An excellent article, part of a longer investigation.
It’s great to see a lot more New Zealanders will learn about how they can help mitigate climate change by adopting a plant based diet or by eating less meat.
There is a lot in the passage worth reading,
Here are some highlights.
“The average Kiwi eats 20kg less meat amid concerns over sustainability of agriculture.
As environmental concerns grow, so do the number of Kiwis choosing to adopt a meat-free lifestyle. A 2016 ANZ Roy Morgan poll showed one in 10 Kiwis follow a vegetarian diet – a 27 per cent increase in just five years.
In terms of sustainability, a low-meat diet is leagues ahead of a meat-rich diet.
There’s no escaping the reality of the environmental impact of agriculture. Collectively dairy, beef and sheep generate more than 97 per cent of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand and almost half of the total green house emissions for the country.
Since 2002 the number of total dairy cattle has risen. As a result, the emissions created by dairy has doubled since 1990.”
It is clear from reading the article, that If you are concerned about climate change,you can do something.
A misleading piece of propaganda for vegetarianism, would be a better description.
Like you, it takes figures for the environmental impact of feeding grain crops to livestock and presents them as though they applied to New Zealand.
It also presents a graphic, again based on overseas farming practices, claiming meat uses a lot of “scarce” water, ignoring the fact that NZ livestock mostly use water that falls onto the farm as rain. And then captions it “A meat-eaters carbon footprint is much higher than that of a vegetarians,” as though that were what the graphic shows!
When you look at the article’s meat consumption figures, it’s pretty clear that rising prices and scaremongering about red meat have pushed people towards eating more chicken and pork. Whether there’s also greater enthusiasm for vegetarian diets is open to question, although it wouldn’t be surprising given the amount of propaganda for it out there.
I’d be more interested to see an article that worked out the food miles involved in a typical NZ vegan’s diet, and some assessment of what it would mean for the New Zealand environment to switch from meat to large-scale production of soy and other shit food crops. People would be able to make more informed choices then.
The days of a roast every Sunday are long gone. It’s now about once every 3 months. Mince and sausages have generally replaced the regular steak / schnitzel, chops.
To be fair things like kumara and pumpkin are also very expensive.
We’re almost back to seasonal eating again where the seasonal veges are always cheaper.
We’re definitely back to growing some of our own.
Most people I know eat less meat because of the cost.
Some of this relates to more money going out in rent. It’s great that landlord’s can use people’s hard earned money to buy their meat though. At least someone can buy it.
Ain’t got nothing to do with making veganisitic choices.
Wasn’t disputing that. It’s only gone from 8% to 10% though. Stating it as a 27% increase coming off a low base does make it seem a bit more dramatic and depending on the sample size may well be within the margin of error.
There’s no way those 2% of new vegans would be causing that volume of decrease.
I would suspect that it’s much more likely to be cost.
D’oh! I missed that one. That’s another hallmark of misleading propaganda – make a small increase sound like a big one by quoting the relative increase rather than the absolute increase.
And the irrigated water to grow pasture, and the water used to grow imported feed?
Meanwhile, the water consumption for vegan and vegetarian foodstuffs can also be hidden and enormous.
So maybe the answer is to be mindful rather than ideologically hell-bent one way or the other.
To be honest, I don’t quite get why people are hooked on beef and lamb – both increasingly expensive and out of reach for growing numbers of people – (though my understanding is that very large amounts of lamb is rustled…)
What’s wrong with wild goat, wallaby, rabbit, goose…? It isn’t that people are a bit “snobbish” and look on those meats as “shit food” by any chance?
Meanwhile supermarkets sell rabbit at $20 – $30 a kilo (bones included). That was a few years ago. Turns out it costs the same to put a rabbit through the compliance regime as it does a cow (or so a meat inspector suggested to me in conversation back then).
The fact that many poor people are reduced to eating crap (affordable, mechanically recovered “meat” etc) – is a problem that could and should be fixed.
Agreed, and it seems to me that the most practical way to do that is via increased wages and benefits. In the absence of any political will for price controls, whether or not price controls would be a sensible solution.
And the irrigated water to grow pasture, and the water used to grow imported feed?
Those are mainly features of dairy rather than meat production. But yeah, over-intensive dairy farming in inappropriate places has a huge environmental impact, and not just through water usage.
So maybe the answer is to be mindful rather than ideologically hell-bent one way or the other.
Absolutely. There aren’t any environmentally-friendly ways of feeding 9 billion people and climbing, plant-based or not.
The core message of the article was not about vegetarianism or meat consumption, but about how city liberals have fundamentally lost touch with the physical country and the entire agricultural economy of New Zealand.
If you really want to put your money where you mouth is, go buy a farm or work on it.
This is the core message.
That meat eating is under pressure because of people ‘s concerns about sustainability.
I quote….
“’Farmers just aren’t respected’ – that’s the Kiwi message to Europeans who are eating less meat. We kick off a three-week series with an investigation into how environmental sustainability concerns are putting the heat on meat.”
The article ends precisely with how farmers are reacting to foreign markets, and indeed how German farmers are respected while ours are not, which is why so many New Zealand farmers are reacting so well.
More accurately, how intensive propaganda campaigns by vegetarians are putting the heat on meat. But I guess it’s true that that’s not what the article was investigating…
News stories like this prompt responsible and caring people to reconsider their lifestyle choices.
We have a 2020 deadline to avert climate catastrophe: experts.
HUMANITY must put carbon dioxide emissions on a downward slope by 2020 to have a realistic shot at capping global warming at well under two degrees Celsius, the bedrock goal of the Paris climate accord, experts said Wednesday.
A world that heats up beyond that threshold will face a crescendo of devastating impacts ranging from deadly heatwaves to mass migration caused by rising seas, the experts warned in a commentary published in the science journal Nature.
With 1.0 degree Celsius of warming so far, ice sheets that could lift oceans by a dozen metres are melting more quickly, coral reefs are dying from heat stress, and ever more damaging storm surges are hammering coastal communities.
Er, yes. That’s relevant to this discussion how, exactly?
To avoid the parade of non sequiturs that characterise your attempts at argument, you need a means of identifying how something like the quote in the above comment is relevant to the claim you’re making. In this instance, you need to demonstrate that humans eating shite like soy instead of proper food will put carbon dioxide emissions on a downward slope – otherwise, the comment makes no sense.
15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’
A new, dire “warning to humanity” about the dangers to all of us has been written by 15,000 scientists from around the world.
The message updates an original warning sent from the Union of Concerned Scientists that was backed by 1,700 signatures 25 years ago. But the experts say the picture is far, far worse than it was in 1992, and that almost all of the problems identified then have simply been exacerbated.
Mankind is still facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, they warn. And “scientists, media influencers and lay citizens” aren’t doing enough to fight against it, according to the letter.
If the world doesn’t act soon, there be catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery, they warn.
Eat less meat to avoid dangerous global warming, scientists say.
Research led by Oxford Martin School finds widespread adoption of vegetarian diet would cut food-related emissions by 63% and make people healthier too.
Intensive livestock-rearing is a major cause of greenhouse gases, in part because of the methane produced by the animals and the massive slurry pits that accompany large farms. It also diverts water and grains to animal-rearing, which is less efficient than directing the grains towards direct human consumption.
And this one is, yet again, evidence that feeding human-edible crops to livestock is an incredibly wasteful way of farming. Stopping that would reduce food-related emissions a lot, as the study points out, but it doesn’t necessarily involve a vegetarian diet.
15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’
We have a 2020 deadline to avert climate catastrophe: experts.
Eat less meat to avoid dangerous global warming, scientists say.
Scientists Make Case For Eating Less Meat In 2018.
Climate scientists at the University of California at Davis say one option is to help slow climate change by adopting a low-emissions diet.
Maya Almaraz, a postdoctoral researcher at the university, says while people may feel helpless when it comes to an issue as large as a warming planet, the data shows that personal decisions really can have a big impact.
Almaraz says the single biggest move you can make, in terms of diet to reduce methane and carbon pollution, is by putting less meat on your plate.
Changing how we grow food. Transitioning from industrial farming to regenerative agriculture and horticulture. Food forestry, polyculture systems, permaculture.
Eat seasonally and locally. Stop expecting food to be shipped from the other side of the world or the other end of the country. Support local growers and farmers who are trying to sell outside of the export market. Especially small to medium growers, and people who live on the land.
Grow what you can, if you can afford to pay someone else to grow for you. The more food we have growing in our neighbourhoods, the less we will need industrial agriculture.
Eat less meat if you eat a lot, eat the whole animal, not just the choice bits. Eat feral meat.
Eat less dairy. Eat dairy that comes from sustainable sources.
Support human animal husbandry, including free range animals (those farmers are the ones I’m talking about above, generally much closer to sustainability).
If you can’t do lots of those things, then agitate and lobby and protest to make those things happen. If you can do those things, then agitate and lobby and protest to make those things happen sooner.
Support the protest movement against Fonterra and Big Dairy, but support the farmers that are doing the right things. They’re not going to go away, so we need the people of means to start buying their produce not that of Big Farmer.
Stop wasting time and energy trying to convert everyone to being vegan. It’s not going to happen on a large scale, and you are promoting choices that support industrial agriculture. Put your energy into sustainable forms of food production.
+100
Exactly what’s happening where I am atm mostly. They even seem to know how to process cow shit properly. 40feet below the surface the most pridtine water is pumped. What the place needs tho is a ban on plastic and better disposal/recycling which causes extensive littering in places.
How Does Meat in the Diet Take an Environmental Toll?
A lifecycle analysis conducted by EWG that took into account the production and distribution of 20 common agricultural products found that red meat such as beef and lamb is responsible for 10 to 40 times as many greenhouse gas emissions as common vegetables and grains.
Our meat consumption habits also cause other environmental problems. A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms (also called concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs)—whereby pigs and other livestock are contained in tight quarters—can produce as much sewage waste as a small city
How’s about you find ‘an angle’ and explore/debate/argue it, as opposed to throwing out a confetti of links?
Comment after comment of “cut/paste/link” really isn’t any different to comment after comment containing video links, and is about as worthwhile from the standpoint of anyone reading a thread – ie, it’s just not really worthwhile at all.
It also damages whatever point it is you’re trying to make around things you think of as so important or feel so passionate about when you “soap box” and “megaphone” them in this way.
‘It’s great to see a lot more New Zealanders will learn about how they can help mitigate climate change by adopting a plant based diet or by eating less meat.’
1. I see a pattern of scientists in countries where feeding human-edible crops to livestock is the norm, conflating that appallingly wasteful agricultural practice with a meat-based diet. That Scientific American article you link to is even illustrated with a photo of cows in a shed eating some kind of grain, as though that were the only way of producing meat that’s possible. “Scientists” should know better.
2. I see a pattern of Ed arguing from authority as usual.
Still, thanks for linking to that Scientific American article, because it does lay out clearly the basis for claims that eating meat is more environmentally damaging than eating plants:
Livestock are typically fed corn, soybean meal and other grains which have to first be grown using large amounts of fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, water and land.
Well, yeah, that’s pretty stupid, right? So, what about farming in New Zealand, in which sheep and beef cattle are typically fed the grass that’s growing in the paddock they live in? Gosh, somehow these American authors haven’t thought about that, America being as much of the world as a person needs to think about.
This one’s also characteristic of vegetarian propaganda:
A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching.
Those damn cattle! If only everyone ate a vegetarian diet, no land would be being cleared for farming! Right? Amiright? Er, no, wait – I’m wrong. People in Brazil would be cutting down the rainforest for whatever agriculture was currently being practiced, because humans.
In a modern agricultural economy your argument depends on whether the cattle in question are being farmed for domestic consumption or export profit, just as our dairy farms are all about dried milk solids these days.
Not much need to cut down national parks for farming unless we can’t actually feed ourselves, eh.
No, my argument depends on whether there’s something specific about cattle that prompts people in Brazil to cut down rainforests, which there isn’t. What’s actually prompting people to cut down the rainforests is money, and if there were suddenly no money in cattle there’d be money in something else – if Ed had his way, in soy or whatever else vegans eat, for instance.
Actually science is now finding that grazing is an important factor in increasing carbon sequestration in soils. An interesting article is here:
Those who champion soil carbon for climate mitigation frequently look to grasslands, which cover more than a quarter of the world’s land. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, grasslands also hold 20 percent of the world’s soil carbon stock. Much of this land is degraded, as evidenced in the U.S. Great Plains and places like northern Mexico, Africa’s Sahel, and Mongolia.
Seth Itzkan — founder of Massachusetts-based Planet-TECH Associates, a consulting firm specializing in restoration ecology — advocates Holistic Planned Grazing (HPG), a model developed by Zimbabwean wildlife biologist Allan Savory. In this practice, livestock are managed as a tool for large-scale land restoration, mimicking the herding and grazing patterns of wild ruminants that coevolved with grassland ecosystems. Animals are moved so that no plants are overgrazed, and grazing stimulates biological activity in the soil. Their waste adds fertility, and as they move in a herd their trampling aerates soil, presses in seeds, and pushes down dead plant matter so it can be acted upon by soil microorganisms. All of this generates soil carbon, plant carbon, and water retention. Savory says HPG doesn’t require more land — in fact it generally supports greater animal density — so it can be applied wherever livestock are raised.
