His numbers are not accurate but the gist and ultimate question remain to be confronted…
"The one thing they will not do, however, is confront the brutal, but inescapable, truth that there is only one way this planet will be saved from the effects of the 9 billion human-beings living upon its surface; and that is for more than 8 billion of them to disappear. How that might be achieved, and who should take responsibility for achieving it, are questions which, to date, only novelists and science fiction writers have attempted to answer."
Inspired by weka's "Totally Shit Farming" post, here's a quick look at the status of non-cow dairy efforts.
tl;dr, one company has made and sold batches of icecream made from lab-grown whey and casein, and there's others not too far behind. To be sure, the tiny quantities involved make it a publicity stunt rather than a real product. But it's still a big milestone on the way to a real alternative to a cow.
That gives the farming lobby a reason to keep on with practices that can not be supported and avoid improving their approach. I like the idea of having milk from happy cows, given proper conditions and feed, it is a natural way of getting good food. But the ability to force-feed the animals, and manipulate them to the nth degree, take their colostrum, take the calves away from the mothers at an early age etc etc has warped the dairy system.
Having dairy replaced by tech is another step away from the needs of the populace; there is money to be made by making business from spoiling the planet and our traditional systems. It is happening with meat, milk, and further, our money exchange being replaced by electrified cards, and on.
Sure you've got a preference. And you've probably got a price differential point at which you're willing to pay extra to indulge that preference. But the vast majority of consumers? Not so much.
When lab-grown synthesised milk becomes an actual thing, something that's going to get a lot more publicity is how engineered the milk we buy already is. Between the cow and bottle, it's cooked, separated into its constituents, then reformulated back to just barely meet the minimum requirements of whatever category it's sold as. Lab-grown constituents will be just a minor change in that context.
When lab-grown synthesised milk becomes an actual thing, something that's going to get a lot more publicity is how engineered the milk we buy already is. Between the cow and bottle, it's cooked, separated into its constituents, then reformulated back to just barely meet the minimum requirements of whatever category it's sold as. Lab-grown constituents will be just a minor change in that context.
Cooking and pasteurisation aren't quite the same thing, but either can be done in a home kitchen. Full fat milk doesn't get much else done to it afaik, but do share because it's this kind of conflation that leads to people not trusting science.
Full fat milk gets the same separation then add back in treatment reduced fat and skim milk get.
Dairy giant Fonterra has two milk processing plants for local consumption, Palmerston North and in Auckland's Takanini suburb.
Fonterra's general manager of manufacturing operations Brendon Hurst said the first step was the separation of the cream or fat from the milk to add it back in later to ensure every glass of milk tastes the same.
The point is the milk we buy in the supermarket is a manipulated engineered product. It's had a shit load more done to it than just squirted out of a cow, made safe, and put in a bottle.
Forty-odd years ago as a kid doing a milk run I got a tour through the Palmy milk treatment plant. Part of that was tasting a small sample at each step along the way. And every step made a big difference. I'd imagine what was happening then is primitive compared to how it's manipulated now.
pasteurisation and separating cream from milk can be done at home. Homogenisation is a more industrial process but even that I think is a long step from lab dairy.
It's like people who think that splicing genes is the same as selective breeding. If it doesn't matter to you, that's great, you can eat lab dairy. But it will matter to many, and pretending those are all the same kind of tech will create confusion, division and resentment.
Looking back,it seems complex diets from simpler foods,greater (longer work) days, seem to have been a recipe for good health for the working class.
Mid-Victorian working class men and women consumed between 50% and 100% more calories than we do, but because they were so much more physically active than we are today, overweight and obesity hardly existed at the working class level. The working class diet was rich in seasonal vegetables and fruits; with consumption of fruits and vegetables amounting to eight to 10 portions per day. This far exceeds the current national average of around three portions, and the government-recommended five-a-day. The mid-Victorian diet also contained significantly more nuts, legumes, whole grains and omega three fatty acids than the modern diet. Much meat consumed was offal, which has a higher micronutrient density than the skeletal muscle we largely eat today [59]. Prior to the introduction of margarine in the late Victorian period, dietary intakes of trans fats were very low. There were very few processed foods and therefore little hidden salt, other than in bread (Recipes suggest that significantly less salt was then added to meals. At table, salt was not usually sprinkled on a serving but piled at the side of the plate, allowing consumers to regulate consumption in a more controlled way.). The mid-Victorian diet had a lower calorific density and a higher nutrient density than ours. It had a higher content of fibre (including fermentable fibre), and a lower sodium/potassium ratio. In short, the mid-Victorians ate a diet that was not only considerably better than our own, but also far in advance of current government recommendations. It more closely resembles the Mediterranean diet, proven in many studies to promote health and longevity; or even the ‘Paleolithic diet’ recommended by some nutritionists [60].
My uncle (born around WW1 I think) used to do that with his salt, got a lot of ribbing about it that he ignored. I have a context to put his habit in now.
I'll be reading the article. The nutrient density doesn't surprise me, the low levels of animal fat does.
Sure. I'd imagine in a possible future, those who find the distinction important will still be able to buy the boutique product from a cow at enormous price with emission fees, pollution fees, animal welfare fees and so on.
And those that don't care at all, or only care about nutritional value and taste, or can't afford the boutique stuff out of a cow, will end up eating cheese and yoghurt and maybe even directly drinking the stuff that comes from industrial vats.
What I'd like to see is more honesty about lab dairy. That it needs to be presented as being the same as cow's milk suggests there isn't as much acceptance of it as you believe.
Humans are omnivores, we can luckily survive by eating clay.
To me lab grown is the other extreme to industrial farming. As far removed from nature and natural occurance as can be giving a false sense of food security while the planet still is being treated as a rubbish bin.
so yes, ethical farming, less eating, paying the full price of food, paying even the full price of gasoline, and such. Cause us here in the spoiled western world we have not paid the full price on anything in a long time. We like the stuff that we eat, that we wrap our selfs in, that we use to enterain us, that houses us all to be cheap.
Just because humans can eat animal flesh doesn't mean they should.
I am genuinely interested in the ethics of killing an animal to eat it (or paying someone else indirectly to do it), which I'm sure the animal doesn't want, and which is unnecessary given humans can exist perfectly well on a plant-based diet.
The documentary evidence I've seen of animals going to slaughter kind of shows me they are not choosing to have their throats cut. They are sentient beings who feel terror just like we do.
And a balanced plant-based diet is healthy, nutricious and good for the planet. What's not to like about that?
As for the "documentary evidence", yeah nah. Persistent abstract memory, self awareness, reasoned anticipation of future events, and the ability to communicate abstract ideas are all part of a fundamentally different consciousness than biological impulse.
We shouldn't be cruel, but to equate a cow with a human is a moral equivalence that lacks any reasonable foundation.
Humans and all other living things must 'consume' nutrients to live. Some humans have an (over-)abundance of dietary choices, and so we have omnivores, vegetarians, vegans et al.
The known risks associated with 'veganism by choice' are easily mitigated, hence the paucity of reports of human health being compromised by veganism in the OECD.
If human civilisation reverts to a pre-industrial state, then veganism may be a less heathly ‘option’, but at the moment it seems a pretty good OECD option for the health of humans and the planet.
Not a choice I could make (yet), because I enjoy eating bacon, chicken, cheese et al. [dribble drool, slaver slobber] It's a delicious habit that is (on balance) bad for my health, and for the planet, but 'from my cold, dead mouth' and all that, although I’m eating less meat than I used to.
"Vegetarians should take some solace from the fact that meat consumption is declining in half of the countries listed above. Between 2002 and 2009 the amount consumed by US residents fell from 124.8 kilos per person to 120.2, for example, in Luxembourg from 141.7 to 107.9, in New Zealand from 142.1 to 106.7[kilos per person per year] and in Denmark (previously the world's biggest consumers of meat) from 145.9kg to 95.2kg."
Plants don't want to be eaten either, Grey Area. Many go to considerable evolutionary efforts to make it harder to eat them, up to and including making themselves toxic to animals. If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise.
for some reason it brings to mind this lyric and song for me
We walked out – tentacle in hand
You could sense that the earthlings would not understand
They'd go.. nudge nudge …when we got off the bus
Saying it's extra-terrestial – not like us
And it's bad enough with another race
But fuck me… a monster …from outer space
I believe that the ecological cost of mass producing meat is OTT. I think that our western diets are unsustainable. People make their choices to do what they want and they accept their choices – personally I no longer care what anyone else eats – we all make choices. It is a fairness of argument for me re my comment.
Re ethics of argument, Grey Area's argument was that killing animals to eat them is wrong as animals don't want to be killed, so people should eat plants. My counter-argument was that plants also don't want to be killed and it's impossible for humans to live without killing things. In what sense do you consider that counter-argument unfair?
@ PM I think when you said, "If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise." was my tipping point. Extrapolating for effect just a little too far for me. So that's why I responded.
@ Pat – yeah – I believe the inevitability of the changes will make choice moot down the track – still we can future proof by diversifying while we can and moving to as sustainable as we can be. The dietary lifestyle we enjoy now is pretty decadent and the cost so high imo.
@ PM I think when you said, "If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise." was my tipping point.
I think it's a reasonable response. Even if you reject the idea that plants object to being killed, is it wrong to kill a chicken so you can eat it but OK to kill a shitload of mice when you turn your combine harvesters loose on the wheat crop? It isn't currently possible for humans to live without killing things.
that countries import food doesn't mean they have to or that they can't produce food locally. Local food production is largely a function of the relationship between population, geography and climate. Capitalism doesn't care about that because it has fossil fuels and can import and export food at will.
Do you also think that natures predators are also undesirable?…we are nothing more than mammals and we are omnivores, are we to be condemned any more than sharks or lions?…or any other species that ends the existence of another life form
we are nothing more than mammals and we are omnivores, are we to be condemned any more than sharks or lions?
I wouldn't say "nothing more than," but we for sure are omnivorous primates and that means we have a taste for eating other critters, much like sharks or lions.
It's worth keeping in mind that plants are also in evolutionary competition with each other and doing their best to ensure their own survival at the expense of other plant species, same as animals. It just all happens a hell of a lot slower and without all the clawing, biting, bludgeoning etc.
@Weka.lol…didnt you know everything is measured in dollars?….but we can can still infer …and as said that dosnt account for CC nor failed states…which are only going to increase.
The question was are we to be condemned?….your answer didnt address that….so I shall offer one on your behalf…yes we are, as a result of our success we are destined to out compete everything including our environment.
Pat, lol, yes dollars rule. I wondered if one is measuring commodity dollars how useful that is because it will include things like chocolate, coffee and wine.
That CC and war are going to force big changes in food production is an argument for shifting to local food production sooner rather than later.
