When I went to look for an image for this post Google found for me the most horrific images of children and people with birth defects from Agent Orange. I can’t bring myself to post them but if you google Agent Orange, selecting images, I am sure you will find them too. You will need a strong stomach.

The Image: A light plane sprays some of the 19 million gallons of defoliant used in Viet Nam. Each plane could destroy 350 acres of forest per run. A spray run took less than 4 minutes, used 1,000 gallons of Agent Orange and was often sprayed by 3 planes flying side by side. That meant 1 run equalled 1,000 acres of jungle destroyed.

I would like to dedicate this post to all those who have had their lives ruined by Agent Orange. Kia Kaha.

The war in Vietnam lasted from 1959 to 1975. In Vietnam it is often referred to as the American War. It was fought between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and their allies, and the US-backed Republic of Vietnam in the south. It ended with the defeat of South Vietnam in April 1975. By then nearly one and a half million soldiers and at least two million civilians had died during the war.

Of course I write about these things from a New Zealand perspective.

The Vietnam War was the first war for New Zealand in which we were not fighting alongside what had previously been our traditional ally, Great Britain. Instead, our participation was a  reflection of the then increasing defence ties with the United States and Australia via the ANZUS Treaty (this treaty is now defunct following our Nuclear Free policy of the eighties). New Zealand's involvement in Vietnam was highly controversial here, attracting protest and condemnation, and by the end of the sixties thousands were marching against the war. Following the 1972 election of the Norman Kirk-led Labour government all remaining New Zealand troops in Vietnam were withdrawn.

The war might have been over but the effects are not.

Agent Orange Spraying In Vietnam

From 1962 until 1970 in Quang Tri and throughout much of South Vietnam, going from the far south and the Mekong Delta region right through the Central Highlands to the DMZ, the United States sprayed nearly twenty million gallons of herbicides, including 11.2 million gallons of Agent Orange, onto forests, jungles, and farmland in order to deny cover and food to the enemy forces. U.S. Air Force C-123s pumped out the deadly poison - each plane was capable of spreading up to three gallons per acre in 240-foot-wide swaths, killing all vegetation beneath. Further, American soldiers sprayed riverbanks from boats and used handheld sprayers and trucks to treat areas surrounding hundreds of U.S. bases. As we all know, American, Australian and New Zealand veterans and their families have lived with the effects of Agent orange contamination which include cancers and birth defects ever since.

Throughout it all, the Pentagon kept meticulous records of spray missions, which, when mapped now, create crisscrossed patterns of thousands of intersecting lines that blacken province after province.

According to Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are still 4.8 million Vietnamese people thought to be victims of Agent Orange. They live mainly in mountainous area along Truong Son (Long Mountains) and border between Vietnam and Cambodia. These people together with their affected descendants are living in sub-standard conditions and with many genetic diseases. The deadly mark left by Agent Orange on the natural environment of Vietnam includes the destruction of mangrove forests and the long-term poisoning of soil and crops. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spina bifida in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange as side effects of the herbicide.

And in another twist...

Agent Orange: "We've buried it under New Plymouth"

In 2001 a former top official from lvon Watkins Dow chemical factory has confirmed the worst fears of residents - part of the town may be sitting on a secret toxic waste dump containing the deadly Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange. He stated that the company owned a large piece of land "very close to the chemical plant, which we called 'the Experimental Farm'. We bulldozed big pits and dumped thousands of tonnes of chemicals there."

"There have been rumours circulating for some time, never proven, that IWD was supplying the defoliant Agent Orange to be used in the Vietnam War. The allegation is true. I was on the management committee of Ivon Watkins Dow, and I supported the plan to export Agent Orange. In fact, it went ahead on my casting vote", he said. "People who'd served in the armed forces made a strong case for the need to defoliate the jungle, because of the risk to servicemen from ambush or sniper fire from the undergrowth. Our scientists relied on assurances and technical data provided to them by Dow Chemicals in the USA. We were led to believe it was safe. The whole reason I supported Agent Orange is because we thought we were giving our boys on the ground a hand. To avoid detection, we shipped the Agent Orange to South America - Mexico if I recall correctly - and it was onshipped to its final destination from there."

“Agent Orange was made from two chemicals, "2,4-D and 2,4,5,T. When they're apart, they're herbicides. Mixed together, they become Agent Orange. Now at this time, in the late 1960s and early seventies, the Government had given IWD the exclusive licence to manufacture those chemicals. We made all of the 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T that was produced in New Zealand. No one else was allowed to. Technically, we shipped the chemicals unmixed, so technically they weren't Agent Orange until somebody mixed them at the final destination."

According to this man, IWD's role in manufacturing the deadly herbicide had resulted from a US approach to the New Zealand Government, and the Defence Ministry had sounded out whether IWD could provide 500,000 gallons of it, quickly. Although news of the plan later leaked out, the National Government tried to distance itself and the impression was left that the Agent Orange deal never went ahead. Given that official US reports record that around 9 million gallons of Agent Orange were dumped on Vietnam, the size of the NZ contract was reasonably substantial. It turns out that leftover Agent Orange chemicals, complete with “excess nasties” were re-worked into the 2,4,5-T herbicide for use on farms within New Zealand, and surplus chemicals were dumped at the Experimental Farm, which is now believed to lie underneath the New Plymouth suburb of Paritutu.

When I first wrote my blog "A Nuclear Free New Zealand" back on 360, (which I later transferred to Multiply), I didn't realise this clip was accessible on YouTube, or I might have attached it to that blog.

This clip features vocals from Goldenhorse's Kirsten Morelle, Che Fu, Anika Moa, Pluto's Milan Borich, Adeaze, Hinewehi Mohi and Nesian Mystik's David Atai & Donald McNulty. The recording was made in 2005.

'Anchor Me' composer Don McGlashan (Muttonbirds) said, "when Greenpeace asked to use 'Anchor Me' to mark twenty years since the Rainbow Warrior's sinking, I was glad to help. Our country’s response to the bombing was brave and steadfast – and it succeeded on many levels. We still lead the world's resistance to nuclear weapons, and that's something to be very proud of."