An increase of 1 ton of soil carbon pool of degraded cropland soils may increase crop yield by 20 to 40 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) for wheat, 10 to 20 kg/ha for maize, and 0.5 to 1 kg/ha for cowpeas. As well as enhancing food security, carbon sequestration has the potential to offset fossil fuel emissions by 0.4 to 1.2 gigatons of carbon per year, or 5 to 15% of the global fossil-fuel emissions.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5677/1623.full
However one of the major factors in the loss of soil carbon content is tillage. This is because the carbon is sequestrated firstly through photosynthesis then passed through the plants roots to the bacteria and fungi that live around the plants roots. Tillage kills these micro-organisms and the carbon they contain re-enters the atmosphere as methane and CO2.
conversion from conventional till to no-till farming reduces emission by 30 to 35 kg C/ha per season
Does the change in lamb consumption from 19kg in 2006 to 0.9kg in 2016 sound right?
Is the DP wrong? 9kg would sound more reasonable.
[How’s about you use the reply buttons so you don’t squeeze out other topics others have posted on DV? Have shifted Carloyn nths comment this time, but would rather not have to spend time extracting “meat from the sandwich” as it were] – Bill
Lamb consumption collapsed around the same time it became ridiculously expensive.
Lamb is now a luxury item for Xmas, Easter and special occasions.
It is interesting how in a decade what was once regarded as a staple can become a luxury, and a warning that living in a country with an enormous food surplus is no guarantee of security of food supply if capitalism and market are solely responsible for regulating supply, because if that remains the case you can bet your bottom dollar armed police at the wharves would beat off crowds of starving new Zealanders if Fonterra thought it could get $1 more a kg for it’s butter in Dubai.
Yes, if you know to look in the frozen food rather than the fresh meat section. Quite often it seems frozen lamb is quietly disposed of in this way – and it is usually when I buy the stuff if i need a leg of sheep (although being the owner of a mob of 24-36 ewes and lambs we usually have our own home killed mutton and lamb).
The cuts of lamb in the fresh meat section – chops, lamb steaks, etc are very expensive.
Had shoulder chops for dinner tonight, coincidentally.
Pack says $11.99/kg down from $16.99, short dated.
Countdown online store has them on special for $12.99/kg down from $16.99
I suspect there might be seasonal gluts, because nature, but I do enjoy it when our tory brethren and sistren talk about the prices of basic grocery items like bread, butter, or meat. They never check before posting, and it just shows how out of touch they really are.
Lamb chops were a weekly regular – I’ve bought them maybe twice in the last twelve months.
We used to rotate our roasts – beef, lamb, pork, chicken each week. We hardly have them now and it’s whatever is the cheapest – that’s not normally lamb.
Kai provided and transport support from Auckland CBD available (please post in the event if you need a lift from the CBD). Interpreters available for speeches. Accessible venue. Face Fatale Facepainting available to decorate kiddies (and grown ups).
Put it in your diaries now whānau mā!
Address:
Ōtara Pool and Leisure Centre
Newbury Street, Ōtara
“Oh look, it’s a major theme in Marama Davidson’s speech.”
Talking about it in a speech is one thing, but when are we going to actually see some follow-through on that talk?
Ten moths till next Christmas, still no talk from the Greens on securing a little something extra for beneficiaries to help them over Christmas.
No pressure being publicly applied on Labour (by the Greens) to bring forward Labour’s campaign promise of lower doctors fees.
No pressure being publicly applied on Labour (by the Greens) to extend winter energy payments. It’s not only winter that beneficiaries tend to struggle with soaring power bills.
Can you point me to something substantive the Greens have done (or are currently working on) to improve their (beneficiaries) fiscal plight?
My guess is that you either didn’t listen to it properly (as in all of it), or you listened with blocked ears for only the things you could use to criticise them.
It’s patently obvious that you either have no idea how government and parliament and the Greens work (no shame there, lots of people don’t), or you dismiss all that because you are dedicated to the poison pen. There’s no point in saying anything about what the Greens have done on poverty since the last election, because you are already convinced by your own internal dialogue and will just dismiss it.
You never guess right when it comes to you guessing about me.
What should be patently obvious is I’m not one for lowering the bar. Hence, I’m not one for backslapping the team when they are failing to bring their A-game.
Moreover, I point out the flaws and provide alternatives to help improve their game – not because I’m dedicated to the poison pen.
Don’t you think they should be working on the things I highlighted above?
Here’s another, what work have the Greens done on trying to secure a living wage for those employed on the Governments tree planting scheme? Don’t you think other Green supporters would support them doing this and would want to be informed about them doing this?
“All the Greens can get is something for Conservation and Climate Change.”
Labour better think twice about that, because the Greens will struggle if that’s all they get and knowing how Labour is also going to disappoint, they are both going to need each other come next election.
Labour need to give the Greens a little win on lifting the incomes of beneficiaries (whether through a Christmas bonus, core benefit increase or extended and larger energy payment) to help them (thus also themselves) maintain their party support.
The Greens are free apparently to campaign all they want on anything so long as the MP themselves is not the responsible Minister. So they can get their own support, and can campaign for the next 2.5 years. From 6% the only way is up.
The latest poll has the Greens going downwards since the election.
Something which Labour should keep in mind, unless they think they can win the next election alone.
Ponder this:
The Greens have pretty much summed up what they plan to achieve this term (20 policy goals) and yet they’ve dropped in the poll.
And with nothing more up their sleeves coupled with supporter disappointment of swallowing some dead rats along the way, there is a real chance they won’t make the cut (5% threshold) come next election.
And while Labour have gone up on this poll, National still out-polls them.
So there is no comfortable lead for Labour to start forgetting they need the Greens. And the Greens need to give supporters a little more to keep them in the game.
But, as companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon vacuumed up more of people’s private information, European lawmakers upped the ante, intent on setting a new bar for data protection worldwide.
“We want to set the global standard,” Věra Jourová, the European commissioner for justice, told POLITICO last year. “Privacy is a high priority for us.”
Most multinational companies from Google to General Electric must comply with the new standards because of their existing activities in Europe. And smaller firms, even those currently with no operations in the EU, face a tough decision to either comply with the region’s stance on privacy or risk potential sanctions if European customers eventually sign up to their services.
For governments, the choice is often one of necessity. That’s particularly true as the EU now links potential free-trade agreements with demands that other countries adopt the region’s privacy standards through so-called “adequacy decisions.”
Israel and New Zealand are among a handful of international partners that have struck deals with the EU certifying that their data protection rules are equal to those of Europe. Only under those conditions can data — and billions of euros of trade — flow freely between the parties.
FTAs aren’t actually needed. Just the setting of standards.
Looks like it to me, too. I was at a customer focus group meeting a couple of weeks back, at which the large US company involved spoke explicitly about how the GDPR is forcing them to completely review their approach to privacy and security because they can’t run a two-tier system, one for Europe and one for everyone else. They’ll have to apply the European standard to everybody, which is great news for us but also means yes a “local” standard can have international effect if the locals are a significant enough proportion of the market.
How do these standards apply to employees? For instance, a photo of some can be classified as “personal data” because it identifies a person.
So, can an employer demand that an employee upload a photo of themselves to their work contact info on the organisation’s intranet- internal online directory?
Right up there along with demanding highly personal information as back up data to activate corporate log ins (cache very attractive to DOS attacks), making staff use external web based providers after providing your name & corporate email address ( surveys & the like) whose terms of trade let the third party keep your information forever, wanting Bio’s to put on public web pages, credit checking all your financial information including the size of your utility and mortgage payments
– the whole lot needs to be outlawed
That’s the funny bit – my public-sector employer doesn’t have any online business dealings with Europeans so doesn’t give a shit about the GDPR. Only the rapacious multi-national corporations we deal with will be operating at this higher standard, while we continue to do whatever NZ’s Privacy Act and the non-enforcement thereof will let us get away with.
The approach to employees is interesting. We’re supposed to make ourselves and our skills as public as possible via the University’s web site, because the University wants media, researchers, businesspeople etc to find us when they’re looking for expertise to work with. So, my name, photo, job title, work email address and phone number, and applicable expertise is publicly available on our web site. I do get to opt out of including my photo if I want to, and some of my female colleagues did refuse for fairly obvious reasons, and what description of your skills you post is up to you, but you don’t get any choice about having your name, job title and contact details public.
My public sector employer is asking for the photo to be uploaded by everyone, onto the organisation’s intranet, via a system owned by a German Company – not publicly available, but it can be viewed by all the large number of employees within the organisation.
And it gets linked with all the emails we send – at least within the organisation – not sure if it also is viewed by emails we send to people outside the organisation.
Only the rapacious multi-national corporations we deal with will be operating at this higher standard, while we continue to do whatever NZ’s Privacy Act and the non-enforcement thereof will let us get away with.
Apparently NZ has already signed an agreement with the EU saying that ours are as good as theirs.
but you don’t get any choice about having your name, job title and contact details public.
Seems reasonable as long as those contact details go through the university switch board.
Usually direct dial extensions at my workplace, unless sensitive staffing matters.
Some even have office room numbers online. It depends on the role.
Fortunately, I have a satellite office nestled amongst departments that aren’t my own, down a banal corridor, in an office with three people and a phone I never bother answering, 6,000 emails in my inbox so I accidentally miss the annual department photo days and the requests for updated bio information, and a handy back door I can escape out of should anybody actually want to talk to me…
Because anyone who needs to talk to me knows how to get in touch with me, and them that don’t know me should talk to someone else.
On my little macbook, when I try to log into TS on Firefox at home, I get a “bad request – can’t find server” notice. Then when I try to get back TS main page (still without having logged in), I still get the bad request notice for a short time.
But, I can log into TS from Safari on my macbook, and from firefox on my windows laptop at home, I can log into TS successfully.
Different programmes that do broadly the same thing can still do some things quicker than others. Firefox has some features that safari might not, and you can think of it as adding weight to what your machines have to carry (in addition to the weight they already carry simply from their operating system).
So on your desktop, it’s carrying an operating system, a whole heap of firefox features, and then signing in puts some extra tools and stuff on top – it’s a heavy load, but the desktop can carry it.
On your macbook, it’s like a kid (macbook) trying to carry the same load as an adult (desktop) – it can handle the operating system, and firefox, but then you stack encryption and sign in protocols on top and the poor wee thing drops the tool for finding a website server in a decent time.
But because safari is a bit lighter and easier for the kid/macbook to carry, when you put encryption and signup stuff on top of Safari, the kid can still carry the load.
There might be a server timeout setting you could tweak in preferences somewhere, but go with what works.
Hopefully this is a useful general illustration of what might be happening, but it’s also probably precisely wrong, depending on the exact circumstance 🙂
Why have are these star gazing people around Papatuanuku whinging about Peter Becks and his team Humanity STAR . Its not like the Humanity Star is going to blind the Beautiful nite Sky the star is not going to be up there for ever . The Humanity Star is in my view a symbol that has a message to all Humans we are one Race the Human race.
We live in Heaven now so lets speak up now and not let other Idiots turn Papatuanuku into hell which is were we are heading rapidly. Mother Earth is a finely balanced living being as with any living thing to much of one thing IE in this case Carbo in her atmosphere is causing her to heat up . We have had a lot of extreme weather in just one year . Global Warming is the biggest threat to Humanity and everyone is just sitting on there hands letting Trump suppress The words GLOBAL WARMING /CLIMATE CHANGE from the MSM around OUR Papatuanuku .Some people are countering that farcical behavior by Trump who is drunk on his power of President. I say we should tell him to get———and use these words to tell everyone around our world that Global Warning is going to make our Mokos /grandchildren’s future a nightmare for the 99% while the 1% live in location and structures that minimize the catastrophic weather that is already starting NOW . What happens when we get 300 klm winds 50 foot sea level rise. The climate change deniers say Antarctica wont melt because it is that high in mother earths Atmosphere its to cold up there to melt .I say the Ice will melt from the bottom up and If Antarctica melts Tangaroa will rise at least 70 mts we will be like rats on a sinking waka who gets the high ground well the 1% that’s who back to Peter Beck .
When he launched the Humanity star into our space this action in my view has achieved 2 very Great things one is the message To Human’s we are all humans so start behaving like intelligent Humane Beings the other is he saves cost on another test flight to prove that he can put a object in space now they can launch Satellites into space and start off a billion dollar industry in little old Aoteaora/New Zealand Ka pai Peter and your team . PS all the NAY SAYERS are in reality help the Humanity Star get the message out there I loved fishing off Mahia Coast when I was younger beautiful views Nga mihi nui koutou ka kite ano
With regard to Peter Beck, Rocketlabs and the Humanity star.
I’m personally not that exited about Rocketlabs. The company is partly funded by Lockheed Martin, the USA largest defence contractor. They’re also funded by DARPA, a USA government agency involved in military research.
