How To Get There 8/9/19

42 comments on “How To Get There 8/9/19 ”

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1. Robert Guyton 1

   8 September 2019 at 8:09 am

   Growing a garden is a big thing if you're the gardener doing the work but a tiny thing on a planetary scale. Cultivating vegetables and flowers, trees, shrubs and vines feels wonderfully satisfying and the most appropriate of human activities, to my way of thinking, but it's a drop in the ocean, to mix metaphors, and of little consequence in the bigger scheme of things; at least if can feel that way, when the garden you've laboured over is seen from afar, especially from the air, when your little oasis looks nothing more than a dot on a map. There is a way though, of building-up and maintaining enthusiasm for what you are doing in the face of a landscape that is dominated by examples of what you don't admire in human behaviour; the "concrete jungle", paradise paved or rendered flat and grassed; "We are the Ark" is a network that connects the little players and encourages us to keep going with what we do, in part because others are raised by seeing that they are not so isolated in their pursuit as it can sometimes feel. We are the ark encouraged gardeners to use their name and hang a sign at the gate, advertising their connection to the movement; I'm planning to carve on and attach it to the gate-that-never-closes at the roadside.

   http://wearetheark.org

   "What Can One Person Do To Make A Difference?

   For those of us that care about the living world around us and are aware of the challenges we all face, this is a painful and desperate time – but there is hope. We have waited too long for changes to come from our leaders and politicians. We cannot wait any longer. The change will come from the ground up – it will come from us.

   This is a call to step up and re assess our management of every individual tiny patch of the earth possible. It’s a call to the guardians of the earth to step forward and make themselves known, to raise their voices. We need to help the natural world and not hinder it. We have to invite nature and wildness back into our gardens, parks and every tiny patch of this earth we can. To create sanctuary, food and habitat for the creatures we are supposed to share this planet with and who in return will help us survive here within a truly natural and beautiful environment."
   • Janet 1.1

     8 September 2019 at 8:21 am

     Yes we must do as our pioneer forebears did, continue to plant and maintain the house orchards and vege gardens. It is normal and natural life but the last two generations have more preferred to move like battery hens into the concrete jungles and not take care to sustain themselves preferring to pay others to do the work for them. Partly why ? We are too many, a species that has over stocked its earth paddock.
     • Robert Guyton 1.1.1

       8 September 2019 at 8:25 am

       Janet, perhaps we haven't "over-stocked", it may be instead that we've clustered in the corners of the farm, crushing everything under our feet; if we spend out a bit, took responsibility for feeding ourselves and keeping every other living thing healthy on out own little range, we'd all be fine.
       • Janet 1.1.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 8:33 am

         Have you done the calculation. People per square kilometer of livable land in the world? There will be no wilderness left if we just spread out a bit.
         • Robert Guyton 1.1.1.1.1

           8 September 2019 at 8:44 am

           If we each tread more lightly, localise and live within the capabilities of our place, the human population will settle to a sustainable level as populations of all sorts do. If we apply our minds and hearts to the issue, we could do it. I hope
         • phillip ure 1.1.1.1.2

           8 September 2019 at 9:35 am

           @ janet..

           you seem to be repeating that over-population meme..

           and it is just untrue..

           there is plenty of room on the planet – esp as ppl like to live together – in cities..

           (the goal there is clever design of inner-city living/enviroments…)

           so any calculation done on ppl/land is a nonsense – as it does not contain that aspect of the human condition – to live together/in communities..

           the other myth pushed by the over-population story is hungry ppl – how to feed them..?

           whereas the problem there is distribution/profiteering – and waste..

           there is plenty of food grown – there are plenty of places for food to be grown..

           it is what those places are currently being used for (animal-extraction/mono-crops) that is the problem..

           and once again – this is something we can fix/do..

           (i find that false over-population meme is often a distraction from the real problems we actually have to contend with..)
           • Drowsy M. Kram 1.1.1.1.2.1

             8 September 2019 at 12:30 pm

             Isn’t human population growth contributing to many of the BIG problems humankind, not to mention the wider environment, now faces?

             God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.”

             Poor old mother Earth will indeed be accommodating and feeding a few billion more souls as this century marches on. Anyone thinking that increase will be a net good is (IMHO) barking, and/or in the "be fruitful and multiply" camp.