Why is it not doable? We know that the end of fossil fuels will make transporting food harder. We know that we need more resilient systems. Both those things are within our reach irrespective of how bad CC gets.
Addressing industrial dairying isn't a petty dispute, it's literally about whether humans get to survive in the future, possibly even you and I. Those big, industrial, nature ignoring, FF burning systems are going to crash. How is relocalising food production not a good response to that?
… yes we are, as a result of our success we are destined to out compete everything including our environment.
It does sure look like having self-awareness and the ability to think in abstracts doesn't outweigh being just an upmarket bunch of omnivore primates when it comes down to it. I'll hold off the condemnations until it's clear whether or not we've played ourselves, though.
Its petty because we are creating unnecessary divisions in a society that has little chance of achieving a positive outcome…and it certainly wont if its divided.
The problem is so complicated that the only possible way to address it requires widespread buy in…that is not achieved by attack and demonisation.
Societies are too easily fragmented and as said in other posts long before we are seriously challenged by the physical impacts of CC we will have to avoid the societal conflicts (if we can)
How do we know this is true? Science is demonstrating that plants in forests communicate with each other, including by using other species. They tend and protect via this communication as well as repel. Maybe that's not sentience as we understand it, or maybe we're locked into particular ideas about sentience that stop us seeing other kinds.
It really is an amazing rabbit hole to dive into for a while. It starts to screw with our concepts of "communication" and even what constitutes an "organism" or a "mind", our role in the world and even whether there is a being of "humanity" that is made up of all the interactions of us people. At the root of it all is the conundrum of the observer who sits behind our eyes and other sensory organs.
John Varley's "The Ophiuchi Hotline" has a plotline in which aliens discover the Earth and identify Homo Sapiens not as a fellow sentient species but as a cancerous growth and eradicate it, leaving the occupants of a base on the moon as the last humans. In the novel, the aliens consider whales and dolphins to be Earth's sentient life forms (perhaps reflecting the fact it was written in the 1970s), but it would be equally plausible that they'd consider plants the sentient life forms, given that aliens could be evolved from any kind of life.
I know. I love it. It really stretches my mind. I find myself going 'that can't be right', then going 'well yeah, it could be'. In the end my position is that there are plenty of good reasons to err on the side of caution and not be cruel to anything unnecessarily. We don't have to know for sure if forests are sentient to decide that cutting one down is something serious.
I feel sorry for humans sometimes with our big brains trying to figure out how to be with our particular capacity for perception.
I'm suggesting that living things don't want to be killed, but we don't have much choice about killing them if we want to remain alive ourselves and that applies to eating plants as much as it does to eating animals. If you personally want to designate "has a central nervous system" as a threshold beyond which you won't kill to eat, by all means act on it and eat accordingly. But that designation is as arbitrary as anyone else's.
And in reply to Pyscho Milt upstream (as I don't see a reply button) aboiut mice being killed by a combine harvester Earthling Ed would ask: "Morally, is there a difference between accidentally hitting a dog with your car and purposefully hitting a dog with your car?”. If you say yes, "then by that logic is there morally a difference between an animal accidentally being killed in crop production and an animal purposefully being killed in a slaughterhouse?”.
If it were impossible to drive your car without accidentally hitting a bunch of dogs on your way to your destination, I expect many of us would be put off driving. People give less of a shit about mice and other field critters, on the out-of-sight-out-of-mind principle.
I didn't answer your question, no. The question was essentially a reframing of McFlock's comment further up:
We shouldn't be cruel, but to equate a cow with a human is a moral equivalence that lacks any reasonable foundation.
You've swapped out "cow/human" with "broccoli/chicken" but are making essentially the same argument. I notice that your response to that argument from McFlock was "Totally disagree but let's leave it there." Given that response, why do you assume we'd answer your question?
I wasn't assuming anything. I was busy at work and didn't have the time to challenge the statement that I don't accept. I happened to see some activity around the issue and decided to re-enter the fray.
And anyway that was in response to him this afternoon not you this evening.
Seeing as you have a bit more time, then. My shorthand on the issue for a while now has been "could [animal X] write an essay entitled what I did on my holidays?"
Some mammals and cephalopodes probably could, given the right communication interface. Not all of them, though.
Cows and sheep, I doubt it. And if they can't, even if there's a type of impulse-driven or momentary sentience, it wouldn't exist without farming. If we can give them a reasonably happy life and end it without their anticipation or pain, by several methods of moral accounting (utilitarianism or whatever) I'm not seeing a net negative.
Contrast with slavery, or cannibalism of captive humans. Lots of negatives and suffering for a simple meal or delaying mechanisation.
I mean, theoretically the math might add up, but Kevin would have to make a lots-better-than-Michelin dinner for that to happen. 🙂
My shorthand position is that killing other sentient beings to use them as a food source is immoral, cruel and for those of us in the "West" unnecessary.
I see cows, pigs, sheep, etc as someone, not something. Especially not something for us to use.
They are creatures often with personalities and intelligence and with a capacity to feel emotions like we do.
Humans seem to have such huge capacity to f*ck things up. We use and abuse everything around us and the climate crisis we are in the middle of is mostly the result of that.
So taking off my vegan hat and putting on my climate change one, animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and if we are to have any chance of at least slowing climate collapse animal agriculture needs to be hugely reduced and better still eliminated.
I see cows, pigs, sheep, etc as someone, not something.
And if I shared that perspective, I'd probably agree. Or eat people. But I've been around livestock of various types, and didn't see the same spark of humanity that you did.
As for climate change, the main event will always be fossil fuels. Substitutiopn is necessary, and if it's not sufficient then global vegetarianism probably won't be, either.
So limit meat intake in the same way we stop using plastic straws – it might encourage people more powerful than us to address the elephant.
yes the line is arbitrary – because you can live within the choices – so the question is then, what are the factors driving the choices – that is where the morals get really interesting
fairness is another driver – I'm anti capitalism and exploitation
truth also is when I became a vegetarian 39 years ago it was because I couldn't handle the suffering inflicted on the animals – I suppose my species boundary and what falls out of that, is different to science and normal western thought.
I don't think it's all that different. Vegetarianism is hardly rare in the West, or amongst scientists.
It's a line that is philosophical, spiritual, logical, emotional, practical… everyone draws it in their own place. I'm not sure anyone is in a place to judge anyone else's placement of that line – just whether they're being dicks about it 🙂
Yep I spose the reals dicks will be the meat eaters who chose to not reduce their meat especially when reports like the one below come out. The vegans are the good guys although shrill and annoying.
“We don’t want to tell people what to eat,” says Hans-Otto Pörtner, an ecologist who co-chairs the IPCC’s working group on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. “But it would indeed be beneficial, for both climate and human health, if people in many rich countries consumed less meat, and if politics would create appropriate incentives to that effect.”
fairness is another driver – I'm anti capitalism and exploitation"
Pretty much mine too. Interesting we come to different conclusions about what that means.
"truth also is when I became a vegetarian 39 years ago it was because I couldn't handle the suffering inflicted on the animals – I suppose my species boundary and what falls out of that, is different to science and normal western thought."
I was vegetarian around the same time. I don't think being vegetarian is at odds with western thought especially in a country like NZ where lots of people care about animals. I do think we are behind in the science though and that care for the wellbeing of ecosystems as a right (rather than just how they serve humans) is going to become more mainstream off the back of the leading edge science.
i find lab 'grown' as gross as the practices of industrial dairy farming.
One of the TV news's had an item last night on an Aus company that's just grown kangaroo meat in a lab – story here.
It was pitched as being a way for billions of humans to have a meat diet without affecting the environment (bullshit detector going off big-time at that point). The process takes stem cells from kangaroo meat, puts them in a "nutrient-rich solution" and waits for the stem cells to make kangaroo meat out of the solution.
So, if billions of people are going to eat this stuff, that's shit-tonnes of "nutrient-rich solution" that has to turn up from somewhere – industrial farming, I hear you say? Surely not…
My wife's only comment: "Wouldn't you cut out the middle-man and just eat the "nutrient-rich solution?”
Hmmm. Matrix comes to mind, where steak was an example of why cypher(?) wanted to live in the machine rather than eat the protein gruel in the "real world".
I guess they won't have kangaroo stem cells in the future…
Would also see off all those boring "Make sure you eat food when you're drinking, never drink alcohol on an empty stomach, etc" messages. Two birds with one stone…
Yeah it'll take a lot of nutrient-rich solution. But most of that nutrient goes into growing the flesh cells we end up eating, rather than most of it going into just keeping a hulking great host alive and walking around and only a tiny bit goes into muscle growth in a live animal. So growing the nutrient feedstock should require a lot less space and inputs than growing all the vegetable matter a live animal needs to produce the same amount of edible "flesh".
Then there's the matter of eliminating the methane emissions from live ruminants. Although roos aren’t ruminants and are pretty low emission critters.
Personally I'll probably be quite happy with just a moderately realistic facsimile of mince for burgers, sausages, salami, spag bol etc. But bacon is going to have to be fkn convincing before the pigs are out of trouble.
Yes, it would certainly make way more sense than growing crops to feed to livestock – but that has to be the stupidest form of agriculture ever invented.
I guess it just irks me that people talk about replacing meat with plant-based alternatives (which is presumably where this nutrient solution comes from – I sure as shit hope they're not getting it by grinding up sea critters) as though creating industrial-scale crop monocultures were some kind of improvement on grazing livestock. If it is an improvement, the improvement's marginal at best.
To a large extent, the potential for improvement comes from eliminating the methane emissions and effluent problems of live animals.
But cows and sheep are also incredible inefficient at turning the calories and protein they're fed into calories and protein available to humans eating them. Around 1% conversion efficiency for calories and maybe 4% for protein. Pork and poultry do a lot better, around 10% for calories and 15 to 20% for protein (as well as emitting a lot less methane).
If vats didn't do a whole lot better, say at least 30% conversion efficiency, then yeah you'd question the point. But since cells in a vat only have to grow, and not sustain a whole bunch of other metabolic processes, the potential has to be there.
As for where the feed comes from, yeah, ground sea critters would be disastrous. But seaweed could be interesting.
Then there's the whole question around the merits of grazing animals in hilly ground not suitable for cropping. Dunno, maybe if the cell vats become a reality, hill country will be where the boutique "real meat" gets produced.
It's fkn hard finding hard info that isn't obviously pushing some sort of barrow. But the numbers presented in these two pieces are about what seems to be the consensus of stuff I've seen elsewhere.
If the vat-grown whey and casein efforts linked above actually come to fruition, what's going to happen to Fonterra?
I'm guessing the commodity milk-powder business – gone. Commodity cheese for pizzas and burgers – gone. What will be left? Boutique products where the customers will really want to believe they come from happy cows lovingly tended to in green grassy pastures. And that business is extremely vulnerable to the kind of shit highlighted today by weka and lprent.