Rocketlabs is also now a USA registered company.
Is it possible Rocketlabs is testing this new rocket technology for possible future military applications? So much for the ” Humanity Star”.
Astronomical photos are long exposure, which increases the chance the disco ball will pass through the shot. And it’ll add to the light fuckage of whatever observation it passes through.
It’s in a very low orbit, so it will only ever be visible close to the horizon, and just after sunset or just before sunrise. Not many serious observations happen then. I’d be surprised if it reflected enough city lights to interfere with proper dark-night observations. Still, it’s a particularly wanky bit of wankery, although not quite in the league of Elon Musk putting one of his cars into orbit.
I forgot to post this link for my post P.S everyone has a different view on reality some people are just jealous shonky and bill could have help fund Peter Ka pai
While the “Me Too” divas and Harpo Windy made grand Obama-esque speeches at the Golden Globes the other week, they for some reason completely ignored the plight of this young woman….
Everything wrong with the reaction to Ahed Tamimi’s prosecution for slapping an Israeli soldier
Where were the international calls for compassion, the reminders that this was a potentially traumatised child?
by HIBA KHAN, Tuesday 2 January 2018 16:00 GMT
Everyone now knows that 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier. How many of us know about the events that led up to this? Telling half of a story can be more of an injustice than fabricating the entirety, and in this instance, it most certainly is.
The viral video of Tamimi attempting to hit Israeli soldiers was reportedly the reason for her subsequent arrest and detention. Now let’s consider the background context to this video: Soldiers had apparently parked themselves on Tamimi’s family’s land shortly after their colleagues shot her 14-year-old cousin in the face with a rubber bullet and fired tear gas at their house, smashing windows. Her family says she was merely expressing legitimate protest at this treatment.
Living in fear of this sort of treatment remains the reality for 21st century Palestinians, without whose freedom Nelson Mandela observed that all of humanity’s freedom is incomplete. The UN Security Council deems Israeli settlements “a flagrant violation under international law”, and the sad reality for Palestinians is a life deprived of healthcare, an economy, a justice system, living in abject poverty with no food or water security and military violence against them and their children.
What we see in the widely circulated video of Ahed Tamimi slapping a soldier is the response of a bereaved, oppressed child – a child who is now being condemned and abused across social media. Context is important. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
Take a moment to picture a 16-year-old you know being raised in a country where violence and military occupation is the norm, where she is sometimes unable to access food, water and healthcare. Would they not be in pain, and frustrated and angry with the unfairness of the situation? Now picture their home being raided and them witnessing a younger cousin being shot in the head by a soldier. Would they not attempt to remove the soldiers from their front lawn as Tamimi did? Would they not become even more distraught when the soldiers refuse? Would they not, perhaps, lash out?
When an unarmed child is prosecuted for slapping a larger grown man in army gear equipped with a gun, it’s time to ask questions.
I saw no #IAmAhed. No uproar from feminist groups or international political recognition as there was for Malala, another child who lived in a country where oppression is often the norm. Instead of Nobel prizes and invitations to meet presidents, Ahed Tamimi remains in Israeli detention, having been labelled “dangerous”.
Our compassion and humanity for children growing up with the psychological wounds of living in a conflict zone apparently do not stretch so far as to accommodate girls like Ahed. Apparently, the brutality that Palestinians face is too politically complex and messy to render this strong beautiful girl fully human. But it’s more important than ever that, when we look at the pictures of this teenager in handcuffs, we see her for the child she really is. Don’t tell me the courthouse is where she belongs, and don’t tell me that international condemnation rather than understanding and compassion is what she deserves.
Concur with your sentiments wholeheartedly @ Morrissey (8).
Something is definitely not right about international response to the unjust incarceration of Ahed. The only conclusion I can come to is that the world is too uncaring to be concerned about the plight of a 17 year old Palestinian girl, for fear of repercussions from tyrannical Israel and its supporters. If that is the case, then ignoring the situation, is giving Israel more power to continue its atrocities against Palestinians, which in the end, comes down to absolute shame on the rest of the world.
I doubt anyone will be surprised by Marama Davidson’s announcement that she’s standing for co-leader. Whoever gets the job will be well qualified. Go the Greens!
In her announcement, Davidson is speaking about the struggles of low income people, inequalities, our poor prison system, homelessness, against underemployment, the working poor, etc…for state housing, for providing more opportunities for young people, for fairness and income equality…. etc
There are 119 other politicians in Parliament who ‘speak’ to these issues on a predictably regular basis, and particularly around election time, but not all of them are as genuine and authentic as Marama Davidson. I’m sure the DP brigade is trying to find & dig up dirt on her …
It is the wellbeing of our living systems and our people that will sustain us. For the many, not just for the few.
Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.
“To deliver on all of those visions and policies that our people and our environment so desperately need, we must return to Parliament in 2020 with much greater numbers”
Sounds like she telling us not to expect much from them this term. Sad.
And isn’t she meant to be one of the fighters within the party?
No. it’s just acknowledging they dropped in the numbers of MPs in the last election.So, part of their aims should be to increase their numbers next election.
It’s a speech to launch her campaign to be selected as co-leader of the Greens. It’s not a speech to meet the incessant and child-like needs of some dude on the internet who doesn’t understand how things work.
“The fact you failed to come back with something constructive, opting instead to take a potshot at me, is disappointing and a worry.”
No, it’s really not. I write whole posts on this kind of thing. Other people write whole posts in this kind of thing. The Greens write whole posts on this kind of thing. They also have multiple twitter accounts, press releases, and a whole website full of policy.
You on the other hand, almost never go and do your homework and find out about the things you are complaining about, and instead sit in the comments section of The Standard and take pot shots at the Greens for not doing what you want to them to do. When people do respond with analysis and evidence, you usually dismiss it.
There is no way I am going to respond proactively to any alleged points you raise because your whole point here is to undermine the Greens. It’s a waste of my time, and other peoples imo, to engage with you as if your comments are meaningful. This doesn’t mean you don’t have good ideas, I’m commenting here on *how you choose to present them.
After reading yet another story about meth/P addiction I am beginning to wonder just why NZ appears to be making virtually no progress on this insipid drug over the last decade.
For all the meth busts reported, nothing seems to change or make a dent in the market. Why could that be? Just going to put this out there….. are police paid a decent wage these days? Are some of them supplementing their income by turning a blind eye?
I really feel something is very off with the big picture, are those in positions of power keeping the meth/P market going, am not talking about gangs, I’m talking about white collars. Something doesn’t sit well with the whole situation.
“There is a rise and it’s right across the board. There are 700,000 people in New Zealand with addiction-related problems.
“The meth dealer is targeting families with money in Hamilton and that’s no different to anywhere else, ranging in age from 19 to 42.
Articles say importation is done a lot by gangs and organised crime, while it’s also easy to make it in NZ.
A few articles are blaming Guangdong province in China as being a major centre exporting world wide. Others blame importation to NZ on stuff coming from various Sth East Asian countries. Don’t know how accurate that is.
The Guangdong province, in mainland China, has been known as being home to China’s “Breaking Bad” for several years and plays a major role in Australia’s growing meth, or ice crisis.
One hotspot, Lufeng, an industrial city of 1.7 million people in Guangdong, is so notorious for drug manufacturing it has become known as the “city of ice” by many social media users.
They say it’s easier to slip drugs through customs when there are a lot of legitimate imported products coming from the same countries.
Meanwhile, the Nat government was blamed for focusing more on imprisoning addicts than prevention. Plus, the under funding of police is being blamed. Some are also complaining the police are spending too much time and resources on targeting cannabis use.
I have to agree, Cinny that something is definitely not ok – they seem to have an infinite amount of money/staff to fly around the north spraying marijuana crops which are doing no harm, but are not interested when people ‘dob in’ meth producers. I hear tell of such responses as ‘yes we know about them’ and all of a sudden nothing happens!
Am so hearing you Jan, it’s the same around the top of the south.
I feel someone/something is propping up and continuing to enable the P trade in NZ, gangs are just small fry in the bigger picture and make a palatable scape goat for the public. Am not putting down the police but unfortunately there are rotten people in all facets of society. The gangs aren’t innocent but they are little fish in this picture. The police have been underfunded for so very long, but there’s more to it than that me thinks.
Precursors for the P appear to come via asia, makes one reflect on rich asian donators for various entities.
Where is the anti P advertising/messages/help etc? Should have be all over the telly and social media etc, a long time ago.
Something really stinks about the whole situation, am hoping our new government are brave enough to make a real difference.
Yes we need to be aware of where things are ourselves, and not have tourist maps published, and get in ourselves and pick the stuff. Pool resources and get a vehicle to travel together and pick for instance.
I found when involved in community that beneficiaries, who have a big need for good fresh food, were unable to go to the sites and get it, and when it was brought in to a central point couldn’t manage to get in and collect it there even when it was very accessible. People need support from helpful agencies as they are not able to take up every opportunity that presents.
Because we are rather tired of concern trolls masquerading as real lefties, then constantly nagging about how Labour or the Greens aren’t left enough. Just as Weka and Robert Guyton pointed out above.
The actor is still present next door she has changed her behaviour instead of parking her car on the lawn close to my house she is parking it on the other side of a tree she is now wearing long baggie track suite pants instead of revealing shorts .At least my neighbors are looking down there noses at her and thanks to thestandard site I have checked this cowardly move played by the sandflys .
My problem is what about the people that are getting set up by other sandflys they don’t have a site like thestandard to save there asses ECO MAORI feels sorrows for all these people whom will be mostly Brown.
But let’s all just keep all OUR heads in the sand and pretend that OUR justice systems are all good after shonky has given the sandflys all the power to use and abuse against mostly Brown people. You see people they Don t see US Brown people as there equal in there reality I’m just a Brown savage that deserves to be locked up in a cell for life.We don’t deserves to live in the same Neighborhood as them. ANA TO KAI
Ka kite ano
Uncalled for rudeness – and if you can’t work out what he’s talking about then you either have some huge gaps in your knowledge or you’re not ‘listening’
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...
Local body politicians are concerned that the hostile online environment might deter people from running, and want British-style laws to prevent "online attacks". So what sorts of attacks are they concerned about? Death threats (illegal under the Crimes Act)? Sustained ...
When allegations emerged that civilians had been killed during an SAS raid in Afghanistan, NZDF was absolutely unequivocal in its denials, both the Ministers and the public. Since then, we've learned that they were well aware that there were reports ...
Over the past few months, we've seen a number of local authorities respond to public pressure over climate change by declaring a climate emergency. So what should they do next? Writing in The Spinoff, Sarah Thomson has some suggestions. Most ...
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...
Victory, But Not Ours: Trump uses his deplorable words in exactly the same way as C.S. Lewis' wicked queen, Jadis, used her single 'Deplorable Word'. To win – no matter what the cost. He knows the power of words. He ...
Seeking Refuge: Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph fleeing persecution in Palestine or Judea? Were they Palestinians or Jews? Green MP, Golriz Ghahraman, in describing the Holy Family as Palestinian refugees, touched off a firestorm of controversy, demonstrating the sinister ease ...
Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...
According to every manmade climate change cultist on Earth, the pacific islands of Tuvalu are being flooded by rising sea levels. In fact, incredibly even a google search will bring up an immediate claim the islands are almost underwater! The ...
Firstly, it’s important you know that I am not paid by fossil fuel companies, nor do I have any association with them at all, and in fact I’m not a fan of any industry that doesn’t do it’s best to ...
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...
Our conversations and push against specific supremacist and ultra-Nationalist groups, and the pseudo-intellectual underpinnings of them, need to mature at all levels. But in doing so, it’s going to have to include a more thorough and brutally honest self-examination ...
Why do so many people mistrust the police? Because they pull shit like this:The police are flouting the rules on breath testing, carrying out tests in people's homes to catch them out sometimes up to two hours after they were ...
I have been reading and listening to the aftermath of Trump’s comments about the four female first term Democratic representatives, all of whom are “people of color.” I found the US coverage interesting both as evidence of partisanship and the ...
The Herald reports that the housing shortage / bubble has hit a new level:New Zealand is short of 130,000 homes, the tally having risen lately by 30,000, two economists say. Jarrod Kerr and Jeremy Couchman, Kiwibank economists said: "This time ...
Milk producer Fonterra is one of New Zealand's biggest coal-users, using it to power all its South Island (and a few of its North Island) dairy factories. They'd previously "committed" to not building any new coal boilers after 2030. Now, ...
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...
Yesterday the government released its discussion document on action on agricultural emissions. As sadly usual, it proposed enormous subsidies for farm emissions, including for nitrogen-based fertiliser. This is a huge mistake. In addition to being one of the chief drivers ...
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act (this replaced their previous plans to hold a secret consultation with handpicked people). 285 people submitted on ...
Always Playing Catch-Up: Throughout the 1970s, the purchasing power of the ordinary worker’s pay packet – the only meaningful measure of his or her wealth – was being eaten away every passing year by seemingly inexorable rises in the cost-of-living. ...