             Alas, humankind can’t imagine or magic its way out of wedded-to-growth messes.

             https://garryrogers.com/tag/limits-to-growth/

             “The current economic system being utilized and internalized relies on perpetual growth. It has long operated counter to the reality that we are confined to a finite planet with finite resources. Yet, this system continues to be practiced and promoted globally. As the environmental and social repercussions of disbelief in limits become increasingly clear, so does our need for a new economic system —one that is not wedded to growth. Neither growth in the number of consumers nor growth in the amount consumed.”

             “So far the politicians and economists are so wedded to growth that they insist that economic growth is itself the main characteristic of sustainable development.” – a fine example of magical thinking; our leaders have so many constraints on their imaginations.

             To be clear – I love people; people are great. But we really can have too much of a good thing.
2. Robert Guyton 2

   8 September 2019 at 8:21 am

   Lose the lawn.

   “Lawn has been a status symbol for centuries, and we have bought into the commercials that tell us if it’s not a perfect lawn, our neighbors will hate us and, you know, we’re just not good citizens,” says Doug Tallamy, an author and professor at the University of Delaware.

   Tallamy wants to change this way of thinking. He says perfectly manicured grass does not benefit the climate or biodiversity.

   “What I suggest is we cut the area of lawn in half,” Tallamy says, “We have an area of lawn the size of New England in the U.S. right now. We’ve got to reduce that. So just look at your yard, and say, ‘I’m going to cut it in half and I’m going to cut it in half by putting plants into my yard.'”

   But not just any pretty plants. Tallamy urges people to use native species that provide food and habitat for pollinators and other wildlife."

   https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/professor-doug-tallamy-urges-homeowners-to-cut-lawn-area-in-half/?fbclid=IwAR0kkxxa7BotLfujq-mfTSdYC4XT_HCgQPILasXP_yXzB2MBdoZPFXH6Ek8
   • Janet 2.1

     8 September 2019 at 8:28 am

     Over the last 30 years I have watched the tentacles of urban crawl creep into my area … making it into 10 acres blocks and smaller … housing people who love to mow the road verges and plant foreign flowers round the letterboxes… the controllers.Good bye wilderness and freedom.
     • Robert Guyton 2.1.1

       8 September 2019 at 8:41 am

       There's an "open plan" village somewhere in the USA where everyone grows and lightly-maintains food-forest-gardens, sharing paths that meander through the fence-less commons. Wild areas are vital as a "reservoir" for many things, material and ephemeral, but I believe a vibrant blend of wild and managed will serve as a new environment in which humans will take their place alongside of the multitude of other living things. I think most native creatures can willingly occupy spaces that are blended with original and introduced living things. Once we get the hang of it, we can start regenerating the wastelands we've created on our journey to this point; vast deserts will become home to a whole new biota. I hope
       • greywarshark 2.1.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 10:54 am

         Edit
         Robert 'alongside' is a word that could be a beacon for the future. Being, even at a distance, in sync with others of goodwill and practicality, and in sync with nature gives a good and comforting feeling. . It wouldn't mean that you had to walk in lock-step would it. But connecting up, finding what others are doing, adapting with each other for good outcomes, friendly wishes limiting negatives, willingness to limit personal demands tending towards separate, exclusive communities, willingness to enable otherness to have a space to express difference. This would result in positiveness and vibrancy I would expect.

         Knowing others are doing good things, kind things, fun things when possible, also practical, well-planned, reasoned things, thinking of future projection things. Also working to be precautionary against the projected, scientifically-derived models showing spikes of trends impacting on our lives and the environment things.

         That's what starts going through my mind when i think about 'alongside'. My suggestions of a template for what we could do alongside each other – what have I missed out? It seems to me we need a vision that is attainable to keep the goblins out of the mind as we read and hear the news of disorder and decay of the very civilisation that we were educated to believe was the best possible. Aaah! And once we have groaned at it, keep on working towards the vision alongside other people aiming for a good, inclusive, practical society.
   • phillip ure 2.2

     8 September 2019 at 10:02 am

     @ robert..

     heh..!..good luck with the stop-mowing exhortations..

     along with the legal-pot/vegan/u.b.i./plant-based-meat/dairy going down gurgler ideas i was pushing last time i was in this forum..

     i also tried to urge ppl to stop mowing..

