and there appears to be no end in sight. It is the largest coral event in the history of record keeping. The great barrier reef last year received\n over 90% of its entirety bleached with between 22% and 25% of it is now lost in one year.
\nStatistics are leading scientists to saying that by 2050 that 98% of coral reefs globally will be experiencing a ‘thermal stress event’- a bleaching event\n every single year.
\n25% of fish species are dependent on the life of a coral reef.
\nThat if the water warms up on a reef and stays warm the coral dies but if it cools down again within- around 6 weeks – the reef will recover.
\nAlready in the Caribbean sea we have already lost 90% of the entire coral reef system. Dahr has also just come from Guam and in the last 3 years they have\n lost 50% of their coral. So that is how fast it is happening.
\nThe question is, why are the public not receiving this information?
\nWhy is it that in the US, the media is run by basically 6 major corporations all straight jacketed into the vested corporate military banking industrial\n model – that censors by omission or just gives out fake news - ad nauseam.
\nThe situation today is very serious!
\nHow do we empower people? And emancipate them from the shackles of apathy and the psychological ‘it’s all too much’ - subjugation?
\nIt’s all about connection … to nature and the cycles of nature – until more people go out deep into nature and have connection that is truly intimate\n – until they get it that we are an extension of our planet we are going to be scratching to get enough uptake to be the change that we wish to see\n in the world.
\nBecause if humanity does not step up to the plate then near term extermination will come upon us.
\nIf we do not have a clear map to see what is happening – how can we make the correct decisions?
\nDarhs credentials of putting himself on the line!
\nHaving been in one of the sieges of Fallujah in Iraq, Darh came back with PTSD ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ and came to meet Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net/aboutjoannamacy.html\n - who follows a Buddhist methodology in dealing with grief and loss and the psychological effect of tragedy - among many other ecological and peaceful\n matters. However he has been able come through this now, though it still has an affect on him.
\nDahr says that not receiving correct and truthful news is a huge problem and that he had to get out of corporate America to obtain news outside their sphere\n of control and influence to learn the truth and what was really going on.
\nHe said that he realised that the lies and distortions that the US engaged in and that it was involved in an illegal invasion of a sovereign country and\n broke countless Geneva conventions. However, if he read information coming from the United Nations or (at the time) the ‘Guardian’ or the ‘Independent’\n in the UK he got a very different understanding. But where do we go today to get concise truthful information?
\nThe truth about Climate Change
\nFor Dahr states that this on going climate change and progressive warming is going to be the most important of issues especially for each successive day\n for the billions of inhabitant of our planet, period!
\nDahr says this is huge, we are losing the biosphere in chunks and he only covered coral in this interview.
\nWith the massive increase and release of pollutants into the atmosphere changing its composition and altering the chemistry of the oceans that we supposedly\n evolved from - to realise that our oceans will experience a collapse in fisheries due to overfishing and loss of habitat. Because one billion people\n derive sustenance from fish that live in and around coral reefs – where are they going to get their protein?
\nLook at the weather shifts especially the freezing weather winters in the North East USA. With massive fluctuations. Crops are being affected by this extreme\n situation – and bee pollination too.
\nIn Africa
\nThat in the last 2 months the UN states there are four countries now experiencing famine.
\nPreviously there has been a lot of grain sent from the US to Africa to provide relief - And he is not sure if this will happen under the Trump administration.\n (I did not get the opportunity to ask if it was GMO grain? Tim) This is only one example of the knock on effect of food production that has to been\n grown every year to sustain so many lives.
\nWhen in Russia it was so warm recently that they had record setting, wildfires – thus the weather patterns has affected their grain growing and instead\n of being a grain exporter Russia have to keep it all for themselves – but the prices then go up – globally.
\nDahr maintains that even the Arab spring is all related directly or indirectly to climate disruptions …
\nThat it was a vegetable vendor in Tunisia setting himself alight – it was an act of self-immolation as a symbolic act because people could not afford to\n pay for food. Because of drought caused by climate disruption. Dahr states that the same happened in Egypt – people could not afford to eat – Mubarak\n did nothing and this ignited a situation where he was overrun and his regime fell. Same for Syria – drought affected Syrian farmers that in the end\n walked off the land into the cities affecting the demographics with poor people igniting an insurrection that lead to Syria erupting in environment.\n (Tim, there was another component that I did not have time to question and that was a week after 911 in the US, where General Wesley Clark whilst visiting\n the Pentagon after the twin towers imploded – was told by another army general that the US was going to topple 7 other regimes in the Mediterranean\n arc - ending with Iran – that for reasons unknown - happened at the same time?). And look what it has devolved into now ….
\n\n \n
\nCritical Information
\nDahr, says that if there is one piece of information that he wants to bring home to everyone – “that it is happening now!”
\nThat we cannot fall back on the default that there is still time – or that we can mitigate it or there is still this window … that is is just not\n true that a lot of governments today (including the NZ government) are banking on this lie.
\nThat we, (the governments) refuse to jettison the fossil fuel economy because of all the strings that have entangled us into this all encompassing, octopus\n - that envelops the global economy. And though Dahr, feels we are already too late, by jettisoning fossil fuel tomorrow – that would be a starting\n point.
\nTim then says that NZ’s challenge is that we have no politician of note or business person of prestige - who stands head and shoulders above all the other\n leaders in their field - prepared to speak truth to power relating to the climate change that we are pretending will go away – this is mainly due to\n the complete disconnect from the cycles of air, water and food production that our planet provides us.
\nDahr wants people to halfway through reading any of his books – put it down and walk out into nature wherever you may be – the park, among trees, out in\n the bush, wade into a river, hike a hill or mountain trail – to just surrender to the elements and drop out of our head and into our heart - that 12\n inches of descent into our chest cavity to where our heart pumps oxygen around our body temple. Just make the connection to the sacredness of not only\n our body – but to the earth that supports under the soles of our feet. To be thankful and grateful that we have an ecology that nourishes us. More\n so that we are not yet being scorched by the heat of the sun’s searing heat, or being in a war ravaged village or city in the throes of terror.
\nSo with an emersion back into nature – for only when ‘we’ - the collective ‘we’ realise our connection and for a moment in time breathing in that sacredness\n of that ‘presence of being’.
\nTo reflect that, for example in the US at present – people will not be able to petition those in power to bring about the appropriate change.
\nPeople Power at Grass Roots is the Only Way Possible.
\nChanging from the inside.
\nWe have to get in touch with our own grief to recognise what is happening. In Dahr’s case he had been to war ravaged Iraq and had 5 assignments and had\n been in Fallujah during one of the sieges and witnessed first hand a lot of US war crimes upon women, children, babies - horrible things
\nAnd when he came back to the States he was suffering from PTS - Post Traumatic Stress disorder that Joanna Macy, out of the US says - that we need to get\n in touch with our grief. However Dahr was at that stage still extremely angry and did not know that he was in grief and couldn’t get in touch with\n anything as he could not feel much else. Then Dahr says that this, at another level is what so many people in the States are suffering from today -\n also - because of their exposure to yet another news flash of what preposterous things are happening within the USA be it economic, political, ecological\n or war.
\nWhen we need to look at gratitude and look at where we are, and the amazing place where we live – look at the good people that we have in our lives and\n the things that we can be grateful for and secondly we need to look squarely and honestly to exactly see what is going on. Plus, how progressed we\n are on theses destructive paths.
\nWe have to realise that we have already lost large areas of ecosystems. Such as by 2100, Mt Everest may have hardly any glaciers on it. Same for Western\n Canada the glaciers will be no more. Sci fi movies have not gone there yet, - however we are in it and with the recently rain and flooding in Auckland\n largest city, (March 2017) we are witnessing climate change first hand.
\nHe says that we have to not only get it intellectually – but also be emotionally engaged – this is where we experience what we are collectively doing to\n our great sustainer, our planet. We need to feel everything that goes with this … the rage at the people responsible – the rage at our own blindness\n to it until now – the sadness at what is being lost and the grief and despair and the feelings of powerlessness as to what has been happening - and\n finally from this place we can start to see things a lot more clearly and finally reconcile with the fact as to what actions do I need to now take.
\nListen to Dahr as he takes the next steps …
\nThat it is not an intellectual discussion any more – he says we have all the data – it is how do we take that incredibly long journey from the head to\n the heart – 25 centimetres and this is where he is writing his book - on the state of our planet and biosphere.
\nFinding a place of solace – and cherishing that place and caring for it, and making sure it remains because what happens when that place is gone? Then,\n what you can do to make sure that this natural beauty is here for the long term – our children … perpetuity - it’s about what is offered to\n us freely - clean air – pure water – a healthy food chain …
\nJoanna Macy’s work … called ‘the future beings’ is an exercise. She breaks the workshop into half. With one half of the group are here in present\n day and the other half are 200 years in the future – but the 1st assumption is that there are beings 200 years into the future and our planet has no\n more ice in the arctic – not much in the Antarctic and Greenland is basically a puddle Ocean levels are 100 feet higher and parts of our planet look\n like Mad Max. Sitting in front of you is a person who is huddled in a small community somewhere on our planet that is still habitable, endeavouring\n to survive as a species.
\nAnd to the group that is in today – we still have much of our biosphere basically intact – ice though retreating is still here in both poles and a good\n part of the great barrier reef is still present. But, what are you doing?
\nListen to how Dahr responds when faced with confronting the refugees of 200 years into the future … Hint – a small act now can make a huge difference\n in the future – (A stitch in time saves nine). That NZ can be the trim-tab factor for our planet – per Buckminster Fuller).\n
Intent comes up and following through on doing what is best for the greater consciousness – in bettering the whole … being fully alive.
\nTim’s critique
\nAt present there are collectively tens of thousands of scientists who know that we are racing off the cliff, however they are not prepared to put their\n money where their research is showing them.
\nThey do not want to collectively put a miserly 10 thousand dollars, from their own well-off pocket into a collective kitty to enable a couple of million\n dollars be put into a greater fund for a number of really hard hitting, high quality documentaries that tell it - as it is.
\nBut, more so to empower us to action as the seed of this living planet ‘Gaia’ and show that we can wake up and flower as a race if we only tapped into\n our inner potential. (See Tom Campbell).
\nDo we have to leave it up to a movie star, Leonardo DiCaprio, and his timely movie ‘After the Flood’ to wake up the world? What are these scientists doing\n with their money. What are these billionaires that seem to be a dime a dozen - what are they doing with their money? Why are they not financially supporting\n the evidence and doing the right thing?
\nI would also like to mention that New Zealander Kevin Hester was instrumental in bringing Dahr Jamail to NZ and it has been Kevin’s unrelenting drive to keep this urgent climatic subject in the news here in New\n Zealand.
\nhttp://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22521-climate-disruption-dispatches-with-dahr-jamail
\nWhat we are also up against:\n \n
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/arctic-researcher-donald-trump-deleting-my-citations\n
Dahr Jamail is the chief environmental reporter for Truth-out.org - the large web-based news and current\n events site from the USA.
\nAn award winning writer of books such as:
\nTHE MASS DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ\n
THE DISINTEGRATION OF A NATION: WHY IT IS HAPPENING, AND WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
THE WILL TO RESIST\n
SOLDIERS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE\n
DISPATCHES FROM AN UN-EMBEDDED JOURNALIST IN OCCUPIED IRAQ\n
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John gets us in touch with the psychological dimension of our environmental crisis to get beyond the denial that most people greet the news - as to what\n is happening to our world – and if we are in denial about the terrible plight that our planet’s in –then our ability to celebrate the beauty of nature\n and the glory of the cosmos is severely hampered – because it’s resting on a very unstable foundation.
\nJohn’s work over many decades has been in collaboration with Joanna Macy from the USA. They encourage people to recognise that our deepest feelings of\n despair and anguish about what’s happening to our world, are an integral part of us being able to celebrate and glory in the wonders of nature and\n the wonders of creation. That if we are in denial and are unwilling to feel and to share our pain as to what’s happening to our world, then we are\n also unable to truly celebrate the beauty, that surround us.
\nThis has led him to take people who are needing to be healed ‘on a journey’ so as to let them confront their hurt and fears and - from a psychological\n standpoint reconcile and rectify the trauma that they are witnessing across the face of nature today. This is an Australian story of a seminal conflict\n between the forest industry and the conservation movement over rainforests in northern New South Wales.
\nBattle for Forests
\nThe battle over logging the rainforests of Terania Creek in 1979 started the Rainforest War in New South Wales. Some claimed Terania Creek to be the last\n un-logged rainforest in Australia. The war was a clash of values and cultures, but three important lessons came about from this conflict. These being\n the influence of the media, the role of science and ecology, and the spirituality of forests.
\nThis ecological battle started a process that saw the eventual closure to logging and reservation in national parks of 900,000 ha of native forest, or\n about one third of the productive State Forests of New South Wales.
\nThis halted the logging and sparked the NSW government's decision to gazette the remaining rainforest in NSW as a National Park.
\nJohn states “that even though we won that battle there are so many other battles...and in lots of ways they got worse.\"
\n\"We still find it really hard to imagine that it was the first time people actively got out and protected the rainforest.\"
\nHowever John soon realised that in spite of the success of saving that forest and the wildlife that abounded, in looking at what was happening all around\n our planet - for every forest that was being protected, a thousand forests were being lost. And he saw clearly that there was no way we could save\n our planet at one forest at a time.
\nAddressing the underlying Psychological challenge
\nThat unless we address the underlying psychological or spiritual disease that afflicts modern humans one that somehow allows us to imagine that we can\n somehow profit from the destruction of our own life support systems – and that these actions are very enjoyable and rewarding for the participants\n - it would be of no particular significance to the future of the world.
\nSo John began to study to understand why do we behave is such a self-defeating manner?
\nHe mentions Paul Ehrlich, the famous American ecologist and population commentator\n who said “we are sawing off the branch that we are sitting on\".
\nClearly this indicates a psychological problem no matter how much the timber in that branch might be worth – it can’t profit us to do this. And through\n this enquiry he came upon a philosophy of nature called Deep Ecology.
\nDeep Ecology
\nAnd this is where he could understand why we were behaving in this way. Deep Ecology was coined by the Norwegian - the late Arne Naess the emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Oslo University who said the underlying all the symptoms of the environmental\n crisis was the illusion of separation between ourselves and that of the natural world. The illusion … and this has grown into anthropocentrism\n or human centeredness.
\nThe idea that we human beings are the centre of everything. This view sees us being the crown of creation - the measure of all being … and that\n nothing has any value except human beings – nothing is intrinsic. Things can have instrumental value if they are a resource for us. But really, we\n do not look at life as being a web or, if we do happen to see life as a web – we are the spider in the centre of it.
\nWe are still unable to understand the science of ecology and the wisdom of indigenous people reveals we are but one strand in that web and if we destroy\n the other strands we destroy ourselves.
\nConnection to the Earth via Ceremony
\nJohn’s workshops look to how most indigenous societies practice and reiterate the connection between human beings and that ‘all our relations’ are not\n severed. Every indigenous culture has ceremonies and rituals that allow the human family to celebrate our connectedness and to nourish that connectedness.\n
\nAnd these ceremonies involve the entire community and the children are there and are watching and are learning this. Indigenous people have this knowing\n that we are rooted and draw energy and nourishment from the living earth and enact it with reverence for nature in all their ceremonies – so as to\n never forget their roots. (When were you last bare footed walking on the grass of the earth?)