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Operation Satanic, was a special operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), carried out on July 10, 1985. It aimed to sink the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior, while she was docked in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.

Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. Two of the French agents were subsequently arrested by the New Zealand Police on passport fraud and immigration charges. Following questioning, they were subsequently charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As part of a plea bargain, they eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years, of which they served just over two.

The ensuing scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister, and the subject became so touchy that it was not until twenty years afterwards that the personal responsibility of French President François Mitterrand was officially admitted.

All the artists and musicians, in fact everyone involved in the recording, donated their time for free.

or why wholesale capitalism will not save the world...







At a time when all of the world should be aware of, and trying to mimimise and reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions, it seems in fact, that the industrialised and westernised countries are actually increasing the load they are placing on our environment. The call for biofuels for example, which sounds so laudatory initially, is resulting in large tracts of forest being cut down to make room for the growing of more grain products. In a similar way the demand for soy based products has also resulted in wholesale slashing of indigenous forest in countries like Brazil and has been instrumental in destroying huge areas of Amazon rainforest and is encouraging still further deforestation.

Here in New Zealand the growth "industry" is dairying. Overseas prices for our milk and milk products doubled in the last year and our country's 11,000 dairy farmers are set to reap the riches. Fonterra, our country's biggest company collectively owned by 95% of dairy farmers estimated that each kilogram of milk solids (10 litres of milk produces about 1kg of milk solids) that farmers produced would be worth $6.40NZ for the year ending June 2008. Last year the farmers had got $4.46NZ a kg.  This means that an average Kiwi dairy farmer will get more than $200,000NZ extra this year and the country's economy an additional $2.4 billionNZ.

Needless to say farmers are tripping over themselves to convert to dairy farming. Sheep farming is out. $6.40 per kg for milk solids is a whole lot more attractive than $3.70 per kg for lamb. However the expansion into dairy will come and is coming with major detrimental effects and stresses for the environment and Fonterra is not picking up the tab. As the picture above shows, deforestation of native bush in order to create more pasture is one of the first effects, for example more than 60,000ha of forest is being converted to dairying just north of Lake Taupo - that's an area about the size of the lake itself.

Deforestation in itself causes a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Add to that, that 38% of all our greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand comes from the ever-increasing herds of dairy cows and you should see where I am coming from. Herds of dairy cows are New Zealand's biggest contributor to global warming. This is a a very different scenario to other western countries where industrial emissions are their largest contributors. If New Zealand only kept enough cows to supply meat, dairy products and leather goods to ourselves this would all be sustainable, but dairy has now become our biggest industry. It accounts for 20% of our exports, and injects $8 billionNZ into our economy.

The New Zealand Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard had this to say. "In large part, the recent gains in dairy prices can be traced back to a basic imbalance between global demand and supply. Global demand for protein has been on a structural uptrend for some time. Demand for protein is very income sensitive and rising income levels in emerging markets have led to improvements in diet, incorporating more meat, eggs and milk. In recent years, the strongest growth in consumption of dairy products has come from emerging Asian markets, particularly China."

Hayley Moynihan, Senior Analyst, Rabobank Food and Agribusiness Research, says the past ten years have been a "honeymoon" period for the New Zealand dairy industry – with dairy conversions, record production levels, the formation of Fonterra and the emergence of new processors, topped off more recently by stellar international commodity prices. Rising oil prices have also had a positive impact for New Zealand’s dairy exports. The resulting increase in wealth in the Middle East has seen this region grow to account for 18 per cent of total dairy exports. "As oil income drives wealth, people are consuming more dairy products. There appears to be a strong correlation between WMP imports to the Middle East and oil prices. Domestic production in the Middle East is increasing, but this is not expected to keep pace with demand growth. Rabobank expects demand for dairy products from this region and North Africa to grow at around five per cent per annum through to 2010," said Ms Moynihan.

However, none of this benefits the Kiwi consumer. A recent visit to the local supermarket saw me paying $4.99NZ for a pound of butter (it was $2.20ishNZ a couple of months ago). The prices of cheese, milk and any other associated product is rocketing skywards as well. The cheapest 1kg of cheese I can buy currently is $11.99NZ. Fonterra charges us the same prices as it can sell product for overseas - why should they sell for less, they say. Well I can think of a reason or two.

Water is a finite resource...

The district of Canterbury has the driest climate in New Zealand, uses 58% of our country's water and already has 70% of our irrigated land. Canterbury is not a suitable area for dairy farming (it takes 1000 litres of water to produce one litre of milk), but since 1991 cow numbers in Canterbury have quadrupled to more than 650,000 cows and there are projections that this could double within the next decade. Already many lowland rivers are reduced to thin threads and underground aquifers are being sucked dry as farmers demand more of the groundwater for irrigation and use in sheds. There is now strong criticism levelled at  the regional council, Environment Canterbury (Ecan) which, until recently, have allowed thousands of water permits to be taken out. In some places water is being taken out more quickly than the underground aquifers can recharge themselves.

My regular readers may remember my blog titled "Murky Waters"  about the commercialisation of some Canterbury water and realise more, why I was so annoyed.

In Conclusion

The environment and health costs are not transmitted through markets for the goods produced. Runoff containing effluent and fertiliser contaminates water resources. Methane and nitrous oxide emissions damage the air we breathe, the land we walk on, the water supply that we drink from. The costs of environmental degradation and human health effects are borne by society at large - the consumers and the tax payers and the future generations who get to pay for the cleanup, perhaps not only by money alone, and on the global scale all of us.

The bottom line here is that we human beings no longer have the luxury of the people in the past who for their immediate benefit cleared forests and killed whales. We cannot continue to just exploit all our resources as though there is no tomorrow - or it may well happen that there will indeed be no tomorrow. We need to be running our world with the primary goal of the common good for all to the forefront of our minds and not to be only concerned with the individualistic profits of the corporate sectors which benefit so few of us.