     (all of the above was received with general disbelief/derision then – it's a funny old world isn't it..?..)

     and in practical terms i can report on the urban-delights of a long-lawn..

     after a while – the lawn gets high enough to walk-down (best done while morning dew is upon it..)

     and this is like scything – without the scythe..it flattens it…

     other benefits are heaps of insect life…which brings lots of birds..

     plus there are the pluses for the soul..

     the pleasures to be had from watching the wind rippling over yr (used-to-be) lawn..

     (i wd refer readers to the writings of willa cather – about praire-life in anerica – to get her sense of the beauties of this..)

     plus the wildflowers that grow..

     i now lead a more itinerant-life but in the example i am using the only interference i did was to plant lots of swan-plants..

     and this gave me swarms of monarch butterflies..

     all in all the benefits that accrue from stopping mowing – are many..

     i have been mowing-free for over five years…

     liberate yrslves from the tyrannies of time/environmental-costs – from lawn-mowing..

     set yr lawns free..!..heh..!
     • Robert Guyton 2.2.1

       8 September 2019 at 10:19 am

       The replacement of my own lawn with trees and shrubs, vines, veggies and flowers has left me with a redundant collection of old lignum vitae lawn-bowls! They'd make good cannon-balls though
       • phillip ure 2.2.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 10:47 am

         i'll mark you down as a possible munitions-source – for when the revolution comes..
     • Sacha 2.2.2

       8 September 2019 at 10:31 am

       Ever thought that your way of "pushing" might be what is attracting "derision"? To help change happen, we need to get way better at sharing ideas and bringing others onboard. Eh.
       • phillip ure 2.2.2.1

         8 September 2019 at 11:06 am

         @ sachas – see above..

         and really it isn't how the ideas are presented..it's how radical the ideas seem (at first/the time..)

         i have been banging on about the vegan thing for abt 20 yrs..

         back then you wd say 'vegan' and people would go 'huh..! – what's that..?'..

         (not so much that now..)

         the same with dairy-industry-going-down-girgler (not just for vegan-reasons) at a time when clark/key were pushing the white-gold.expansion meme around dairy..

         no matter how i said that..derision was guaranteed..

         legal pot..?..an impossibility – many said..

         the meat/cancer connections – made back then.?.

         once again it is the content of that message – not the tone/timbre of delivery – that draws that initial derision..

         but i am always open to learning..

         so how do you suggest i shd deliver these contrary ideas..?

         (i try to use logic/facts/humour – as my tools…)
         • Sacha 2.2.2.1.1

           8 September 2019 at 11:38 am

           Tell stories better. Respect the audience. See the article I've linked to below: https://thestandard.org.nz/how-to-get-there-8-9-19/#comment-1652995
           • phillip ure 2.2.2.1.1.1

             8 September 2019 at 12:22 pm

             @ sacha – i went and read yr link – and saw nothing of the tone/timbre advice you urged me to go there to find..

             but there was this:

             'Though there are individual voices and people who got there first, these are collective projects that matter not when one person says something but when a million integrate it into how they see and act in the world. The we who inhabits those structures grows as what was once subversive or transgressive settles in as normal, as people outside the walls wake up one day inside them and forget they were ever anywhere else\.

             (and..)

             '..Those who watch with care can see the structure expanding so that some of those who object or ridicule or fail to comprehend will, within a few years, not even question their lives inside those frameworks.

             (and..)

             You can see change itself happening, if you watch carefully and keep track of what was versus what is. That’s some of what I’ve tried to do over the years, in this book and others: to see change and understand how it works and how and where each of us has power within it. To recognize that we live in a transformative time, and that this process will continue beyond what we can now imagine.

             (and..)

             This is a time in which the power of words to introduce and justify and explain ideas matters, and that power is tangible in the changes at work.

             (and..)

             (and..)

             Remembering that people made these ideas, as surely as people made the buildings we live in and the roads we travel on, helps us remember that, first, change is possible, and second, it’s our good luck to live in the wake of this change rather than asserting our superiority to those who came before the new structures, and maybe even to acknowledge that we have not arrived at a state of perfect enlightenment, because there is more change to come, more that we do not yet recognize that will be revealed.