Commodity milk powder exists because milk cant be stored in its natural form and milk powder can. Cows are milked everyday and the fresh milk has to be processed the following day
The commodity milk powder provides the dairy products for 30 mill people outside NZ for all sorts of reasons.
Just a note about Fonterras loss , they are just book keeping writedowns of assets.
Its not a cash loss as they are awash in it , like the paddocks the cows are stuck in over winter
Perhaps you are demonstrating to us that we are alike the cows in that we are awash with money in this country but stuck up to our knees in debt incurred as we just try to get regular food and find a place to lie down.
If my life was wrapped up in Fonterra I think the aspect worthy of attention in the info is the amount of the write down that relates to market share erosion. Start-ups doing it better than NZ's biggest company.
The rise of domestic competition and abroad.
We don't hold many picture cards. That's one of them, we should be leading the world in the milk fields. If Fonterra were the All Blacks, they couldn't beat Mount Albert Grammar.
Great big Brontosaurus that can barely get out of it's own way. So many desks and so few udders. Subsidiaries struggling in prospering centres around the globe.
We should be brilliant at this. We're not even average.
I paid a premium for cheese in Sweden, about 50% more than here. I visited a Swedish dairy farm. For half the year each cow is hand fed in it's own stall in a heated barn. They had their names on their stall doors.
We don't know how lucky we are. We should be creaming it.
The Swedes are cunning socialists. I think it's because they spend 4 months of the year sitting around fires in the freezing dark slamming shots of rocket fuel, sharing their hearts, dreams and Spring plans.
Dairy farmers felt the winter pinch. Many crop farmers face 5 months of a permafrozen farm. They found a solution that works for everybody. It's easy to push a log around on ice, farmers drop trees, trim them, spray their code on the end and leave them beside the road. The co-op truck with a Hiab grapple stopped at the end of the drive, loaded the logs up and took them to the co-op owned processing plant.
Crop farmers on Graso were as concerned about growing Pines as they were corn.
we are worried about this as it seems that the Chinese are unndermining Fonterra so the share price fall will give them the soluution to buy Fonterra as a luididated bussiness asset.
China are playing us to take over our entire farming industry.
Earthquakes are worrying me too as napier had some too recently and we wonder if this is .could be the heating of the 'earth's crust; – and the tectonic plates? https://www.the-science-site.com/crustal-plates.html
I am mostly in the hills above Gisbrone near BOP border, and was born in Auckland in 1944 and raised in Napier 1951 to 1964, didn't you read my posts on the Fox river debarkle?
All us 'Napierites' have very keen knowledge of when the usual swarms of earthquakes do occur with annual frequencies.
This time last week when we were there, it was very odd when the earthquake hit us.
It was at a time when we don't usually expeirience 'swams' of quakes' so that is our concern.
Thanks for your concern.
Shit if I wanted to move from earthquakes I would;
go back to Canada
or my last home Florida
as they don’t have earthquakes,
But Canada's weather is shit
Florida has hurricanes.
So I am good at present above the pollution, noise, and truck gridlock, here in the hinterland of rural NZ hill country.
That reminds me of the promises made when big tobacco excecs were all linned up in front of a congressonal inquiry promising that smokng was safe???
According to the National Research Council, no toxicity data are available for over 39,000 commercially available used chemicals.
And this also;
Approximately 80 million people or three out of every 10, in the United States can expect to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. The National Cancer Institute has estimated in at least one communique’ that at least 98% of all cancers may be linked to chemical exposures,
According to Lynn Montandon, founder of the Response team for the chemically injured.
Until recently, the Federal Government has concentrated most of its resources on researching cancer and the effects of acute chemical exposures, paying very little attention to the effects of long term low level chemical exposures, or to the neurological, reproductive, developmental, or immunological effects that chemicals may cause. The government is just beginning to look into these non-cancer health risks and the existing research into these other health matters is, on the whole, inadequate and non-existent.
I understand that deep earthquakes in the subducting Pacific Plate such as this one are outside the forecast area which applies only to the (relatively) near surface – approximately to top 20 to 30 km.
The Snares earthquakes are associated with the Puysegur Trench subduction zone where the Australian Plate is descending below the Pacific Plate.
Seddon earhtquakes are likely continuing aftershocks of the 2013 Grassmere quake and/or 2016 Kaikoura quake (several faults in the Cape Campbell area ruptured at the surface in the Kaikoura quake).
Given there are ~20,000 record quakes per year in NZ, its not unusual to have several in a week that are felt to some degree.
If you're interested in where the known acitve faults (on land) are, check out GNS's active faults map: http://data.gns.cri.nz/af
Capitalism finally weaponizes ignorance, and being ignorance, shoots itself. Media moguls setting up fast tracking promedia nra, cc, and now the trifecta, tv personality president, have they no sense. Why are Act members always turning up on tv? first they attacked Greens for not getting into bed with big polluters, now Greens are power starved like 6% down from 10% was a means to demand more. Now I get that we do need balance in tv but just right-wing talking heads, and disgruntaled former Greens, really, is that all they dan find. Seems to me when the ecology, climate, resource limits are hit, or whatever, the media will be the culprits.
Sounds like a good mystery tv series – what was the one with Gillian Anderson in it? Like that. We can put everything on tv like a real Reality Show. Sit and watch things like on The Truman Show. Tonight we are going to have a prison break – who will get away and who will be shot?
The SFO can be dressed like Sherlock Holmes with really giant magnifying glasses and computer nerds tracing people on grids all round town with Tumpson and Clerk giving directions. The miscreants would have the choice of being in the show, or going to Court and paying their own legal fees whether they are found guilty or not.
I can't wait for his next post, probably wanting to ban women licking icecream in the workplace.
And if, in some insane universe that he inhabits, he is actually right, what does that tell us about women wearing black or purple lipstick? I shudder at his possible explanation!
"In the government’s first major piece of legislation mapping out post-EU policy, Environment and Food Secretary Michael Gove is set to present sweeping changes Wednesday to the agriculture sector. Gove's plan will phase out the EU’s sacrosanct direct payment scheme under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which props up farmers' wages based on the amount of land they own, and instead link farmers' payments to environmental standards.
Its a common fallacy that most of the things the EU does are somehow fine and dandy
Theres opportunity under a new Fisheries policy after Brexit to make well overdue changes as well
A new ruling on the ban on prisoner voting delivers a fierce reminder of the need for urgent change. Now it’s over to the government: put up or shut up, writes Andrew Geddis.
In some ways, it tells us nothing we didn’t already know: the legislative ban on prisoners voting enacted in 2010 by National and Act Party MPs is a terrible law that shouldn’t ever have been passed. But in laying out how poorly conceived this law was and just how negatively it affects Māori in particular, He Aha Perā Ai? The Māori Prisoners’ Voting Report, which has just been released by the Waitangi Tribunal, presents us with a fierce reminder of the need for change.
…
So, let’s recap where we are. In the near-decade since its passage, the legislation banning prisoner voting has been called “constitutionally outrageous” by a High Court judge, formally declared to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act by the Supreme Court, and now held to be in breach of Treaty principles by the Waitangi Tribunal. And that’s without considering what less impressive people like mere legal academics have said about it.
The law has the formal effect of barring thousands of New Zealanders (disproportionately Māori) from voting at each election, and the practical effect of knocking hundreds from the electoral roll, which they then are highly unlikely to rejoin in the future…
Well if the criminals’ and con-artists that run Corporations are found guilty and not jailed for ’embezlement, cheating, extortion and other offences under (the list below; – some exeptions as it is a US list); then are still allowed to vote, why should we ban any prisoners from voting? https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/view-all-criminal-charges.html
[Deleted long list that was straight from the link provided. Remember that some people read TS on their phone and have to scroll through – Incognito]
Wage theft and the hospitality industry. I think it goes much deeper than that and is across many industries, especially those employing low skilled labour and migrant labour.
The Minister for Regional Economic Development has launched a stinging attack on urban liberals, accusing them of trying to take the fishing industry down….
He said the attacks came from people who did not always understand what was at stake, and the industry had to fight back to protect itself.
Mr Jones said it was not just the fishing industry that was threatened, Māori who had invested much of their economic heritage in the business were threatened too.
"Those of us such as me as a Māori, who have our legacy interests via the treaty in the fishing industry, need to gird our loins and protect ourselves," Mr Jones said.
"Rest assured, there is a largely metropolitan-based power culture, which seeks to do damage to our industry."
Mr Jones said this was a very serious problem to people who had stored their full and final wealth from Treaty settlements in this industry.
Can Shane Jones walk and chew calamari at the same time?
That'd be the same Jones who took Sealord from being NZ's biggest seafood company to no. three or four? Not an expert on fishing by any stretch of the imagination – just a parachutist.
had to larf at Neal Jones dealing to the nationals party squealer Mathew Hooton on 9-noon this morning.
Jones had Hooton on the back foot right from the start and the more he got backed into a corner the more hooton squealed as all his right wing memes and tropes came flying out of his gob unbidden to show the real hooton. not nice.
A report from link picked up from TDB about Indonesia with help from USA JK and Australia (NZ?) and the killing of up to million people, and imprisonment of about million, of 9 August 2019,
Can someone please explain why I see a Reply button on most but not all posts? I've tried three different browsers and get the same result. On my Android mobile I seem to see reply on every post.
Its great to see more attention for OUR Mokopuna future environment but to have a clean environment one needs to clean up poverty aswell no use having a clean environment in one hand and thousands living under the bridge. national made a big mess of our environment and caused a housing short in Aotearoa in 9 years I have see miles of forest turned into Dairy Farm in the central North Island that is not good for the environment. All prosecution for effluent entering our waterways stop .To many things national did negatively to our environment to itemize
. Its great to see alot of Tangata Whenua challenging local council elections post in Hawksbay kia kaha times are changing it happening all around the Motu.
That was a huge beautiful crocodile on the roof of a house during the India monsoon floods great picture.
That is a great phenomenon getting thousands more to give blood awesome Sir Henry
Great To see a shopping mall Goldsmith in America doing things to save our mokopuna future environment.
Nothing wrong with being nice some people think Im weak because I nice .?????.
Great to see the Eco Maori affect is still getting reka .
Ka pai to the Wahine who wrote this story and Kia kaha to the Students Strikes to champion a clean environment for their mokopuna grandchildren .
We will be striking again for climate change
OPINION: Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure on politicians worldwide to pass bills which will take action to reduce the impacts of climate change.
We want our government and governments worldwide to do everything in their power to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by ending the use of fossil fuels and investing in a regenerative and renewable economy. Additionally, we are asking the government to acknowledge the severity of climate change and declare a climate emergency.