\nFor 30 years John has been developing methods and skills to move us from a social identity to an ecological identity.
\nThis interview covers Wetko – the mind virus that has infected materialist man and what we need to recognise - to break free. That the First Nation American\n peoples - saw the very connection to Mother Earth when recently here in NZ one visitor put on a small campfire, a dry branch of wood and reverently\n stated “to all our relations” – that the tree is of life, giving us light and warmth as well as taking in Co2 and giving us oxygen back.
\nEverything is connected. We are all in a grand cycle called life and it is this wonder of the web of life that is threatened by our foolish behaviour today.…
\nThe Council of All Beings
\nAn experiential process of deep connection – That Joanna Macy & John designed back in the mid eighties – and the book ‘Thinking like a mountain towards\n the Council of all Beings… translated onto a dozen languages - Now in Mandarin
\n\nOriginally Joanna taught “despair and empowerment “ and it is now called “honouring our pain for the world.”
\nOnce certain boundaries are set – people are invited to share their deepest feelings of anguish, despair and horror at what’s happening to our world.
\nThis is a rare opportunity because if anyone even hinted at expressing their feelings around this subject - under ordinary circumstances people instantly\n want to change the subject as everyone feels threatened when such feelings are openly expressed. But, as people are taken through this exercise – what\n follows is empowerment and we discover that (listen to the broadcast that John eloquently shows us a way out) - the end result is a celebration that\n then becomes possible!
\nThomas Berry’s name is mentioned http://thomasberry.org/
\nA Catholic theologian, who instead of focussing his attention on the Heavens to find God, became a geo seer – studying the Ancient Greek word Geo – where\n we get as a prefix …for geology, geography, geometry, geodesy, geopolitics etc. Our planet.
\nThe study of the earth … Is another way to see our connection to the earth in such another way as to experience a deeper relationship and link to\n the earth.
\nhttp://drewdellinger.org/ Poet who wrote the poetic introduction that John introduced us with at the state of this\n interview.
\nAlso http://www.genesisfarm.org/about.taf Sister Miriam MacGillis of Genesis Farm that is dedicated\n to understanding the Universe and Earth as a single, unfolding process. That Genesis Farm offers diverse and innovative experiences that inspire a\n comprehensive approach to personal and social change. As a community facility it is open to all who are interested in exploring the sacredness of the\n land, their mission and their work.
\nSister Miriam MacGillis created a process called the cosmic walk – and this is what John’s workshop will do on this coming Saturday night. (1st April 2017\n at Kawai Purapura. See below) A spiralling story of the creation and the evolution of life. Which everyone participates in.
\nIndia
\nJohn then tells of his work in India, which as a country he says has given him so much inspiration to awaken his spirituality - that:
\nBruce Lipton’s name comes up again with his work in India around organics and farming.
\nhttp://www.organicindia.com/ and Bharat Mitra. This became a movement in organic and biodynamic farming methods\n that were developed and practiced. The founder's mission being to offer safe effective herbal products to the world and he is the driving force behind\n an organic revolution that started with ORGANIC INDIA and is now taking root all across India.
\nRe forestation of the sacred mountain in South India
\nhttps://naturedesignsjohnfranci.com/projects-implemented/
\nIn 1988 John, who is a founder and Director of the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) was asked to assist in the co-ordination of the Annamalai Reforestation\n Society’s project to green the sacred mountain of Arunachala in South India. Now the mountain reforestation has advanced a long way since then. There\n is a good collection of different organisations working together to ensure the the success of the project. http://www.theforestway.org/greening/overview.html
\nLand rights for the Poor of India. John has been assisting these people for some time.
\nIn December 2015, Rajeev wrote to John that the campaign to establish land-rights for the Katkari and other Adivasis was finally bearing fruit and “will\n help resolve the insecure village land issue in at least 600 – 700 Katkari villages”.
\nhttp://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/india/rajeev3-16proposal.htm
\nThe next steps are tree plantings to improve the fertility and productivity of their land. However, suitable native tree seedlings were not available and\n they are establishing a nursery “to ensure multiplication of diverse native plant species (fruits, uncultivated foods, vegetables, medicinal plants,\n fibre plants, sacred plants, flowering plants, natural dyes, etc)”
\nThis interview of John Seed shows a dedicated man working for the earth.
\nBig Data Info: http://rainforests.mongabay.com
\nJohns Itinerary for Auckland New Zealand 2017
\n- \n
- MARCH 23 “What is Ecological Identity?” Auckland University of Technology \n
- MARCH 24 “Fostering Ecological Identity” Auckland University\n of Technology \n
- MARCH 25-26 talks and workshops at the Voices of Sacred Earth festival, Auckland Kawai Purapura\n Mills Lane Albany. \n
- MARCH 28 “Weaving Together Maori Earth Wisdom with Deep Ecology”\n with Maikara Ropata & Sika, Pititahi Marae , Waiheke Island \n
- APRIL 1-2 “A weekend of Deep Ecology“ \n
- APRIL 3 Facilitator Training, Auckland \n
For the best information go to https://workthatreconnects.org/event/john-seed-in-new-zealand
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For us to commute, keep warm and lighten our night and our life - make no mistake there is not another challenge that will affect mankind as much as this.
\nElectric Cars, Trucks and Airplanes, wherever there is independent transportation - are all part of this chain.
\nRENEWABLE TRANSPORT & FUEL The Tesla Phenomenon
\nRecently with close to 400,000 pre orders for new electric Tesla cars with $1,000 down, equalling $400 million dollars this is enabling Elon Musk to adroitly\n bring the components together to out flank the fossil fuel industry and their captive car manufacturers. This will bring a new era of clean safe energy\n that will dissipate the dark shroud of toxic molecules from being the epitaph for our civilisation - by endeavouring to break free of ‘a sector’ of\n the 1%.
\nThis technology and knowhow is actually here today, yet 99% of our planetary population don’t know it. Yet the 0.0001% of fossil fuel corporations, who\n do know it - don’t like it … because it is a disruptive technology and they stand to lose.
\nWe need an educated planet with the will to make the shift that we so urgently require.
\nWho Killed The Electric Car?
\nMost probably, the best thing that ever happened was that the oil Corporations and their ‘compliant auto manufacturing’ Corporations, killed the prototype\n 1st Generation EVs “Electric Car” back in the late 1990’s. If this had not happened we would not have Tesla today as by doing so, this gave rise to\n Tesla Motors that is now disrupting the car industry … their goal is not to make expensive cars for ‘rich people’ - but to transform the ‘transportation\n economy’ to an electric fuel economy, powered by renewable energy.
\nThe Nissan LEAF for example, is just a compliance car… a gasoline car converted to be electric. It complies with the laws in California, Europe\n and Japan, but the LEAF is not a compelling EV, the Tesla Model 3 is a very, very, very compelling car…. that happens to be Electric and silent.
\nThis engaging interview covers:
\nThe various Electric ‘EV’ type vehicles that are available here in NZ today.
\nThat Whangarei, having the highest number of EV’s per capita in NZ is positioning to be the EV hub of New Zealand with the installation of five DC 50 kW\n Fast Chargers throughout Northland.
\nWhy Tesla has got a jump on the field? Silent - power - (please listen to the free download).
\nToday, Los Angeles is seen as ‘a city of electric vehicles.’ A large growing market for EV’s.
\nThe benefits beyond electricity and silence are:\n
\nThe Nissan Leaf for example, has few moving parts, so less wear and tear and when it is service time, it has such a quick turn-around-time, that the company\n servicing the vehicle cannot make money because of there is little to go wrong. Whereas with an internal combustion engine, there are belts, spark\n plugs, filters, hoses, batteries, radiators etc etc. This is where conventional car service departments make their money. Nissan withdrew its Nissan\n Leaf from sale in NZ last year, because it was not a money maker for them.
\nDriverless - This is coming - 10 to 15 years time all trucks and a large number of cars will be navigating themselves around a street\n or road near you.
\nCompatibility of charging stations. This is still being worked\n out just like the old VHS and Beta video recorder battle and Apple versus Microsoft. However there are ‘add ons’ and extra inter connecting cables\n that you can easily be stored in the boot.
\nHow long to charge? Fast charge on the road 30 minutes. The Tesla range is from 335 ks to 400 ks - with their batteries continuing to improve.
\nThe battery pack on a Tesla can be changed if needed in around 2 minutes.
\nPetrol mileage versus electric mileage? To get where you wish to go, the cost is equivalent to around 33 cents a litre of petrol.
\nEducation is going to be the big thing and Joe mentions how schools are getting interested in showing their students.
\nWhat sort of Governmental support so far - what more could they do? Please listen to the interview.
\nAir NZ has a growing fleet of electric cars with 76 as of March 2016. Saving about 65,000 litres of fuel per year.
\nThe old fossil fuel lobby are very worried that electricity is going to encroach on their customer base.
\nWhat are the challenges?
\nVector here in NZ has been a keen Tesla follower and are interested in large battery packs. Because power use in NZ’s cities, surges especially in Auckland\n around 5.30 to 7.30 pm at night and other extraneous gas of oil generation is kicked in to cover this spike, now Vector are looking at deploying these\n large lithium battery packs to cover this contingency.
\nTesla has moved its factory to where the lithium mines are\n in Nevada so that the supply chain is kept to a minimum. Note that lithium can be recycled.
\nWhat sort of future do you see here in NZ?
\nWhat sort of future do you see for our planet?
\nWe end with Joe, stating that we have to really get out and support this clean, silent energy and both talk and use this technology. The fossil fuel dinosaur\n is vehemently against it and like the electric car recall in the mid 1990’s where all but a few cars were were repossessed and crushed, the oil lobby\n could still do it again.
\nOnce we embed electric cars into the public consciousness - this will be pivotal in bringing a paradigm shift into being on our planet. Opening up a totally\n new era.
\nA very intriguing interview with loads of optimistic and positive information.
\nJoe Camuso, originally from the USA, having lead a very interesting life for himself and now he with a family has started New Zealand’s first electric\n vehicle (EV) taxi business and is a founder and shareholder in Blue Cars, NZ’s only 100% Electric Car rental company.
\n\n
\n ![](\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/h_ztZpZb20CRPh_JuMPMtK6eJt8eUP93_THYpEU-Xc8VtkSZCLtGeOkWzKLlfPp_Z09CHCu2wDDqaqzG0BbwY-4um6FnYzSfDTSruI4JtaNZh3hfnHOW0SrLPn00pQelSx5Z8w9F\")
Electric Vehicles - Experience, Car-sharing & Rentals
Mobile: (0274) 384 639 | Toll-free: 0800 BLUE EV
Website: www.bluecars.nz\n
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", "itemId": 14234949, "name": "Joe Camuso: Will a new paradigm of Tesla technology be the ‘electrifying saviour’ of our civilisation?", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/joe-camuso-electric-cars-will-tesla-technology-save-our-civilisation", "url": "/greenplanetfm/joe-camuso-electric-cars-will-tesla-technology-save-our-civilisation", "releaseDate": "2016-12-15T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2016-12-14T21:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2016-12-16T08:44:46.393", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2016-12-16T05:44:46.393", "counter": 26, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/joe-camuso-electric-cars-will-tesla-technology-save-our-civilisation?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=14234949&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "4914156", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Next to climate change and what is happening within the biosphere, and the continuing societal unrest and need for peace, renewable fuel is the biggest challenge we face in our lifetime... renewable transport fuel...", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2016/20161215-JoeCamuso.jpg", "tag1_id": "12808812", "tag1": "Energy", "tag2_id": "", "tag2": "", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1468": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "
By the time they arrived in Auckland, huge crowds were coming to see her, and they fully understood her stark yet powerful message.
\nThis set the scene for setting up Nuclear Free Zones all around New Zealand culminating in 72% of the country sanctioning Nuclear Free\n Zones, giving the Government of the day the mandate to make New Zealand a Nuclear Free Country.
\nThis is democracy in action - and how it needs to be implemented globally. People setting the agenda for the government to enact it into law.
\nToday in 2016, she notices the Peace Movement is very quiescent here in NZ, hardly existing at all. The average citizen does not know what is going on\n - the media is not teaching people what is really happening.
\nSuch as what the Pacific Pivot means, not informing them what this large display of naval ships in Auckland harbour represents - that the huge arms bazaar\n and military expo, just over a kilometre from the Mayoral chambers is being orchestrated and sponsored by Lockheed Martin, the largest weapons maker\n in the world, who she states: “Are killers”!
\nNot only this, but we in New Zealand are participators in an American military build up that she has never seen before.
\nShe says that ex Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev and many others say we are closer than any time, to nuclear war - even at the height of the cold\n war, when NZ made it’s courageous anti-nuclear stand. And in truth, by not being the bearer of deep insightful news - “the media is determining the\n fate of our “planet.”
\nAs president Thomas Jefferson said “ an informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion.”
\nShe then lays it all out:
\nThe need for war is partly that of the ‘backroom boys’ who behind closed doors are embedded in the military industrial complex, because they need wars\n and the ability to steal the American people’s, tax dollars - that 60% of every tax dollar goes into killing - they call it defence - it’s not - it’s\n killing!
\nWhat America is doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria is absolutely obscene. But to them - isn’t it all really good!
\nEven the stocks in the US military machine went up enormously when Donald Trump was elected.
\nNow Trump is a totally unknown force - no one yet knows what he will do. However his one good thing is that he seems to like Vladimir Putin, and that’s\n a major benefit as she says that Putin has every single town and city in NZ, Australia, Canada, US Japan, Europe UK targeted with at least 1 hydrogen\n bomb. Note that Russia now has the capabilities of sending a missile up over the North pole totally around the planet passing over Antarctica then\n up to the South Island onward to the North Island, of NZ.
\nSo it is in our interests to work towards finding ways to befriend Russia and not pose them as an enemy. Which the Neo-cons & US the State Department\n along with Hillary Clinton have been constantly doing.
\nMalcolm Fraser ex Australian conservative Prime Minister, before he died in 2015 stated.That the then Soviet Leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, when negotiating\n with James Baker, on behalf of US President Ronald Reagan that when he brought down the Wall, freed up Eastern Europe and dissolved the Soviet Union\n that in doing so NATO should not move one foot East, or closer to Russia as this was an area of traditional Russian influence. But President Clinton\n pushed to expand the Nato alliance to the very borders of Russia. There was talk of the\n Ukraine and Georgia being included. The US BROKE THIS AGREEMENT - and then installed missiles in Poland frightening the Russians to rearm - and yet\n it is the Russians that are to blame for rearming! This in Helen’s words, is absolutely right.
\nNATO & Russia Today
\nShe said “ NATO is America” - let’s be frank. The enlargement of NATO since the Berlin War came down, was orchestrated by Norman Augustine who was the\n chairman of Lockheed Martin and he went to the newly liberated countries from the Soviet Union and asked them if they wanted to be a democracy?
\nEven though in Helen’s words, America is an autocracy, Dictionary meaning. absolutism,\n absolute power, totalitarianism, dictatorship,\n despotism,\n tyranny,\n monocracy,\n autarchy;\n dystopia.