             (and..).

             (and..)

             The title essay of my new anthology, Whose Story Is This?, is about the struggle of new stories to be born, against the forces that prefer to shut them out or shout us down, against people who work hard at not hearing and not seeing. te on equal terms, or just coexist with difference. It’s about who matters.

             (and..)

             Comfort itself is often invoked as though it were a right of the powerful. Last June, CBS This Morning tweeted, “Border Patrol has reached out and said they are ‘very uncomfortable’ with the use of the word cages. They say it’s not inaccurate and added that they may be cages but people are not being treated like animals.” So a cage should not be called a cage, because the discomfort of people in cages is overshadowed by the discomfort of people who put them in cages having cages be called by their true names.

             Similarly, racists have objected to being called racists of late, and well-housed people have talked about how seeing the homeless upsets them. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” said Republican congressman and white supremacist Steve King.

             Comfort is often a code word for the right to be unaware, the right to have no twinges of one’s conscience, no reminders of suffering, the right to be a “we” whose benefits are not limited by the needs and rights of any “them.”

             (so nothing there about how i am telling my stories – but still a worthwhile read..))

             are you able to word yr advice ..?
             • greywarshark …

               8 September 2019 at 12:39 pm

               Bit of a rant pu – comment is (which has at times been directed at me) tl:dr. Perhaps you should put one or at the most two per day and then go and do something else. It would make more impact

               when they are smaller, and when they aren't all spaced out in little sentences

               down the page.
             • Sacha …

               8 September 2019 at 10:39 pm

               Understand how ideas and communities of change work together. Behave in ways that show your respect for that dance and the people in it.
3. Robert Guyton 3

   8 September 2019 at 8:48 am

   "In 2015, Pope Francis issued a letter urging the world to act on climate change and protect those who are most vulnerable.

   “He asked us to consider both the cry of the poor and the cry of the planet,” says Franciscan Friar Michael Lasky.

   He says the message inspired him and his fellow friars to find a new use for 80 acres of land near Baltimore, Maryland.

   For years, they had leased it to a farmer who grew corn and soybeans using industrial methods that deplete soil nutrients and compact the earth.

   “I took a walk out into the middle of our farmland and it was like walking on concrete,” he says."

   Read more:

   https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/08/how-pope-francis-inspired-friars-to-start-a-sustainable-farm-near-baltimore/
4. Robert Guyton 4

   8 September 2019 at 8:53 am

   https://youtu.be/aezikcoCr4o

   "There are two possibilities from here – we dramatically change direction or we end up where we are headed. Either way, we are on the cusp of radical change.

   So don’t buy the story that the status quo is overwhelmingly vast and powerful, far beyond your ability to change it. On the contrary, it is devouring its own foundations, and it is up to us to design the sequel. Those who see this necessity are the pioneers. We were born into a culture of death, but it needn’t hold our allegiance.

   Of course, the quiet self-loathing invited by the ‘virus with shoes’ hypothesis is quite convenient for the powers that be – the billionaires, media and politicians who continue to defend and profit from that suicidal status quo, explaining it away as the inevitable product of human nature. But it’s a lie. Nothing obliges us to follow the path "

   http://www.darkoptimism.org/2019/08/06/humanity-not-just-a-virus-with-shoes/?fbclid=IwAR1liATvfoK3hgWS5Lsn1WyVViMxq5u-kv6HbJmoVjXGbJBL1uQA8gmqAcM#more-6037
   • phillip ure 4.1

     8 September 2019 at 9:22 am

     yep..!

     (many of the defenders of incrementalism here cd do well to meditate on this..)

     we can all have a good future..

     but it is up to us to do it..

     (and not to just defend the current creeping incrementalism – to nowhere..)

     and the alternative is..?
   • Chris T 4.2

     8 September 2019 at 3:42 pm

     They are actually making another Matrix movie funny enough

     https://screenrant.com/matrix-4-keanu-reeves-director-lana-wachowski/
5. MrTaniwha 5

   8 September 2019 at 8:55 am

   I'm not sure if it's fake news or not, but I read on the internet that there are more people named John standing in the current local body elections than people born after 1980.

   Which got me thinking to the complete disconnect I have with the local body politics near me and how I would like to get more involved with local activism/politics.