On 24 May, we walked out of school alongside hundreds of thousands of students around the globe. We won't sit and watch our futures disintegrate, and we invite you to join us to strengthen our movement. That's you, reading this column; that's the next person you talk to; that's the waiter who gives you your coffee and the woman sitting in front of you in the car/bus/train, it really is everyone
Climate change isn't just a youth problem, even though it'll hit us the hardest. It's everyone's problem. Everyone has a responsibility to act, in both practical ways and through joining the strike movement on 27 September.
If you have a child, niece, nephew or young person you care about, it's your problem. Do you think they look into their future and imagine travelling to various islands and cities, bays and beaches? Or do they wonder if the sea will have swallowed them by the time they're your age ka kite ano link below.
A avalanche at Mount Cook lets hope that the 5 people caught in the avalanche are all good.
A tornado hit the water front in Tamaki Makau flipping 30 ton yachts tawhirimate is a powerful entity.
Mike the Pigeon Valley fire was huge you say it started by a farmer plowing his paddock with heavy disks which created sparks.
The People of Papatuanuku need to combat climate change to help our Pacific Island cousins it is their biggest threat to a happy healthy future.
The New Zealand Airforce needs to have the equipment to patrol the Pacific Ocean we have a huge Tangata area to patrol the new Aircraft being delivered in 2023 is needed to protect our fisheries and tangata who end up in strife in Tangaroa.
I do think that the commercial mussels spat catches need to respect the environment that they catch their spat from they should have vehicles that have tyers that spread their load to save our tuatua . This is how the neanderthal capitalist work they thrash a resource till it collapses this happened to tuatua wet fish fisheries I also have great concern about the Manuka honey industry on the East Coast there are hives everywhere on the coast they wonder why they have had 2 to 3 bad seasons it because they are over exploiting the resource.
Awesome that the Coalition Government is investing to fixing Rotoruas museum there would be some great taonga in their care to display to the public.
In Porirua the state housing they pull down functional whare to cramm flash new housing any intelligent person will know that the rents will go up too cover the cost of the building of the whare capitalism ways are most salespeople tell you what you want to here .
Lyndon PEE is a powerful poison that takes control of the user who can be manipulated to do just about anything we need more advertising to educate te tangata about the crap it great that this program is happening in Te Taiwhiti the crap is making a big mess up there.
A lot of people don't understand that A warm whare is a healthy whare Eco Maori say a education program needs to be run about the effects of a cold damp whare has on te tamariki respiratory system it's not good Eco Maori always has a warm WHARE.
The statistic mess is from simons time in Parliament along with many others kia ora.
The Australian idiot who stabbed people they are being empowered by people who use hate to gain power.
People who go to WAR often suffer mental trauma .The Pilots whos autobiography book that the Wahine was describing him being cold in nature no hugging ect.
I see all the moves that you try to manipulate me just wasting your time and money.
You would think that a organization like Cambridge Analytical would use the data they harvest off the internet would be used for good purposes like governments planning for the future .
You know its ridiculous that humanity has not learnt by its mistakes we discovered a resource and exploit it till it collapses or nearly collapses thrown our arms in the AIR and make all the excuses in the Papatuanuku to push the blame to others as to WHY the resources collapse. I have seen it with fishing farming Honey many other valuable species and resources are over exploiting by humanity. What should happen is when a resource is discovered the planing should be put in place to harvest it sustainably from the START not the AMBULANCES at the bottom of the hill that we have going down at the MINUTE. You see we might be still catching fishes but the amount of diesel burned to catch te ika will have gone up 50 % from 30 years ago the fishermen wanted to have horses power limits to control the fisherys instead of the quota system that would have limited the catch effort on the fishery you see it is basically horse power that catches fish .The fishermen would be able to buy and sell the right to the use of horses power to catch fish that system would have limited the pressure on our fisheries to what it was 30 years ago.
But the corrupted money men got their way and a dump ass Quoter system was implemented that can be exploited very easily by the crooked MAN big fail Aotearoa Quoter management system .
The bureaucrats, for whose convenience it was introduced, will stick to it come hell or highwater of course, but it seems that both are coming fairly soon now.
I say a national statement to protect our precious whenua that produces our food from housing development good on you David Te Atua is not making anymore.
That is the way people with power have to be held accountable for their abuse of power and abuseing people The opera singer Placido Domingo.
That shows that Aotearoa was a land of the giants with another discovery of a giant penguin in Aotearoa .
A nuclear accident in Russia we should not be wasting precious resources on weapons of mass destruction but I get it yin yan it's about the balance of power.
Good Idea having a online petition to get Jacinda to visit Ihumatao I think it's about time Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa got a win
I don't think that there should be a problem in The Tauranga whenua Waitangi treaty settlement's Its a fact that Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa lost millions of hectares of whenua.
I am sure that the mussel spat harvester are just chasing the $$$$$$$ without considering the effects that there actions have on the environment I know someone who is in that industry.
I think it's good that our Armed personnel the Army and Navy are covered by Accident Compensation Corporation who paid for their accidents before the Army and Navy that is stupid they are KIWIs that is the reason why we have some ex personnel not getting the correct help they needed.
Kia Ora to the Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa living in Australia awesome that you are keeping our culture going strong in Australia Te manawa ora teaching te raku ka pai I know those whanau names We need to keep our cultural pumping and pass it on to our mokopuna in a stronger state that is one of my main goals .ka pai to Jess in Uawa winning the Great Ideas for life Awesome Ideas Mana Wahine
Lets hope that they come up with smart simple solutions in the Pacific Island form Government meeting in Tuvalu to help them survive prosperously on their own whenua that means coming up with solutions for them to create their own wealth to teach a person to ika is better than giving the person a ika
Its called showing respect for our biggest tradeing partner that is what Jacinda is doing she not stupid. But Eca Maori wants Australia to be committed to slow down and stop their use of COAL.
The tide has changed on Global warming sea level rising human caused climate change. Russell the Bird shoe man gave a excellent opinion. Once Business Figure Out that the Green Industry is the next big Gold rush The changes we need to make as a society will speed up real fast thats part of capitalism The tipping point is just around the corner but WHANAU don’t let up keep championing for a Clean Green Environment for Our Mokopuna. Yes Australia needs to do more once they figure out that a bet on Carbon is a losing bet. The Green Energy Revolution has Started they will be rushing to catch up to Aotearoa we need to embrace 5 G technology to help generate a Clean Green society.
Pukana man is doing great in Cricket its was great that Aotearoa Cricket and Pukana man managed to sort out their differences and keep him playing for us Mark.
I think it's stupid that the prison system is giving that Idiot more publicity trying to get a new law that will take rights away from all the other prisoners when they have laws to control the Christchurch idiots communications this stuff up is just giving him more publicity.
If you want to be treated respectfully one must do the same it's not rocket science Newshub.
Herbs Song For Freedom movie gets Nation Wide Release Today I will go and watch the movie. Music is great for the Wairua I have to set me up a 12 volt radio system. Those dawn raids of the past in Papatuanuku was a politican trying to use HATE to gain votes he didn't care about the lives he ruined Ilolahia ka pai great name Herbs original manager.
Kia kaha Greta we all know whom is a puppet in Reality keep up your great mahi championing a clean healthy environment for our next generation
Greta Thunberg sets sail for New York on zero-carbon yacht
Climate activist begins voyage from Plymouth to Trump’s US with father and two-man crew
On white-crested swells under leaden skies, the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has set sail from Plymouth on arguably her most daunting challenge yet.
A two-week crossing of the Atlantic during hurricane season in a solar-powered yacht is the first obstacle, but it is unlikely to be the toughest in an odyssey through the Americas over many months
This will be both the ultimate gap year and a journey into the heart of climate darkness: first to the United States of president Donald Trump, who has promised to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and then down to South America, possibly including Brazil where president Jair Bolsonaro is overseeing a surge of Amazon deforestation.
In between, the 16-year-old Swede will add her increasingly influential voice to appeals for deeper emissions cuts at two crucial global gatherings: the Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September and the the UN climate conference in Santiago in early December.
The reception awaiting her on the other side is likely to be mixed, with the climate issue a polarising point in US politics
In a taste of the hostility that is likely to come from supporters of the fossil fuel industry, Steve Milloy, a Fox News contributor and former member of the Trump transition team, described Thunberg on Twitter earlier this week as “the ignorant teenage climate puppet
The Minister has apologized to the Papatuanuku because some of the prison staff drop the ball and let this idiot post inappropriate letters. The Prison Director should resign anyone with a brain will know that any letters that he writes and gets to post could gain publicity I agree prison guards are corrupt.
trump playing the bully with the might of the USA behind him is a cause for concern the stock market dropping.
Its great that our government has stepped in to clean up another national mess The Christchurch earthquake shambles repairs giving the people money to fix the shoddy repairs made when national was in government so there whare can pass a inspection to get insurance.
Allan Jones is just a neanderthal he is trying to boost his ratings making statements like that he should retired and let someone from the next generation have his mic ma te wa he probably has a lump of coal under his bed.
The Casson Whanau its hard to figure out and find people who you can trust there are people who are just hustlers and don't care about the damage they do to others whanau.
That's wise The Provenance Growth Fund investing in giving tangata whenua Technology skills that is the low carbon industry that could quite easily beat the dairy industry in export income.
Its cool to see the hearing impaired getting taught tangata whenua O Aotearoa te reo and cultural awesome.
Ka kite ano my device cursor starts jumping all over the place when I write too Te Ao Maori News the sandflys are trying to stop me posting to Maori TV
In order to meet our 2050 carbon target and do our bit to avoid making the Earth uninhabitable, New Zealand needs to decarbonise our economy, replacing fossil fuels with electricity in the energy, industrial and transport sectors. The good news is that it will mean cheaper power for all of ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of a pretty flower, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a cute animal video. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 2: Day eight of living in lock-down… Today, my work day starts late. Our rosters and clients have been dramatically changed, lessening (theoretically) the number of people in our work “bubble”. If just one of us catches covid19 the impact could be considerable as Grey Base Hospital ...
As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have ...
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Lenin Don’t we all know that feeling now.
Prospect Magazine alerted me to this particularly apt quote. It is a much more evocative quote than Hemingway’s “gradually then suddenly” which is also doing ...
Yesterday was the day the consequences of the lockdown suddenly got very real for many. Firms have been closing and laying people off since the outset of the quarantine but this has mostly been happening out of the public eye. The mass closure of a number of iconic New Zealand ...
Brian Williamson1, Prof Nick Wilson2 (1Economic consultant, UK; 2University of Otago Wellington)In this blog, we outline how a win-win social contract could be forged to address the major dimensions of response to the COVID-19 pandemic when using a mitigation strategy: the particular need to protect older people from high ...