\nThey apparently agreed but to become part of NATO they had to re-arm to the tune of 3 billion dollars - so that the US Military Industrial apparatus, could\n then sell more weapons to them and by enlarging NATO creep all the way up to the border of Russia.
\nSo, in Helen’s words, they could then provoke Russia and moreover tell the world that Russia is very aggressive. When is it is not.
\nIf you read Putin’s speeches they are very moderate and conciliatory and he is really worried. Thus America has the absolute gall that now these ‘Neo cons’\n in the State Department are talking about regime change in Russia.
\nShe says can you imagine - the Russians lost 27 million people in the Second World War - boy did they suffer. The Second World war was fought and one on\n the Russian front. The Russians are a proud people, Putin is popular and having been to Russia herself Helen, sees that the Neocons that are driving\n all this talk of war is not of paranoia, but in her terms is evil. Because by provoking Putin & provoking Russia we could destroy life on earth\n and the whole earth is wired up like a time bomb every minute, every day.
\nHelen then goes on to call on New Zealanders being a brave, courageous people with their feet on the ground and not involve ourselves in the US military’s\n Pacific pivot and not allow any of their ships into NZ, even if they have no nuclear weapons and to not participate in war games. Especially, not allow\n Lockheed Martin and the 200 employees it has in 6 bases in NZ who has as their objective - unmitigated killing.
\nNZ has to stand up again as it did 30 years ago when it received the respect and admiration of the whole world.
\nTime for NZ to step back into that time again.
\nThen there are our Australian cousins that in Darwin in Northern Australia they are basing 2,000 US marines. Helen claims that Australian PM Julia Gillard\n had no guts and allowed it to happen. The last PM later in his life Malcolm Fraser wrote a wonderful book called Dangerous Allies where he said that\n Australian’s are just sycophants to the US and that they must get out of this alliance. With 34 US bases in Australia including Pine Gap which orchestrates\n the drone killings and would orchestrate nuclear war and are an integral part of the US killing system.
\nThe last person who took the Americans on was ex Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and he was going to name the people and the CIA operatives who\n were working at Pine Gap the next day in Parliament. But he was dismissed and ousted, in a coup, led by the CIA, she states is a matter of fact. See\n movie ‘The Falcon & the Snowman’ She says since then Australian politicians have been a bit scared to take on the Yanks, but she says - they must!
\nAustralia has lost its autonomy and lost its independence, and she sees that Australia is now really pathetic. Whereas compared to New Zealanders we are\n not pathetic at all and we can really stand up to the Americans and also provide a blueprint for what the Australians must then do.
\nWe citizens of the world have to say NO to the Americans - she says they are addicted and we are enabling them to be addicted to killing.
\nWith military bases in nearly every country of on earth - they have ringed China with anti missile basis and the same for Russia she wants them to get\n the hell out of these basis and leave us all alone and not be the world’s policeman
\nAnd she quotes “we should not be under their military umbrella”
\nWe want to be safe and have no thoughts whatsoever of nuclear annihilation.
\nWe bring our children into the world we do our best for them an every level we find possible. But why do this if they have no future?
\nThe challenges around bought and sold politicians owned by the corporations comes up, (not so much as in America) and though we are living in a democracy\n - our representatives, have run away with their own agendas.
\nWhat we need to do
\nHelen says that we have to become educated with the challenges before us, and really know what we are saying, when we speak about these subjects.
\nOne way is to book appointments at local politicians electorate offices and go and voice our concerns to our elected servants. That we teach them, because\n they in many cases have no real deep understanding of the many issues, they do not understand science on the whole, or medicine so educate them. Best\n go as a delegation of 3 to 5 people and get their attention and tell them that you vote every election. But doing it every week, with different people\n fronting each time.
\nCall to Action
\nMany adolescents have dropped out because at a deeper level of being, they know what we are doing is so out of alignment. That what we as a human species\n is doing is basically destroying life - that there is no future for them, the heritage that we have to bequeath them is terrifying to them - hence\n the suicides and drugs and alcoholism. Many of them have given up.
\nParents can not abrogate their responsibilities. If we bring a child into the world - it’s imperative to care for them in every way possible - not leave\n them to the unpredictability of market forces and environmental depletion.
\nIt has to be done through the media - articles through the newspapers - local news, letters to the editor get on talk back by giving a fictitious name,\n especially if you get cut off as they are apt to do in NZ - disguise your voice - be innovative and know you subject inside out and back to front.\n
\nAs she said earlier, the media are determining the fate of the earth and this is how we educate people.
\nBe innovative and Creative
\nWe need to get ourselves on TV, do many little ‘YouTube’ clips, for both Facebook and other social media. Use social media to the max to expand the envelope\n of our horizons.
\nWhen she went to the USA in 1978 the Americans said to her “better to be dead than Red.” and she realised that that nation is psychotic (what is it today?)\n But she managed to change the nation’s mind by orchestrating 23,000 doctors to teach the US people by having workshops and by carefully explaining\n the dangers and horror of all things nuclear. That after five years 80% of the US opposed the concept of nuclear war.
\nThat the daughter of President Ronald Reagan came up to her at one speaking engagement and said “I want you to speak to my Father.” Soon she was in the\n White house and what she thought was for a short moment spent and hour with him and the result was an agreement with both him and Mikhail Gorbachev\n to drop the wall across Berlin and free up all the Warsaw pact Eastern European countries and dismantle the Soviet Union - and it happened. Reagan\n actually stated that he would like the elimination of all nuclear weapons. (But his minders interrupted and said that this could not yet be done.)\n
\nShe said that at one meeting Patch Adam’s (Hunter Doherty “Patch” Adams is an American physician, comedian, social activist, clown, and author) stood up\n and said that to get people’s attention we have to take our clothes off and walk across America - everyone thought that it was a great idea, that all\n took their clothes off then and their - hundreds of them male female, young, old, fat and skinny and down the street the walked yelling “Nudes NOT\n nukes” and were on the New York Times because the media loves sensational news - and Helen was naked with them.
\nFukushima & the Crisis of Japan
\nFukushima in Japan she calls a ‘crisis without end.’ She said that the media hides everything and now the radiation, four hundred tonnes of it per day\n is leaking out of Fukushima into the Pacific ocean. Her book - Crisis Without End - (order from Amazon.)
\nFish being caught and sold on US Market with no labelling.
\nThe radiation is now absorbed in the lowest levels of the ocean floor - food chain and much of the radiation is accumulative and it has now moved to the\n top of the food chain, where the cetaceans. It may take from a few years to 80 years for cancers and over diseases to appear, and it is very difficult\n to track how different cancers manifest from.
\nThat the fish of the North Pacific are being caught and quietly/secretly being sold on the North American market as well as on the London market in the\n UK. It is a total disgrace that there is huge dishonesty. That the Japanese government has passed a law penalising any journalist who reports the truth\n about radiation poisoning within Japan.
\nI asked her about conforming that the health authorities have colluded in Japan, the US and Europe, by changing the danger risk for radiation from 1 milli-serviet\n as the maximum to 20 milli-serviets. She said she knew all about it and that that she covers this in her book Crisis Without End.
\nNew Zealanders need to wake out of their complacency. This radiation is in the very ocean that laps our shores. It’s on it’s way and there had better be\n a national dialogue on it ASAP.. Don’t expect leadership from the top levels of Government. It all has to be done from the grassroots but we all have\n to educate ourselves in the process.
\nThis is a riveting interview - Helen does not hold back and comes out swinging - I even cop it :)
\nKate Dewes
\nPh.D. O.N.Z.M (Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit) directed the South Island Regional Office of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Peace Foundation, among\n a huge number of other official positions.
\nKate wraps it up by covering the last 15 minutes telling of the positive movement globally towards peace and disarmament. That progress is being made on\n many levels, even if we do not get reports from the media. She is very hopeful that most countries around the world are realising that we must act\n in unison if we are to save the future for our children and grandchildren.
\nUsing the UN and the World Court there is much diligent work been done by many people, behinds the scenes and NZ is there too. Peace groups globally are\n cooperating far more and using the above institutions whenever possible. We are speaking out at the UN which we do on many levels that our UN Reps\n do their best to be independent, when we get a lot of pressure put on us by larger countries.
\nBack here in NZ the fact that KiwiSaver was ‘exposed’ for investing in armament corporations. We are exposing cluster munitions too, NZ has had a leadership\n role of taking other states to the World Court in the last 30 years.
\nWe have now in essence a Southern Hemisphere Nuclear Free Zone that needs a little more work around ratification - progress is being made.
\n![](\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/q7DTskS4QGU9NuolmDeI-aEmX0npdr3VDloVxZzZRa_M_FSM-bWb_Wb2f68UOMWOAhaP1T5eEDeZ9XxjCb6GeY25k0Wmnzby7JgySxsO5zxmUzkzm5G_6eSJl_jVTc9IqwZW3qFn\")
NZ is also taking a lead on stopping production of landmines.
\nKate has witnessed huge changes - NZ has taken a leadership role especially in the United Nations.
\nCo sponsored a Nuclear Weapons ban treaty at the UN - we have been active there for many many years and will continue.
\nProgress has been slow but we as a planet have cut the number of nuclear weapons down from over 30,000 to 15,000 - What we now have to do is get countries\n to deactivate nuclear missiles from hair trigger alert.
\nIt is seen that NZ must become much more independent and keep out of ANZUS, though we are being leaned on all the time to cozy up to the American military\n in most instances.
\nKate is very hopeful of the future and sees NZ as continuing to be a strong moral force for good, especially in the UN.
\nWe have tried to stay out of international wars, though we have had a lot of a pressure put on us, by our ‘friends’.
\nThere are many thing happening at quieter levels, like recently the US had to admit that it was actually in Syria and that it was using DU or depleted\n uranium in this conflict, when it is being ‘marketed’ by mass media as a civil war.
\nWe have ex National Party Prime Minister Jim Bolger and US ambassador, whose party was originally against NZ becoming Nuclear Free now travelling the world\n talking up Nuclear Free Zones. He and Jeffrey Palmer ex Labour PM are part of the ASIA PACIFIC NETWORK and are active in promoting a Nuclear Free world.
\nI'd like to acknowledge The Peace Foundation for bringing Helen and Kate together in New Zealand and for the interview. ~ Tim\n
\n
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They are attending this harbourside Expo from the 16th and 17th November 2016 in order to tap into the NZ government’s $20 billion defence budget for new procurements.\n
In 2011 Auckland became a Peace City and that this resolution was ‘headed by a Peace Committee that Laurie was the Chair’, now finds itself as the focal\n point of a geo-strategic naval war game this month - less than 20 kilometres off the shores of Auckland city, when NZ is supposed to be a keen advocate\n on being a Nuclear Free Nation and working towards being a Neutral Peacemaker too.
\nAs a result the Peace Movement of NZ is mobilising! All peace loving people are welcome to attend, a non violent demonstration prior to a blockade outside\n the ANZ expo centre. Details below.\n
\n
The goal of this action is to bring both local and world attention to the fact that armaments and war are increasingly being pushed up the national and\n international priority list. Whilst, housing, health and social needs get less.
\nSo what do we want the people of NZ and our government to do? Download and listen to Laurie.
\nWhy is the military/industrial complex in New Zealand?
\nLockheed Martin is one of the world’s largest nuclear weapons, electronics and ‘security’ corporations and has a presence in New Zealand currently encompassing\n over 200 employees and operating on six sites in Trentham, Palmerston North, Burnham, Wellington, Auckland and Waiouru.
\nNote that though Lockheed is the principal sponsor, (with a woman CEO of all things). The 90 other sponsors include General Dynamics, Hawker Pacific, ANZ,\n Airworks, Auckland University’s UniServices, Babcock NZ, Beca, Safe Air, AVIS, University of Canterbury Spatial Engineering Research Centre, Callaghan\n Innovation, Mainfreight, and Datacom Ltd.
What is militarism in present day terms? Plus why now here in NZ?\nIt is to celebrate “Seventy Five years of the NZ Navy” and act at the same time - as a cover for selling weapons.
\nLack of Will & Diplomacy on a Global Scale. Why?
\nToday, we have an issue of nuclear weapons being intensified with Russia & China being reclassified as the adversary and that no attempt is being made\n to mobilise diplomatic efforts on a broad front to look at resolving these issues and de-escalating what it happening. Why not greater diplomacy and\n Citizen Diplomacy as in the Reagan Gorbachev era?
\nNote that President elect Trump has consistently stated he does not want confrontation with Russia, so let us trust that this is so. And he does not get\n infiltrated with Neocon advisers who subvert him.
\nNew Zealand as a Nuclear Free Peacemaker?
\nFor NZ there are many options to concentrate around Defence but not Offence and re focusing our Foreign policy of engaging in Peacemaking and Neutrality.\n Training up all personal in the defense forces in the many methods and modalities of peacekeeping, and helping the community that is being assisted\n to become more cohesive and functional. Emergency power, health, water, shelter and policing via the rule of law etc. Including mediation skills, food\n growing and education.
\nWhat can we do as a nation as we already have an educational program in place that is championed by the NZ Peace Foundation - called Cool Schools. That has been introduced to thousands of schools across NZ. Where children learn the skills of reconciling opposing points of\n view with peer remediation and conflict resolution. A huge export potential of this innovative method of bringing people together in a mode of ‘learned\n communication skills’ and equipping them for the future.
\nHowever. Laurie goes far deeper talking about systems and structures and how to lay out the protocols on a vaster scale, that also encompasses not only\n local areas suffering from some disaster, but to larger situations involving whole countries. Listen to the broadcast.
\nLaurie finishes with a prayer and a song.\n
\n
This piece below is gratefully taken from Action Stations here in NZ.\n
No Weapons Expo, No Warships\n
We oppose the investment of billions of dollars in the military and new weaponry, which clearly does not deter terrorism, but rather contributes to violence,\n and war cycles.
\nWe will not stand for the government supporting an arms expo for international weapons companies. This is proposed for 16 and 17 November 2016 in Auckland,\n sponsored by the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and maker of nuclear weapons, Lockheed Martin.
\nIn June, 2016, the government announced $20 Billion of new spending on weaponry. At the same time, it extended an invitation to a US warship to visit NZ\n for the first time in 32 years. In November this year, this will all culminate in a week where warships dominate Auckland Harbour, and 500+ weapons\n dealers take over the ANZ Viaduct events centre for a trade show. The NZDF, Ministry of Defence and NZ Trade and Enterprise provide funding, personnel,\n equipment, displays and expertise for the Weapons Expo.
\nThe $20 Billion new military spending includes the purchase of new warships and aggressive cyber warfare capabilities described by Minister Gerry Brownlee\n as a \"significant weapon\". This is despite that the government's own evidence that \"the country does not face a direct military threat in the foreseeable\n future.\"
\nWhile billions are funnelled to multinational arms dealers, the real threats to ordinary people in New Zealand mount: poverty, homelessness, lack of adequate\n health care and catastrophic climate change.
\nAuckland Peace Action is a grassroots community group working to oppose the warships and the weapons expo. We believe that it is not possible to build\n a peaceful and just world while simultaneously acquiring ever more weapons and doing more planning for war. This petition is an important part of our\n campaign this year to bring pressure on the government. Join the campaign for peace!
\n[1] See \"Does US Intervention overseas breed terrorism?\"\n Foreign Policy Briefing. The Cato Institute.