The Interim Climate Change Committee's report on Action on agricultural emissions: Evidence, analysis and recommendations was finally released today, and as you might guess from the title, it is recommending that we actually act, rather than let farmers keep ...
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...
Agriculture is our biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for 48% of the total. It follows that meeting any credible emissions reduction target requires cutting agricultural emissions, most likely by having fewer cows. But National thinks people shouldn't be ...
How scummy is the UK Home Office? This scummy:The Home Office lied to EU member states to remove victims of human trafficking and modern slavery in breach of European law, according to whistleblowers. Legal experts have said the practice is ...
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...
“We wuz robbed!” is the classic cry of the disappointed losers of a closely contested sporting contest – it is very much to the credit of the Black Caps that we heard no such sentiment from them following the stunning ...
The Youth Parliament is being held this week, and some of the youth MPs are campaigning for a lower voting age:Molly Doyle, 17, is one Youth MP who wants this to change. She is part of a non-partisan campaign run ...
Up till now, Australia has made its living by digging up coal and exporting it to other countries, destroying the global climate in the process. But now they have a new option: exporting solar power:The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep ...
Later this month, thousands of people are expected to march to parliament as part of the #HandsOffOurTamaraki movement. At its heart, the movement is about preserving whānau and demanding that the state stop removing children from their whānau, hapū and iwi. ...
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh The recent statements made by the former FARC commander, Carlos Lozada (legal name Julian Gallo), where, from his seat in Congress, he praised the Colombian Army demonstrate how low the farianos have sunk. Lozada began by ...
A Woman’s Place is on the Podium was a public meeting in London on 10 July to discuss women’s sports and the impact of transwomen competing against women. The venue was sold out with a packed hall of 750 people. ...
Last month I talked about the no-fly movement: people who refuse to fly or limit it to absolute necessity to avoid destroying the climate. Now, that movement has a somewhat surprising new member: Dutch airline KLM:Dutch airline KLM has launched ...
In the 1960's, humanity faced a terrible threat: global thermonuclear war. Nuclear weapons were uniquely destructive and dangerous, and if more countries got them, the logic of MAD and the pre-emptive strike would put us on a hair-trigger to destruction. ...
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...
Matariki has been and gone, but this year we saw a couple of op-eds arguing that it should be a public holiday, replacing the foreign monarch's fake birthday. And now, New Zealand Republic - a group which campaigns for an ...
The discussion on the quality of economic advice, which we reported last week, has spilled over into a discussion about whether so many senior appointments should be of non-New Zealanders. Recall I discussed the failure to develop career paths within ...
When Nicky Hager revealed US footage of the Operation Burnham raid, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, one of the obvious questions was whether Ministers had seen it - and in particular, whether they'd been told that it ...
Northern Ireland is the Alabama of the UK: a backwards region where women and gay people are denied fundamental rights. But Westminster has just decided to fix that:MPs have voted resoundingly to extend same-sex marriage and access to abortion to ...
There's a problem with "synthetic cannabis", and not just the one you think. It's the name.We're in the midst of a wave of news stories that link synthetic drugs to serious harm, through deadly road accidents and accidental overdoses (which ...
Ranjit Kauri, The Dancing Maharani and Other Stories, Swansea, Head and Heart, 2019, £6.99; reviewed by Don Franks Working people are not the same country to country. Our struggles for a better life take place in surroundings of very different ...
Let's Do Them! All Jacinda Ardern has to do to clinch the 2020 General Election is frighten the bejesus out of the electorate by describing in the most graphic terms imaginable what will happen to all the positive beginnings her ...
It may be that we have all misinterpreted the somewhat surprising “bromance” between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. It has been all too easy to assume that it is Kim who is cosying up to Trump rather than the ...
by Michael Roberts So the full circle is completed. The corrupt pro-business conservative New Democracy party in Greece that was ousted by the anti-capitalist Syriza party in 2015 has been returned to office in yesterday’s general election, with an outright ...
When the Australian government passed a series of new spy laws over the last few years, they pinky-promised that they wouldn't use them to spy on journalists and subvert freedom of the press. They lied:The anti-encryption laws passed by the ...
From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, ...
When she was standing for office, Jacinda Ardern promised she would take abortion out of the Crimes Act. And to be fair, there was some early action on that, with an immediate referral of the issue to the Law Commission ...
When the government introduced the Zero Carbon Bill, people rightly asked what they planned to do to reduce transport emissions, which basicly had no policy at all other than the ETS. Today, they responded, announcing a "feebate" system which would ...
At almost every level, the problem with medicinal cannabis is a lack of good information. In the US, FDA regulations make it hard to research. Most doctors aren't familiar with what research there is and most patients don't know either. ...
Redline is critical of Corbyn for his political weaknesses, but he’s no anti-Semite. There is no substance to the McCarthyist witch-hunt being run by the right wing, and the pro-Israel lobby inside and outside the Labour Party in the UK. ...
The government's billion trees program is the sort of policy which could make a real difference to our emissions and the fight against climate change. But climate scientist Jim Salinger isn't convinced:The Forestry Minister Shane Jones' one billion trees won't ...
Last month the government was celebrating another surplus. Meanwhile, children are starving:One in five children are living in households where putting food on the table is a struggle, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health. It found ...
Show Me The Money! The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Auckland mayoral challenger, Tamihere, has some solid points to make. ...
If we are to avoid making the earth uninhabitable, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to practically nothing over the next decade. But that will still leave us with the problem of the carbon we have already emitted, which ...
Former Waikato DHB CEO Nigel Murray allegedly misused public funds, spending more than $120,000 of public money on unjustified travel. He was forced to resign and the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation. But despite the SFO finding that the ...
Jeremy Corbyn, we are told, is being advised – not least by his deputy (as well as by some of his would-be successors) – that he must come “off the fence” on the Brexit issue if he wants to bolster ...
The End of Life bill has been read a second time and is now heading for the House for further debate. Personally, I support the proposal. I don't ever epect to take advantage of the Bill's provisions myself, but as ...
Before the substantive issue which this column is about – whether there has been a deterioration in the economic advice given to the government – a paragraph about the budget leaks.read more ...
Below is a translation of the editorial in the June 24 round of weekly workplace bulletins issued all over France by the revolutionary workers’ organisation Lutte Ouvriere. Last Saturday, 8,000 people took to the streets of Belfort (eastern France) to ...
Why hasn't Parliament followed the lead set by our local authorities and declared a climate emergency? The answer is the National Party:The Prime Minister’s admission that she is open to the idea of declaring a climate change emergency is nothing ...
Back in May the government released its Zero Carbon Bill. While much of the bill was welcome, there was one big exception: it contained a secrecy clause, requiring the Climate Change Commission to maintain secrecy over practically everything it does. ...
by Phil Duncan This past week has marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Stonewall Inn riots in Christopher Street, New York, the event generally regarded as kicking off the gay liberation movement. Quite a few articles have ...
Southland - land of coal-burning dairy farmers - has become the first region in the country to explicitly vote against declaring a climate emergency. Their reason? They didn't want to "devalue" the word "emergency". Its an argument addressed powerfully in ...
New Zealand has a problem with police chases: officers going after fleeing drivers like rabid dogs, without any consideration for proportionality or public safety, often with fatal results. And according to an in-depth article in the Guardian today, the UK ...
The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...
A new digital platform aims to make it easier for small businesses to access services from multiple government agencies, leaving them more time to focus on their own priorities. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash ...
Million-dollar start to gun collection eventsPolice Minister Stuart Nash says a solid start has been made to the gun buyback and amnesty after the first weekend of community collection events. “Gun owners will walk away with more than ...
Police Minister Stuart Nash has praised Police and gun owners after the first firearms collection event saw a busy turnout at Riccarton Racecourse in Christchurch. “Police officers and staff have put a tremendous effort into planning and logistics for the ...
Seventy-eight new Police constables are heading out to the regions following today’s graduation of a new recruit wing from the Royal New Zealand Police College. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the record high number of new Police officers being recruited, ...
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...
Announcement today by the Prime Minister of further gun law reform is being shrouded by fear, so that scrutiny of the law is seen as an affront to the victims of the horror attack in March. The Prime Minister acknowledged ...
Misgivings about the practicality and cost of a firearms register is likely to dominate feedback from rural areas on the second round of proposed Arms Act amendments, Federated Farmers says. ...
School Strike 4 Climate NZ organisers Sophie Handford and Raven Maeder delivered a clear message to over 600 local government mayors, chairs, chief executives and councillors at the recent LGNZ conference : make climate change a priority. ...
The Police Association, Te Aka Hāpai backs the government’s emphasis on public safety as the driver of its second tranche of amendments to New Zealand’s firearms law, announced today. ...
The growing housing shortage crisis about more than supply and demand- it is about inequity. Recently released analysis by Kiwibank shows that last year’s “severe” shortage of housing has worsened, with the shortfall growing from 100,000 to 130,0000 ...
One of the country’s largest district health boards has a severe shortage of hospital specialists, says the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is joining opposition to possible regulations on the strength of nicotine vaping liquid. Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “The Government would certainly benefit from regulations on the strength ...
The Meat Industry Association (MIA) is calling for significant changes to the Zero Carbon Bill with a new analysis using the Government’s preferred modelling indicating that the proposed methane targets are excessive if all other gases go to net zero. ...
Victoria University Feminist Organisation and ALRANZ Abortion Rights Aotearoa, in conjunction with the VUW Feminist Law Students, Organise Aotearoa, Fem Force, and with the support of VUW Student Association announced they are sponsoring a march ...
With the Government's firearm buyback scheme starting to draw over 30,000 police man hours away from fighting crime, the safety of law abiding citizens is being compromised. ...
Social Credit Party leader Chris Leitch is calling on the sale of Westland Milk to Chinese company Yili to be put on hold pending an approach to the Government by Westland Milk for funding assistance. ...
Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa seems intent on ensuring the Government’s vaping legislation will heavily target flavours and nicotine levels – a move that would be completely counterproductive to helping Kiwis quit smoking and achieving ...
A new website has launched in response to recent RNZ reporting about Police in Dunedin unlawfully entering people’s homes and breath-testing them. “I was disgusted when I saw what they cops were doing in Dunedin. Their behaviour undermines all of ...
The Head of the New Zealand Maori Council has called for the Government to hold an immediate investigation into the global cosmetics company Sephora after they were caught dumping waste hundreds and thousands of waste paper products embedded with ...
Hundreds of whanau and Maori leaders gathered at a hui in Mangere last weekend where they voted unanimously for an inquiry into Oranga Tamariki. The historic meeting called for a child welfare framework to be developed by Maori, for Maori. ...
Simon Shepherd: The government says its agreement with farmers, that they should pay for agricultural emissions, is historic. But there's no agreement on how. One proposal says farmers should pay a 5 per cent emissions tax. Another suggests farmers ...
The O’Brien Institute for Public Health at Calgary University has just released their report on fluoridation. This institute has, up to now, been staunchly in favour of fluoridation. However, yesterday, with regards to fluoride’s effect on the brain, ...
July 19 (BusinessDesk) - The government is looking to tighten control and impose harsher penalties after the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak revealed cracks in the country's stock management system. ...
Kia Anga Mua Ngā Hapū o Ngāpuhi (KAM) has reached a pivotal milestone following a hui yesterday at Waitangi with the Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little. ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the Government spent $133,530 on producing its ‘Wellbeing Budget’ document, a cost blowout largely driven by spending on graphic design and photography. The $133,530 price tag compares to $86,268 ...
Kahungunu Māori Language Awards. Nominations closed on 5 July 2019, and were judged by the Senior Management Team of Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated. The judges wish to acknowledge the very high calibre of all nominations received making it a very ...
High Court of Australia Judge, Justice Stephen Gageler, will address recent criticism of court judgment delays in Australia, at the University of Canterbury (UC) on 23 July at 6.15pm. ...
This summary is provided to assist in the understanding of the Inquiry’s proceedings but does not constitute the official record. The full Minute is available at the link below. ...
The Tertiary Education Commission is laying charges under section 292A of the Education Act 1989 against three individuals for making a false representation for the purpose of receiving, or continuing to receive, free tertiary education from a tertiary education ...
New Zealand food businesses today welcomed a trio of new food safety tools, designed to make it faster, easier and more affordable to follow the rules and keep consumers safe. ...
AUT research shows that Māori children are almost four times more likely than those of European descent to be placed out of home by child protection services ...
The Government announced today that grants of up to $2,500 for energy efficient heaters are now available as part of the Government’s Warmer Kiwi Homes programme. ...
Fonterra’s use of coal has been the target of numerous grassroots campaigns in recent years. Last year 350 Aotearoa affiliated groups, Fossil Free Aoraki and 350 Nelson launched a petition dismissing the dairy giant’s initial target of no new ...
Information sessions on proposals for The Medicinal Cannabis Scheme take place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the next fortnight. The sessions are open to anyone with an interest in learning more about the proposed scheme. ...
“Our children are our most vulnerable, most innocent victims and we do not want to see any more children harmed by these ‘known sex offenders’. The safety of our community must be the paramount consideration.” ...