   Any advice, experiences or ideas that people could share for getting involved in the community – especially for someone new?
   • Robert Guyton 5.1

     8 September 2019 at 10:13 am

     Mr Taniwha

     You've left it too late to stand for council this term, but you could do a lot by supporting somebody you trust who has "put their hand up" for the job. Get in touch with them and offer to help; deliver flyers, perhaps or nail-up billboards. Just don't offer to help anyone elderly named, "John"
     • MrTaniwha 5.1.1

       8 September 2019 at 11:34 am

       Thank you for your reply Mr Guyton

       Your posts here and example down South have been a quiet inspiration for me. And not that I have anything against John btw, some of my best friends are named John.

       ~10 years ago I helped the Napier Green party putting up hoardings for a General Election and went to a couple of meetings. It was an interesting experience with good people – but I found the internal politics to be 'complex' and hard for me to navigate as some one who is naturally an introvert.

       Locally part of the problem is that the only local politician I know by name is bloody Ray Wallace. The rest of the billboards up at the moment are just a sea of grey faces.

       It would be helpful if the local candidates listed how they party voted in the last General Election at least – in Lower Hutt there doesn't appear to be any involvement from the larger Political Parties.
       • Robert Guyton 5.1.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 11:57 am

         "It would be helpful if the local candidates listed how they party voted in the last General Election "

         That's an incendiary statement, Mr Taniwha! I agree with you, that it would be helpful and if each candidate was to list their voting behaviour over ten or 20 years it would be even more useful! In the case of my own council, there would be, I expect, great reluctance to do that, from those who vote National. I'd happily declare my voting behaviour; Green, Green and Green
   • greywarshark 5.2

     8 September 2019 at 10:26 am

     I would sugest looking at the notification of Council meetings which are open to the public and attending some of them if you can as most of them will be held during the day I think. Follow the information that the Council gives about what it is doing. Try to find out who voted for what when a matter that is of interest to you comes up.

     You will find out who are the old and minimalist rates people, who are the new and wanting to expend on attractions for tourists, and shared footpaths without barriers, who are for their particular group, the old, the piece of only native bush left in the district, the rock wall rebuilt to protect their seafront homes after the last storm, the irrigation-irritation chanters for and against.

     It is as interesting theatre as any television series, and it is all about your living conditions and surroundings. When that is realised fully by the general public, it won't be hard for people to tear themselves away from the NZ equivalent of Coronation Street, and turn to something more like Sesame Street. Perhaps a program could be called Huarahi Way or Close or Avenue?
     • MrTaniwha 5.2.1

       8 September 2019 at 11:45 am

       Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts.

       I really have no idea what issues are important locally or even how the Local Council machinery operates. Keeping up on Council notifications and attending public meetings would be a good start to get a lay of the land.

       It seems the Six o'clock news is pretty useless when it comes to local matters – perhaps there is room for a locally produced and focus news segment? Maybe get the schools involved producing it?
       • greywarshark 5.2.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 12:03 pm

         That idea about schools is a great one. The education of learning known stuff for when it might be needed in the future, and to give a general understanding of how society works, is rather short on example. It can be a shock to find out that one's education and reality don't match up.

         'Kids can ask the darndest questions' was I think a Readers Digest page in their mag once. And usually it's because they are exposing the difference between what they have been led to expect and their observations. So get them while they are still young with active brains that have not been sandpapered down to fit within the confines of a plastic card keyhole!

         Try listening more to RadioNZ – they do make an effort to get the news out to you. Their news tends to concentrate on the latest tragedies, local and imported, mostly from the USA (shootings etc.), and government pronouncements, and what is happening in Auckland.(I am generalising rather.) But you get a good gist if you take a look at their website, there is plenty to chew on there. And it is interesting to read you Mr Taniwha – I feel that you are being a bit disingenuous. I hope you have been favourably impressed at what has been replied to you.)
   • Sacha 5.3

     8 September 2019 at 10:29 am

     Check at your local community centre, library, citizens advice bureau to find community groups in your area and approach one that takes your fancy. Lots of ways to contribute.
     • MrTaniwha 5.3.1

       8 September 2019 at 12:02 pm

       Another good suggestion to pick one issue to focus on.