\n[2] More information on the Weapons Expo can be found at: http://www.nzdia.co.nz/
\n[3] Defence White Paper: Government unveils $20b defence plan for new planes, boats and cyber security\n
\n[4] New Zealand Ministry of Defence. Defence White Paper 2016,\n p10.
\nHow it will be delivered:
\nAuckland Peace Action sees this petition as an important part of our campaign opposing the weapons expo and the visit of foreign warships in November 2016.\n We need your support now to make this petition as powerful as possible. All the signatures will be delivered in the immediate lead-up to the weapons\n expo.
\nIt takes only a moment to download this from GreenplanetFM.com and you can listen to it whilst driving, bussing or training to and from work or leasure.
\nLauri is one of the most dynamic grandmothers in NZ who clearly articulates what needs to be conveyed and very powerfully too.
\nACTION DATES:
\nTuesday 15th Nov: Dr. Helen Caldicott speaks.\n
\nNobel Peace Prize Nominee Dr. Helen Caldicott, the world’s foremost anti-nuclear activist and researcher speaks at 7:30pm, at the Auckland University of\n Technology. Hosted by the Peace Foundation.
\nWednesday 16th Nov: Blockade the Arms Trade!\n
\nActively oppose the arms trade by the blockading the Weapons Expo. There are spaces for people who wish to actively blockade as well as space for support\n and family-friendly creative resistance.\n
\n
Thursday 17th Nov: WALL of NOISE – Drown out the Death Merchants.\n
\nBring your best noisemakers, instruments, banners and placards to drown out the weapons dealers’ party and awards ceremony happening inside. Evening. Check\n out the Facebook event for more details
\nPeace Flotilla: Time & Place TBA\n
\nJoin up with a boat, kayak, surfboard or your body to resist the warships coming into Auckland Harbour. Details confirmed closer to the day.
\nSaturday THE 19th Auckland Town Hall - the BIG MARCH 2pm.\n
\nCome and make a noise, and Bring Banners & Placards.
\nA Massive March for Peace
\nWednesday 9th November at 2pm.
\nPress Release: People for Peace
\nA big turnout is expected for a March for Peace on Saturday November 19th at 2pm, starting from the Town Hall, Queen St, and organised by “People for Peace”.
\nLarge numbers of people are stunned that the New Zealand Navy has invited approximately 15 warships to participate in the Navy’s 75 birthday celebrations\n and an International Naval Review. Other countries are sending senior officers to participate.
\nThe vessels, with their array of deadly weaponry, will berth at both Ports of Auckland and Devonport Naval Base. This is a stark call to all peace activists\n who opposed the US warships in the eighties and worked for a peace that may now be under threat globally, andalso to the new generation of young people\n who see the insanity of warfare and want to take a stand for peace.
\n“Even if the ships are non-nuclear armed, it is still not desirable to be reinforcing a warfare mentality and militarism when we should be promoting peace\n and underpinning the UN Charter that New Zealand signed in 1945,” said long time peace worker Lisa Er.
\n“By endorsing conventional warships New Zealand is effectively being groomed for involvement in future wars” she said.
\nIn tandem with the warships visit is a weapons conference and expo, selling both military equipment and weapons, at the Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre.\n It will bring together 500 arms dealers sponsored by Lockheed Martin, the world's largest weapons manufacturer and a producer of nuclear weapons. This\n is contrary to Nuclear Free New Zealand’s peacemaker policy role in the international community.
\nIt also contravenes Auckland’s City for Peace declaration, signed on Dec 15th 2011, which states that “Auckland Council is dedicated to the promotion of\n nuclear free zones and a culture of peace based on social, economic and environmental justice, tolerance and nonviolence.”
\nVeteran Peace activist Laurie Ross says, “New Zealanders must ensure that the multimillion dollar weapons industry is not permitted to promote its warfare\n culture under the guise of security, business and free trade in this country.”
\n“Unlawful terrorism will not be stopped by nation states increasing their warfare capacity but rather by curbing the sale of weapons and militarism throughout\n the world” she said.
\nThe March for Peace is an opportunity for the public to show en mass their disdain for warfare and their desire to live in a peaceful world, and is complementary\n to the Week of Peace events.
\nContacts:
\nLaurie Ross laurie-ross@xtra.co.nz Ph 09 818 0696
\nLisa Er lisa@peaceteam.org,nz mob 021 777 473
\nUN Charter\nSunday 20th Nov: Peace Ships, NOT Warships! 1pm @ the Cloud\n
\nWe’ll be having a peace picnic in the midst of the Navy birthday celebration reminding everyone that war is not a celebration bring banners, picnic stuff\n and other peace materials.
\n", "itemId": 13908100, "name": "Laurie Ross: 550+ Weapons Dealers and Naval War Games invade Auckland 'City for Peace'", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/laurie-ross-550-weapons-dealers-and-naval-war-games-invade-auckland-city-for-peace", "url": "/greenplanetfm/laurie-ross-550-weapons-dealers-and-naval-war-games-invade-auckland-city-for-peace", "releaseDate": "2016-11-10T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2016-11-09T21:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2016-11-12T10:52:30.157", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2016-11-12T07:52:30.157", "counter": 28, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/laurie-ross-550-weapons-dealers-and-naval-war-games-invade-auckland-city-for-peace?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=13908100&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "4820063", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Auckland New Zealand, with all its Mayoral and Council pomp and celebration was designated a City of Peace in December 2011. Today it is hosting 20 visiting warships in its inner harbour and at the same time 550+ weapons dealers are gathering less than a kilometre from Auckland’s Queen St.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2016/20161110-Laurie-Ross.jpg", "tag1_id": "12927429", "tag1": "Nuclear Free", "tag2_id": "", "tag2": "", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1470": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "
Are recently found, ocean floor bacterial networks, acting as one super-organism?\n
\nSome researchers believe that bacteria in ocean sediments are connected by a network of microbial nanowires. These fine protein filaments could shuttle\n electrons back and forth, allowing communities of bacteria to act as one giant super-organism.
\nIn James Cameron’s movie Avatar, the inhabitants, the Na'vi people of Pandora, plug themselves into a neural network that links to all the elements of\n Pandora’s biosphere, from phosphorescent plants to pterodactyl-like birds. It turns out that Pandora's interconnected ecosystem may have a parallel\n back here on our planet: sulphur-eating bacteria that live in muddy sediments beneath the ocean floor, as a tightly coupled living mat or network.\n
\n
Going back 4 billion years where bacteria have been living in the ocean and creating the conditions for life to prosper on our planet – evolving the conditions\n for multi cellular life to eventually we humans.
\nThere is emerging evidence that bacteria in the oceans form massive mats connected with things called nanowires. These nanowires allow the bacteria to\n breathe externally from their bodies – so it is collective breathing – and that they could be connecting as a neural network – so it is possible that\n the ocean floor is a vast neural network or ocean mind, with deep thought – 10,000 years of thought process that we humans may only take a couple of\n seconds to grok. What kind of thoughts might the ocean be having?
\nWe are finding out that we live on a planet that is alive and that the ocean is a living being.
\nHence, James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory that our planet is gigantic super living organism.
\nHere is the original Our Planet description posted on the world wide web in 1996: http://www.ourplanet.org/original-site/gaia.html.
\nIt’s only in the last 60 years has man created the tools to look around underwater – with masks, oxygen tanks and more lately bathyspheres.
\nAs we become more sensitive and knowing, immersing ourselves into the sea and becoming one with the marine environment and ecology - makes it possible\n to dissolve into a greater knowing of the ocean - to osmotically take in information.
\nTo address the big oceanic issues, in Glenn’s opinion - it’s about addressing our own personal relationship.
\nWestern civilisation including we here in NZ have over the years become more distant and separated from nature. We have in numerous ways become disengaged\n from natural processes and from our planet as a whole.
\nNote NCEA -the National Certificate of Educational Achievement in high schools in NZ that they do not teach ecology. It is not part of the curriculum.\n Thus students are leaving school not realising that they are an intrinsic part of the web of life within the biosphere. Now we know why the young are\n disconnected – they are being deliberately severed from our planet. Whereas Maori children in many cases intuitively understand they are an extension\n of Papatuanuku, our planet.
\nThis interview covers:
\nThe International Union for Conservation of Nature recently passing a resolution to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 At this meeting 129 countries\n or 89% said yes – and signed. But 29 countries said NO. And 35 abstained from voting. Note that ‘Clean Green’ NZ was one of the countries that abstained.\n That NZ could not in this time of declining fisheries and in an ecologically challenged world, mindfully look at this important 30% protection, particularly\n for our children and grandchildren’s future, gives us cause for concern
\nYet, in Antarctica 24 countries and the European Union agreed to protect 1.5 million square kilometres of the Ross Sea - the largest marine protected area\n on our planet, so far. 1 million square ks will be a ‘no take’ marine reserve. This is worth celebrating. Yet it is set to expire in 35 years time.\n Why?
\nThe NZ administered Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will be possibly the 4th largest protected marine reserve on earth. Covering 620,000 square kilometres, and\n the most significant of a fully protected area. It will be 35 times larger than the combined area of all of New Zealand’s existing 44 marine reserves.
\nThe following activities will be prohibited in the sanctuary:
\n- \n
- commercial fishing and aquaculture \n
- recreational fishing \n
- fishing-related tourism \n
- oil, gas and mineral prospecting, exploration and mining. \n
This is similar to prohibitions in place in marine reserves in our NZ territorial sea.
\nChallenges to our Oceans
\nMilitary testing sonar and microwave tech, even passing through some of these reserves! Plus electromagnetic energy that ships emit. These have been correlated\n to whale strandings and more science is needed?
\nCovering Professor Daniel Pauly of Canada – who says that there is no fishery on our planet that we could consider as sustainable. In 2004 he came to NZ\n and mentioned that we need to lock up 25% of our fishing grounds so as to rebuild up our fish stocks. He was criticised vehemently by commercial fishing\n interests here in NZ, but remains focused and undeterred.
\nIn NZ, DOC, the Department of Conservation care for many offshore islands that are prohibited for humans to land on and they could in turn be extended\n to include fishing reserves around each island. So as to build up fish colonies again and create a “no take” marine reserve.
\nThe ancient Hawaiians had an understanding that from the mountain top, down the valleys onto the beach into the water to the reef and out beyond the reef\n as one living holistic system. They did not partition nature.
\nLoss of NZ’s Endangered Maui Dolphin?
\nThere is a belief with ocean ecologists that we are going to lose the Maui dolphins to extinction, because the NZ Government has no will to change the\n current situation. (34 minutes into the interview ) cut out before we email). Possibly only 44 are alive today.
\nThey are found along the West Coast of the central North Island from Northern Taranaki in the South to Northland, just South of Opononi. In June 2014,\n the government decided to open up 3000 km2 of the West Coast North Island Marine Mammal Sanctuary – the main habitat of the Maui's dolphin – for oil drilling. This amounts to one-quarter\n of the total sanctuary area. In May 2015, estimates suggested that the population had declined to 43-47 individuals, of which only 10 were mature females.
\nSet netting in particular is seen as very problematic.
\nThe Maui dolphin is becoming a very charged emotional issue in NZ as it appears\n that we could lose them whilst on our watch, possibly by 2025 or 2030. In a country that brands itself as Clean & Green, if we lose the Maui’s\n dolphin this will be a disaster from the standpoint of lack of mindfulness and the precautionary principle. To add insult to this loss it would affect\n the Maori people, as it will be a slap in their collective face, as their oral history tells of the God Maui, fishing up the North Island (Te Ika O\n Maui) out of the sea. This loss would be devastating for both Maori and New Zealanders as a whole.
\nGovernment Changing the Rules.
\nAt present the NZ Government is taking away from DOC, the Department of Conservation many decision making processes and handing them over to the Department\n of Primary Industries, because DPI is more of a commercial concern, based around monetary policies. This is where the government, our elected political\n servants are taking their own Agenda.
\nWe as a people, need to instruct our government to do our bidding to enable 10% of our coastline to be designated as marine reserves and become far more\n informed.
\nHere in Aotearoa NZ the Te Urewera Park and the Whanganui River have been designated as having special privileges and rights. This was Government sanctioned\n and is an exceptionally visionary policy. If it can be done on the land (whenua) then it can be accomplished on the ocean (moana).
\nNew Zealand Government Acknowledges a River as a Living Entity and a Park as Having Human Rights!\n
\nInterspecies Communication?
\nWhales and Dolphin communication. By acoustics and sonar is covered. The www. - World Whale Web of Sperm whales connecting by clicks at deep ocean levels\n across the Pacific and deep levels.
\nTelepathy and possibilities of instant connection with large brain mammals?
\nChanging and cleaning up our oceans and our possible future.
\nWe once had pristine oceans? Prior to the 17th century.
\nWill we (among our numerous and mounting challenges) realise our connection to the planet that loans us bodies, free air, free water and a free food chain?\n
\nAs oceans bear the brunt of wastewater, from our homes and from sinks and bathtubs, to pipes, drains, creeks, streams and rivers all eventually find their\n way to the ocean. One way or another.
\nAs we humans are composed of around 70% water and our bloodstream is about 3.5% salt - why have humans disconnected from our oceans? When in NZ the bulk\n of NZers are only 100 kilometres or less from the ocean.
\nToday, ocean plastic is outnumbering plankton 6 to one. That is correct - In certain areas of the ocean, specifically the subtropical gyres, micro plastic\n pieces outnumber plankton by 6 to 1. In other words, for every individual plankton there are 6 pieces of micro-plastic (micro-plastic being any plastic\n fragment smaller than 2 mm in diameter).
\nMicro plastic can now be found in every part of the Ocean, even in Antarctica, and on the ocean floor.
\nThe majority has already sunk below the surface and out of our reach the only answer to stop this plastic onslaught from continuing is to stop putting\n plastic into the ocean.
\nMost of today’s challenges are extremely recent - especially in the last 70 years exponential acceleration and has grown across the whole realm of industry\n from products to pollution has escalated and the ocean is taking this all in. Including the nuclear radiation from Fukushima in Japan, that the world’s\n media and scientists remain tight lipped about.
\nHumanity has much to do in a very small window of time. The imperative is to connect with other people in your locality and voice your needs to commit\n to organise.
\nWrite letters and phone you local MP and speak to them, either on the phone but better still with a small delegation of 4 or 5 of you and your friends.\n Let your Member of Parliament know your vote counts.
\nGlens web site: http://www.oceanspirit.org\n
\nHEADS UP:
\nThis Sunday 6th of November - from 2pm to 4 pm is a public meeting fundraiser – plus highly educational presentations at Long Bay Marine Reserve Auckland\n at the Sir Peter Blake centre- Dr Roger Grace marine ecologist. Plus, Steve Hathaway – world renowned cameraman and filmmaker will be giving presentations.
\nOkura Marine Reserve – a local situation – With a large land area being owned by Todd Property this is putting at risk of despoiling the whole marine area\n with Todd wanting to add 750 to 1000 new houses.
\nThis development and the accompanying soil runoff is smothering the unique sponges and marine life in the Okura Marine Reserve. Already the water is already\n running brown, due to minor housing developments in the area.