Resuming Normal Service: The Republican Party's nominee for in 1920, Warren Harding, promised the American people: “not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”. If she wishes to remain our prime minister, then Jacinda Ardern will offer New Zealanders the same.HOW EDUCATED AMERICA snickered when the ...
No Free Society Without A Free And Functioning News Media: If we are to surrender our civil rights to the broader cause of defeating Covid-19, then foreign corporations must, likewise, surrender their right to inflict immense economic and cultural harm on New Zealanders simply because it improves their bottom line.I’M ...
by Daphna Whitmore A third of the world is under lockdown and a clear assessment of this measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 is urgently needed. With any high-stakes decisions it has to be asked what are we dealing with here? Are the measures warranted? Will they achieve their ...
I haven’t done a huge amount in the last few days. I’m reading The Poppy War and I’ve sort of poked at a couple of games – I started SOMA but I’m a wimp and I quit while in the first room after the brain scan. I might try it ...
The swan politicians may be gliding on the water, occasionally snapping at one another. Meanwhile, as the Covid19 crisis illustrates, the officials are desperately paddling below providing the real locomotion. One of the most fatuous recent grandstanding comments (of about a week ago), adding to the public’s anxieties, was ...
Much has been written about the importance of discretion in an emergency situation, and the concerns raised by the potential for it to be exercised arbitrarily. Given the quality of the discussion, there seemed little point in adding to it at any length. In particular, I point to the evidence ...
Today has felt surreal. I was all set to touch base online with my science communication students when a colleague shared the news that Bauer Media would be shutting down its publications immediately. The first link I saw implied it was Woman’s Weekly affected, and even that shocked me. But ...
Bogeymen, Real And Imagined: Is the number of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals in any given society truly as vanishingly small as we like to tell ourselves? Isn’t it more likely that the mass-shooters and serial-killers filling the headlines represent only the tip of a much, much larger iceberg of frightfulness? ...
Outgoing Police Commissioner Mike Bush appeared before the Epidemic Response Committee today, who asked him for the rules police are using to enforce the lockdown. He refused:Police Commissioner Mike Bush has admitted the advice given to Kiwis about what they're able to do during the lockdown hasn't been clear enough. ...
For those folk who find my other Lock-Down Diary versions too “negative” or otherwise unpalatable… Here’s a photo of my cat, . . Better? Tomorrow’s Sanitised Version: a pretty flower. . . . =fs= ...
. . April 1: Day seven of living in lock-down… This morning I had a brief chat with one of my neighbours, “D” (social distance between us, a good three or four metres). I learned he had resigned from his previous job and had been hired by another company – ...
Funnily enough, my thought as I start this post is whether it will be well written enough. Or should that be well enough written? Because so much of what I know about good writing came from my two stints at The Listener, which this morning was shut down due to ...
With normal democratic procedures in abeyance, there were two ways to go. First, it was open for the government to dissolve itself and invite the National Party to join a ministry of national salvation. That would have lessened the democratic deficit of the times by having a team of rivals without ...
Dr Kirsty Ross Children and young people can respond differently in times of distress. This also varies by age and developmental stage, with younger children having more magical and imaginative thinking, and older children having more awareness and knowledge of the issues our communities are facing (which brings up ...
Hungary has been a virtual dictatorship for a decade now, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has gradually eroded its democracy. But now, its official, with the passage of an indefinite emergency law allowing rule by decree:Hungary’s parliament has passed a new set of coronavirus measures that includes jail terms for ...
While the economy is on pause under lockdown, the government is beginning to plan how to cope with the post-lockdown, post-tourism, post-export education world we will eventually find ourselves in. They're planning a lot of infrastructure spending as economic stimulus, and have asked for proposals which can start the moment ...
It's my distraction, setting up tiny scenes to photograph. I've got stuck on the Babushka dolls for now. Something about their bubble shape. Something about their never changing, smiling features, suggesting persistent equanimity. Can we get through everything that is being thrown at us and keep at least a tiny ...
. . March 31: Day six of living in lock-down… This time I managed to sleep a little longer and the alarm woke me at the pre-set time: 6.55am. Then remembered I was working a later shift and could’ve slept in. Oh well, there are things to do at home. ...
Image credit:Diamond Harbour School Blogs I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or ...
Yesterday's Horizon poll showing support for a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum sliding into the majority for the first time in a year looked like good news for reformers – and it probably is. But the result warrants some scrutiny.The poll is the fifth in a series commissioned ...
For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is ...
The Covid-19 saga will no doubt produce many twists and turns for us before it is finally brought to an end. But one thing it has shown us – and what comfort it should bring us – is that our country’s government is in good hands. I am not thinking ...
In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for a deadly disease, staying home in your bubble is what you do, the concept is not new. To the best of my knowledge last time we did this in NZ was for polio, in the years before a vaccine came ...
The following statement was released on March 28 by the National Network on Cuba, a coalition of 40 groups, based in the United States. In recent weeks, Cuba has deployed hundreds of medical providers to over a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, as well as to their neighbors in Latin ...
This has been a terrible summer for Hector’s dolphins. The first indication was very low numbers of dolphin sightings during late spring and early summer. The Otago University Marine Mammal Research Team has carried out routine dolphin surveys at Banks Peninsula for more than 30 years. In all that time, ...
On March 17, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was quick out of the blocks with an economic rescue package to help businesses through the inevitable recession resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Robertson had pulled together a scheme in short order that so far seems to have saved many jobs. In his ...
The purpose of the lockdown is to save lives, by reducing the spread of covid-19. We won't know if its really working for another week, but given the devastation that will result if it doesn't - 14,000 dead is the optimistic scenario - its definitely worth trying. But pausing the ...
. . March 30: Day five of living in lock-down… Woke up still in darkness. Alarm hadn’t gone off. Turn to radio clock; it’s a few minutes after 6am… I lie there in the dark, waiting to drift off to sleep… but it ain’t happening. Clock ticks over to 6.55 ...
The story of Les Gray, the public sector psychologist who told the truth about his use of cannabis and set off a storm, has a special place in the lore of cannabis reform in New Zealand.When Paul Shannon interviewed Gray for the 'Dope and Hope' issue of Planet magazine in ...
by Phil Duncan For Marxists, a key concern about social trends is their context – not just their causes, but why they happen when they do. Events and phenomena have causes, but they also are time or period-specific. While much of the left have capitulated recently to postmodernism, most notably ...
Since the lockdown began, we've all suddenly been reminded who the actually essential workers in our society are: not the people at the top who pay themselves the big bucks and rort the perks, but the people at the bottom they screw over and squeeze: cleaners, warehouse staff, truck drivers ...
Kia ora! As I've watched nearly all my remaining work vanish over the past couple of days, it has occured to me that one good way to keep me away from arguing with fools on Twitter all the time (in the knowledge that all we're really doing is processing our ...
Aotearoa New Zealand has committed to trying to extirpate the virus that causes COVID-19 from its shores. To do that, as a society we’ve moved to “Level 4”. That means adapting to unprecedented restrictions on our personal freedoms, particularly to our rights to move freely and associate with friends and ...
When the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency last week, she handed the police powers to enforce it. And almost immediately, we started hearing about heavy-handed, arbitrary "enforcement" by police who (at best) cared more about order than law, or (more likely) had no idea what the rules were ...
. . Lock Down: Day 4 – A photo essay with observations . March 29: Usual wake up routine as RNZ snaps on my radio-clock. Jim Mora’s voice slowly enters my conciousness; there’s talk of a second wave of covid19 taking hold in South Korea; the week in Parliament – ...
Yesterday, New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 related death on the West Coast. Unfortunately this is unlikely to be the only fatality, with the virus now being found in every region of the country.However despite the significant danger, people are still unfortunately breaching lockdown rules.There’s really only one main very ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... ‘Misinformation kills’: The link between coronavirus conspiracies and climate denialGrist / Rob Kim / Stringer / CSA Images Scientific ...
The kids did surprisingly well today – meltdown count was about 3, and mostly fairly short ones. (And a fourth while I was writing.) Game-wise I had a go at Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark. It’s a fairly standard RPG with turn-based combat and what they call a “mature storyline” (it ...
by Don Franks Hi David, Nice hearing from you, I’m glad to hear you’re getting by okay in these grim times. You asked how’s it going for us back here in New Zealand. You would have heard that the whole country is locked down and with breaks for exercise and ...
. . Lock Down: Day 3 – A photo essay with observations . March 28: First day of the first weekend in Lock Down. It feels like it’s been weeks since only Level 3 was declared last Tuesday, only four days ago. Woke up this morning to RNZ; coffee; toast, ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Mar 22, 2020 through Sat, Mar 28, 2020Articles Linked to on FacebookSun, Mar 22, 2020In Just 10 Years, Warming Has Increased the Odds of Disasters by Chelsea Harvey, ...
I’m here in lockdown with my flatmate and her two girls (6 and 2) and it. is. a time. They’re usually really active so to start with the only boardgame in the house is the copy of Guess Who that the 6 year old got for her birthday. Flatmate commented ...
The CV-19 (COVID) pandemic has seen the imposition of a government ordered national quarantine and the promulgation of a series of measures designed to spread the burden of pain and soften the economic blow on the most strategically important and most vulnerable sectors of society. The national narrative is framed ...
. . Lock Down: Day 2 – A photo essay with observations . March 27 – Day 2 of our Strange New World. The Park and Ride near my suburb, usually filled with hundreds of vehicles, had just… four; . . Another drive into Wellington City on a highway nearly ...
Fortune's Children: Under extraordinary pressure, the leader of the Government and the leader of the Opposition will each show us what they are made of. Have they been blessed with intelligence, grace, wit, poise, toughness, empathy and humour – and in what measure? More importantly, to what extent have they ...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to rent a property on the open market in New Zealand, which is one of the most expensive in the entire world, you’ll likely be keenly aware of just how arrogant and entitled landlords and their real estate agents can be.Unfortunately for ...
Society-wise, aside from the specific morbidity shall we say of the medically-oriented aspects of this COVID-19 crisis, what is unfolding before the world is in more than one way an instructive study of humanity and reactions to a high intensity, high stress environment in real time. Friends, we are at ...
Right now low waged and insecure workers are feeling the economic brunt of the looming #Covid19 Recession. In response legal advocate Toby Cooper* and hospitality and worker’s rights advocate Chloe Ann-King, are putting together a series of legal blogs about your employment rights:In this legal blog we outline some ...
by Equipo Jurídico Pueblos and Gearóid Ó Loingsigh (25/03/2020) An escape plan in question On the night of March 21st and the early morning of the 22nd, the forces of the Colombian state stormed into the Modelo prison in Bogotá, murdering 23 prisoners and injuring 83, in response to the ...