Whales Revenge, campaigned to gather 1 million signatures for a petition to stop whaling. More names will continue to be added.

Every year thousands of precious mammals are slaughtered for so-called 'scientific research'.

Add your voice; sign the petition and spread the word to everyone you know. The campaign ends when the killing of whales stops.

Probably every culture has stories of how they believe the world began, certainly the tangatawhenua (first peoples) of Aotearoa/New Zealand had their own creation mythology.

This version I tell you here derives from the writing of Professor Ranginui Walker.


There were the three states of existence and they were:

Te Kore (the void), signified the vastness of space which contained the seeds of the universe and is therefore a state of potential -

Te Po (the dark), was the celestial realm and the domain of the gods and the source of all mana and tapu -

Te Aomarama (the world of light), is the world of light and reality, the dwelling place of humans.

In the beginning of the world there was only Te Kore, the great void and emptiness of space.

Te Kore had differing qualities which were described by a series of adjectives. Thus Te Kore became:

Te Kore te whiwhia (the void in which nothing could be obtained),
Te Kore te rawea (the void in which nothing could be felt),
Te Kore i ai (the void with nothing in union),
Te Kore te wiwia (the space without boundaries).

Te Po, the second state of existence also had adjectives and graduations.
First there is Te Po, then:

Te Po nui (the great night),
Te Po roa (the long night),
Te Po te kitea (the night in which nothing could be seen),
Te Po uriuri (the dark night),
Te Po kerekere (the intense night),
Te Po tangtango (the intensely dark night),

As with Te Kore, the periods of Te Po correspond to the aeons of time before and as the earth slowly came into being. They also signify the emptiness and darkness of of the mind.

Because there was no light there was no knowledge.

Papatuanuku (the earth mother) and Ranginui (the sky father) were so close and embraced so tightly that they prevented light from coming into the world however their procreative powers brought sons into being,
Tanemahuta,
Tangaroa,
Tawhirimatea,
Tumatauenga,
Haumiatiketike,
Rongomatane.

The sons realised that living in a world of darkness and ignorance could be alleviated only by separating their parents so that

Ranginui could become the sky father above them

and

Papatuanuku would remain with them as their earth mother.

The task of separating earth and sky fell to Tanemahuta who prised them apart with his shoulders to the ground and his legs thrusting upwards. After this one of his names became Tane-te-toko-o-te-rangi (Tane the prop of the heavens).  His name was verified over and over in the great forests of Tane where the mighty trunks of the totara and kauri trees could be seen soaring upwards past the green canopy and towards the sky.

Now the separation of the earth and the sky brought into being

Te Aomarama (the world of light)
the third state of existence
the place of human beings...

Letting in the light let in knowledge...

But...
Ranginui was filled with sorrow at being parted from Papatuanuku whose face far below him now was a constant reminder of the painful separation. His tears were
Ua-nui (great rain)
Ua-roa (long rain)
Ua-whatu (fierce hailstorms)
Ua-ngana (light rain).

Finally the gods decided to turn Papatuanuku over so that her face would be hidden from her husband. The youngest of the brothers, Ruaumoko was still breastfeeding at the time and as the god of volcanoes he was left there to warm and comfort his mother.


After the Separation came the War of the Gods.

Tawhirimatea (the god of winds) who had opposed separation and was therefore angry devastated the forests of Tane with hurricane force. Once he had vanquished Tane he lashed up the mountainous seas of Tangaroa, driving the descendants of Tangaroa to seek shelter from his wrath.

Thus the children of Tangaroa scattered, Ikatere fleeing to the depths of the ocean to become the progenitor of the fish species and Tu-te-wehiwehi travelling inland to establish the reptilian family.

Tawhirimatea could not vent his wrath on Rongomatane and Haumiatiketike because their mother Papatuanuku hid them by thrusting them deep into her breasts. Remaining untested in war Haumiatiketike became the god of edible fern roots and other wild and uncultivated plants. Rongomatane became the custodian of the kumara and the god of cultivation and other peaceful arts.

Finally Tawhirimatea turned his wrath on the one remaining brother Tumatauenga whom he was unable to vanquish. However Tumatuaenga became angry with his brothers for not standing alongside him. For this reason he is also known as
Tu-ka-riri (Tu of violent temper),
Tu-ka-nguha (Tu of raging fury),
Tu-whakaheke-tangata-ki-te-po (Tu who consigns men to Hades)
Tu, as the god of war and ancestor of fierce man encompasses in his names the aggressive characteristics and warlike nature of men.

Tapu And Noa

Tumatauenga sought utu (redress) from his brothers for leaving him to face Tawhirimatea alone. He attacked the children of Tane, asserting his mana by debasing them and converting them to common use. From trees and vines he fashioned spears and snares to kill and trap Tane's birds. He also made nets and canoes to catch the children of Tangaroa. By his actions of using the children of his brothers as food and common objects Tumatauenga negated their tapu and made them noa.

This reflects the basic Maori dichotomy between the sacred and profane and explains how it came into being and the holistic view of humankind conceived of and belonging to the land (tangatawhenua - people of the land). People are not above the land but an integral part of it, therefore, if a tree is needed for timber, then rituals to seek permission from Tane must be performed first. In a similar way a fisherman is expected to return to the sea the first catch he caught as an offering to Tangaroa. The first fruits of the harvest season should be offered to Rongomatane, the god of cultivation.

Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.

Though it isn't easy, we can check the power of corporations—and citizens around the world are stepping up to do it. Global Exchange developed this list of some of the world's worst corporate abusers to illustrate that on issues as diverse as assassination, torture, kidnapping, environmental degradation, abusing public funds, violently repressing political rights, releasing toxins into pristine environments, destroying homes, discrimination, and causing widespread health problems, familiar companies like Dow Chemical, Coca Cola, Caterpillar, Lockheed, Philip Morris, and Wal-Mart play a big role. Now we need you to take action!