\nThese filter feeders are some of the oldest organisms on earth. They filter and clean up the seawater and have been living in the Okura marine reserve\n for eons. Todd Property with their vast financial fire power – ex Todd oil, the richest family in NZ – Are wanting to develop this land at any costs.\n
\nThe fundraising function this Sunday at Long Bay calls on the Auckland City Council to halt this land grab and the despoiling of this unique localised\n marine reserve.
\nThis has come about, despite the Environmental Protection Agency stating 10 years ago there was to be no property development there. However, Todd with\n huge treasure chests of money and many lawyers are now fighting this restriction and taking this to court. With high powered lawyers they are setting\n out to defeat ‘we the people’, under the rubric ‘Money Rules.’
\nEvolution is indeed speeding up.
\nBut it is not really being seen in the outer macro world in physical changes of the biota, namely new animals emerging into being or new vegetation in\n the form of …– trees coming into existence – however it is doing so on the micro levels as we witness either new mutations of viruses and bacterial\n as well as how they adapt and become resistant to mans attempt to curtail and destroy them.
\nWith new species of virus pushing their way into the collective consciousness we hear of the Kauri tree die back virus bird flu or swine flu and now Zika\n – yet even though these micro organism are here, there is also a rapid speeding up of the inner workings of the human organism i the inner realms of\n our mind as humanity wakes up and recognises that there are metaphysical implications of realising that we are cosmic beings experiencing what is to\n live on a planet that is in transition – where we are going depends on us – all of us as we divine a way to live within the web of life that embraces\n our planet as well as how we adopt a spirit of mindfulness that holistically connect us to the greater organism that is mother earth.
\nThese next few years into 2020 are going to lead to a tipping point for the future of the human race – we are depending on you dear listener and all it\n may require is a change of heart.
\n\n
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Is the government, along with commercial fishing interests with 94%\nof the catch, now taking aim at the 6% of the yield that the public harvest?
\nThe lines are being drawn with our elected representatives in Parliament siding with Corporate Fishing to make it even more difficult for NZ families to\n catch their own fish.
\nHonest broker Doug Kidd, ex National Party Minister of Fisheries, saw this coming as far back as 1990 and endeavoured to empower the recreational sector\n by passing the Fisheries Act of 1996.
\nThe scheme of the Fisheries Act of 1996 is that “fish come first”. By improving the biomass and hence the health and abundance of our coastal fisheries\n first, the Minister will then be able to fully allow for the non-commercial interests of the people of New Zealand to fish for food, as well as providing\n for commercial fishers to catch fish that is sustainable for our coastal fisheries.
\nThis part of the Act has been under intense pressure to be changed to the total disadvantage of the public of New Zealand.
\nOrganising People who Fish Around New Zealand’s Coastlines into Clubs.
\nScott Macindoe tells us of his focus on ensuring the NZ public has an organised and professionally run representative organisation to stand up for the\n right of all NZers and our common future.
\nSaying we are blessed to have the NZ Sport Fishing Council on board as they have woken up to the precarious loss of fish species and by extension the commercial\n sector squeezing out recreational fishing, where there is already an imbalance of 94% commercial to 6% recreational.
\nFor 60 years this Council has served the interests of clubs throughout NZ. Today there are 60 clubs affiliated to the Council, each being an incorporated\n society in their own right with their own constitution and democratic process. Many have their own premises with some being quite salubrious whilst\n others are very modest. Scott assures me that they take their responsibilities seriously and are not organisations that take short cuts.
\nThey are very inextricably connected to the communities they serve and have extensive outreach across middle NZ that for example, in Whakatane there are\n over 4,000 members, Gisborne 4,300 members, Whangamata 6000 members with a waiting list. the clubs are relevant and growing.
\nThese clubs all democratically elect their officers and committee and from these ranks choose a delegate to step forward and represent their clubs and\n members interests at a regional level. There are 8 regions each of which nominate a board member to sit on the National organisation - called the NZ\n Sport Fishing Council.
\nScott (as the spokesman for www.legasea.co.nz) has been co-opted to the Board of the NZ Sport Fishing Council\n and stresses their authenticity as an organisation. Their policies and principles are arrived at by way of remit that are thoroughly discussed and\n debated between delegates at a zone level and then to the AGM (Annual General Meeting) where remits are again voted upon and invariably unanimously,\n after some pretty vigorous debates and the reason that Scott ‘labours’ this - is that it does not get better than that. Stating that these clubs have\n built upon 60 years of focused authenticity.
\nAnd yet it is not good enough for the NZ Government’s Ministry of Primary Industries. Though the NZ Sport Fishing Council are constantly engaged with all\n Ministry lead science and fisheries management working groups, consistently attending Ministry led management and science working groups, always willing\n to engage. They engage with contracted professionals who consistently attend. They are there to gather information, report and circulate these reports\n where recommendations are made and carefully considered adopted or rejected as the case may be. Generally speaking, there is no one else in the room\n representing the public interest.
\nOf all the meetings that they attend, the primary focus is for the commercial operators to find a way to squeeze more additional yield out of the fisheries\n whilst the NZ Fishing Council are saying - Hang on a moment! - it’s all about abundance - stop! We have to rebuild our inshore fisheries - we have\n to take less fish. So they are a lone voice.
\nIronically or paradoxically, he sees that they may be too good for their own benefit as with the High Court, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court challenges\n to fisheries management in Aotearoa NZ. From 2004 through to 2008 they battled over the way Kahawai had been mismanaged nearly collapsing that fishery.\n This left the NZ Ministry not at all happy with the NZ Sport Fishing Council to the point that the Council might as well not exist as far as the Ministry\n and Minister are concerned.
\nSo what is conveyed in this interview is that the average New Zealanders is being jammed out of the debate in favour of Government and commercial interests.
\nHowever, the NZ Fishing Council are relaxed and now organising and getting better and better at understanding what they are up against. There are alignments\n being established all over the place.
\nBuilding Alliances
\nThey are organising and building alliances with the NZ Angling and Casting Association that caters for the interest of small land based clubs on the beach.\n The NZ Underwater Association, and the previous differences of the past that have been healed, (beyond healed) - now very trusting and reliable relationship\n as they now come together. Yachting NZ and of course Legasea that Scott is very much involved in. All are finding their place either affiliating or\n endorsing this growing organisation, the NZ Sports Fishing Council.
\nThat in building up an organisation to represent ordinary NZers the Partners and Sponsors from the business world are stepping up. ITM (Independent Timber\n Merchants) has signed up for 2 years, the Hunting & Fishing chain of shops, Yamaha and Honda, Diawa and Wasabi, Black Magic, Club Marine Insurance\n and many other organisations & Scott then says that he has to be careful as when he’s naming names - as he may forget some and get into trouble.\n However, there are 60 companies that have come into support the ordinary NZer, and they are paying a goodly sum per annum to support recreational fisher\n folk to protect and rebuild local coastal fishing. This action is to put up a united front against the moneyed might and power of the commercial sector\n that is in bed with the Government against its own people.
\nThese businesses are coming on board with not only cash, but also with rich access to extensive databases, rich access to their social media feed and reach.\n The Hutchwilco NZ Boat Show, DB Dominion Breweries and their low alcohol DB Export Citrus are all on board. What this is saying is that for the first\n time we have an organised recreational fishing lobby independently funded with zero government money and focussing on best practice and attempting\n to shift people’s attitudes expectations and behaviours. In particular as required to constrain, as required to conserve, as required to leave fish\n in the water in order to accelerate the rebuild of NZ 's inshore fisheries
\nIn some ways he sees this as quite daunting as fishing can be a very religious feeling for many people, this is their time out, they do not want to be\n interfered with.
\nThis interview covers:
\nDealing with disposing of fish heads, frames and offal, that are delicacies for other races and cultures that value these - where we in NZ tend to discard\n them with not to much thought. That there is now a website dedicated to people who want to eat what’s left, can go on to https://www.freefishheads.co.nz.\n With 16,000 people registered, this is a win win that benefits many.
\nSo this is one of Scotts important outreach projects allied to Legasea.co.nz - here to restore our fishing grounds\n for the average NZer to be able to 'fish for a feed.’
\nBeing a 58 year old European NZer trying hard to not consume, for Scott, is a challenge especially whilst working with Legacy and half a dozen full time\n contractors taking these messages and issues, to the people of the real threats to NZer’s and to realise the magnificent gifts around our coast and\n conserve them before it’s too late.
\nLegasea: with 52,000 subscribed supporters and growing!
\n\nYou are invited to sign up for free and they will send you a newsletter telling you what the current situation is. – ‘less is more’ – Scott also understands\n how overloaded our in-trays are.
\nHe asks you to simply subscribe - to a free newsletter so that they can inform you and give you insights. You will find their newsletter very interesting\n and you may even wish to donate as well. You can even like their FB page or tick a box or two in the surveys and polls they run.
\nLegasea are well liked and a trusted source for a growing number of Maori iwi (tribes). Because they see them as taking care of ika (fish) and Tangaroa’s\n (God of the Sea) gifts of the ocean.
\n\n
\n Sign Up For The LegaSea Newsletter!
We are working together to rebuild our inshore fisheries. Click here to join the team!\n
Scott reminds us of Martin Luther King in the context of the civil liberties and civil rights stating:
\n“It’s not the words of our enemies that we will remember – but the silence of our friends.”
\nThe aim is to continue to build up NZ’s falling fishing stocks and make them sustainable for perpetuity.
\nThat to have equitable access to that abundance is the goal to all NZers and not witness additional yield allocated to bulk harvested, low value, export\n focused commercial fisheries.
\nIt is important to remind ourselves that 94% of all fish caught in NZ are taken by the commercial sector and the other 6 % by average NZers called the\n recreational sector.
\nRecreational Sector Harvest
\nRecreational Fishers take approximately 10,000 tonnes or 10,000, thousand kilograms of fish per annum by 600,000 fishers. Be it in small boat, off the\n beach or in the water – what they do with it is a very private thing – some people deep freeze it for later, most people take what they need, others\n gift it to family neighbours and friends over the next few days. For many the ability to share catch is a primary source of self esteem. Maximum mana\n enhancement to gift a fish as a taonga (treasure) – to knock on the door of a friend and say here, I caught this for you and hand over a fish, or a\n bag of fillets or half a dozen scallops.
\nCommercial Sector Harvest
\nThe commercial sector harvest about 350,000 tonnes of fish of which 90% is exported.
\nSome of the figures and prices that these fish are sold overseas for - make Scott cry.
\nIncluding the discarding, dumping and disrespect of fish by the bulk harvesting commercial sector – plus the ‘miss reporting’ that has been brought about\n by the ‘quota management system’ where catch entitlements are poorly distributed.
\nThere are many problems specially ‘by-catch’ where fish that are caught in nets that the trawler is not wanting to catch - so over the side they go and\n all the fish are dead or die, because their bodies just are too frail when brought to the surface as well as being crushed in the net.
\nBy-catch in commercial parlance is either valuable or not valuable. Those that are not valuable (do not have rights - go back over the side to float on\n the surface in their hundreds and often thousands to be videoed and then shown on TV or Facebook.
\nBut, it’s not only commercial - recreational fishers have work to do on this and evidently quite a lot of work in some instances.
\nScott states “we all have to lift our game.”
\nScott use the word atrocities – a word he states he does not use lightly in relation to the following:
\nTrevally: he says is a highly valuable fish, Scott says that he is happy to swop it for snapper.
\nA kilo of trevally in NZ is worth about NZ $12 retail including GST (not filleted). About 200 tones per annum is caught in public recreational sector.\n While the commercial sector with entitlements can catch about 3000 tonnes – though they can only catch 2000 tonnes per annum so there is no real constraints\n as it is over allocated – which Scott sees as really sad.
\nMuch of this fish is exported. 800 tonnes per annum to France, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Sold whole, frozen with no added value, no GST for\n $2.70 per kilo, last year $2.50 the year before, it was $2.30 - a rich,dense high quality protein source.
\nWe have this incredibly high quality nutrient dense protein source and the greatest concentration of Polynesians grouped together in history, domiciled\n here in NZ in South Auckland and yet we have 45 dialysis machines working overtime at Middlemore hospital. Why? Because we are dealing with waves of\n people suffering from Type 2 diabetes through eating a poor diet whilst we take this sacred source that the Polynesian - who is hardwired to this as\n their metabolism is all about eating fresh fish and we are selling the best fish at $2.70 a kilo to France. This just blows Scott away!
\nKahawai: We the selling 1,000 tonnes a year to Africa – Ghana and the Cameroon for $1.75 per kilo - So what is this all about?NZers would gladly pay $5.00\n a kilo
\nThe fact that we are selling our rich protein for such a low price shocks Scott (as it does me Tim doing the interview) and it should shock you dear reader\n – we are being done by commercial interests and none of these benefits are flowing through to NZers as a community.
\nSnapper: (tāmure ) We are exporting snapper to Australia sized at 25,26,27,28,29 centimetres – that we in NZ have to throw back dead or alive because of\n being undersized – yet the commercial sector can get away with this with the blessing of the NZ Government for a miserly $10.00 a kilo - we export\n 2.500 tonnes of this or nearly as much as all NZers combined in our entire public sector harvest – what is this all about? NZ snapper fillets cost\n retail $30.00 kilo plus.
\nPresently the NZ Government is angling to have the public sign off to a particular quota and all the rest be taken over by commercial interests. This will\n not happen on Legasea's watch, Scott assures us. Hence the Government MPI Ministry of Primary Industries refuse to give the public sector representatives\n the time of day.
\nAnd the NZ Government mission card for NZ primary producers is to double the export of primary produce by 2025
\nWho is the person/s driving this over extraction of the earth’s resources? This is the neo-liberal agenda that continues to steal the future of our children\n and grandchildren!
\nNo Resource Rental or License
\nNZ Commercial Operators do not pay for a resource rental license – they can just take and extract from the ‘collective commons’ and there are no governmental\n regulations to make them pay for this resource.
\nWhat Recreational Fishing Adds to the Local Economy
\nThe private recreation sector spends $950 million on bait, boats, rods and fuel etc. Plus charters, accommodation and 8,200 jobs within the industry as\n well all employees (PAYE) are taxed, there is the GST component of 15% GST plus fuel and road user tax. The recreational fishing industry adds to the\n local economy and with no fish, this sector would suffer hugely.
\nThis interview also covers:
\nDoug Kidd the ex National Party Minister of Fisheries and Speaker of the House comes in for high praise, as he saw what was happening to NZ’s fishing stocks\n and spoke out about it very strongly.
\nThese two links will put you firmly in the picture as to how commercial interests are working to disenfranchise recreational fisher people in NZ.
\nhttps://www.legasea.co.nz/articles/recreational-fishing-not-part-of-quota-system
\nhttps://www.legasea.co.nz/articles/differing-perspectives-on-allowances
\nThe end of recreational fishing as we know it? It’s up to us to all mobilise and make the effort to join together and meet this challenge.
\nScott also gives kudos to the Auckland Council for their visionary Hauraki Gulf Spacial plan along with Waikato District Council and the Thames-Coromandel\n District Council. Their coming together is going to breathe new life into this superb marine and fish environment.
\nThis interview with Scott Macindoe, like his last one is superb. An articulate wordsmith and communicator he lays out for everyone what is happening and\n what we need to do.
\nHis previous hard hitting interview November 2015.