When the government banned semi-automatic weapons in response to a terrorist atrocity, gun-nuts were outraged. Mired in toxic American gun culture, they thought owning weapons whose sole purpose was killing people was some sort of "constitutional right", a necessity for "defending themselves" against the government. Now, the Court of Appeal ...
Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from ...
. . Lock Down: Day 1 – A photo essay with observations . Day one of the Level 4 nationwide lock-down (or, DefCon 4 as I sometimes cheekily call it) started at 11.59PM on 25 March. For a moment, most of the nation held it’s collective breath. In that brief ...
Broad, Sunlit Uplands: How those words fired my young imagination! Or, perhaps, it is more accurate to say: how those words fused, in my young mind, with the image printed on every packet of Fielder’s Cornflour. Always fascinated by history, especially modern history, I cannot hear Churchill’s wonderfully evocative words, even ...
. . 24 March 2020 9.46AM Number of covid19 cases in Aotearoa New Zealand: 102 . As of 11.59 on Thursday, most of New Zealand will go into “lock down”. People will be expected not to travel to work; not to socialise; and to stay home. I will not be ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections A respected research group, Project Drawdown, finds that deploying solutions consistent with meeting the Paris climate targets would cost tens of trillions of dollars globally. But crucially, those outlays would also yield long-term savings many times larger than the up-front costs. The new 2020 Drawdown ...
It will pass. What happens next? Not immediately, but longer term. There are many opinions, fewer certainties. Will it “change everything!” as many confidently, and contradictorily predict? In this post I look at how foresight can help bound some of the uncertainties so you can more objectively consider the future. ...
We’ve been meaning t write something on Cuba and the coronavirus but have just discovered a very good article on the subject in the US left publication Jacobin. The article looks at how Cuba, a poor country but one where capitalism has been done away with, is leading the way ...
In 2018, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - two British citizens who had purportedly been stripped of their citizenship by the British government - were captured while fighting for Isis in Syria. The British government then conspired to hand them over to the US, and agreed to provide evidence ...
Transformers: The disaster of the Great Depression was transformed into a new and fairer society by the democratic socialism of the First Labour Government. The disaster of the Covid-19 Pandemic offers a similar transformative possibility to the Labour-NZ First-Green Government. Seize the time, Jacinda! You will never have a better ...
Tamper with The System? Well, we already are. But there's a difference between accidentally trickling sand into a precision gearbox versus formulating a plan to alter it on the fly with improvements in mind. One action is more or less innocently unscrupulous, the other amenable to earning an easy ...
Associate Prof George Thomson, Louise Delany, Prof Nick WilsonWhile it is possible that New Zealand can use intense public health controls to eradicate COVID-19 from the country – we must also plan for other scenarios where thousands of New Zealanders are sick – including many urgently hospitalised.1 Better resilience ...
Kia ora my name is Chloe Ann-King* and I am the founder of Raise the Bar, a campaign and non-profit that gives free legal aid, advocacy and tautoko to hospitality workers in Aotearoa. Right now all over our country hospo workers are being fired at will, having shifts cut or being ...
We're about to do something unprecedented as a nation. We hope that by taking this extraordinary action before a single life in New Zealand has been lost to the deadly novel virus we will save tens of thousands of lives. Our lives. We'll do it together, in households, in isolation ...
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”So writes the author of Ecclesiastes, a book in the Old Testament that’s counted as a ‘wisdom’ book and written as if by an unnamed king of Jerusalem. But who would have thought there would be a time ...
I was surprised when the prime minister described the Economic Response to Covid-19 package as the ‘largest peacetime government spend in New Zealand's history’. Reflecting – checking through history – I realised that the term ‘spend’ was crucial and the package had no income tax cuts. Even so, it has ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says getting New Zealanders back home and other travellers out of the country is "a nightmare for our embassies, consuls, and staff around the world".Speaking to NewstalkZB's Mike Hosking, the Foreign Minister said that he gave a clear message to people travelling overseas that they ...
The domestic travel ban has been lifted for stranded foreign tourists trying to get to international airports to fly home, after the Coalition Government announced a plan to help the tens of thousands of foreigners stranded here. Foreign Minister Rt. Hon. Winston Peters spoke with RNZ's Susie Ferguson said foreign ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters believes the country is rediscovering its resilience and self-reliance through its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.He says he is heartened that the mass majority of New Zealanders are following lockdown rules and that the government looking at the future, including paying to keep much ...
New Zealand can emulate the success of the US after the Great Depression by exploiting our own resources to turn the economy around quickly, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says. Mr. Peters told Magic Talk that New Zealand has an opportunity to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic a "superior, ...
All 45 New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel are either on their way back to New Zealand, or already in the country, according to Defence Minister Ron Mark."Twenty-eight personnel arrived back in New Zealand last week and are in isolation at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base in ...
The COVID-19 situation in New Zealand is moving fast - and to avoid what we've seen overseas - the Government's response must be to move fast too. We're committed to keeping New Zealanders safe and well-informed every step of the way. ...
We know people are feeling anxious about COVID-19. While the situation is serious, New Zealand has a world-class health system and we’re well-prepared to keep New Zealanders safe. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging New Zealanders overseas to stay where they are amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are reaching a point where the best option for most New Zealanders offshore is to shelter in place, by preparing to safely stay where they are.” "This includes following the instructions ...
Rt. Hon. Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Foreign Minister Winston Peters is encouraging the tens of thousands of New Zealanders travelling overseas to consider sheltering in place, in light of COVID-19. “Since 18 March, we have been warning New Zealanders offshore that the window for flying ...
Ground-breaking law has passed that will decriminalise abortion and ensure women and pregnant people seeking abortions have compassionate healthcare. ...
The Green Party says that the measures announced by the Government today will help families and businesses to prioritise our collective health and wellbeing in the response to COVID-19. ...
As New Zealanders brace for a global downturn due to Covid-19, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says his Coalition Government’s rescue package "more significant" than any other he's seen around the world. The Coalition is to reveal a multi-billion-dollar stimulus plan on Tuesday afternoon designed to cushion the economic blow ...
The Government will be introducing legislation to make changes to the Companies Act to help companies facing insolvency due to COVID-19 to remain viable and keep New Zealanders in jobs. The temporary changes include: Giving directors of companies facing significant liquidity problems because of COVID-19 a ‘safe harbour’ from insolvency ...
The Government’s plan to cushion the blow of COVID-19 by supporting incomes, jobs and businesses, and position the economy to recover has been backed by another international report. International credit rating agency Moody’s today reaffirmed its highest Aaa credit rating on New Zealand, saying the economy is expected to remain ...
National sports organisations have been given certainty of funding to ensure they can remain viable through the COVID-19 pandemic, Sport and Recreation Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “The global spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on sport and recreation in New Zealand, including the cancellation or postponement of ...
Changes have been made to allow butchers to process pork, only for supply to supermarkets or other processors or retailers that are open, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “We carefully weighed the risk of allowing butchers to open their shops for retail customers, but the risk of spreading COVID-19 ...
Essential workers who take leave from work to comply with public health guidance are being supported with a leave scheme to ensure they will continue to receive income, say the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Iain Lees-Galloway and Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni. A number of essential businesses ...
A Government WhatsApp channel has been launched to help make information more easily accessible and shareable in the fight against COVID-19. Govt.NZ, which is free to use on any mobile device, will carry information and news for the public, businesses, healthcare providers, not for profits and local government. It can ...
The Government has announced a plan to enable the safe, orderly exit of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals from New Zealand during the current COVID-19 Alert Level 4 restrictions, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters has said. “When we moved into lockdown a week ago, the ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says the Government is delivering on its commitment to support general practice doctors and nurses, and pharmacies on the front-line of our fight against COVID-19. "For us to overcome COVID-19, we need community health services such as general practice and community pharmacy to step up ...
Justice Susan Thomas has been appointed Chief High Court Judge, Attorney-General David Parker announced today. She replaces Justice Geoffrey Venning who has resigned from the position. David Parker paid tribute to Justice Venning, who he said had stewarded the High Court very capably over the last five years. “On behalf ...
Businesses can start applying to their banks for loans under the Business Finance Guarantee Scheme set up to support the New Zealand economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re moving quickly to protect New Zealand businesses, jobs and the economy during this unprecedented global economic shock,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said. ...
Work is underway looking at measures to speed up consents for development and infrastructure projects during the recovery from COVID 19, to provide jobs and stimulate our economy. Environment Minister David Parker said the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global crisis that will have a wide ranging and lasting impact ...
Advance payments will be made to transport construction industry contractors to retain the workforce and ensure it is ready to quickly gear up to build projects which will be vital to New Zealand’s COVID-19 economic recovery, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. He said keeping the workforce required to build ...
The Government has tasked a group of industry leaders to seek out infrastructure projects that are ready to start as soon as the construction industry returns to normal to reduce the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones say. The Infrastructure ...
Work to scale up the health system in preparation for COVID-19 was today outlined by Health Minister David Clark, as he reported back to the new Epidemic Response Committee. “We are well placed to contain the spread of COVID-19. We have taken early and decisive action at our borders, and ...
The Government is refining its COVID-19 essential business guidance to include the distribution of news publications for communities which are hard to reach. The Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, Kris Faafoi, said the move was in recognition of the importance for New Zealanders who might be harder to ...
The Government is ensuring supermarkets can open on Easter Sunday so we can buy groceries, but stay closed on Good Friday allowing workers to take a break. This provides a balanced approach and ensures we avoid large queues that two days closure may cause. “Supermarkets will be able to open ...
Following the successful conclusion of the Building Partner Capacity (BPC) mission at Taji, New Zealand defence personnel are returning to New Zealand from Iraq, in accordance with the Cabinet decision made in June 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron Mark announced today. “New Zealand is very ...
The State of National Emergency to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has been extended for a further seven days, Minister of Civil Defence Peeni Henare said. The initial declaration on March 25 lasted seven days and can be extended as many times as necessary. “Since we went into isolation ...
New Zealand’s ability to go hard and go early in the fight against COVID-19 has been underpinned by strong Government finances and the growing economy heading into this global pandemic, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the eight months to the end ...
Health Minister Dr David Clark says 36 new intensive care beds at Christchurch Hospital’s new Hagley building are being fast tracked so they are available for treatment of COVID-19 patients. The Ministry of Health is working with contractor CPB and Canterbury DHB to enable access to the hospital’s ICU, ...
The Government has fast-tracked up to $1 million to help Air New Zealand move urgent freight to and from New Zealand, with the first flight to Shanghai leaving tonight, Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced today. Phil Twyford says it’s crucial that trade in vital goods such as medical supplies and ...