“The announcement that Fonterra will immediately stop installing any new coal boilers or increasing capacity to burn coal is the signal that the biomass fuel supply industry welcomes” said Brian Cox, Executive Officer of the Bioenergy Association. ...
18 July 2019-- Coal Action Network Aotearoa (CANA) today welcomed Fonterra’s commitment to build no new coal plants, a “no brainer” for the climate crisis the world faces. The group has been urging this transition for six years now and ...
The increase in demand for cage-free eggs is set to continue according to animal rights organisation SAFE, who says the egg industry should expect this and prepare. ...
Wellington, New Zealand – 350 Pacific made a formal submission to the New Zealand Government’s Environment Parliamentary Select Committee on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, led by the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCWs) based in ...
There used to be a school of thought on the centre right side of politics that the best way to neuter the Greens as a political force would be to let them have a spell in government. Then, according to ...
Today (18 July) is Nelson Mandela International Day when the United Nations highlights the importance of humane conditions of imprisonment. In New Zealand our prisons are overcrowded and understaffed. At 214 prisoners per 100,000 people, we have the fifth ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa will take legal action over the lengthy delay in implementing pay increases for teachers. Novopay announced yesterday that teachers would have to wait until 11 September to see pay increases that they won when they settled ...
EDS has filed its submission on the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill. The Bill sets targets for greenhouse gas reductions, provides for the government to set a series of carbon budgets, and sets up a new, independent, Climate ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has identified an absurd case of mission creep at Wellington City Council: the decision to spend $21,750 on two Consumer NZ investigations into different brands of bike lights. ...
The Motor Trade Association is welcoming the release of the Government’s new draft road safety strategy. MTA Chief Executive Craig Pomare says the association is pleased to see vehicle safety has been made a priority in the Road to Zero ...
The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704 ...
The government's silence on the fact that the country's second-largest milk processor is on the brink of becoming 25% Chinese Government owned has been deafening. ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Second round of gun law changes announced, hundreds with conditions like Down syndrome get early Kiwisaver, and a major refusal to participate in March 15 inquiry.The second major phase of ...
Almost as soon as it was announced, the Royal Commission tasked with probing the lead-up and response to the terrorist attacks in March attracted criticism, both over the process and its engagement with Muslim groups. Former race relations commissioner Joris ...
Following the Silver Ferns’ World Cup victory, another New Zealand team playing korfball – netball’s European cousin - are about to make world championship history of their own. ...
A victim of domestic violence has had to find alternative accommodation after Oranga Tamariki breached her privacy for the second time in three years. ...
While researching NZ on Air for a recent history, Duncan Greive noticed a shocking 30 year trend.News broke over the weekend that Love Island NZ, Three’s biggest announcement of the year, will now not screen in 2019, and realistically is unlikely ...
Joseph Nunweek joins the adoring throngs gathered at the Melbourne Town Hall to watch the New Zealand prime minister. The warm feeling is contagious, but a question hangs in the airThursday, 18 July: a big night for New Zealanders in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentForeign affairs – Australia Sam Sachdeva (Newsroom): Ardern in ...
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...
ANALYSIS:By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...
The Māori Affairs Select Committee has recommended that anyone wanting to use the word 'Parihaka' for commercial purposes must get permission from the Parihaka Papakainga Trust. ...
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...
ByRNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...
The architect of the incredible turnaround the Silver Ferns have enjoyed is now off-contract. So now that the World Cup has been won, how can Netball NZ keep Noeline Taurua on the books? Radio NZ’s Ravinder Hunia recounts the journey ...
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...
Fifteen tracks, 22 guests, one album. The Spinoff Music listens to Ed Sheeran’s No. 6 Collaborations Project and considers why each track really shouldn’t work – and the sometimes surprising reasons why they do.1. Beautiful People – KhalidKhalid and Ed ...
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...
New Zealanders with life-shortening congenital conditions will have early access to their KiwiSavers after a man with Down Syndrome convinced the government to change the rules. ...
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University In a world run ragged by multiple crises and an unravelling of American global leadership, military confrontation in the Gulf poses risks ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Dalton, Conjoint Senior Lecturer School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle Over recent months, the news has been saturated with headlines claiming we’re experiencing a “killer flu season”. Researchers ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Beer, Dean, Research and Innovation, University of South Australia Australia’s biggest city is abuzz with news of yet another housing development declared unsafe for human habitation. This time it is apartments ...
Open Mike 04/02/2018 
In the wake of the March 15 mass-murder, the government moved swiftly to ban semi-automatic firearms, weapons for which there is really no case for being allowed to own in New Zealand. and now, it has announced phase two of ...14 hours ago
I have been unimpressed with Western corporate media coverage of the tensions involving Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. They repeat the line that Iran is the source of current tensions, that it is a major sponsor of terrorism, that ...2 days ago
2 days ago
2 days ago
Much like Tuvalu, the manmade climate change Cult love to tell people the Maldives is almost totally underwater. In fact the dishonest Maldives Govt d on the same bandwagon, believing they would receive billions of dollars aid from other Countries ...2 days ago
As the entry on Wikipedia shows (and no, one doesn’t necessarily have to regard Wikipedia as the be-all and end-all of truth, because it isn’t on a great many things, to agree with the following): “…a fallacious argument that concludes ...2 days ago
by Daphna Whitmore The story of how the world awoke to a big injustice is starting to be told. The Pacific Games held this month in Samoa is another chapter. On the podium was Laurel Hubbard, the giant transgender weightlifter, ...3 days ago
Our conversations and push against specific supremacist and ultra-Nationalist groups, and the pseudo-intellectual underpinnings of them, need to mature at all levels. But in doing so, it’s going to have to include a more thorough and brutally honest self-examination ...4 days ago
Something I missed: not only did Youth MPs declare a climate emergency; they also launched a campaign to lower the voting age to 16:Youth Parliament week in Parliament has seen the establishment of Make it 16, a campaign to ...4 days ago
The proposed Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill treats biogenic methane emissions differently from all other carbon emissions. The latter are to be measured net so that emissions from fossil fuels can be offset by carbon stored in trees. ...5 days ago
by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh This article aims to answer a simple question, whether the conflict is only a rural one or whether it is also urban. The verb ‘to be’ is conjugated in the present tense as ,despite what some ...6 days ago
6 days ago
On Sunday July 7, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate Health Minister Julie Anne Genter announced their intention to review the Ministry of Health’s Funded Family Care policy and repeal Part 4Aof the 2000 NZ Public Health and Disability Act. These are festering injustices ...7 days ago
Belle is a lovely fifteen year-old border collie who belongs to our friends and neighbours at Bryan’s Beach, Michael and Judy Corboy. Belle, in her old age, can hardly see or hear, but – as a constant participant at social ...7 days ago
An occasional series where I will ponder allegations of anti-Semitism directed at the British Labour Party and its members.In this case, we are thinking about an allegedly anti-Semitic image shared by a Labour Party member. Its origins appear to be ...2 weeks ago
2 weeks ago
2 weeks ago
The first full week of the firearms buy-back and amnesty has produced a strong turnout as events roll out nationwide for the first time. “Momentum is slowly starting to build as community collection events are held across the entire country, ...22 hours ago
Media statement on behalf of Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie and Donna Marie Tai Tokerau Hall: Māori Television has admitted publishing false allegations about former High Court justice, Sir Edward Taihākurei Durie, and his wife, Donna Hall, and it has ...11 hours ago
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Second round of gun law changes announced, hundreds with conditions like Down syndrome get early Kiwisaver, and a major refusal to participate in March 15 inquiry.The second major phase of ...12 mins ago
Justice Minister Andrew Little reached consensus with NZ First on a draft bill that would remove abortion from the Crimes Act. ...26 mins ago
Almost as soon as it was announced, the Royal Commission tasked with probing the lead-up and response to the terrorist attacks in March attracted criticism, both over the process and its engagement with Muslim groups. Former race relations commissioner Joris ...37 mins ago
Fraser Newman tells of opening Atlantis Books in Rotorua and Tokoroa – and having to close shop in Whakatāne. ...2 hours ago
Following the Silver Ferns’ World Cup victory, another New Zealand team playing korfball – netball’s European cousin - are about to make world championship history of their own. ...2 hours ago
As NZ Bird Rescue cares for record numbers of ruru/morepork at Auckland, one theory is they're being poisoned. ...2 hours ago
A swamp kauri log exported to China sparked deep discussion among forestry public servants over what is art and what is a log. ...2 hours ago
Anna Rawhiti-Connell shakes her head at the state of our health system, urging MPs to take their duties seriously. ...2 hours ago
A victim of domestic violence has had to find alternative accommodation after Oranga Tamariki breached her privacy for the second time in three years. ...2 hours ago
While researching NZ on Air for a recent history, Duncan Greive noticed a shocking 30 year trend.News broke over the weekend that Love Island NZ, Three’s biggest announcement of the year, will now not screen in 2019, and realistically is unlikely ...2 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Martin Parkinson, secretary of the Prime Minister’s department, has cleared Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop of breaching the government’s code of ministerial standards with their ...5 hours ago
Sam Brooks reviews the second season of Big Little Lies, which generated as much social media conversation as its first season did critical acclaim, for better and worse.Light spoilers for the second season of Big Little Lies.Big Little Lies felt like the ...11 hours ago
Cross-party consensus on gun law reform was a one-time wonder. ...11 hours ago
ANALYSIS: By David Robie Indonesia recently hosted a bold public relations window-dressing expo in Auckland presenting itself as a “Pacific” nation while attempting to provide an unconvincing impression of normality in the two Melanesian provinces known collectively as West ...11 hours ago
Taxing vacant land would be too complex to implement and achieve little - it would be better for the Government to push local councils to implement rates based on land value rather than capital value. ...11 hours ago
European politics is a strange business. Where voters can choose candidates, who disappear after the elections. Where right-wing governments nominate left-sounding candidates. ...13 hours ago
A decade on from his darkest hour, can the NZ First leader again defy the odds and keep his political career alive? ...13 hours ago
Ruby Porter’s debut novel, Attraction, is a lucid, layered story of three young women on a road trip across the North Island. It’s one of the best books we’ve read this year. Here, Ruby writes about her grandmother – who ...14 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific West Papuan fighters have killed an Indonesian soldier in a renewed threat to Jakarta’s road project there. State news agency Antara reported the hit-and-run attack on Saturday took place in Nduga regency, where pro-independence forces are ...14 hours ago
In 2003 the Silver Ferns won the Netball World Cup, breaking the Australian Diamonds’ 16-year winning streak. In 2019, they’ve just done the same thing. Leana de Bruin was a rookie in that 2003 team, and talked to The Spinoff ...14 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Associate Professor, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT University A Perth man who pleaded guilty to distributing an intimate image of his ex-girlfriend without her consent has been sentenced to a ...14 hours ago
The second tranche of proposed far-reaching changes includes a gun register, tighter licensing rules, and five-year licences. ...15 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Charles Sturt University The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code ...15 hours ago
One of the many unspoken rules of British life is that when one is drinking at the pub with others, one buys rounds. For the naive New Zealander, it’s stressful AF, says Elle Hunt.At the pub one Friday night in ...16 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer, The University of Queensland Dry, moist, productive, hacking, chesty, whooping, barking, throaty. These are just some of the terms people use to describe their cough. While we’re deep ...16 hours ago
The government is planning an overhaul of biosecurity funding, but a lack of detail is making farming sectors nervous. ...16 hours ago
What if you could grow a house from seed or 3D print a new subdivision in a week? The housing sector is ripe for disruption – could technology be the magic bullet we need?Jo Aitken sounds like she’s pitching an ...17 hours ago
By RNZ Pacific Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape wants Australia to close the detention centre it has been running on PNG’s Manus island for six years. According to Australian media, Marape has asked Canberra to give him ...18 hours ago
More must be done to tackle critical skill shortages in project management and leadership, the head of the Registered Master Builders Association says. ...18 hours ago
Emily Writes on her journey from reasonable trepidation to sweet love for the video game Minecraft.It was barely a week after I said to my sister “I don’t let the boys play any games” that my children’s Minecraft obsession began. ...20 hours ago
Sephora store employees may have swept some confetti down Auckland city’s drains on Saturday, and people got angry… at an entire generation. On Saturday, French cosmetics giant Sephora opened its first New Zealand store on Auckland’s Queen Street. Excited makeup enthusiasts ...21 hours ago
More than 20,000 Aucklanders don’t have access to regular showers or the ability to wash their clothing. Alice Webb-Liddall tags along on a shift with Orange Sky, who are giving homeless people back these basic needs.On an overcast Friday morning ...22 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ashlee Curtis, Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Deakin University The Victorian government introduced 24-hour public transport on Friday and Saturday nights in Melbourne from January 1 2016. Services mostly run every hour ...23 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Senior Fellow, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University If the first week of the 46th Parliament was heavily ceremonial – dominated by the new governor-general, a raft of first-time MPs ...23 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richard Braczkowski, PhD Candidate – Wildlife Cameraman, The University of Queensland Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalise on the billion-dollar success of ...23 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Over the past few weeks, artists from around Australia have been creating small artworks depicting the endangered black-throated finch and sending them ...23 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Campbell, Associate Professor, University of Sydney New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made a “captain’s call” in recent months that raised the ire of many parents, teachers and education groups. She ...23 hours ago
An excellent article, part of a longer investigation.