\nhttp://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/scott-macindoe-advocate-for-fish-and-ocean-fauna
\nHe finishes with the Maori word Tumanako which signifies hope.
\nA must listen.
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We are working together to rebuild our inshore fisheries. Click here to join the team!She has just returned from Australia where the Humpback whales recovery signals hope for the future. Watching (rather than swimming) is her focus as it's\n non-invasive and takes the human ego out of the whales' natural behaviour.
\nHumpback numbers in NSW were down to a couple of hundred animals when whaling stopped in the 1960s-70s. This year estimations put the numbers at about\n 27,000 along Australia’s east coast, and they're growing at 11% pa cumulatively. About 95% travel within 5km offshore on their way to Antarctica. That's\n why New South Wales in the best place for whale lovers like Christine.\n
\n
In this interview, we cover a number of environmental issues from the whale’s recovery in Australia to the New Zealand fishing industry.\n
\n
Christine also speaks about the moral rights of animals and recommends the book of that name.\n
\n
Touching on climate change and the 6th great extinction, Christine turns to some creative solutions. We even talk about the necessity of carpooling – an\n idea that is not shared much, as we are pushed to use privately owned public transport!
\nAs a community and environmental advocate, Christine enacts the phrase 'think globally, act locally' into action - working on sustainability in her private\n life, in the community, nationally, and even internationally with the causes she supports and the life she leads.\n
\n
Christine strives to lead a moral life - she's vegetarian, rides her bike wherever she can, refuses TV and the consumer society. She has solar panels,\n grows a veggie garden and lives in harmony with nature.\n
\n
Locally, Christine helps build community - she established Bike Kumeunity, the Kumeu Children's Art Club, the Kumeu Arts Centre and she leads the ‘Kumeuknitty’\n 'womanship' movement for women to share skills, knowledge, surpluses and love through knitting and crochet. She established Keep Kumeu Beautiful and\n organises WaiCare planting and water testing.\n
\n
Regionally Christine campaigns for better walking and cycling - she's a voluntary trustee of SkyPath, which will see a walking and cycle way across the\n Auckland Harbour Bridge. She’s founding Chair of the Public Transport Users Association.\n
\n
Since the year 2000, or earlier, Christine has dedicated a large part of her life to our endangered Maui's & Hector's Dolphins. She founded ‘Maui’s and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders NZ Inc.’ Christine regularly travels around New Zealand\n as an advocate, talking about the dolphins, helping all NZers to become stewards of this little taonga.\n
\n
Christine runs Cetacean Spotting NZ, a Facebook page dedicated to celebrating whales and dolphins around the coast. She is also a volunteer/supporter of\n many environmental groups. She does pest control to protect Kokako and other species in the Waitakere Ranges. Most weekends she's out planting trees\n or helping community and environmental organisations to make the world a better place.
\nIn her spare time, Christine cycles, camps, tramps, kayaks and is a practicing artist. She is a most heart-full person who seeks to build an empathetic\n culture through empowering others. She's a success at making the sun shine a bit more for us all by spreading joy and love in all she does, motivated\n by the public good and the ideal of a better world.\n
\n
This interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party.
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\n
Ted co-founded Transition Towns Nelson, but with the change of government from Labour to National, they lost their funding for employing\n a co-ordinator, and with the collapse of the price of oil, lost their impetus, and most members drifted away. The one thing that survives is the Permaculture\n in Nelson Group (PNG), that he still co-hosts.\n
\n
Hosting the Nelson Peace Group during after hours - he also lead a book discussion group based on the books by Daniel Quinn: 'Ishmael',\n 'My Ishmael', 'The Story of B', 'Beyond Civilisation'. This started a process of questioning the foundations of who he was and what culture he was\n living in.
\nPermaculture
\nHis main focus now is Permaculture gardening/design during the week. He’s also studying part time as a student on National Certificate in Horticulture,\n level 4.
\nHe is passionate about his gardening, but especially about building healthy living soil, such as biological farming and especially soil banking, including\n installing chook runs and small water harvesting projects.
\nActivism
\nHe also follows a lot of writings and speeches by Guy McPherson on abrupt climate change - by Derrick Jensen on bringing down \"civilisation\", by Carolyn Baker and Andrew Harvey on grief work, and Paul Levy on the Greatest disease of our times: Wetiko = a collective psychosis.
\nTed’s pretty sure we have entered a period of great change. He calls it The Great Unravelling. He hopes we can get to The Great Turning idea from Joanna Macy.\n It’s very late in the game though, collapse of the biosphere is well underway. But he’s here for the natural communities and the rest of life, to make\n a difference with the time he has left, regardless of how short that is, or isn't!
\nIn this interview, Ted expresses condolences to Bill Mollison who with David Holmgren initiated Permaculture, a system that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture,\n architecture, and ecology, but also economic systems, land access strategies, and legal systems for businesses and communities. Bill Mollison, died\n this last week after initiating a revolution on how humans can survive with living on and with the land,
\nEx Military
\nAs an ex territorial soldier – he states that after 12 years of service he realised that even in NZ we live under a government of occupation on behalf\n of empire, it is about dividing and ruling the communities, it’s about opening the country up to rape, pillage and extraction – and this also includes\n the so called NZ defence forces.
\nIs not so much about defence of NZ – but actually an offensive tool of Empire – and NZ armed personnel have been used all around the world and are still\n being used as offensive weapons for Empire. With that realisation and start of the Gulf War in Iraq - Ted resigned and became a peace activist.
\nStating that the modern industrial, intelligence, military, complex is completely insane and out of control – that it has been for sometime, but has been\n getting a lot worse.
\nTed says he is so grateful that he has been given the opportunity to wake up to this and to take a stand even when his voice trembles and his knees quiver\n and say ‘this is not what we are here for.’ As an ex-soldier he stands and states - we can do this differently.
\nIndigenous Knowing
\nAt a local level Ted has studied and found himself embedding himself in indigenous wisdom and realised that indigenous peoples are ‘an extension of their\n environment’ and that they are infused with the ecology that surround them. That, they are intimately connected with the seasons and know that the\n earth is their great sustainer. That the people of the first nations of North America took into the deepest of consideration the term ‘looking seven\n generations ahead’ to see that the environment could peacefully fulfil their needs whilst they revered and acknowledged the sacredness of life.
\nThough very, very late in the ‘game’, Ted says this is basically our only way forward, because to carry on the same habits that currently run our paradigm\n is in essence a race to the bottom.
\nThere is a great unravelling happening all around us today as the biosphere can only absorb so much punishment before the tightly coupled ecological systems\n that so elegantly overlap and blend both up and down the vastness of the nature kingdom collapse.
\nRural Maori that Ted knows have much respect from him, because they know how to live more sustainably and understand living within community most being\n connected by a marae, or meeting place. This will stem from their original belief systems.\n
Localising
\nTraining as a permaculture, gardener-designer and aware of the radical things happening globally – his focus is very neighbourhood, at grass roots and\n what can be done locally as a humble yet stirring permaculture gardener. He finds deep satisfaction and huge relief in getting his hands dirty in the\n garden on a daily basis. Mainly helping out with friends, colleagues and clients to put in an edible landscape to help with biodiversity and raise\n as much awareness as possible. Maintaining that ‘civilisation’ (a swear word in Ted’s vernacular) is insanely unsustainable – and we could do it differently.
\nMeanwhile the indigenous methods have been quietly waiting for us to waken up to, as they have a lot of wisdom that could make a difference.
\nEducation & Learning
\nOne of the benefits of ‘being’ and doing gardening is that Ted, can download from the web, interviews on organic gardeners and biological farmers telling\n their story, some interviews even from GreenplanetFM.com - such as Graeme Sait and Dee Pigney that their knowing is so very inspiring. That he fires\n up and enthusiastically put his whole being into aligning with the garden and helping with the landscape. And on a lovely day it is a joy and a pleasure\n …
\nTed talks about soil bacteria and that the micro-organisms that when our hands are in the soil they somehow communicate across our skin membrane and interact\n with the micro-organisms within us. And there is a sort of osmosis that occurs that affects our brain chemistry and we feel good.
\nThis helps him deal with the grief of watching our ‘civilisation’ and biosphere unravelling – yet - this connection with the soil and his hands in the\n earth, helps him deal with the hurt and thus the soil heals him as well as grounds him. By finding joy in this whole process and he states - deep joy\n it’s so profound and this is what keeps him going – this is his juice - however, he does not know how long he can keep doing this? But he will continue\n until he is unable.
\nChallenges Surrounding Us
\nWe talk about the huge change that is coming right now.
\nThe 6TH Mass Extinction and we are in it right now!
\n200 plus species a day going to extinction – day after day after day – these are our kin – our cousins and we ignore this at great peril. And we do not\n know which of them at some stage in the radical interdependent interconnectedness of everything- is going to pull apart the web of life and impact\n us even more … So Ted does what he does - for them – doing his best for all the biota that live within our biosphere.
\nRadical Viewpoints?
\nAsked by numerous people why he does not stand for local government – Ted states that if he did – it would only be for a platform – to rant. That he would\n state - from Derick Jensen’s book ‘End Game’ –‘that the needs of the natural community come before the needs of the economic system.”
\nSo he is not about to be enter politics where he is up against the continuation of the same economic growth system based on money and export earnings,\n more housing sub-divisions and we will get more prosperous blah, blah etc. What he is - is an advocate for de-growth and smart decline. He is also\n an exponent for ‘growth of relationships’ – with each other and growth of relationships with everything within the ‘living community.’
\nHe is for growth of recognising that we need to preserve, regenerate, revive and protect the natural environment – because without it we don’t have an\n economy!
\nGift economy - Sharing
\nHaving a garden or chickens you can gift your produce to friends and people – it’s a wonderful feeling to do, because you have put so much love and good\n vibes into growing lovely organic splendour. Ted is an urban chook farmer which he feeds fresh greens to like puha and dandelion and they go crazy\n over wanting to eat it – same for silver beet and spinach. Listen to this talk by Ted - about his chickens and the win, win, win situations he is involved\n in.
\nGlobally much more food comes from small farmers. He mentions Vandana Shiva – who in many ways speaks for small farmers on many issues, especially the\n perils of GE & GMO’s and mentions that Agri business is not only very new but it is not as productive as small farmers globally.
\nStarting Anew and Being More Heart Centred.
\nHaving academic degrees did not satisfy him s he has switched course and gone off on a different direction .
\n“A revolution can start in a garden” says Bill Mollison - “and can be disguised as gardening” – so by including local food sovereignty – this is quite\n revolutionary – but it can’t stop there it has to be a lot more revolutionary – Listen to this interview to Teds response to being engaged in sedition☺\n
He finds it a fascinating time to be alive – so much in flux With barter, green dollars, times banks – and the GIFT economy.
\nTransition Neighborhoods seem to be the way forward – cells communicating with cells and clusters of cells …
\nCommunion With Nature
\nAre Humans biophobic? Why? We we need instead to be biophiliac’s, floating in biophilia –the love of nature – the joy of nature - the joy of nature with\n us and around us. We are an integrated part of the entire natural community. That natural community is not what we control – that natural community\n is our natural kin – is our family … listen for more to Ted on this interview.
\nMost indigenous peoples are unable to understand why it is taking us so long to work out that we are not separated from nature … they shrug their\n shoulders in disbelief.\n
Ted reckons that we will return to a light ecological foot print when our present economic system ‘drops out’ and by us then returning to total immersion\n in ecological communion with the land we can/may be able to draw from the earth for all our needs.
\nSeparation and Disconnection & Why?
\nHe ventures the statement that we are actually in a dark ages and that at present humanity is neck deep in a malaise of greed, avarice, consumption and\n competition. A predicament that the North America First Nation Peoples say - that we are afflicted by Wetico – ‘the disease of the civilised ones’\n – better known in some circles as being taken over by a mind parasite – and our urgent need and task is to face this - and climb out of this pit.
\nTed calls it “climb-out-ology” - time to climb out to a light ecological footprint.\n
To also embraces smart decline and de-growth rebuilding our local land bases – a re-naturing of areas of areas.
\nTime is of the Essence
\nAnd it is very, very late in the game! We may not pull it off – so be it - but he will continue unabated to his last breath.
\nMaori Understanding of Nature.
\nHe is doing a lot for all those creatures and kin who are going extinct every day, by working with the ecology and talking to people of his concerns.
\nTed, encourages us to go and listen to local Maori – and their communities as they are less individualistic and more community players. They having a reverence\n of nature and invoke their gods when cutting a tree down or going fishing.
\nWhat To Do?
\nPlan A – continuance is unsustainable
\nPlan B - Big Green Party vision - renewable energy – smart cars etc – Ted doesn’t believe it will succeed – being not sustainable. Still\n based on industrialism and the extractive economy\n
Plan C - Energy descent and earth stewardship – David Holmgren said that this was the way – but has canned it recently and now says we\n are going to do plan A (brown tech) until we can’t and then when it crashes we immediately go to .
\nPlan D - Which is ‘lifeboat communities.’\n
Ted feel that this is closer to the truth.
\nNZ is a potential lifeboat community – hence our influx of migrant population, from nearly every country including a vast number of races.
\nOur economy according to the spin of the National Government is a ‘rock star economy’ however Ted’s says it’s unsustainably on the rocks. As it is immigration\n that is artificially keeping NZ‘s balance of payments in the black and it’s take their money to pay for housing and infrastructure.\n
There are many environmental communities still going across the country and they are surviving – Ted posits the idea of a ‘network of resistance’ – that\n their love of community and nature brings them together.
\nThere are wonderful people living out on the land across the whole country who love their land and their animals and have been doing wonderful work helping\n to preserve, protect, regenerate and defend it.\n
The biggest difference between those in the world today says Derek Jensen is ‘those that do something and those who do nothing’ - Find what you like to\n do your passion – what you love that supports local community and land base and go and do it – because that is the only future that Ted can see.
\nPlan C is what Ted thinks is best as the political process unravels.\n
We have to work in community – we cannot do it by oneself – in todays world self sufficiency and self reliance is virtually impossible - it is to hard\n and lonely Talk to any remnant indigenous peoples who have lived for thousands of years and they will say - “how long has it taken you to work that\n out?”
\nIndigenous peoples say that they do everything with the village as their prime consideration - also the tribe – it’s about the community about the neighbourhood-\n it has always been ‘the collective’ – this is why they have been this sustainable for this long.
\nPresent Day 21st Century Culture
\nIn our modern culture which is ‘hyper individuated’ - is narcissistic and is about ‘look at me, look at me, look at me’ … whose got the best toys?\n Whose got the biggest toys?Whose got the most toys? It’s gone insane - especially when we bother to look up and look around we see we are pulling the\n whole biosphere down, by pulling the rug out from under it by all - by our unconscious actions of material extraction and consumption.
\nNow ask the question. Where is your water coming from – where is your food coming from?
\nThe message from the Hopi Elders the 11th hour – we are in it and it is closing on 12 o’clock – It’s come together time, know your community, know your\n garden. Hopi Prophecy.
\nTed is hopeful of the Joanna Macy concept of ‘the great turning’ is going to come – but we cannot have ‘a great\n turning’ until we have done an unravelling says Ted - in this way of living – this incredible toxic hubris that keeps us trapped into thinking that\n this is the way humans are supposed to live.\n
And it is killing us (look at the cancers stats) it’s killing the community and it’s killing our planet at a rate never seen before. So the need to do\n it differently or we won’t be here.