Please check this link to Flavour's site and read...

It is a dry hot summer in New Zealand. Here in Canterbury we are experiencing a drought. The rare days we do see rain it's so light and fine that it just evaporates, so that up here in Oxford we now have water restrictions. Last week a smaller town down the road, Cust, actually had their water turned off for a couple of hours.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that a headline in a local paper this week reads "Anger simmers over water bottling venture - But operators confident Cust business won't swallow up town supply".

Yep, the same wee town that had no water last week! Right here in the middle of drought stricken Canterbury.

The row is over the commercial use of water from a deep well on a large property, (formerly owned by the Cooperites Sect but thats another story). The property has a largish collection of one and two storey buildings suitable for holiday camps etc or even a community I guess. The Cooperites sold the property in 2004 and the new owners cleared out the stands of native flax, painted all the buildings white, and enclosed the whole with a large 9ft deer fence.

The new owners are founding pastors of the Celebration Centre and trustees of Deep Waters Trust Inc., Murray and Nancy Watkinson. They plan to extract water from the 80m deep well to supply their new bottled water enterprise. Bottling is due to start this week and could produce as many as 26,000 500ml bottles a day.

Cust residents are angry because the well is part of the town's water supply. They are more than disgusted that the Waimakariri District Council has granted a permit for the water bottling operation to go ahead.

A spokesman Peter Savage said, "the permit was granted without prior discussion with Cust people despite our status as joint users of the Springbank well. Water bottling for commercial means is a non-essential use of water from the same aquifer as the town's water supply - the council's decision was a wrong one and we want it overturned."

A formal objection has been made to the council and a petition lodged. There is also a call for the permit to be cancelled and considered instead under the Resources Management Act, "as it should have been in the first place" said Mr Savage.

The Council utilities manager Gary Boot believes the council were well within their rights to grant the permit. He said the council had purchased the Springbank well from the Cooperites some years ago, on behalf of the Cust community. In doing so they entered an agreement to protect the interests of the existing property owners. Through that agreement he believes the property owners - now the Watkinsons - have a legal right to 80,000L of water per day.

"The Watkinsons came to us and asked to use 47,000L a day for bottling and selling water," said Mr Boot. "The permit was granted under the grounds that there would be no effect on the availability of water for the Cust community.

Mr Watkinson said the community was missing the point that the well was gifted to the township. "The community are benefiting by being able to use this water that was gifted to them - for them to come back and claim ownership and control is ridiculous..." he said.

Really? I thought Mr Boot said the council had bought the well, presumably using Waimakariri ratepayers money. Are Cust people no longer ratepayers? Should not all of us in the Waimakariri not have a say then? Is not the council supposed to be representing us?

Mr Watkinson insists that Deep Waters Trust Inc. are only using 7% of their total allocation which I find rather odd. Surely 47,000L is more than 50% of 80,000L or did I go to the wrong schools?

Mr Savage is continuing to dispute the matter. "The fact is that the water is not being used within the community - it is being sold in Christchurch and to other organisations who have no need for it. My argument is that they were allocated that water for domestic purposes, not for commercial purposes. There could also be financial repercussions for Cust residents. We are already running out of water, so people will have to adjust their own water usage to compensate for the water bottling operation..."

This is just a small story about a small rural town however it highlights a lot of issues around the huge globalised water bottling industry. Water is a finite resource.

*When I first wrote this blog we had been told by Deep Waters Ltd that the bottled water was being sold in Christchurch. but now (Feb 27) information has come to light that the water is being exported to Asia. Resident Peter Savage said the council has a "bloody cheek" asking the Cust people to conserve water when it was allowing private water bottling. Utilities and roading manager Don Young acknowledged the councils relationship with a number of Cust residents was deteriorating.* February 28th 2008.

Sir Nicholas Stern is Head of the Government Economic Service and Adviser to the British Government on the economics of climate change and development. This link takes you to an HM Treasury site where you can download his entire review.

Left unchecked, global warming will bring greater weather extremes, plant and animal extinctions and rapidly rising seas warns the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate change is already making its mark according to this latest report which cites melting glaciers, rising average temperatures and sea level rise.

The book Hot Topic - Global Warming And The Future of New Zealand by our own New Zealand science writer Gareth Renowden takes a serious look at how global climate change will affect the islands of New Zealand and the people who live here. "The world is warming twenty times faster than the most rapid changes that have happened in recent times, such as the warming that took place coming out of the last Ice Age", he states.

This all may seem irrelevant to people outside New Zealand's shores but New Zealand is a microcosm of the sorts of things that will happen world wide as our planet warms up. It is no good continuing to unproductively argue over whether global climate change exists or not, we need to be planning for the future now.

Currently Gareth Renowden owns a small farm in the Waipara wine district where he grows truffles, olives, and grapes. The main grape grown in Waipara currently is the Pinot Noir, but thirty years from now Waipara may have become to warm for these cool climate vines, instead, Gareth Renowden's book predicts that the Waipara growers may well need to change to warmer climate grapes like merlot. He also suggests that the way in which growers produce their crops is also likely to change and expect to see a trend towards "carbon labelling" on products like wine, as growers focus on reducing their carbon emissions.

According to Gareth Renowden, the temperatures that we are seeing today are in fact twenty or thirty years behind where the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is. This is because there is a lag in the warming of the world caused by the oceans which take a longer time to warm up. Therefore no matter what we do now, the planet will continue to warm over the next twenty to thirty years and adaptation to warming is a critical part of the response to this unavoidable climate change.

However carbon emission reductions made today will help to slow the rate of global warming thirty years from now. He therefore supports MainPower's proposed wind farm at Mt Cass.

While fresh water will become an increasingly precious commodity, the rates of future sea level rises come with potentially big impacts not just on New Zealand but on all low-lying Pacific Island nations. Global warming in the Pacific is likely to result in "climate refugees".