It’s great to see a lot more New Zealanders will learn about how they can help mitigate climate change by adopting a plant based diet or by eating less meat.
There is a lot in the passage worth reading,
Here are some highlights.
“The average Kiwi eats 20kg less meat amid concerns over sustainability of agriculture.
As environmental concerns grow, so do the number of Kiwis choosing to adopt a meat-free lifestyle. A 2016 ANZ Roy Morgan poll showed one in 10 Kiwis follow a vegetarian diet – a 27 per cent increase in just five years.
In terms of sustainability, a low-meat diet is leagues ahead of a meat-rich diet.
There’s no escaping the reality of the environmental impact of agriculture. Collectively dairy, beef and sheep generate more than 97 per cent of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand and almost half of the total green house emissions for the country.
Since 2002 the number of total dairy cattle has risen. As a result, the emissions created by dairy has doubled since 1990.”
It is clear from reading the article, that If you are concerned about climate change,you can do something.
Adopt a plant based diet.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/100735629/the-average-kiwi-eats-20kg-less-meat-amid-concerns-over-sustainability-of-agriculture
A misleading piece of propaganda for vegetarianism, would be a better description.
Like you, it takes figures for the environmental impact of feeding grain crops to livestock and presents them as though they applied to New Zealand.
It also presents a graphic, again based on overseas farming practices, claiming meat uses a lot of “scarce” water, ignoring the fact that NZ livestock mostly use water that falls onto the farm as rain. And then captions it “A meat-eaters carbon footprint is much higher than that of a vegetarians,” as though that were what the graphic shows!
When you look at the article’s meat consumption figures, it’s pretty clear that rising prices and scaremongering about red meat have pushed people towards eating more chicken and pork. Whether there’s also greater enthusiasm for vegetarian diets is open to question, although it wouldn’t be surprising given the amount of propaganda for it out there.
I’d be more interested to see an article that worked out the food miles involved in a typical NZ vegan’s diet, and some assessment of what it would mean for the New Zealand environment to switch from meat to large-scale production of soy and other shit food crops. People would be able to make more informed choices then.
I eat less meat now cause it’s so expensive.
The days of a roast every Sunday are long gone. It’s now about once every 3 months. Mince and sausages have generally replaced the regular steak / schnitzel, chops.
To be fair things like kumara and pumpkin are also very expensive.
We’re almost back to seasonal eating again where the seasonal veges are always cheaper.
We’re definitely back to growing some of our own.
Most people I know eat less meat because of the cost.
Some of this relates to more money going out in rent. It’s great that landlord’s can use people’s hard earned money to buy their meat though. At least someone can buy it.
Ain’t got nothing to do with making veganisitic choices.
For you.
But, as the article states, for others yes.
Wasn’t disputing that. It’s only gone from 8% to 10% though. Stating it as a 27% increase coming off a low base does make it seem a bit more dramatic and depending on the sample size may well be within the margin of error.
There’s no way those 2% of new vegans would be causing that volume of decrease.
I would suspect that it’s much more likely to be cost.
It’s only gone from 8% to 10% though.
D’oh! I missed that one. That’s another hallmark of misleading propaganda – make a small increase sound like a big one by quoting the relative increase rather than the absolute increase.
Whatever
And the irrigated water to grow pasture, and the water used to grow imported feed?
Meanwhile, the water consumption for vegan and vegetarian foodstuffs can also be hidden and enormous.
So maybe the answer is to be mindful rather than ideologically hell-bent one way or the other.
To be honest, I don’t quite get why people are hooked on beef and lamb – both increasingly expensive and out of reach for growing numbers of people – (though my understanding is that very large amounts of lamb is rustled…)
What’s wrong with wild goat, wallaby, rabbit, goose…? It isn’t that people are a bit “snobbish” and look on those meats as “shit food” by any chance?
All the hunters I know supply their friends and neighbours with eg: goat, venison etc.
I have a large chunk of venison in the freezer at the moment, though I won’t be eating it myself 🙂
Meanwhile supermarkets sell rabbit at $20 – $30 a kilo (bones included). That was a few years ago. Turns out it costs the same to put a rabbit through the compliance regime as it does a cow (or so a meat inspector suggested to me in conversation back then).
The fact that many poor people are reduced to eating crap (affordable, mechanically recovered “meat” etc) – is a problem that could and should be fixed.
Agreed, and it seems to me that the most practical way to do that is via increased wages and benefits. In the absence of any political will for price controls, whether or not price controls would be a sensible solution.
The courier is already on its way to bring that good thing over to my place.
And the irrigated water to grow pasture, and the water used to grow imported feed?
Those are mainly features of dairy rather than meat production. But yeah, over-intensive dairy farming in inappropriate places has a huge environmental impact, and not just through water usage.
So maybe the answer is to be mindful rather than ideologically hell-bent one way or the other.
Absolutely. There aren’t any environmentally-friendly ways of feeding 9 billion people and climbing, plant-based or not.
MMMMMM crickets.
The core message of the article was not about vegetarianism or meat consumption, but about how city liberals have fundamentally lost touch with the physical country and the entire agricultural economy of New Zealand.
If you really want to put your money where you mouth is, go buy a farm or work on it.
This is the core message.
That meat eating is under pressure because of people ‘s concerns about sustainability.
I quote….
“’Farmers just aren’t respected’ – that’s the Kiwi message to Europeans who are eating less meat. We kick off a three-week series with an investigation into how environmental sustainability concerns are putting the heat on meat.”
The quote starts with “Farmers aren’t respected”.
Not vegetarianism.
Start there and try to find some understanding.
The article ends precisely with how farmers are reacting to foreign markets, and indeed how German farmers are respected while ours are not, which is why so many New Zealand farmers are reacting so well.
‘an investigation into how environmental sustainability concerns are putting the heat on meat’
More accurately, how intensive propaganda campaigns by vegetarians are putting the heat on meat. But I guess it’s true that that’s not what the article was investigating…
Concern for the environment I’d say.
News stories like this prompt responsible and caring people to reconsider their lifestyle choices.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/we-have-a-2020-deadline-to-avert-climate-catastrophe-experts/news-story/bcbe18fd8f96efba3ae411f53a12de93
Er, yes. That’s relevant to this discussion how, exactly?
To avoid the parade of non sequiturs that characterise your attempts at argument, you need a means of identifying how something like the quote in the above comment is relevant to the claim you’re making. In this instance, you need to demonstrate that humans eating shite like soy instead of proper food will put carbon dioxide emissions on a downward slope – otherwise, the comment makes no sense.
Are you a fatalist, Ed?
No.
And I am not an ostrich with my head in the sand.
Or news stories like this
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/letter-to-humanity-warning-climate-change-global-warming-scientists-union-concerned-a8052481.html
Ditto.
and then they read this……
and then they act…..
What are you waiting for?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/eat-less-meat-vegetarianism-dangerous-global-warming
And this one is, yet again, evidence that feeding human-edible crops to livestock is an incredibly wasteful way of farming. Stopping that would reduce food-related emissions a lot, as the study points out, but it doesn’t necessarily involve a vegetarian diet.
15,000 scientists give catastrophic warning about the fate of the world in new ‘letter to humanity’
We have a 2020 deadline to avert climate catastrophe: experts.
Eat less meat to avoid dangerous global warming, scientists say.
http://upr.org/post/scientists-make-case-eating-less-meat-2018
Spot a pattern?
What do you think needs to happen to save us from more severe effects of climate change, as you do not think changing our diet is relevant?
Changing how we grow food. Transitioning from industrial farming to regenerative agriculture and horticulture. Food forestry, polyculture systems, permaculture.
Eat seasonally and locally. Stop expecting food to be shipped from the other side of the world or the other end of the country. Support local growers and farmers who are trying to sell outside of the export market. Especially small to medium growers, and people who live on the land.
Grow what you can, if you can afford to pay someone else to grow for you. The more food we have growing in our neighbourhoods, the less we will need industrial agriculture.
Eat less meat if you eat a lot, eat the whole animal, not just the choice bits. Eat feral meat.
Eat less dairy. Eat dairy that comes from sustainable sources.
Support human animal husbandry, including free range animals (those farmers are the ones I’m talking about above, generally much closer to sustainability).
If you can’t do lots of those things, then agitate and lobby and protest to make those things happen. If you can do those things, then agitate and lobby and protest to make those things happen sooner.
Support the protest movement against Fonterra and Big Dairy, but support the farmers that are doing the right things. They’re not going to go away, so we need the people of means to start buying their produce not that of Big Farmer.
Stop wasting time and energy trying to convert everyone to being vegan. It’s not going to happen on a large scale, and you are promoting choices that support industrial agriculture. Put your energy into sustainable forms of food production.
+100
Exactly what’s happening where I am atm mostly. They even seem to know how to process cow shit properly. 40feet below the surface the most pridtine water is pumped. What the place needs tho is a ban on plastic and better disposal/recycling which causes extensive littering in places.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meat-and-environment/
Ed.
How’s about you find ‘an angle’ and explore/debate/argue it, as opposed to throwing out a confetti of links?
Comment after comment of “cut/paste/link” really isn’t any different to comment after comment containing video links, and is about as worthwhile from the standpoint of anyone reading a thread – ie, it’s just not really worthwhile at all.
It also damages whatever point it is you’re trying to make around things you think of as so important or feel so passionate about when you “soap box” and “megaphone” them in this way.
My angle was this
‘It’s great to see a lot more New Zealanders will learn about how they can help mitigate climate change by adopting a plant based diet or by eating less meat.’
Spot a pattern?
I do. Actually, I see two patterns:
1. I see a pattern of scientists in countries where feeding human-edible crops to livestock is the norm, conflating that appallingly wasteful agricultural practice with a meat-based diet. That Scientific American article you link to is even illustrated with a photo of cows in a shed eating some kind of grain, as though that were the only way of producing meat that’s possible. “Scientists” should know better.
2. I see a pattern of Ed arguing from authority as usual.
Still, thanks for linking to that Scientific American article, because it does lay out clearly the basis for claims that eating meat is more environmentally damaging than eating plants:
Livestock are typically fed corn, soybean meal and other grains which have to first be grown using large amounts of fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, water and land.
Well, yeah, that’s pretty stupid, right? So, what about farming in New Zealand, in which sheep and beef cattle are typically fed the grass that’s growing in the paddock they live in? Gosh, somehow these American authors haven’t thought about that, America being as much of the world as a person needs to think about.
This one’s also characteristic of vegetarian propaganda:
A 2009 study found that four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest could be linked to cattle ranching.
Those damn cattle! If only everyone ate a vegetarian diet, no land would be being cleared for farming! Right? Amiright? Er, no, wait – I’m wrong. People in Brazil would be cutting down the rainforest for whatever agriculture was currently being practiced, because humans.
…rainforest…Those damn cattle! …
In a modern agricultural economy your argument depends on whether the cattle in question are being farmed for domestic consumption or export profit, just as our dairy farms are all about dried milk solids these days.
Not much need to cut down national parks for farming unless we can’t actually feed ourselves, eh.
No, my argument depends on whether there’s something specific about cattle that prompts people in Brazil to cut down rainforests, which there isn’t. What’s actually prompting people to cut down the rainforests is money, and if there were suddenly no money in cattle there’d be money in something else – if Ed had his way, in soy or whatever else vegans eat, for instance.
Actually science is now finding that grazing is an important factor in increasing carbon sequestration in soils. An interesting article is here:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/soil_as_carbon_storehouse_new_weapon_in_climate_fight
Indeed Carbon sequestration in soil could have a major impact of the reduction of atmospheric CO2.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/304/5677/1623.full
However one of the major factors in the loss of soil carbon content is tillage. This is because the carbon is sequestrated firstly through photosynthesis then passed through the plants roots to the bacteria and fungi that live around the plants roots. Tillage kills these micro-organisms and the carbon they contain re-enters the atmosphere as methane and CO2.
Thank you Ed, I admire your tenacity on this tricky topic.
Thank you for your support.
There is a lot of resistance to this important message.
Either we adapt or die.
Does the change in lamb consumption from 19kg in 2006 to 0.9kg in 2016 sound right?
Is the DP wrong? 9kg would sound more reasonable.
[How’s about you use the reply buttons so you don’t squeeze out other topics others have posted on DV? Have shifted Carloyn nths comment this time, but would rather not have to spend time extracting “meat from the sandwich” as it were] – Bill
It does seem dramatic.
The increase in chicken is a worry.
No wonder people’s defences against antibiotics is declining.
In the text the article say its 1 kg of Lamb AND Mutton!!
I don’t believe it!!
Bloody hell, I’m eating a lot of other people’s share in that case…
Lamb consumption collapsed around the same time it became ridiculously expensive.
Lamb is now a luxury item for Xmas, Easter and special occasions.