New Zealand will temporarily remove tariffs on all medical and hygiene imports needed for the COVID-19 response. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi said today that the New Zealand Customs Service will apply tariff concessions to all diagnostic reagents and testing ...
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson has clarified that the changes to the wage subsidy scheme announced yesterday mean that employers should be passing on the full subsidy to workers, except in the case where the person’s normal income is less than the level of the subsidy. “We still want employers ...
Medical face masks from the national reserve supply are now being distributed to District Health Boards, while at the same time local production is being ramped up. Yesterday more than 640,000 masks were sent to DHBS – that is an immediate two week supply, with more to follow in coming ...
The Government has made modifications to the wage subsidy scheme to ensure people don’t lose their jobs during the national lockdown. These changes will soften the impact of COVID-19 on workers, families and businesses, and position them to exit the lockdown and look to recovery, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. ...
Farmers whose herds were culled in response to the outbreak of Mycoplasma bovis will be able to minimise the tax treatment of their income in some circumstances. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash says Cabinet has agreed to change the law. It means farmers may be eligible to spread their income over ...
A $27 million dollar package, effective immediately, is being provided to social sector services and community groups to ensure they can continue to provide essential support to communities as we stay at home as a nation to stop the spread of COVID-19, Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni announced. “At ...
“The guilty plea today will provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. “These guilty pleas and conviction bring accountability for what happened and also save the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured, ...
The Prime Minister is holding daily press conferences to update New Zealanders on the Government's response to COVID-19. Links to videos and transcripts of these updates below. These transcripts also include All of Government press conferences led by Director Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield. 25 March: Live update from the Prime ...
Frontline Police numbers have broken through the 10,000 mark for the first time in history as officers step forward to keep the community safe during the COVID19 lockdown. “Two Police graduations in Auckland and Wellington in the past week have been conducted in unprecedented circumstances,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said. ...
Urgent legislation has been passed to support the package of economic and social measures needed to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The COVID-19 Response (Taxation and Social Assistance Urgent Measures) Bill will cushion New Zealanders from the worst economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Revenue Minister ...
From tomorrow, Government support for farmers and growers affected by drought will be expanded and extended across the country, with access to Rural Assistance Payments (RAPS) available throughout the North Island, parts of the South Island and the Chatham Islands, Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced. “These challenging conditions have ...
Parliament has passed amendments to legislation that give the Secretary of Education stronger powers to act in the fight to limit the spread of COVID-19, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “They are part of a suite of changes passed under the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” Chris ...
Canada, Australia, Chile, Brunei and Myanmar have joined forces with New Zealand and Singapore by committing to keep supply chains open and remove any existing trade restrictive measures on essential goods, especially medical supplies, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker today welcomed ...
Immediate freeze on rent increases Tenancies will not be terminated during the lock-down period, unless the parties agree, or in limited circumstances Tenants who had previously given notice can stay in their if they need to stay in the tenancy during the lock-down period Tenants will still be able to ...
As New Zealand unites to lock-down in the fight against COVID-19, the Finance Minister is urging all businesses and workers to stay connected over the next four weeks. “We understand the extreme pressure many businesses are under right now. I know most business owners think of their workers as family ...
A State of National Emergency has been declared across the country as the Government pulls out all the stops to curtail the spread of COVID-19. “Today we put in place our country’s second ever State of National Emergency as we fight a global pandemic, save New Zealanders’ lives and prevent ...
Mr Speaker I wish to make a Ministerial Statement under Standing Order 347 in relation to the recent declaration of a State of National Emergency. Having considered the advice of the Director Civil Defence Emergency Management, the Minister of Civil Defence declared a State of National Emergency for the whole of ...
People needing to travel on domestic flights, trains and Cook Strait ferries to get home before the country moves into level 4 lock-down tomorrow night will be able to continue using the passenger services until midnight on Friday, Transport Minister Phil Twyford said today. Domestic passenger services, particularly ferries, have ...
The Government, retail banks and the Reserve Bank are today announcing a major financial support package for home owners and businesses affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19. The package will include a six month principal and interest payment holiday for mortgage holders and SME customers whose incomes have been ...
Assessing the economic impact of Covid-19 requires a new approach to a problem economists have not encountered in modern times, writes Dr Kirdan Lees Covid-19 has presented quite a problem for economists. Containment policies that seek to flatten the Covid-19 curve or eliminate the virus, restrict economic activity. All governments ...
Every day at 1pm New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announces precise figures on the number of confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in the country. He is working on the best information available, and during this week the level of community transmission was put at around ...
Most of New Zealand's MPs are in lockdown just like the rest of us, confined to their neighbourhoods and stuck in their bubbles. Checkpoint called a few to ask them what they're doing. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Deery, Lecturer in Early Childhood Education, University of Melbourne “Stupid coronavirus!” I heard my six-year-old mumble while talking in her sleep. Earlier that day her swimming and basketball lessons were cancelled, a birthday party postponed, and she had to race with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University “Zoombombing” in case you haven’t heard, is the unsavoury practice of posting distressing comments, pictures or videos after gatecrashing virtual meetings hosted by the videoconferencing app Zoom. With hundreds of millions ...
Analysis - A leading epidemiologist says health authorities 'really have no idea' of the extent of community spread, Parliament's Epidemic Response Committee gets its teeth into what's going on during the lockdown and the horrendous economic imp ...
The fifth in our new series of charts, graphics and data visualisations by Chris McDowall, covering the Covid-19 epidemic within New Zealand. We’ll publish the latest set each day on The Spinoff.This work is entirely funded by the generosity of The Spinoff MembersInformation about confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 ...
The Finance Minister says struggling companies will be able to put some debt into hibernation, under new legislation unveiled today. Watch the latest government update here. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Lund, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation Editor’s note: The following is current as at April 3, 2020. Things are changing quickly so best to keep an eye on the latest information from WA Health, as well as the federal government.This article ...
During the challenges associated with lockdown, the Māori Party are congratulating Ngāti Ruanui and South Taranaki on the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling What does the COVID-19 pandemic sound like? For this episode, Dallas Rogers – a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney – asked academic colleagues from all over ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Gallasch, Lecturer in Law, Swinburne University of Technology “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion,” wrote Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), “but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the ...
Environment Minister David Parker has directed officials to find ways to fast-track consents for infrastructure and development projects. He says his goal is to help create a pipeline of projects so that some can start immediately once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted “so people can get back into work as fast ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Spain and Switzerland top cases, countries converging. Chart by Keith Rankin.Of the larger European countries, Italy is now in third place for known cases per person in the population. Spain has overtaken Switzerland for ...
Contact tracing is a crucial part of the Covid-19 puzzle and technology might prove essential to scaling up New Zealand's tracing capacity, Marc Daalder reports With the lockdown reducing physical contact between members of the public and testing ramping up, the only missing piece of the Covid-19 puzzle is contact tracing. ...
Insolvency laws will be temporarily changed to allow troubled companies to trade while technically insolvent Finance Minister Grant Robertson has announced changes to the Companies Act to allow companies to put their debts into "hibernation". Robertson said companies facing liquidity problems would have "safe harbour" from their normal insolvency duties ...
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru are celebrating the decision of the Court of Appeal, announced today, to stop Trans-Tasman Resources plans for risky seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight. The Court of Appeal found that there ...
Bernard Hickey talks to Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr about a massive spike in US jobless claims, and they talk about an inspiring Kiwi app to fight Covid-19 globally. Guest, Pie Funds chief executive Mike Taylor also joins them to talk about the massive market swings and hopes for recovery. Bernard zooms out ...
Political commentators from the left and right sides of the political divide are questioning the powers being exercised by police during the nation-wide “lockdown”. The Asian Invasion 2019 blog draws attention to the warning sounded by former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption when he challenged Covid-19 actions by British ...
Pacific Media Watch The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) has strongly condemned the shoot-to-kill order by President Rodrigo Duterte this week as a ‘dangerous’ opening to target and kill anyone in a public space. “We are raising the alarm in the international community on President ...
The Reserve Bank looks set to start buying council bonds as well as Government bonds to unfreeze financial markets and allow councils to defer rates and jointly invest in infrastructure with the central Government, Dileepa Fonseka reports In what would be another unprecedented move to calm financial markets and help ...
Four PhD students engaged a clinical psychologist to help them navigate an uncertain time in their studies. They share their findings here.As four PhD students from Massey University’s Joint Centre for Disaster Research we, like many others, can’t stop reading and talking about the unfolding events that have gripped our ...
The SpinoffBy Ashleigh Rushton, Lisa McLaren, Marion Tan & Sara Harrison
Covid-19 testing of the wider population is on the cards as World Health Organisation research shows people are most contagious within their first few days of being infected Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says Covid-19 carriers are highly infectious when they show few signs of carrying the virus. People were ...
Z Energy is the latest company to cut its dividend payout and start talking to its banks about strengthening its finances. Chief executive Mike Bennetts said the company, the largest fuel retailer in the country, had been battered by a range of issues over the past 18 months, and was ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney Young people in Australia are among the fastest-growing group to contract COVID19. According to the Department of Health, there are now more cases in Australia among people aged 20 – 29 years than any ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Pattinson, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times. But it can be even harder when you’re anxious or have something on your mind – a global pandemic, for example. ...
Journalist and Great Barrier Island resident Lindsay Wright reflects on outer gulf pandemic preparedness. Hardy locals can tough it out but Auckland bach owners and boaties should keep their distance. Aotea Great Barrier, the easternmost island in the Hauraki Gulf, are undergoing a Covid-19-inspired population flood. Great Barrier has scenery that makes ...
The Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand is delighted that the government has moved quickly to provide an initial financial support package for pharmacy. The $15 million package was paid this week to pharmacy contract holders. Pharmaceutical Society president ...
How is Covid-19 spreading within the country? Newsroom is collating information as it's available to paint a picture of what's happening.The following charts are based on numbers shared at the daily press conference and are "as of 9am" of the day. There were 71 new cases of Covid-19 in ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and bookseller Ash Davida Jane. washed up! it gets tiring pushing the fire alarm every nightbut things keep catching on fireor sometimes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Foster, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney Our earliest vertebrate (animals with backbones) ancestors laid eggs, but over millions of years of evolution, some species began to give birth to live young. There is a traditional dichotomy in vertebrate reproduction: species ...
Welcome to the second edition of our lockdown Top 10s. A reminder that this chart has nothing to do with sales or launches or the publishing cycle; these are just books the Unity team love – and this week it’s westerns, full of big skies and long rides and showdowns.AUCKLANDAll ...
Wellington Mayor Andy Foster’s plan to cover revenue shortfalls through borrowing without cutting low priority spending is immoral, says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . “Businesses and households across the country are meeting financial challenges ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin John Brophy, Emeritus Professor of Creative writing, University of Melbourne “Katrina, I had in mind a prayer, but only this came,” Bruce Dawe wrote to his infant daughter, new-born, in intensive care, her life in the balance, declaring as poets must ...