The Global Warming Outlook For Canterbury, NZ (from the book)

Over the next few decades warming is likely to continue at 0.2 deg C per decade. The warming will be greater in winter. The likelihood is that the eastern parts of our country will warm slightly more than the west.

As the average temperature increases, the probability of extreme events - either cold or hot - also increases. Heat waves will be more frequent and there will be fewer frosts.

The increase in the westerly flow of wind, (westerlies are hot, dry, and gusty winds), will have an important impact on the regions rainfall. By the end of this century Canterbury (which already has a dry climate) will be drier.

By the 2030's there will be water availability problems on all of the east coast of the South Island. Under a low to medium warming scenario, the risk of what is currently a one in twenty year drought may double in the easternmost parts of Canterbury.

Rising sea levels may accelerate coastal erosion and flood groundwater systems with seawater.

It is softly raining in Oxford today, the wind direction is from the south, and Eugene, (a farmer friend of a friend of a friend who is used to doing burnoffs), arrived at half past six this morning to start the burnoff of our huge mound of pine tree rubbish so that it could be burnt safely without fear of burning down the town. Once it was away and burning he disappeared to his farm leaving us to supervise it. People are always having burnoffs around here and this is my first one so now I feel like I really belong hehehe.

It won't be the last either. We are finally and gradually getting this old, useless, and too big pine tree windbreak cut down, and each time more pine trees are cut down we will wind up with a pile of clippings, twigs and needles that is of no use to anyone. A burnoff is the easiest and most sensible way to dispose of it all.

But the blog I sat down here to write is about Blumine Island.

In December of 2004 the Conservation Minister, Chris Carter, announced that Blumine Island in Queen Charlotte Sound was to be transformed into the most publicly accessible island wildlife sanctuary close to the South Island (of NZ).

He said:

"Blumine Island offers an extraordinary opportunity for public conservation because of its location in the heart of a major tourism area, its breadth of appeal, and the limited number of pests on it. Over the next five years, the island will become a significant destination for visitors to Marlborough.

The transformation will begin next year with a campaign to eradicate pests funded as part the government's Biodiversity Strategy, followed by investment in walking tracks, heritage trails and picnic areas. By removing pests, primarily stoats and mice, we will be able to relocate visitor-friendly native species, such as robin, South Island saddleback and kakariki (parakeets), to Blumine. Over the longer term, kiwi, geckos and long-tailed bats may follow. These species will join native land snails, kaka, weka and little blue penguins, already in residence.

Unlike many other established island sanctuaries which are often isolated or surrounded by dangerous seas, it will be easy for people to get to Blumine and see their native species up close. The island is just an hour by boat from Picton. All 378 hectares of Blumine are, and will continue to be, open to the public at any time. Its regenerating native bush provides the potential for spectacular walkways, and the island has a rich history. It was once used as a military base and still contains a number of historic gun emplacements, observation posts, and magazines."

The DOC (Department of Conservation) restoration of Blumine Island is being carried out in partnership with Untouched World Lifestyle Fashion Company's Charitable Trust and the Christchurch College of Education.

In an article from 2005, DOC ranger Bill Cash said ridding the islands, (Blumine and Pickersgill Islands), of pests would enable them to be transformed into sanctuaries for native species as has been done with a number of other Marlborough Sounds' islands.

The operation primarily targeted mice on Blumine and rats on Pickersgill. Trapping would also take place on both islands to remove all stoats. As many New Zealand native birds are flightless, introduced rodents such as rats, stoats and mice decimate the native populations.

Both Blumine and Pickersgill Islands are home to native birds such as tui, bellbird, grey warbler, fantails, kereru and weka. Kaka have also been seen on Blumine Island and it is hoped with the removal of stoats they might breed there. Blumine also has a unique giant snail species, Powelliphanta hochstetteri bicolor.

With predators removed other native species can be re-introduced to the islands including robin, tieke (South Island saddleback), kakariki (parakeets), and kiwi.

The eradication operation involved two helicopter applications which took place on the 18th and the 31st of  August 2005, of cereal baits containing the pesticide brodifacoum, commonly-used as a rat poison. The department states that it uses brodifacoum for off-shore island rodent eradication operations but rarely uses it in mainland areas because it can persist in animals.

The islands won't be confirmed as pest-free until two years of monitoring shows no sign of pests. Both islands have a risk of re-invasion by stoats which can swim the short distance between each island and the mainland. To counter this, stoat traps will be maintained on the islands and nearby mainland areas.

The eradication operation on Blumine and Pickersgill follows success in eradicating pests from other Marlborough Sounds islands to create safe havens for native species and to enable the islands' natural ecosystems to be restored. Islands on which pests have been eradicated include Motuara, Long, Nukuwaiata (the Inner Chetwode Island) and the Rangitoto Islands.

Why I Am Telling You All About This Island is because the previously mentioned clothing company, Untouched World, also sponsors students between the ages of twelve and nineteen years to spend a week on the island learning conservation and outdoor skills under the supervision of DOC staff. This programme provides educational opportunities for the students and pragmatically a labour force for current restoration work on the island. The students receive hands-on learning about conservation with activities such as monitoring of snails, weka, weta and plants, trap maintenance, track cutting, and maintenance of the island's historic World War II gun emplacements.

Four schools in Marlborough and four schools in Canterbury this year selected two students each to spend a week on Blumine Island. One of my boys put his name down earlier in the year and so he is one of the eight students who will be catching the train from Christchurch early on Sunday morning and travelling the scenic rail route up the East Coast to Picton where they will stay overnight at a YHA hostel (which funnily enough turns out to be right next door to the house my grandmother lived in when she was still alive), and meet up with the eight Marlborough kids. It was a Bed and Breakfast place back then. On the Monday morning the kids will travel by boat to Blumine Island where they will camp for the week.

The campsite is described as standard which means it has toilets and tap water. The kids will sleep in tents. There is no electricity.