\nIn 1980 our planet population was 4 billion today it is 7.5 billion – we are locked into a growth fetish.
\nHitting limits to growth.
\nListen to Ted by downloading.
\nThe change of the ages is happening right here right now!\n
Global Conflict & War
\nAs an ex military man the interview: Covers the Middle East – Syria, Ukraine & Russia and the proxy wars going on …
\nPlus NZ’s involvement with the Waihopai ‘Five Eyes’ spy base and satellite download and upload system - we are now a target - and most probably a target\n of a Russian Intercontinental ballistic missile that has an enormous payload and capacity to obliterate a vast area – not far at all from where Ted\n lives in Nelson and everyday he lives in a state of grace.
\nHow can we evolve the organism that is ‘the human race’ to break out of the paradigm that we have made a habit of staying in – covering the 100th monkey\n phenomenon as a metaphor of shaping our evolution on a ‘collective and very rapid scale.’\n
We humans are it – time has basically run out …
\nAre you a Shambhala warrior that Joanna Macy talks about – there will be4come a time of great darkness that will then bring forth the emergence from all\n nations the Rainbow Warriors the Shamballah warriors – and their 2 weapons are … insight and the radical interconnectedness and interdependence\n of everything – and compassion
\nTime to talk truth to power to speak from the heart and the soul\n
That the indigenous people say today to we civilised people today is for us to decolonise our hearts and minds and look around and see that we can do this\n differently. This is what drives Ted.\n
This interview continues to cover:\n
Gaia that our planet is a super organism that we can align with and tune into.
\nSeeing the sacred in nature.
\nTo all our relations.\n
Woodwide web – Tree roots connecting with many other trees.\n
James Camerons Movie Avatar - where on the moon Pandora all the biota can connect into a greater reality - animals, trees and the indigenous Na’vi.\n
This connection allows a Na'vi to sense the energetic and kinetic signals broadcast by creatures, plants and even the moon itself.
\nConnection – the dance of life and with nature – being in a state of love and joy and whenever we can - having gratitude and being thankful for nature\n and that which supports us. This is what Ted exemplifies and surrenders into.\n
A exceptionally stimulating interview.
", "itemId": 13511753, "name": "Ted Howard: Permaculture Activist, Civilisation Critic, Supporter and Lover of Indigenous Wisdom and Biophilia", "urlWithHost": "http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/ted-howard-peace-activist-permaculture-design", "url": "/greenplanetfm/ted-howard-peace-activist-permaculture-design", "releaseDate": "2016-09-29T00:00:00", "releaseDate_raw": "2016-09-28T21:00:00", "expiryDate": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "expiryDate_raw": "9999-01-01T00:00:00", "lastUpdateDate": "2016-09-30T18:48:56.58", "lastUpdateDate_raw": "2016-09-30T15:48:56.58", "counter": 32, "weight": null, "commentCount": 0, "editUrl": "/greenplanetfm/ted-howard-peace-activist-permaculture-design?A=Edit", "isCustomerModule": false, "editParams": "", "edit": "", "deleteUrl": "/CustomContentProcess.aspx?CCID=34961&OID=13511753&A=Delete", "deleteParams": "", "delete": "", "Episode Id": "4703913", "Author_id": "12021209", "Author": "Tim Lynch", "Sub-Paragraph": "Ted is a peace and community activist, Permaculture designer and teacher that loves to grow 'edible landscapes' - He is truly an ecological visionary.", "Image 600x315px": "/images/greenplanetfm/podcast/2016/Ted-Howard.jpg", "tag1_id": "12793625", "tag1": "Permaculture", "tag2_id": "12838294", "tag2": "Sustainability", "tag3_id": "", "tag3": "", "tag4_id": "", "tag4": "", "tag5_id": "", "tag5": "", "tag6_id": "", "tag6": "", "sitehost_1475": { "moduleName": "sitehost", "moduleDescriptor": { "templatePath": null, "parameters": "", "apiEndpoint": "/api/v3/sitehost", "objectType": -1, "objectId": -1, "adminUrl": "" }, "siteHost": "www.ourplanet.org" } }, { "description": "Knowing the matriarch, the queen bee is the sexual organ of the hive - it is she who lays the foundation for the whole colony - but there are many challenges in a rapidly changing world of the varroa mite and colony collapse. That commercial operations use insecticides to control the varroa disease are likely to cause problems because queens do not survive as long today as in pre-varroa times.\n
\nToday, nearly every element within the biosphere is under pressure and yet honey is still seen as an elixir, especially recently, as NZ Manuka Honey becomes\n a premium for its antibacterial qualities especially with the increase of dis-ease and other ailments - so how is it possible to be a pure honey advocate\n and producer in our world today?\n
\n
Nine years ago Richard took time off working as an interior designer to take care of his kids instead - and became a hobby bee keeper that has grown into\n a robust little organic business.
\nStarting from 2 hives to 4 to 8 now he has 120 hives and a thriving little business Living on Waiheke Island 7 kilometres off the NZ coast - there are\n many larger (land) sections with numerous fruit trees, plums, apples and citrus and quite well established too - as well as differing flower gardens\n including bottle brush, so there is a lot of feed for bees - plus manuka trees - as there has been more reforestation on the island. It was a little\n over a hundred years ago the island was basically denuded as they used the wood for charcoal in Auckland 17 kilometres by boat across from Waiheke.\n Native kanuka is now becoming predominant - though there are cabbage trees and flax as well. With very little agricultural and horticultural pressures\n there are more vineyards, with most of them running organic systems. Other than the use of a little fungicide, which Richard acknowledged is not particularly\n good for bees, they are not using insecticides that directly affect bees.\n
\n
Glyphosate is still a challenge though most of the vineyards will not use it and there is not much of it used on Waiheke Island, in a commercial sense.\n
\n
Bee’s being a matriarchal society the Queen may be the leader, but is actually the egg layer and genetic carrier for the hive as the bees seem to ‘just\n know' what they need to do - as in anarchy - being a very complex society - no real hierarchy - so the workers can manipulate the Queen as to what\n they want or ‘think' needs to be done and the Queen can do the same as well. He says it is such a complex society - the more you learn - the more you\n realise you have yet to learn.\n
\n
Bees are quite complex - that they can ‘think’ for themselves even when they are connected to a hive mind. That the Bee is an esoteric symbol - especially\n from ancient Egypt, where they were readily acknowledged.\n
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Nectar for the bees is their carbohydrate and for the flower that is the payment to the bee - for the bee being the sexual organ of the flower.\n
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Honey that is made from nectar when capped off can be stored indefinitely.\n
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Bee researchers overseas are looking at the individual honey properties from differing flowers, some have found anti inflammatory properties which is good\n for people in their older age.\n
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The strain of varroa mite found in New Zealand in April 2000 was the worst strain of this pest - called Varroa Destructor and is here in NZ to stay. It\n easily infests hives by jumping from bee to bee within the hive or from flower to bee as bees forage for their food. Prior to that NZ was essentially\n an organic honey paradise.\n
\n
Some bees are becoming immune to the chemicals that have been used. Richard listened to Randy Oliver in the USA and decide to go organic and is still successfully\n doing so. Randy has his own bees which he studies very intently and his relationship with them brings about a deeper intuitive knowing.\n
\n
http://scientificbeekeeping.com\n
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NZ has the highest number of bees ever at present and growing every year. But, the big producers use synthetic chemicals, which has its drawbacks.\n
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It is very difficult to handle large quantities of hives organically as the extra precautions and checking all the time, is time consuming.\n
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Colony collapse here in NZ has been nowhere as disastrous as it is in the Northern hemisphere. The bee is in some ways the canary in the ecological coal\n mine.\n
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Bees in the US are a factory system with around 2.74 million colonies and it is huge for almonds in California. This is where they need a million hives\n to just pollinate the almond flowers. Bees are fed sugar water as well which equals a mono culture - thus shortcuts are taken everywhere and bees may\n get only one particular pollen, so it can have an effect that stops them becoming robust.\n
\n
Pollen is what the bees eat and if there is only one flower such as the almond flower - there are problems - because they need a mixed diet.\n
\n
The thrust of the interview then turns to industrial agriculture and factory farming.\n
\n
Today’s industrial agriculture is the extractive model that is based on how much profit can be made and we are pushing it to the limits of what the biosphere\n can provide. We are needing to make some critical decisions as to what is going to be for us to remain as healthy human beings as well as retaining\n a sustainable environment that will serve future generations and Richard sees that this must apply across the board in all agricultural and horticultural\n businesses. He says that it is a ‘common sense thing’ and we have to get back to factoring our children into our common future.\n
\n
Richard also says we have to question why corporations exist and what is their purpose? We have to look at them again, as we have set the whole game up\n with the wrong goal in mind - it can not be all based on the profit motive or increasing your share portfolio - we need to increase the value of our\n planet and the biosphere and we are finding this out now.\n
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Manuka honey is big in NZ, but it has become too expensive for the average New Zealander to buy. One of the reasons is that ‘big bee businesses are paying\n farmers living close to manuka and bush, large amounts of money like $200 a hive for possibly 8 - 10 weeks of honey to place their bees close up, when\n flowering - driving up the price.\n
\n
About his bees
\nMost bees are Italian and we are not allowed to import any stock into NZ now. We do have Carniolan bees in NZ they are a darker bee plus a little black\n bee that the early NZ settlers brought with them to NZ - these a somewhat feral - but can be found in hives on Great Barrier Island.\n
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NZ exports 35 tonnes of live bees out of the country. That is bees only, their body weight itself, nothing else - for example have a bee alight on your\n hand that is how heavy one bee is. Then extrapolate what 35 tonnes of these critters are worth in volume. Mostly exported to the USA and Canada as\n they cannot produce enough of their own up there. All those live bees are exported with a queen.\n
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When the season finishes in NZ and the flowers stop producing - bees from hives are then harvested and a new queen introduced and they are flown up to\n the Northern hemisphere where that can start all over again as spring emerges - such is the way the industry has become global.\n
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Worker bees may live 40 to 45 days, depending on how much flying they have to do, but in winter they will stay close to the hive, keeping it warm and can\n live for a couple of months - easily - eating honey and vibrating warmth keeping the little amount of brood around the Queen in the hive alive .\n
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Bees are seen as not as healthy today as previously, as they eat lots of white sugar in winter - when for thousands of years they stored honey which they\n ate over winter.\n
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A good organic honey apiarist will leave them more honey in the hive so they don’t have to give them sugar. Agrisea here in NZ http://www.agrisea.co.nz\n - make a sea weed product that can be added to the sugar water to give the bees minerals etc.\n
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In China many trees are hand pollinated due to the atmospheric pollution and smog making it too difficult for bee or even other flying insects to live\n or survive.\n
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NZ must down scale from the full on industrial factory system - by doing so we may be able to have a viable localised industry.\n
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Compliance costs are huge in NZ pushing people to become bigger businesses - as they are the only ones who can afford the exorbitant compliance fees -\n so it is totally weighted against the small producer - as there is no government support - especially to contribute to smaller ‘craft; industries.\n
\n
Thoughts
\nRichard states, people want the small craft industries that have their own essence and flavour - they don’t want the big homogenous industrial giant. They\n want to know the guy and even talk with them, who made their cheese, their wine or their honey or the chair you sit in - people don’t mind paying the\n extra - when they know who and how it was made …they want that human connection … we need to tell Government that we don’t need farms\n with 2,000 to 3,000 dairy cows, that we can have a farm of 200 to 300 cows and make a very good living - especially that in NZ organic dairy farmers\n are getting $9.30 per kilo weight of fat compared to the poor return of $5 that conventional chemical farmers are getting. So by supporting the smaller\n guys to make a better product that is more beneficial to health and takes care of the ecology is being seen as a wise decision.\n
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Biological agriculture and increasing bacterial levels in the soil is bringing huge results - getting rid of the synthetic chemicals that we have been pumping onto the land.\n
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The Corporate model - all it does is pay the investors and the investors have virtual zero to do with the running of the corporation and they have no responsibility\n and all they care about is the bottom line and how much that can be extracted out of the environment each year.\n
\n
Richard says, set some goals and do some research, turn off TV and instead check and see where you milk comes from - or where your grapes get sprayed …\n or how many times your veggies are sprayed.\n
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Grow your own food - or go to a farmers market. Check your seeds that you buy from the local plant shop - ask what coatings they have on their seed - make\n sure that they are not covered in neonicotinoids - which are extremely dangerous and need to be taken out of the commercial realm. That we need to\n be proactive as it is important to know what chemicals are on what and one individual can do that - it just means that we make the effort - as many\n other people can benefit from your initiative and Richard says that if we have a society doing that - then other good things can happen.\n
\n
He re emphasises that colony collapse is a result of a whole cocktail of chemicals from many various sources all coming together to cause the collapse\n - the same is with neonicotinoids - they are all contributors to causing increasing problems within the environment.\n
\n
Richard questions how did the earth system evolve and create healthy living ecological systems and biota that have made it over a hundred million years?\n That it has been basically healthy for us up until this last century.\n
\n
When we embrace more holistic and natural systems this will enhance our future for children of today and tomorrow - without the use of all these chemicals.
\nHe mentions that the TPPA, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, is also not in the best interests for the human race, being corporate centred.\n
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Richards Own Website - http://www.waihekehoney.co.nz\n
\n
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Randy Oliver - http://scientificbeekeeping.com\n
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http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/karen-wealleans-pat-baskett-dangers-of-neonicotinoids\n
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In finishing I wish to mention that I have interviewed four of the Evatt Family, each with an important viewpoint that relate at a holistic, community, involvement - level. \n
\nThere is father Christopher and son’s Jonathan,\n Justin and Richard.\n
\n
A very unique family.\n
\n
So, what is it that drives ‘a man of the cloth’ to see that the Vietnam war was wrong, that Maori of Aotearoa New Zealand were dispossessed of their land,\n that the South African rugby tour of NZ was racially selected, and that nuclear power and weapons brought into a country that threatened no other country,\n was and is morally indefensible?
\nDo we think to any depth of wisdom these days? Have we cast values and virtues out the window as we embrace the shallow distraction of material comforts\n and indulgences? This is a question that we need to engage and think deeply about. For it is obvious that George Armstrong, ably supported by his wife\n Jocelyn, has dwelt on many of the underlying causes that separate us all from participating and being global family.\n
\n
Though George was on good terms with the local Bishop, he realised that with falling congregation attendances, the Church had lost its way. It was not\n engaged with the community and whatever virtues and values that the Anglicans wished to embed in the wider community basically echoed inside a vacuum.\n That though his Bishop also had an understanding of Liberation Theology, that in those days was making a huge impression in South America - where the\n priests took Christ down from the cross and instead got themselves in alongside the peasants and served and worked with a hands-on approach to share\n the load of the downtrodden. For George intuitively knew that there had to be a better way if we were to bring peace and justice to earth.\n
\n
Hence his deep commitment to the issue of the day - on so many levels.
\nEarly Life
\nBorn in Dunedin in the South Island of NZ, the youngest in his family, and though somewhat spoilt it was a lonely life as his many older brothers went\n off to post 1945 war activities.