It is interesting how in a decade what was once regarded as a staple can become a luxury, and a warning that living in a country with an enormous food surplus is no guarantee of security of food supply if capitalism and market are solely responsible for regulating supply, because if that remains the case you can bet your bottom dollar armed police at the wharves would beat off crowds of starving new Zealanders if Fonterra thought it could get $1 more a kg for it’s butter in Dubai.
But the figure included mutton.
Price is a factor, but the figure still seems too low. (Especially with Psycho eating so much!!)
“Lamb is now a luxury item for Xmas, Easter and special occasions”
Lamb is often on special in countdown for around $10 a kilo, its cheap compared with beef. Luxury item, you have to be joking.
Yes, if you know to look in the frozen food rather than the fresh meat section. Quite often it seems frozen lamb is quietly disposed of in this way – and it is usually when I buy the stuff if i need a leg of sheep (although being the owner of a mob of 24-36 ewes and lambs we usually have our own home killed mutton and lamb).
The cuts of lamb in the fresh meat section – chops, lamb steaks, etc are very expensive.
” Lamb is often on special at Countdown for $10 kg”. Not so where I live. It has been years since that was the case.
Had shoulder chops for dinner tonight, coincidentally.
Pack says $11.99/kg down from $16.99, short dated.
Countdown online store has them on special for $12.99/kg down from $16.99
I suspect there might be seasonal gluts, because nature, but I do enjoy it when our tory brethren and sistren talk about the prices of basic grocery items like bread, butter, or meat. They never check before posting, and it just shows how out of touch they really are.
Personally I would fit those numbers.
Lamb chops were a weekly regular – I’ve bought them maybe twice in the last twelve months.
We used to rotate our roasts – beef, lamb, pork, chicken each week. We hardly have them now and it’s whatever is the cheapest – that’s not normally lamb.
So yeah my lamb consumption drop is massive.
snap
Actually, now you mention it I haven’t torn into a chop since forever.
Sorry thought i did.
It’s Marama’s announcement day today.
11am-2pm
Livestream for Marama’s announcement starts at 12.10pm today:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2097993280422412/permalink/2107403859481354/
With all this extravaganza, it seems the Greens have forgotten about the fight to improve the plight of beneficiaries.
I’m sorry to hear that you are unable to walk and chew gum at the same time, but you really shouldn’t assume that everyone else is equally incapable.
Oh look, it’s a major theme in Marama Davidson’s speech. “It seems” your credibility could diminish even further after all.
Yep. It’s the main part of the platform she is standing on for co-leader.
“Oh look, it’s a major theme in Marama Davidson’s speech.”
Talking about it in a speech is one thing, but when are we going to actually see some follow-through on that talk?
Ten moths till next Christmas, still no talk from the Greens on securing a little something extra for beneficiaries to help them over Christmas.
No pressure being publicly applied on Labour (by the Greens) to bring forward Labour’s campaign promise of lower doctors fees.
No pressure being publicly applied on Labour (by the Greens) to extend winter energy payments. It’s not only winter that beneficiaries tend to struggle with soaring power bills.
Can you point me to something substantive the Greens have done (or are currently working on) to improve their (beneficiaries) fiscal plight?
What did you think of Keira O’Regan’s speech?
What did you think of Marama Davidson’s speech?
“What did you think of Marama Davidson’s speech?”
See my comment at 9.1.1.1.2
“What did you think of Keira O’Regan’s speech?”
Haven’t had time to look at that one yet.
My guess is that you either didn’t listen to it properly (as in all of it), or you listened with blocked ears for only the things you could use to criticise them.
It’s patently obvious that you either have no idea how government and parliament and the Greens work (no shame there, lots of people don’t), or you dismiss all that because you are dedicated to the poison pen. There’s no point in saying anything about what the Greens have done on poverty since the last election, because you are already convinced by your own internal dialogue and will just dismiss it.
You never guess right when it comes to you guessing about me.
What should be patently obvious is I’m not one for lowering the bar. Hence, I’m not one for backslapping the team when they are failing to bring their A-game.
Moreover, I point out the flaws and provide alternatives to help improve their game – not because I’m dedicated to the poison pen.
Don’t you think they should be working on the things I highlighted above?
Here’s another, what work have the Greens done on trying to secure a living wage for those employed on the Governments tree planting scheme? Don’t you think other Green supporters would support them doing this and would want to be informed about them doing this?
Not going to happen.
All the Greens can get is something for Conservation and Climate Change.
I was guessing about what you did, but the rest is observation. If you don’t want to be perceived as a poison pen, then up your own game.
From your observation, what do you perceive to be wrong with highlighting things we think the Greens should be doing but don’t seem to be?
I’ve already said. It’s *how you do it.
Take my comment at 3.1.1.2.2 and point out what you perceived was wrong with how it was done?
Beneficiaries aren’t Green portfolios.
Beneficiaries can get nothing from the Greens in this term.
Wrong target.
But they promised to continue on the fight, thus supporters (speaking for myself, but am aware of others) expect them too.
“All the Greens can get is something for Conservation and Climate Change.”
Labour better think twice about that, because the Greens will struggle if that’s all they get and knowing how Labour is also going to disappoint, they are both going to need each other come next election.
Labour need to give the Greens a little win on lifting the incomes of beneficiaries (whether through a Christmas bonus, core benefit increase or extended and larger energy payment) to help them (thus also themselves) maintain their party support.
They really don’t.
The Greens are free apparently to campaign all they want on anything so long as the MP themselves is not the responsible Minister. So they can get their own support, and can campaign for the next 2.5 years. From 6% the only way is up.
The latest poll has the Greens going downwards since the election.
Something which Labour should keep in mind, unless they think they can win the next election alone.
Ponder this:
The Greens have pretty much summed up what they plan to achieve this term (20 policy goals) and yet they’ve dropped in the poll.
And with nothing more up their sleeves coupled with supporter disappointment of swallowing some dead rats along the way, there is a real chance they won’t make the cut (5% threshold) come next election.
And while Labour have gone up on this poll, National still out-polls them.
So there is no comfortable lead for Labour to start forgetting they need the Greens. And the Greens need to give supporters a little more to keep them in the game.
PS
I can’t see NZF making the threshold.
The event is now live streaming on Facebook, with one of the pre-Marama speakers.
Marama has just announced she has put herself forward for position of GP co-leader and is speaking to that.
As I’ve said:
FTAs aren’t actually needed. Just the setting of standards.
Looks like it to me, too. I was at a customer focus group meeting a couple of weeks back, at which the large US company involved spoke explicitly about how the GDPR is forcing them to completely review their approach to privacy and security because they can’t run a two-tier system, one for Europe and one for everyone else. They’ll have to apply the European standard to everybody, which is great news for us but also means yes a “local” standard can have international effect if the locals are a significant enough proportion of the market.
How do these standards apply to employees? For instance, a photo of some can be classified as “personal data” because it identifies a person.
So, can an employer demand that an employee upload a photo of themselves to their work contact info on the organisation’s intranet- internal online directory?
Right up there along with demanding highly personal information as back up data to activate corporate log ins (cache very attractive to DOS attacks), making staff use external web based providers after providing your name & corporate email address ( surveys & the like) whose terms of trade let the third party keep your information forever, wanting Bio’s to put on public web pages, credit checking all your financial information including the size of your utility and mortgage payments
– the whole lot needs to be outlawed
Hah! Thanks. That’s very helpful.
Just venting a little there – employers often don’t get to even first base on the respect employee privacy theme
That’s the funny bit – my public-sector employer doesn’t have any online business dealings with Europeans so doesn’t give a shit about the GDPR. Only the rapacious multi-national corporations we deal with will be operating at this higher standard, while we continue to do whatever NZ’s Privacy Act and the non-enforcement thereof will let us get away with.
The approach to employees is interesting. We’re supposed to make ourselves and our skills as public as possible via the University’s web site, because the University wants media, researchers, businesspeople etc to find us when they’re looking for expertise to work with. So, my name, photo, job title, work email address and phone number, and applicable expertise is publicly available on our web site. I do get to opt out of including my photo if I want to, and some of my female colleagues did refuse for fairly obvious reasons, and what description of your skills you post is up to you, but you don’t get any choice about having your name, job title and contact details public.
My public sector employer is asking for the photo to be uploaded by everyone, onto the organisation’s intranet, via a system owned by a German Company – not publicly available, but it can be viewed by all the large number of employees within the organisation.
And it gets linked with all the emails we send – at least within the organisation – not sure if it also is viewed by emails we send to people outside the organisation.
Wear a wig and have your old owl-sized spectacles on. Look okay just a bit different from usual.
Yeah. Some people use old photos, which isn’t that representative, but the admins who check it don’t know the difference, I think.
Apparently NZ has already signed an agreement with the EU saying that ours are as good as theirs.
Seems reasonable as long as those contact details go through the university switch board.
The PABX switchboard, not an operator.
Usually direct dial extensions at my workplace, unless sensitive staffing matters.
Some even have office room numbers online. It depends on the role.
Fortunately, I have a satellite office nestled amongst departments that aren’t my own, down a banal corridor, in an office with three people and a phone I never bother answering, 6,000 emails in my inbox so I accidentally miss the annual department photo days and the requests for updated bio information, and a handy back door I can escape out of should anybody actually want to talk to me…
Because anyone who needs to talk to me knows how to get in touch with me, and them that don’t know me should talk to someone else.
Scientists compare climate change impacts at 1.5C and 2C
Scary stuff.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1.5C-vs-2C-final-843×1024.jpg
https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-compare-climate-change-impacts-at-1-5c-and-2c
Something strange recently when accessing TS.
On my little macbook, when I try to log into TS on Firefox at home, I get a “bad request – can’t find server” notice. Then when I try to get back TS main page (still without having logged in), I still get the bad request notice for a short time.
But, I can log into TS from Safari on my macbook, and from firefox on my windows laptop at home, I can log into TS successfully.
Different programmes that do broadly the same thing can still do some things quicker than others. Firefox has some features that safari might not, and you can think of it as adding weight to what your machines have to carry (in addition to the weight they already carry simply from their operating system).
So on your desktop, it’s carrying an operating system, a whole heap of firefox features, and then signing in puts some extra tools and stuff on top – it’s a heavy load, but the desktop can carry it.
On your macbook, it’s like a kid (macbook) trying to carry the same load as an adult (desktop) – it can handle the operating system, and firefox, but then you stack encryption and sign in protocols on top and the poor wee thing drops the tool for finding a website server in a decent time.
But because safari is a bit lighter and easier for the kid/macbook to carry, when you put encryption and signup stuff on top of Safari, the kid can still carry the load.
There might be a server timeout setting you could tweak in preferences somewhere, but go with what works.
Hopefully this is a useful general illustration of what might be happening, but it’s also probably precisely wrong, depending on the exact circumstance 🙂
Why have are these star gazing people around Papatuanuku whinging about Peter Becks and his team Humanity STAR . Its not like the Humanity Star is going to blind the Beautiful nite Sky the star is not going to be up there for ever . The Humanity Star is in my view a symbol that has a message to all Humans we are one Race the Human race.
We live in Heaven now so lets speak up now and not let other Idiots turn Papatuanuku into hell which is were we are heading rapidly. Mother Earth is a finely balanced living being as with any living thing to much of one thing IE in this case Carbo in her atmosphere is causing her to heat up . We have had a lot of extreme weather in just one year . Global Warming is the biggest threat to Humanity and everyone is just sitting on there hands letting Trump suppress The words GLOBAL WARMING /CLIMATE CHANGE from the MSM around OUR Papatuanuku .Some people are countering that farcical behavior by Trump who is drunk on his power of President. I say we should tell him to get———and use these words to tell everyone around our world that Global Warning is going to make our Mokos /grandchildren’s future a nightmare for the 99% while the 1% live in location and structures that minimize the catastrophic weather that is already starting NOW . What happens when we get 300 klm winds 50 foot sea level rise. The climate change deniers say Antarctica wont melt because it is that high in mother earths Atmosphere its to cold up there to melt .I say the Ice will melt from the bottom up and If Antarctica melts Tangaroa will rise at least 70 mts we will be like rats on a sinking waka who gets the high ground well the 1% that’s who back to Peter Beck .
When he launched the Humanity star into our space this action in my view has achieved 2 very Great things one is the message To Human’s we are all humans so start behaving like intelligent Humane Beings the other is he saves cost on another test flight to prove that he can put a object in space now they can launch Satellites into space and start off a billion dollar industry in little old Aoteaora/New Zealand Ka pai Peter and your team . PS all the NAY SAYERS are in reality help the Humanity Star get the message out there I loved fishing off Mahia Coast when I was younger beautiful views Nga mihi nui koutou ka kite ano
With regard to Peter Beck, Rocketlabs and the Humanity star.
I’m personally not that exited about Rocketlabs. The company is partly funded by Lockheed Martin, the USA largest defence contractor. They’re also funded by DARPA, a USA government agency involved in military research.
Rocketlabs is also now a USA registered company.
Is it possible Rocketlabs is testing this new rocket technology for possible future military applications? So much for the ” Humanity Star”.