       For me I think water quality is the most important and pressing matter. I am lucky enough to live just down the the road from Te Puna Wai Ora community artesian water tap. If you are ever in the area I highly recommend it.

       Unfortunately a couple of years ago high levels of E.coli were found coming through the aquifer and the community tap. There is now a UV filter in place for the community tap thankfully but our previously fresh tap water is now regularly dosed with chlorine. The source of the E.Coli is still a mystery I believe.

       Looking out for Te Puna Wai Ora and drinking water quality would be a good issue for me to start with I think.
       • greywarshark 5.3.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 8:53 pm

         That community artesian water available to the citizens in the Hutt to get personal supplies ia a great idea. I have never heard of that before in NZ. I suppose a few cities have done this, but usually the public water would be the usual town supply.
6. Sacha 6

   8 September 2019 at 11:36 am

   Rebecca Solnit on making social change: https://lithub.com/rebecca-solnit-progress-is-not-inevitable-it-takes-work/

   We live inside ideas. Some are shelters, some are observatories, some are windowless prisons. We are leaving some behind and entering others.

   At its best, in recent years, this has been a collaborative process so swift and powerful that those paying closest attention can see the doors being framed, the towers arising, the spaces taking shape in which our thoughts will reside—and other structures being knocked down. Oppressions and exclusions so accepted they’re nearly invisible become visible en route to becoming unacceptable, and other mores replace the old ones.

   Those who watch with care can see the structure expanding so that some of those who object or ridicule or fail to comprehend will, within a few years, not even question their lives inside those frameworks.

   Others try to stop these new edifices from arising; they succeed better with legislation than with imagination. That is, you can prevent women from having access to abortions more easily than you can prevent them from thinking they have the right to an abortion.
   • Robert Guyton 6.1

     8 September 2019 at 12:13 pm

     Thanks, Sacha. I read that article through and expect you and I are hearing her words a little differently but it's a powerful message. This passage was significant for me as it spoke to Rupert Sheldrake/Terrence McKenna's message about the evolving Universe and the incomprehensibility of what may be just around the corner, along with their ideas about the beginning of all things; sound, through to words, stories then matter, all through the process of habituation (it may be you'd have to have read or heard their stuff

     "Remembering that people made these ideas, as surely as people made the buildings we live in and the roads we travel on, helps us remember that, first, change is possible, and second, it’s our good luck to live in the wake of this change rather than asserting our superiority to those who came before the new structures, and maybe even to acknowledge that we have not arrived at a state of perfect enlightenment, because there is more change to come, more that we do not yet recognize that will be revealed."
     • Sacha 6.1.1

       8 September 2019 at 5:06 pm

       She is coming at it from a context of white US feminism's relationship with indigenous knowledge, but mainly I found the writing beautiful. Would like to hunt down the book if I get time to read anything.
       • greywarshark 6.1.1.1

         8 September 2019 at 8:40 pm

         I was looking at Rebecca Solnit's listings on Trade Me and one of her essays appears in a book of collected ones, 'Nasty Women' thinking about USA and Trump. In the review this is quoted "When 53 percent of white women voted for Trump and 94 percent of black women voted for Hillary, can we even speak about "women" as a cohesive group?".

         I could not see Whose Story Is This? which I think i the one you are quoting from. She has written quite a number of books.
7. greywarshark 7

   8 September 2019 at 11:46 am

   Edit
   I read someone's musings. Stocker Carey http://stockercary.com/so-far-2/

   This sounded sensible.

   Money is the most effective tool for navigating the complex, technical world we live in. You don’t need lots of it. But you do need enough, and to be able to deal with it.

   Then he says firmly:

   As individuals we only have one obligation to society: To make sure we, and our children, aren’t a burden to others. The rest is personal choice. While giving is a fine thing, no one has an obligation to do so. Anyone who tells you differently is likely trying to sell you something.

   So he goes from sensible to Randian in a few sentences. It's true that money enables useful exchanges and interactions with our society. But then to say that society is just something you get, take, gain from and then drop like litter when you don’t want anything, is not sensible, and to say we have 'no' obligations to give to society is untrue and unreasonable. It seems as if he is treating money like water, which to most of us is available on tap immediately it is required.