\nAs a boy he joined the boy scouts and embraced the moral quality of that credo, that he eventually became a strong Anglican and then he experienced an\n ‘angelical’ conversion of what it was like to have an intense personal sense of God - or the Divine.\n
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After a stint at teaching in Waitaki in the South Island he then became an Anglican Priest and\n to have parishes in Dunedin and Christchurch when he realised that the Church as a religious entity was basically failing - as he could see it in the\n dwindling numbers - and he felt that in a sense it was a moral issue in that the church was not engaged with society - ethically - and after a few\n run-ins, he felt that he had to stand up in what he believed in - no matter what.\n
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He eventually ended up teaching at a Theological College becoming ordained and realised that you can only understand yourself by being active in the world,\n that books could not really do that, or only to a small extent. So he felt that he had to get out and become engaged and involved with the world -\n and that the learning comes on reflection from the action.\n
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Especially in his opposition to the Vietnam war which was a horrific shock for him - as it took him against his Church - including some theological students\n against his Church too. To one time taking placards into Good Friday procession saying that ‘Christ died for the Viet Cong.' And that the Bishop wanted\n him to get out of the procession and yet the Bishop was also good friends with George as he was quite partial to ‘liberation’ theology.\n
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George, also found that there was a Buddhist strain in South Vietnam that was very aligned with him - as the Buddhist had a saying “they are our brothers\n who we kill.” That the Buddhist Nuns were also very strong on this - and this all linked to the heart of Christianity.\n
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George’s mother had a sense that Maori spirituality was unique and when George officiated at some burials at Karatane, he realised that Maori and Pakeha\n understandings were very, very different. To experience Maori oratory and how it would flow impressed him and also that the historical wrongs to Maori\n from the colonialisation of NZ was important for George to understand - due to the enormous dispossession of Maori from their tribal land. \n
\n
One important quality that George noticed, that even though this had happened to Maori - they had never lost their dignity.\n
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George always felt it was a great privilege to stand alongside Maori in some way. He noticed that the young within Maori were more ‘out there’ than the\n elders which brought George into contact with the Harawirafamily, who he got to like as they quickly understood the nuclear threat to the Pacific ocean.\n However to them, the nuclear threat was just another extension of colonialism. But, it was the ultimate expression of the challenges we were facing\n yet on a totally different level. Especially, as it was our planet’s future at stake.
\nHe talks of Honi Harawira’s mother Titewhai and about her astuteness and being both wonderful and frightening, plus mentioning and praising Walter Lini\n a theological student of George’s and an Anglican priest, whom\n eventually became the founding Prime Minister of Vanuatu.\n
\nApartheid and the Springbok Tour
\nThen the ‘white’ South African rugby Springbok tour of NZ that traumatically divided New Zealand like never before and the acclaimed statement that ‘this\n was a civil war of the spirit’ - George was one of the anti-tour demonstrators to break through the outer fences to actually get onto the football\n playing field in Hamilton and have the game cancelled - whilst the large crowd of 10’s of thousands were enraged and incensed, that they could not\n watch their game of footy. This news brought world attention to the fact that NZ supposedly a bastion of racial goodwill and fair play was engaged\n in playing a rugby team that was selected entirely on race.
\nThat a large percentage of NZ was still in favour of the tour that I repeat in George’s take -“this tour based on apartheid was a civil war of the spirit”.\n
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Though the tour continued after that canceled game many anti-tour protestors were so incensed that violence was discussed - yet George could not reconcile\n with violence in any way. There had to be a higher virtue overlighting all his actions.
\nThe Nuclear-Free Movement
\nThen came the NZ Peace Squadron or Flotilla. When in America at Princeton on a scholarship as he knew he needed a doctoral qualification to further himself,\n he witnessed on TV pictures a tiny canoe and inhabitant floating in front of the bow of a gigantic freighter - trying to stop it from going anywhere.\n As it was a ship dealing with armaments that was en route to a civil war in Pakistan.\n
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This image stuck to George’s soul and he imagined that with many small NZ boats, launches, yachts and anything that floated if New Zealanders could get\n out there in front of visiting nuclear armed or powered warships and stopping them from coming into NZ, ports this would be the way. With growing media\n focussed on all this - any boats damaged, sunk or lives hurt in anyway would focus attention on NZ and its government and policies.\n
\n
These ships ‘or creatures of death’ as George would say ‘and the image of death trying to force its way through life' was an easy concept for George to\n understand - so the Peace Squadron came into being.\n
\n
The interview covers the Anti Nuclear Movement here in NZ and the Peace Squadron and that small boats had been sailing around to Mururoa in French Polynesia\n for many years to protest the French testing nuclear bombs in our backyard. So when the message went out all the crews who had sailed the thousand\n of kilometres there and back - showed up and they were very hardy souls, very mature, astute, committed and dedicated with excellent yacht skills as\n well.
\nThen George became a spokesperson for radio and especially TV, as TV media in those days were right on to it as it was in its infancy and wanted to get\n a good story so George and team received some very good coverage.\n
\n
He also got very savvy to language the story so that it could not be edited out, (as media is very adept at twisting the context of most stories)\n
\n
We then go on to talk about all the nearly 40 countries Navy’s who are going to bring their warships to NZ. That the NZ Navy is going to have a church\n service because the Navy has always had a close connection to Christianity and what type of service is there going to be as ‘thou shall not kill’ is\n key component to Christianity as well as the word Love.\n
\n
George then mentions that the present NZ ruling National Party has lost its religious depth and are not really into Christianity because of the Church’s\n antagonism of how the Government economic policy is disenfranchising so many.\n
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When asked where he gets his support other than his loving wife Jocelyn, George says he gets a lot of support from people and especially children. And\n in the 1980s where we were in the anti-nuclear disruption a lot of politicians from the Labour Party.\n
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Finally:
\nGeorge says that we must not enter into polarity with people on the other side of the divide - they too are human and that they have been caught up in\n the system - police etc are just doing their job … be courteous.\n
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We are all caught up in the system if we like it or not.\n
\n
He said time and again - we are not against flesh and blood we are against ‘principalities and powers’. This system thing that gets to us … likes\n the armaments race - it gets to us.\n
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If we let the genie out of the bottle - then that’s it …\n
\n
George in closing talks about ‘being born again’ that the evangelicals do not see this transformational unfoldment in its greatest expression - and that\n this continuance needs to happen daily as we grow and expand on this realisation and cosmic gift - he says it’s such an astonishing thing as you respond\n to the impulse of this religious experience and you keep this alive in your daily practice … Otherwise you can quite possibly sink down into\n a religious rut of some sort and you can’t see the wood for the trees.\n
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Our challenge?
\nThe image of the other - not understanding other peoples and cultures etc - we pre-judge and have prejudices of the other …
\nDialogue is good, but working together is far better.\n
\n
In future -make sure you practice what you preach - especially with all relationships.\n
\n
Don’t forget your humanity - we are dealing with humans even on the other side of the divide\n
\n
Get clever - we are pure GENIUS. Keep focussed and something will open up - the extraordinary will become manifest.\n
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The other confirmed that there is a fast growing healthy, non chemical, biological revolution of farming and horticulture happening across the rural face of NZ and beyond.
If this interview was played over Radio New Zealand’s nationwide network it would have mothers of babies and children in uproar. \n\n
First: Is Glyphosate ‘slowly’ killing everything it comes into contact with, including humans? The statistics are saying yes!
\nThe research being collated from all around our planet is confirming a coming nightmare. It is looking grim for most biota. That means you and your family,\n animals and vegetation including the elements of air, soil and water.\n
\n
Regrettably, it looks like the unbridled avarice and corruption of the biotech corporations especially Monsanto, with their unscrupulous insiders - in\n allowing this cleverly disguised toxin into the sacredness of the world’s environment - is having a devastating affect on all planetary biota.\n
\n
Second: There is a powerful yet quiet revolution happening across NZ (and globally) that farmers horticulturists and market gardeners\n have realised that there is another unique way of growing healthy food, without chemicals, called ‘biological agriculture’ that is rapidly gaining\n prominence over the chemical agribusiness that is taking down our country’s clean green image. (if we really had one)
\nThat New Zealander Graeme Sait, American Arden Andersen and Australian Christine Jones,\n among many others have been at the forefront of introducing this methods to the world (all three have been interviewed on GreenplanetFM).\n
\n
Thus, we have come to an important shift of perspective and of action. We are crossing over into a new paradigm not only in land management and connection,\n but to one of a new consciousness in our relationship to all planetary biota.\n
\n
Phyllis who comes from California has a degree in Environmental Planning and Management with emphasis on soils and Ag economics, and worked for the State of California in ministerial level positions in energy conservation policy, municipal waste, hazardous waste management and coastal regulation. She is now based here in the Hawkes Bay NZ.
\n
When in America, she met and married a NZer who was studying for his graduate degree in ecology and his focus was on the regulation of pesticides and insecticides and their affect on all levels of the environment, biota and ultimately the food chain. Thus with her environmental credentials plus her husband’s PhD in ecology she has embedded a very good understanding of how the environment is being saturated by chemical pesticides and insecticides.\n
\n
Her ongoing focus has continued to cover the situation of soil, microbes, water and that extends into human health and what it’s doing in particular to\n our gut bacteria and the increasing understanding of microflora that inhabits our stomach and intestines.\n
\n
Over the last 20 years, this has been a major theme that she has continued to deepen her understanding of the connection between soil fertility and environmental\n health where she has branched out and has her own business based in True Health an animal remedies firm. Where she imports specially made up certified\n organic tinctures - plant based extracts to act as alternatives to antibiotics so as to assist farmers to wean their farm animals off antibiotics.\n She has a small farm on highly mineralised, high brix soils with diverse pastures with her cows producing high saturated fats, including cholesterol\n that when taken appropriately she says are very helpful for the human body.\n
\n
She has spent a lot of time with biological agriculture exponents Graeme Sait and Arden Andersen who are at the fore-front of a farming phenomena where\n they are doing brix tests on soils and remineralising them, bringing about healthy microflora especially fungi and bacteria including earthworm populations.\n Leading to healthy rapid vegetation growth. Thus doing away with chemicals fertilisation and applications.\n
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In South Africa, where Graeme has a huge following pulling in very large crowds to his talks and field days he has had Woolworths the supermarket chain (not to be confused with the Australian & New Zealand group) through their 500 plus stores switch over to only sourcing food and produce from biological farmers under the name of “Farming for the Future, a holistic approach.”\n
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In this interview, Phyllis clearly covers the major benefits of biological farming, having brought Graeme Sait to NZ for numerous courses where hundreds\n of NZ farmers attend and many more have now switched across to biological methods. This is where the soil is well mineralised and balanced, becoming\n more microbially alive and diverse and producing more pasture. What this method leads too is better quality and healthy fruit and vegetable that store\n well, taste great and have higher mineral and vitamin content (higher Brix)\n
\n
This means higher dissolved solids which indicates that the food is going to be better for us.
\nBy creating food from the soil up that heals people, that nourishes them deeply not just fulfills a hunger - but that they have the mineral building blocks\n to createthe enzymes and the tissues withintegrity - that actually translates into full and optimal health.\n
\n
However, statistics from around the world are showing that the percentage of vitamins and minerals in our food are decreasing at an alarming rate. This\n decline is continuing and it has been linked to orthodox farming practices due the way we have been fertilising the soil and applying insecticides\n and herbicides to foliage. What this has been doing, in the words of Graeme Sait, we have been ‘bombing the microbe bridge’ that allows minerals to\n be absorbed by the plant in their ideal and proper forms. This is why plants are becoming too weak to be able to produce their own ability to repel\n insects and the more we farm in this archaic method, the more chemicals and sprays will be used as we embark down a slippery slope of poor soils, unhealthier\n vegetation and higher costs to both the the land, the farmer and consumer.\n
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Healthy soils and healthy plants result in the plants being able to repel pests because they are so strong and robust. We need to know that all plants\n are medicinal as well as producers of food.\n
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Protection of the Environment & Protection of Human Health.
\nIf there was leadership in the EPA ‘Environmental Protection Agency’ especially in the USA, we the global consumer would be far more safer and the ecology\n would be too.
\nHowever, this is a global phenomenon, most countries have a poor record of making sure biotech companies are up front and legally fulfilling the precautionary\n principle.
\nWith the EPA, a US Government Department it is known as the Global default watchdog of what is allowed out into the environment but it is poorly financed\n and it is deliberately kept to a low budget. This way it leaves the door open to when the large biotech conglomerates like Bayer, Dupont, Syngenta\n and Monsanto want to apply for a product to be released into the environment they are allowed tp submit their own ‘safety’ studies that they paid for\n themselves.\n
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Yet time and time again they have posted fraudulent data, or manipulated it or made up the facts, or underplayed the risks that is has been near on farcical\n in many instances.
\nNow all that needs to be done is for the EPA to charge the applicants a far higher fee so as to employ the numbers and qualified personnel to test on behalf\n of the EPA. For there have been so many instances of even independent labs doing the tests and they have been found out, for fraud and taken to court,\n fined and jailed, but it still goes on solely because of the vastness of what is happening across the USA.\n
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From a political science standpoint, which was generally the topic of her husband’s PhD thesis that in the US the EPA which has a global standing has never\n been in a position to be financially able to do the necessary research.\n
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So why is the EPA so short of funds to be not able to do thorough testing? Well there is a cosy situation. That politically from the beginning the EPA lacked the quality and caliber of the scientists to evaluate the industry generated safety studies in the first place. The cosy chemical corporate lobbyists are cosy with the chairman of the Senate Agricultural Committee in Congress for example and they make sure that the EPA has a very, very modest budget and they can never really keep up with the industry bought scientists. And it they do, they usually they don’t last very long.\n
\nSo there is a revolving door where the head of the EPA or the head of the US Food and Agriculture or some other regulatory agency happens to have been\n Chief Council for Monsanto for example, that definitely has happened and they put him in charge of approving Genetically Engineered crops in the early\n 1990’s There are multiple examples of someone from the industry been brought in to regulate their previous industry.\n
\n
Unfortunately, this happens time and time again.\n
\n
We now have the ubiquitous use of chemicals globally, remember the DDT spraying of everyone, and then the hurried ban on it? (No, very few do - as mistakes\n are quickly buried and covered up.)\n
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The ever present use of herbicides and insecticides globally is having a disturbing effect – not only in the rural sector and farms but now in urban areas\n for parks and pristine home lawns.\n
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The conventional NZ farmer /market gardener today are increasingly finding that they are totally incongruent with the precautionary principle, that when\n they awaken in the morning, their thoughts are based on – not what they are going to grow today, but what they are having to kill today? Which becomes\n a full frontal chemical attack of so many different sprays – so the farmers in essence, lose heart in that they are not 100% proud of their produce,\n because they know that it’s covered in poisons - so they can not really hold their head high and be proud.\n
\n
Little does the NZ consumer know that under the auspices of the EPA, the ‘Environmental Protection Agency’ formerly ERMA the Environmental Risk Management\n Authority, that they they seem to have seemingly robust standards, yet they do not adhere to them.\n
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As a result - Agriculture has become a killing field instead of a growing field.\n
\n
A New Understanding
\nIn the last 4-5 years there has been a greater public understanding and reconnection across the soils, science, farming and health sector that microbes\n are the key to o