(I had hoped the map would show a litle clearer than it is on my screen, this is a map of the Marlborough Sounds, towards the bottom of the map you can see a black arrow indicating the location of Picton and if you follow the boat route the first quite largish island is Blumine Island)

A Prepackaged Plasticised Planet


People who have been reading my blogs for a while will be aware that towards the end of May my household was adopted by the cute wee kitten, (Simba), in the above pic.

It has been a quite few years since we have been owned by a cat and so I have discovered big changes on the pet food shelves at the supermarket. In the old days you just bought tins of Jellimeat or Jellichicken or some meat from the butcher.

But now the shelves groan with stacks of tiny tins of Feasties or Gourmet tins even huge bags or cartons of dried biscuit thingies. You can even buy special packs of food especially designed for kittens or even for your geriatric cat.

I guess thats all cool BUT there is one thing that I do find offensive and that is the plethora of SINGLES packs.

These are ONE meal sized packs of cat food (pretty flash looking food too I must say) but ALL THAT PACKAGING!!!! FOR CAT FOOD EVEN!!!

ALL THAT PLASTIC!!!

This is at a time in our evolution when we really need to be concerned with the future of our planet and whether it will be able to sustain human life past 2050 even, and when right now it is timely to review our huge landfills and carbon emissions.

We really need to be reviewing the wastage of our resources. If a cat got two meals a day from singles packs and if you think about how many people keep cats who may be potentially feeding them from the ridiculous packets, it is mind boggling.

It is just as bad as the wastage of the throwaway plastic bottles from bottled water and the throwaway disposable nappies on the bums of the western babies.

There is a tablespoon of oil in each disposable nappie. (diapers if you live in the USA).

Are people so lazy now they cannot wash a bottle or a nappie or store a tin of cat food????

And what really gets me mad is that a large ingredient in the manufacture of plastic is OIL.

In Iraq, soldiers and civilian people are being killed because of the Western greed for OIL.

Women, Men and Children are being killed so that we can continue to feed our cats from Singles Petfood Packs, drink bottled water from Disposable Plastic Bottles, and use Disposable Plastic Nappies on our babies.

PS: Simba gets fed a combination of tinned meat, (one tin lasts a week and goes into our recycling bin), and from a large sack of dried food, (he hasn't got through the full sack yet, but when he does its recyclable).
                                                      ~

Sometimes Life Is Full Of Sh*t And We Just Have To Deal With It


the proto-type disposable nappy(diaper)composter

"One Use Nappies"

Linda, (aintmisbehavinat48), inspired this shitty blog ... she said "Well I won't tell my take on the diapers cuz even though I hate changing diapers I do not want to save and clean cloth ones with my Granbaby. EEEEEEWWWWWWEEEEE!!!!! Stinky! LOL! with the disposables you can hurry and close it up and throw it away. Sorry! That one I can't help and I know how bad they are for our environment. Hopefully they will come up with a recyclable diaper soon huh?"

I too am a mother, and also a grandmother and from this perspective I reckon two of the best inventions for mothers are the automatic washing machine and "disposable" nappies .

Only thing is, they really should be called "one use" nappies (or diapers if you prefer), because the way they fill up our landfills and add to the carbon emissions on our planet certainly has nothing to do with the word disposable.

So we do need to deal with and that is where creativity comes in (and Natalie)...

"TRULY Disposable Nappies"

Here in New Zealand we have a national science project competition for school kids where the kids have to identify a problem and figure out a solution. In 2003 fourteen year old Linwood High School student Natalie Crimp, concerned about the environmental mess created by so-called disposable nappies filling landfills around the world, identified the problem for her science project and came up with a method to produce good quality garden compost from disposable nappies.

(we bring them up smart over here)

Enter Karen Upston, a Rangiora mother of two, who, inspired by Natalie's work set out to trial a commercial-scale, viable nappy composting unit (you see it in the above pic).

The Process
(this whole section is copied from Karen's website)

The Nappy Store is operating a small home-based plant in Rangiora, with the goal to provide an environmentally friendly solution to the problem of growing landfill waste in New Zealand.

How can Nappies be turned into compost which is safe to use on my garden?

R5 Solutions have developed the commercial composting prototype unit 6.5m long and 1.2m wide to conduct this trial.

The combination of the microbes created by rotting organic waste, the continual mixing and aerating of the compost by the HotRot System and the temperature created by the compost has proven to eliminate the harmful pathogens. As a result the final compost is clean and "safe enough to eat." These contributing factors are monitored and tested daily.

The unit will be (is) set up at The Nappy Store, 63 River Road, Rangiora, and can compost up to 500 kg of waste per day, or approximately 2000 nappies.

As nappies are very high in moisture content, we will also be feeding the unit wood chips and house hold food scraps in order to reduce the moisture level, and ensure “Premium” grade compost is coming out the other end.

Part of the ongoing process is to thoroughly test the quality of the compost in laboratories BEFORE it is available for purchase.

Nappy Composting Update - July 5th 2007
Trial will cease from 12noon Thursday 12th July 2007

Since we last updated you on the composting trial we have made some significant steps forward in regards to a purpose built commercial nappy composting plant, we have had three separate meetings with both the Waimakariri and Hurunui councils. Thank you to the many of you who responded to our questionnaire last month. These results were collated and results have helped us with making some future decisions.

We now have many processes to go through in order to develop the plant and move forward into the future for all of us.

The trial that we have been conducting out here was to not only develop the right 'recipe' for composting of nappies, but to also work through the logistics of how this service could work on a commercial scale.

We have involved over 200 families, six pre-schools, our local maternity hospital, elderly residents and a Christchurch Branch of the IHC.

As you are aware this was a privately funded trial and we have still received no financial support to date. We are now five months down the track and are extremely happy with the trial results and the conclusions that we have made. The trial was proposed to last for 3 - 6 months and as we have achieved all of the objectives that the trial was set to obtain from 12noon on Thursday the 12th July 2007 the trial will cease.