Astronomical photos are long exposure, which increases the chance the disco ball will pass through the shot. And it’ll add to the light fuckage of whatever observation it passes through.
It’s in a very low orbit, so it will only ever be visible close to the horizon, and just after sunset or just before sunrise. Not many serious observations happen then. I’d be surprised if it reflected enough city lights to interfere with proper dark-night observations. Still, it’s a particularly wanky bit of wankery, although not quite in the league of Elon Musk putting one of his cars into orbit.
I forgot to post this link for my post P.S everyone has a different view on reality some people are just jealous shonky and bill could have help fund Peter Ka pai
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11986005
While the “Me Too” divas and Harpo Windy made grand Obama-esque speeches at the Golden Globes the other week, they for some reason completely ignored the plight of this young woman….
Everything wrong with the reaction to Ahed Tamimi’s prosecution for slapping an Israeli soldier
Where were the international calls for compassion, the reminders that this was a potentially traumatised child?
by HIBA KHAN, Tuesday 2 January 2018 16:00 GMT
Everyone now knows that 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier. How many of us know about the events that led up to this? Telling half of a story can be more of an injustice than fabricating the entirety, and in this instance, it most certainly is.
The viral video of Tamimi attempting to hit Israeli soldiers was reportedly the reason for her subsequent arrest and detention. Now let’s consider the background context to this video: Soldiers had apparently parked themselves on Tamimi’s family’s land shortly after their colleagues shot her 14-year-old cousin in the face with a rubber bullet and fired tear gas at their house, smashing windows. Her family says she was merely expressing legitimate protest at this treatment.
Living in fear of this sort of treatment remains the reality for 21st century Palestinians, without whose freedom Nelson Mandela observed that all of humanity’s freedom is incomplete. The UN Security Council deems Israeli settlements “a flagrant violation under international law”, and the sad reality for Palestinians is a life deprived of healthcare, an economy, a justice system, living in abject poverty with no food or water security and military violence against them and their children.
What we see in the widely circulated video of Ahed Tamimi slapping a soldier is the response of a bereaved, oppressed child – a child who is now being condemned and abused across social media. Context is important. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
Take a moment to picture a 16-year-old you know being raised in a country where violence and military occupation is the norm, where she is sometimes unable to access food, water and healthcare. Would they not be in pain, and frustrated and angry with the unfairness of the situation? Now picture their home being raided and them witnessing a younger cousin being shot in the head by a soldier. Would they not attempt to remove the soldiers from their front lawn as Tamimi did? Would they not become even more distraught when the soldiers refuse? Would they not, perhaps, lash out?
When an unarmed child is prosecuted for slapping a larger grown man in army gear equipped with a gun, it’s time to ask questions.
I saw no #IAmAhed. No uproar from feminist groups or international political recognition as there was for Malala, another child who lived in a country where oppression is often the norm. Instead of Nobel prizes and invitations to meet presidents, Ahed Tamimi remains in Israeli detention, having been labelled “dangerous”.
Our compassion and humanity for children growing up with the psychological wounds of living in a conflict zone apparently do not stretch so far as to accommodate girls like Ahed. Apparently, the brutality that Palestinians face is too politically complex and messy to render this strong beautiful girl fully human. But it’s more important than ever that, when we look at the pictures of this teenager in handcuffs, we see her for the child she really is. Don’t tell me the courthouse is where she belongs, and don’t tell me that international condemnation rather than understanding and compassion is what she deserves.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ahed-tamimi-soldier-slap-israel-charges-court-everything-wrong-response-a8138276.html
Great post morrissey.
Concur with your sentiments wholeheartedly @ Morrissey (8).
Something is definitely not right about international response to the unjust incarceration of Ahed. The only conclusion I can come to is that the world is too uncaring to be concerned about the plight of a 17 year old Palestinian girl, for fear of repercussions from tyrannical Israel and its supporters. If that is the case, then ignoring the situation, is giving Israel more power to continue its atrocities against Palestinians, which in the end, comes down to absolute shame on the rest of the world.
#I’mwithAhed.
I doubt anyone will be surprised by Marama Davidson’s announcement that she’s standing for co-leader. Whoever gets the job will be well qualified. Go the Greens!
In her announcement, Davidson is speaking about the struggles of low income people, inequalities, our poor prison system, homelessness, against underemployment, the working poor, etc…for state housing, for providing more opportunities for young people, for fairness and income equality…. etc
There are 119 other politicians in Parliament who ‘speak’ to these issues on a predictably regular basis, and particularly around election time, but not all of them are as genuine and authentic as Marama Davidson. I’m sure the DP brigade is trying to find & dig up dirt on her …
Yep.
Full text of Marama’s speech today via Scoop
Ends:
This sentence alone makes me want Marama to win.
Apart from talking about it, what have the Greens done that has been bold and brave since the election?
Fair point.
Davidson will make a difference.
When do you expect Davidson will do something bold and brave?
Soon
Why are you asking all these picky questions?
“Why are you asking all these picky questions?”
To help clear the air between the lip service being touted and action taken.
“To deliver on all of those visions and policies that our people and our environment so desperately need, we must return to Parliament in 2020 with much greater numbers”
Sounds like she telling us not to expect much from them this term. Sad.
And isn’t she meant to be one of the fighters within the party?
No. it’s just acknowledging they dropped in the numbers of MPs in the last election.So, part of their aims should be to increase their numbers next election.
It’s called realism – you sure are nit picking.
To deliver on all of those visions and policies was her wording.
To further deliver would have been a better choice of words if she was only implying to requiring more support.
It’s called listening to what’s been said.
It’s a speech to launch her campaign to be selected as co-leader of the Greens. It’s not a speech to meet the incessant and child-like needs of some dude on the internet who doesn’t understand how things work.
“It’s not a speech to meet the incessant and child-like needs of some dude on the internet who doesn’t understand how things work.”
The fact you failed to come back with something constructive, opting instead to take a potshot at me, is disappointing and a worry.
To me, your response (a potshot) merely reinforces my point, as, evidently, you had no better counter.
“The fact you failed to come back with something constructive, opting instead to take a potshot at me, is disappointing and a worry.”
No, it’s really not. I write whole posts on this kind of thing. Other people write whole posts in this kind of thing. The Greens write whole posts on this kind of thing. They also have multiple twitter accounts, press releases, and a whole website full of policy.
You on the other hand, almost never go and do your homework and find out about the things you are complaining about, and instead sit in the comments section of The Standard and take pot shots at the Greens for not doing what you want to them to do. When people do respond with analysis and evidence, you usually dismiss it.
There is no way I am going to respond proactively to any alleged points you raise because your whole point here is to undermine the Greens. It’s a waste of my time, and other peoples imo, to engage with you as if your comments are meaningful. This doesn’t mean you don’t have good ideas, I’m commenting here on *how you choose to present them.
^^^^^
THIS
See my comment above (at 3:43 pm). You are way off.
The nit-picking Chairman selects snippets to create an atmosphere of insecurity and doubt; modus operandi.
Oh. Sounds like despite any suggestion I make it is BAU.
So what’s wrong with the revised TPP that Labour are happy to sign?
Jane Kelsey eloquently lays it all out:
https://itsourfuture.org.nz/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-tino-rangatiratanga-tppa-jane-kelsey/
Must read.
MomentumVerified account @PeoplesMomentum
Shock horror, Momentum members engage with Labour democracy review to make the party more democratic.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/momentum-plots-to-hijack-democracy-review-and-purge-moderate-councillors-5nk3jc078
After reading yet another story about meth/P addiction I am beginning to wonder just why NZ appears to be making virtually no progress on this insipid drug over the last decade.
For all the meth busts reported, nothing seems to change or make a dent in the market. Why could that be? Just going to put this out there….. are police paid a decent wage these days? Are some of them supplementing their income by turning a blind eye?
I really feel something is very off with the big picture, are those in positions of power keeping the meth/P market going, am not talking about gangs, I’m talking about white collars. Something doesn’t sit well with the whole situation.
None of the above: it’s because our level of inequality drives demand.
Totally agree.
Not entirely. I’ve looked at a few articles on it this arvo. There’s a world wide glut which is driving down prices.
There’s a significant number of middle class meth users (Feb 2017 article).
Articles say importation is done a lot by gangs and organised crime, while it’s also easy to make it in NZ.
A few articles are blaming Guangdong province in China as being a major centre exporting world wide. Others blame importation to NZ on stuff coming from various Sth East Asian countries. Don’t know how accurate that is.
An Aussie article from April 2017, saying they have the same problem:
They say it’s easier to slip drugs through customs when there are a lot of legitimate imported products coming from the same countries.
Meanwhile, the Nat government was blamed for focusing more on imprisoning addicts than prevention. Plus, the under funding of police is being blamed. Some are also complaining the police are spending too much time and resources on targeting cannabis use.
I have to agree, Cinny that something is definitely not ok – they seem to have an infinite amount of money/staff to fly around the north spraying marijuana crops which are doing no harm, but are not interested when people ‘dob in’ meth producers. I hear tell of such responses as ‘yes we know about them’ and all of a sudden nothing happens!
Am so hearing you Jan, it’s the same around the top of the south.
I feel someone/something is propping up and continuing to enable the P trade in NZ, gangs are just small fry in the bigger picture and make a palatable scape goat for the public. Am not putting down the police but unfortunately there are rotten people in all facets of society. The gangs aren’t innocent but they are little fish in this picture. The police have been underfunded for so very long, but there’s more to it than that me thinks.
Precursors for the P appear to come via asia, makes one reflect on rich asian donators for various entities.
Where is the anti P advertising/messages/help etc? Should have be all over the telly and social media etc, a long time ago.
Something really stinks about the whole situation, am hoping our new government are brave enough to make a real difference.
“am hoping our new government are brave enough to make a real difference”. Me too!
Did you see that link I put up about the spy???????????????????????????????????????? Cinny
Vegans make death threats against dairy farming couple for celebrating the birthdays of calves:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11987913
Result:
Their sales of home made dairy products go through the roof.
The relationship between the urbane liberals and the agricultural economy won’t be improved with death threats.
None of the threats were quoted or substantiated, nor were the identities of the on-line posters confirmed; were they vegans, or something else?
It read like a marketing exercise to me.
“Result:
Their sales of home made dairy products go through the roof.”
But then I’m just a cynical bored retailer…..
It’s a very poorly written article.
Who is eating what?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/101071529/foraging-foreigners–new-zealands-milk-and-honey-is-providing-for-our-tourists
Perhaps we should follow along and learn about our edibles in the wild.
Sorry, plenty of people already foraging in NZ and the last thing we need is to put places on a map so tourists can take it instead.
Yes we need to be aware of where things are ourselves, and not have tourist maps published, and get in ourselves and pick the stuff. Pool resources and get a vehicle to travel together and pick for instance.
I found when involved in community that beneficiaries, who have a big need for good fresh food, were unable to go to the sites and get it, and when it was brought in to a central point couldn’t manage to get in and collect it there even when it was very accessible. People need support from helpful agencies as they are not able to take up every opportunity that presents.
Are the Greens publicly supporting the call (see links below) to Pay the full Working for Families package to all low-income families on April 1?
If so, can anyone point me to it? And if not, why not?
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/02/pay-the-full-working-for-families-package-to-all-low-income-families-on-apil-1/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2018/02/01/child-poverty-targets-realistic-but-income-needs-urgent-child-poverty-action-group/
Because we are rather tired of concern trolls masquerading as real lefties, then constantly nagging about how Labour or the Greens aren’t left enough. Just as Weka and Robert Guyton pointed out above.
I’m not masquerading as a lefty.
The things (living wage, benefit increases, etc) I advocate for are things I genuinely want to see come about.
If you were a genuine lefty, you’d be advocating for these things too.
The actor is still present next door she has changed her behaviour instead of parking her car on the lawn close to my house she is parking it on the other side of a tree she is now wearing long baggie track suite pants instead of revealing shorts .At least my neighbors are looking down there noses at her and thanks to thestandard site I have checked this cowardly move played by the sandflys .
My problem is what about the people that are getting set up by other sandflys they don’t have a site like thestandard to save there asses ECO MAORI feels sorrows for all these people whom will be mostly Brown.
But let’s all just keep all OUR heads in the sand and pretend that OUR justice systems are all good after shonky has given the sandflys all the power to use and abuse against mostly Brown people. You see people they Don t see US Brown people as there equal in there reality I’m just a Brown savage that deserves to be locked up in a cell for life.We don’t deserves to live in the same Neighborhood as them. ANA TO KAI
Ka kite ano
I forgot to post this link for my post
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11986005
I really enjoy your good sorts Peter that is a good way to keep our kaumatua and the new mokos Ka pai one news
Ka kite ano
This isn’t facebook dude, no one has a clue what the fuck you’re rambling on about.
Same could be said to you BM 🙂
Uncalled for rudeness – and if you can’t work out what he’s talking about then you either have some huge gaps in your knowledge or you’re not ‘listening’
How unpleasant
BM is just irritated that he can’t quickly find some point that’s important to the writer that BM can rubbish.