   Society isn't like water, appearing from nature's bounty which we rely on and don't create. Society is something we create, our human behaviour is somewhat inherent but always able to be altered. Water is inherent in nature and can't be altered but because it is so essential to everything we should treat it more carefully as a precious thing, than we value gold.

   Have we devalued reason to have distanced ourselves so far from it when considering what is important. Money is something we have created and change its value daily; why should we put this thing ahead of our known scientifically-explored miraculous lives on a miraculous planet? Isn't this thinking so skewed that it should be put on a rocket and sent to the moon? Because that is what we are doing with our money, not putting it back into assisting others with their water availability needs. No we are using precious water that is rare, to turn into money from selling it; money which can be created at the will of those with power in society to make edicts about it and its value.

   This guy's musings are those of someone who lives for the moment and he is off somewhere soon and has a very nice apartment to let (or did) in New York, if you have the money to afford it. http://stockercary.com/tellurideapt/ It will be a large change in the mind and lives of people who live for money and possessions and the wealth culture able to afford a New York place and also trot off at times to new venues, to change to a simpler style of living as a member of a co-operative society.
8. Exkiwiforces 8

   9 September 2019 at 5:34 pm

   I've just posted some interesting links on yesterday's ABCs Landline over at todays open mike.

   https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-08-09-2019/#comment-1653418
   • greywarshark 8.1

     10 September 2019 at 12:17 pm

     Thanks ExkiwiF – real scary stuff. Desalination? People over there in the outback are usually sparing with their water already aren't they. But taking water needed by others – 'practical' blokes tend to be cheeky, they rationalise they want to get on with whatever now, and might as well use a resource that's just sitting there – in case. 'Just a lot of ditherers those planners, making up regulations all day.'

     The guy from the Mulloon Institute I think said he had been on about better ways of conserving water and keeping hydrated for 29, 30, 40 years – can't remember. It was a lot and when he finally got on Tv about it, Malcolm wotsisname came and saw and didn't conquer his slack attitudes, pontificating that every farm was different and the idea wouldn't work everywhere (as Peter Andrews had been proclaiming). I think you said that you had seen it on the Oz tv farm/land program.

     I hate the thought of the screws that Oz can put on us if we try and limit their immigration here which will grow. The banks would love it, take out more profit from our declining share of the country, and export it back as a subsidy to Oz.
     • Exkiwiforces 8.1.1

       11 September 2019 at 2:07 pm

       The current fire events on the East Coast of Oz atm, is the wake up call for Local, State authorities and now all of the Federal Depts needed to have as the CSIRO, BOM, Bush Fire/ Fire Behavioural Scientists and Bushfire Fighters said these type of events will become common and more extreme as a result of CC.

       I mention this over at the Daily review lastnight "When Australia Firefighters have got to resort too some heavy metal aka Boeing 737 Airlines to waterbomb fires in spring, is akin to throwing your firebook/ TPP’s out window and start making it up as you go now as your knowledge of known fire behaviour is now turned on it head as a result of CC."

       Last Thursday the two local Bushfire brigades out bush are talking about placing aka est a tank farm of about 2-3 water tanks (150K Lt tanks) on the boundary line/ Brigades line of the two brigades to be in place either by next dry season or the following one as we can't rely on using peoples dams anymore.

       I never seen the Northern Part of the NT so dry for this time of the year since I've coming up here for Ex's since 2000 or living here in the last 7yrs. My Weather station at home has recorded 37- 38degs, wind speeds up 50kmph, with humidity in the low teens or single figures over the last few days.

       https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-11/government-appears-unprepared-for-climate-change/11492886

       https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-11/fighting-fires-becoming-impossible-task/11497588

       This link is worth reading and is very interesting about dry fire fighting, but to do is properly requires a huge number of boots on the ground to have any a effect and when you compare that most volunteer brigades in Oz and NZ are usual no where near being fully or close to be fully maned it then becomes rather academic at what gets protected in the end.

       For example our Bush Brigade has 4 grass fire units (Landcruiser's with 500lt tank) rarely have two people in them, I run the Medium Attack Truck (meant to have crew of 4) by myself once a fortnight, the tanker unit is driven by one of the wives and average age of our brigade in 63 with me being the youngest at 45.

       I think everyone will either head to the South East Coast of Vic/ Sth NSW or Tassie before they head to the East Island of Oz. They don't like earthquakes or volcano's.

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