While we would love to continue providing the service as we currently are, we now need to put our available time, money and energy into the development of the new plant so that we can make this service available to the many interested families and businesses we hear from daily.

Over the last five months we have composted approximately 450,000 nappies which equates to 56 tonne. Our new plant will be able to compost up to 20,000 nappies per day or 2.5 tonne. This will be able to increase with demand up to 60,000 nappies or 7.5 tonne per day!

This has been an amazing trial to be involved in and we thank R5 Solutions for their incredible assistance and support. This trial would not have been possible without the loan of their Prototype HotRot unit and there technical knowledge and advice. No matter what the weather was or time of the day or night they were always here to help when we needed them. We have only just begun and amazing journey ahead with there team and look forward to what the future holds for us all as individuals and as a community.

This trial has attracted world wide interest which show the demand for this kind of service. If we don't use this opportunity to leap forward and take the next step we can only imagine what the future will hold for our children and grandchildren.

                                                   ~
October 2007 Updates

After I wrote the above blogs I did see on TV that the company R5 Solutions were making larger nappy composters for places overseas to run as a commercial operation. I thought that at least one was going to Canada. So I went to Google to see if I could find updated information for you.

This came from the R5 Solutions website.

First HotRot to North America

The first HotRot composting unit has been installed in North America.

A HotRot 1811-based system has been installed at the New Era Technologies composting facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Product from the HotRot unit will be compared with material processed through the current aerated container-based system with the expectation that the HotRot unit will produce a more stable product faster.

This installation in Canada will also provide an opportunity to test HotRot in severe winter conditions.

The unit has been installed outside but has been provided with a “winterisation package”, incorporating additional insulation and an air-to-air heat exchanger for recovering energy from the discharge air and using this to pre-heat injected air.


Where will you find us next?

Itinerary for Future Expos and Trade Fairs

26 - 30 Oct 2007 Eco Asia: Hong Kong http://ecoexpoasia.tdctrade.com/
Dr Peter Robinson, Marketing Manager of HotRot Exports Ltd and Jeff James, Director of LAM, will be attending. They will have a booth.

13 – 17 November 2007 National League of Cities Convention: New Orleans, Louisiana
http://www.nlc.org/CONFERENCES___EVENTS/citiesexpositions.aspx
Dr Peter Robinson, Marketing Manager of HotRot Exports Ltd and Gerald Tibbo, Director of Hatch, will be attending. They will have a stand, and would enjoy meeting with you.

28 – 29 November 2007 Canadian Waste and Recycling Symposium: Vancouver, Canada http://www.eventseye.com/fairs/trade_fair_event_6582.html
Dr Peter Robinson, Marketing Manager of HotRot Exports Ltd and Gerald Tibbo, Director of Hatch, will be attending. They will have a stand, and would enjoy meeting with you.

09 – 12 February 2008 United States Composting Conference: Oakland, California http://www.compostingcouncil.org/index.cfm
Dr Peter Robinson, Marketing Manager, or George Pottinger, General Manager/Director of HotRot Exports Ltd will be attending. We will update you closer to the time.

The impact on our environment

It takes one full cup of crude oil to make the plastic for each "disposable" nappy.

1.3 million trees a year are felled for NZ babies in disposable nappies.

Disposable nappies use 3.5 times more energy, 8 times more non-renewable raw materials, 90 times more renewable materials than reusable nappies.

It takes as much energy to produce one disposable nappy as it does to wash a cloth nappy 200 times.

One baby in disposables will produce 2 tonnes of solid waste!

Disposable nappies take up to 500 years to decompose in landfill sites and can harbour up to 100 different types of virus, including live polio virus from vaccines.

                                                              

(because sometimes things can have simple solutions)

The Institute of Rural Sciences at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth has begun a three-year study into the effectiveness of various plant compounds in reducing methane gas emissions from livestock.

Initial results from this study shows cows fed on the pungent cloves produce only half as much greenhouse gas as they normally do.

If these claims prove to be true, garlic could have a massive effect on New Zealand's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Livestock on New Zealand farms, especially dairy, accounts for a massive 55 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand, which incidentally, is a totally different scenario from most other western countries where more usually, industrial emissions are the biggest contributors to global warming there.

For example in Wales, where this research is being done, agricultural methane emissions account for just 5 per cent of the total in Wales, but any reduction in New Zealand would go a long way towards meeting Kyoto Protocol targets.

So you can see why this is really flash news for Kiwis!

The manager of New Zealand's Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium,Mark Aspin, said the news had grabbed everyone's attention.

"If it," (feeding cows with garlic), "reduces methane by 50 per cent, then that is quite an astounding result," he said.

The research team at Aberystwyth are also testing whether garlic tainted the milk or the meat from dairy cows and cattle.

The amount of methane being emitted was measured by keeping animals in plastic tents.

Aspin said if garlic proved to be an effective way of reducing methane emissions, the next question would be how to administer it to cows efficiently.

Ben Abernethy, the farm manager for Lyn-Lea Farm near Rangiora, said he would give garlic a go if there was an easy way of feeding it to the cows.

"That is what people are bagging dairy farmers for, so if there was some way of fixing it, then I would give it a go," said Ben.

Each New Zealand dairy cow produces a whopping 82 kg of methane gas each year, and beef cattle 55.7 kg.

I live right next door to cows, (thats some of my cow neighbours in the above pic) and trust me, you can smell the methane.

I may start feeding them garlic surreptitiously over the fence.

(this blog was first posted on the 17th November 2006)  - pictured is the dairy farm behind my house.

Emissions in Aotearoa

In Aotearoa/New Zealand cows apparently account for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. Which would explain why a couple of years ago our New Zealand government as a part of implementing the Kyoto Protocol wanted to impose a per head of cow tax on farmers to pay for research on how to reduce these bovine emissions. It seems typical of human endeavour when confronted with a problem to try to change nature to suit rather than altering our own behaviour.

We could instead look at the causes which underlie the behaviour.

We keep these large herds of cows because they provide us with milk, cream, butter, cheese, and other dairy-based products and they also provide us with meat, and with leather for shoes, lounge suites etc. However, New Zealand’s quite small population of currently approx. four million people doesn’t require us to own so many cows. We could sustain our own population on far less cows which would reduce those greenhouse gas emissions immediately.

Historically however, (and into current times, despite some diversifying), New Zealand’s economy and its wealth have been built upon our exports of frozen beef and lamb and then dairy products ever since the advent of reliable refrigeration, allowing the first refrigerated ship with a frozen meat cargo to depart from our shores on the 15th February 1882, arriving in London after a voyage of ninety days.

But long before Aotearoa/New Zealand existed in the globalised world of commerce, the stage was already set. Trading ships of sail and steam, aided and abetted by the militaristic might of European and Western Imperialism, traversed the globe. Whole community groups were enslaved and exploited, even made extinct, lands were confiscated, colonised, and deforested, their minerals extracted, their cultures reduced to commodities in the name of capitalism and even democracy.

Globalisation

Globalisation today is most often just a proxy colonialism where the forces of Imperialism, otherwise known to us in their guises of trans-national corporations including all oil companies, and companies like Monsanto which now own or control at least 40% of the world‘s food supply, the World Bank, the World Trading Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) etc, undermine the sovereignties of our individual countries and cultures.

Global Warming

Moreover, differential use of resources by nations, regions, and social classes leads to uneven and unequal contributions to problems such as ozone depletion, global warming, and attendant environmental destruction. The industrialised nations have less than 25% of the global population, but account for about 75% of the world’s energy use, two-thirds of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane and over 90% of chlorofluorocarbons which damage the ozone layer protecting the earth. The effects are global in impact however as is demonstrable in the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica created by the aforementioned chlorofluorocarbons mostly from the Northern Hemisphere, (which has the largest westernised population base). The hole in the ozone layer is now 3 times the size of the USA.

And we do nothing. Or virtually nothing. Some of our governments have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, (still only a first step in dealing with the problem), and are working to implement the necessary changes while other governments still refuse to read or understand the science behind global warming and the absolute necessity to make changes to save our own human lives from extinction.

In fact, whole groups of concerned people, such as the Greens Party in New Zealand for example, have more often been maligned, written off as tree -huggers, and even abused, especially when long-seeing environmental concerns clash with short-term economic prospects as most often they seem to do. Companies have the language all their own way, the language of money and commercial gain, they can cite job creation, economic growth, increased GDP’s etc. Its much harder to argue the value of trees left standing in the ground when they could be cut down to manufacture pencils thereby contributing to the capitalist pedestals of Growth and Economic Benefit even.

The Stern Review on The Economics of Climate Change

On the 30th October this year the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was released. This document has importance because for the first time it is written by an economist with credibility in the mainstreamed world of capitalist democracies and trans-national corporations. Sir Nicholas Stern is Head of the UK Government Economic Service and Head of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. He was knighted for 'services to economics' in June 2004. Previously, he was Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank, Washington D.C. 2000-03 as well as Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 1994-99. The Review, which reports to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the UK, was commissioned by the Chancellor in July last year.
 
Sir Nicholas said: “There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally. Governments, businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate policy choices by governments are essential to motivate change. But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity close.”

The first half of the Review focuses on the impacts and risks arising from uncontrolled climate change, and on the costs and opportunities associated with action to tackle it. The Review emphasises that economic models over timescales of centuries do not offer precise forecasts – but they are an important way to illustrate the scale of effects we might see.

And the effects thus illustrated are (as quoted from the report):

“Most climate models show that a doubling of pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases is very likely to commit the Earth to a rise of between 2 – 5°C in global mean temperatures.

This level of greenhouse gases will probably be reached between 2030 and 2060. A warming of 5°C on a global scale would be far outside the experience of human civilisation and comparable to the difference between temperatures during the last ice age and today. Several new studies suggest up to a 20% chance that warming could be greater than 5°C.
If annual greenhouse gas emissions remained at the current level, concentrations would be more than treble pre-industrial levels by 2100, committing the world to 3 – 10°C warming, based on the latest climate projections.

Some impacts of climate change itself may amplify warming further by triggering the release of additional greenhouse gases. This creates a real risk of even higher temperature changes.

Higher temperatures cause plants and soils to soak up less carbon from the atmosphere and cause permafrost to thaw, potentially releasing large quantities of methane. Analysis of warming events in the distant past indicates that such feedbacks could amplify warming by an additional 1 – 2°C by the end of the century.

Warming is very likely to intensify the water cycle, reinforcing existing patterns of water scarcity and abundance and increasing the risk of droughts and floods.

Rainfall is likely to increase at high latitudes, while regions with Mediterranean-like climates in both hemispheres will experience significant reductions in rainfall. Preliminary estimates suggest that the fraction of land area in extreme drought at any one time will increase from 1% to 30% by the end of this century. In other regions, warmer air and warmer oceans are likely to drive more intense storms, particularly hurricanes and typhoons.

(what we would experience in real terms is increased events such as Hurricane Katrina because of more moisture evaporating into the rain clouds, and in drier areas we would experience more extreme drought such as that being taking place in south-east Australia right now- my insert)

As the world warms, the risk of abrupt and large-scale changes in the climate system will rise.

Changes in the distribution of heat around the world are likely to disrupt ocean and atmospheric circulations, leading to large and possibly abrupt shifts in regional weather patterns.

If the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets began to melt irreversibly, the rate of sea level rise could more than double, committing the world to an eventual sea level rise of 5 – 12 m over several centuries.

(this would mean we would have to move all our coastal cities and populations and some of the smaller islands would simply be engulfed by ocean, creating urgent refugee crisies’ - my insert again)

The body of evidence and the growing quantitative assessment of risks are now sufficient to give clear and strong guidance to economists and policy-makers in shaping a response.”

Well I surely hope they do respond.

The Stern Review on Climate Change