The shock closure of Bauer NZ – and with it all of the country’s current affairs magazines – is a stark reminder of the fragile state of local media, writes Mel Bunce, the author of a book on the subject.It is a dark week for journalism in New Zealand, with ...
Join Leonie Hayden as she works through the first four weeks of Scotty Morrison’s Māori Made Easy.Rāmere/FridayWe made it to the end of week one e te whānau. It wasn’t that hard! In fact it was… Māori made easy.To end our week of pronunciation practice we’re going to revisit everything we ...
India faces more challenges battling Covid-19 than any other country in the world. With 1.3 billion inhabitants, hundreds of different languages spoken, and an estimated 80% of the workforce daily wage earners currently without jobs, it could be a recipe for disaster.I’ve been living in India for more than three ...
By Sri Krishnamurthi of Pacific Media Watch The Vanuatu government is using the Covid-19 to impose draconian measures and authoritarian rule by end of last month. Wholesale censorship of all Covid-19 related content has been instituted. Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) took the extraordinary step to ...
People with lower credit scores increased their borrowing upon news of the lockdown, while those with higher scores dropped away. March data from the credit-reporting agency Centrix, which runs credit checks on behalf of banks, finance companies, online lenders, and buy now pay later schemes, showed credit inquiries dropped sharply ...
Small business owners say commercial rent relief is desperately needed if they are to survive past the Covid-19 disruptions. While the wage subsidy helped with staff costs, there is currently no government assistance for commercial rent - which typically accounts for 40 percent of a firm's fixed costs. Landlords and ...
SkyCity is making 200 staff redundant as part of cost cutting because of the Covid-19 virus. The casino operator said it had no choice but to cut the size of the workforce given that once business resumes it will be at much reduced level. Chief executive Graeme Stephens said it's ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out. In ...
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 contentMedia Henry Cooke (Stuff): There’s no easy way for Government to save media drowning. But a fast fix is ...
Just after midday a cyclist was killed on a straight road on a clear day, after being hit by a van in North Canterbury. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is asking for the mandatory cyclist/vulnerable road user passing gap, which is in consultation, ...
By Indra Singh in Suva Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says that if Fijians continue to disregard the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic directives from authorities, a nationwide 24-hour curfew could be imposed. His comments come as Fiji yesterday recorded its two latest coronavirus cases, taking the total to seven. Bainimarama said ...
In our new series The Lockdown Letters, some of New Zealand’s best writers tell us what they’ve been up to in the days of Covid-19 alert level four. Today, Ōtaki author Renée.Yes, a few cyclists out and about. I remember my first bike bought from Farmers around 1942, five shillings a ...
Internal memos from NZ’s biggest magazine company, which announced its sudden closure yesterday, state they were lobbying to change a ban on publication. But the minister responsible, Kris Faafoi, has doubled down on rejecting that position, calling those internal communications ‘contradictory’ to what they said to him directly.Magazine publishing giant ...
Up to 100,000 foreigners could be seeking to leave the country in coming weeks, now the Government has relaxed domestic travel restrictions for them. ...
The loss of a loved one can be difficult in the best of times. But it’s even more painful when the planes are grounded.Late on Saturday night, three days into New Zealand’s level four lockdown, Harish got a call from his sister in India telling him that his father had ...
Health Minister David Clark has flouted the Government's advice to exercise locally after confirming he drove to a park to go mountain biking on Thursday. ...
Covid-19 cases top 1m; Trump brags he's #1 on Facebook and says he knows about the virus because a 'friend' got it; UK testing scandal grows; Cats more vulnerable to virus than dogsTicking up to a million cases: A gruesome landmark was passed today when we go over one million ...
“So do not fear, I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” Isaiah 41:10 COVID-19 - Lock down: one week on Welcome to the latest Policy Watch ...
Workers at the Port of Lyttelton are resisting the introduction of casual cargo handlers due to concerns about COVID19. RMTU South Island Organizer John Kerr says there is concern about a Lyttelton Port Company (LPC) proposal to "bring in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash University One of Australia’s preeminent historians, Stuart Macintyre, once observed of John Curtin, the Labor Party leader revered for navigating this nation through the dangers of the second world war, that he would have ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Professor of Architecture, University of Adelaide New research the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that SARS CoV 2, which causes the disease known as COVID-19 coronavirus, is more stable on plastic and stainless steel than on cardboard or ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW The Australian government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy, estimated to cost A$130 billion, is a crucial measure to help keep the economy from completely cratering. But, even if COVID-19 is sufficiently under control for the economy to return ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gordon Menzies, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Technology Sydney During this pandemic, our twin health and economic crises require two different types of concern, and they operate differently. For the health crisis, a high level of concern is necessary. Saving lives ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harriette Richards, University of Melbourne Times of instability and crisis produce increased nostalgia for the past. We long for a time that no longer exists, or never existed. Like melancholy, nostalgia is a sentiment of loss – one that’s particularly familiar to ...
RBNZ bans bank dividends; Who is next after Bauer's shock closure? Vital plan blocked; Commission wins in real estate price fixing case; Softbank walks out WeWorkNo you won’t: The Reserve Bank took the unprecedented step of prohibiting the banks from paying dividends during the coronavirus crisis or redeeming any ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Media reels after horror week, Wellington Council facing massive budget crunch, and highest single day of new Covid-19 cases.It had always been clear that this was going to be a difficult time for the media, with the Covid-19 downturn hitting ...
Former National Finance Ministers Steven Joyce and Bill English question the severity of the Covid-19 lockdown and ask whether the Government has an exit strategy. Andrew Patterson reports. Steven Joyce and Bill English have seen their fair share of financial crises and natural disasters as the last National Government's finance ...
There is no sign the government will tighten quarantine controls for those arriving at the border, in response to calls from the Opposition to quarantine and test everyone. ...
Two new cases of Covid-19 have been identified in Fiji, prompting a lockdown of its capital. Teuila Fuatai reports. Fijian health authorities are scrambling to identify close contacts of its latest two Covid-19 cases. The couple, from Nabua, Suva, appear unrelated to the country’s previous five. Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama ...
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His numbers are not accurate but the gist and ultimate question remain to be confronted…
"The one thing they will not do, however, is confront the brutal, but inescapable, truth that there is only one way this planet will be saved from the effects of the 9 billion human-beings living upon its surface; and that is for more than 8 billion of them to disappear. How that might be achieved, and who should take responsibility for achieving it, are questions which, to date, only novelists and science fiction writers have attempted to answer."
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/101146/chris-trotter-deconstructs-arguments-used-eco-warriors-and-questions-how-much-they
Inspired by weka's "Totally Shit Farming" post, here's a quick look at the status of non-cow dairy efforts.
tl;dr, one company has made and sold batches of icecream made from lab-grown whey and casein, and there's others not too far behind. To be sure, the tiny quantities involved make it a publicity stunt rather than a real product. But it's still a big milestone on the way to a real alternative to a cow.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/perfect-day-foods-made-ice-cream-from-real-dairy-grown-in-lab.html
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/smebiz/2019/07/22/forget-synthetic-meat-lab-grown-dairy-is-here
That gives the farming lobby a reason to keep on with practices that can not be supported and avoid improving their approach. I like the idea of having milk from happy cows, given proper conditions and feed, it is a natural way of getting good food. But the ability to force-feed the animals, and manipulate them to the nth degree, take their colostrum, take the calves away from the mothers at an early age etc etc has warped the dairy system.
Having dairy replaced by tech is another step away from the needs of the populace; there is money to be made by making business from spoiling the planet and our traditional systems. It is happening with meat, milk, and further, our money exchange being replaced by electrified cards, and on.
i find lab 'grown' as gross as the practices of industrial dairy farming.
i really would like to go to ethical organic farming.
this to me is just simply the other extreme of the same scale.
Sure you've got a preference. And you've probably got a price differential point at which you're willing to pay extra to indulge that preference. But the vast majority of consumers? Not so much.
When lab-grown synthesised milk becomes an actual thing, something that's going to get a lot more publicity is how engineered the milk we buy already is. Between the cow and bottle, it's cooked, separated into its constituents, then reformulated back to just barely meet the minimum requirements of whatever category it's sold as. Lab-grown constituents will be just a minor change in that context.
https://milk.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000658
http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/permeate-%E2%80%93-everything-you-need-know-about-milk-standardisation
Cooking and pasteurisation aren't quite the same thing, but either can be done in a home kitchen. Full fat milk doesn't get much else done to it afaik, but do share because it's this kind of conflation that leads to people not trusting science.
and once we get over the idiocy of avoid animal fats, more people will want full fat milk again.
Full fat milk gets the same separation then add back in treatment reduced fat and skim milk get.
Homogenisation and Standardisation.. 'town supply' has had it for decades
how does that differ from historical separation of cream from milk?
(leave homogenisation out for now, because it's weird, just shake the bottle)
The point is the milk we buy in the supermarket is a manipulated engineered product. It's had a shit load more done to it than just squirted out of a cow, made safe, and put in a bottle.
Forty-odd years ago as a kid doing a milk run I got a tour through the Palmy milk treatment plant. Part of that was tasting a small sample at each step along the way. And every step made a big difference. I'd imagine what was happening then is primitive compared to how it's manipulated now.
pasteurisation and separating cream from milk can be done at home. Homogenisation is a more industrial process but even that I think is a long step from lab dairy.
It's like people who think that splicing genes is the same as selective breeding. If it doesn't matter to you, that's great, you can eat lab dairy. But it will matter to many, and pretending those are all the same kind of tech will create confusion, division and resentment.
Looking back,it seems complex diets from simpler foods,greater (longer work) days, seem to have been a recipe for good health for the working class.
Mid-Victorian working class men and women consumed between 50% and 100% more calories than we do, but because they were so much more physically active than we are today, overweight and obesity hardly existed at the working class level. The working class diet was rich in seasonal vegetables and fruits; with consumption of fruits and vegetables amounting to eight to 10 portions per day. This far exceeds the current national average of around three portions, and the government-recommended five-a-day. The mid-Victorian diet also contained significantly more nuts, legumes, whole grains and omega three fatty acids than the modern diet. Much meat consumed was offal, which has a higher micronutrient density than the skeletal muscle we largely eat today [59]. Prior to the introduction of margarine in the late Victorian period, dietary intakes of trans fats were very low. There were very few processed foods and therefore little hidden salt, other than in bread (Recipes suggest that significantly less salt was then added to meals. At table, salt was not usually sprinkled on a serving but piled at the side of the plate, allowing consumers to regulate consumption in a more controlled way.). The mid-Victorian diet had a lower calorific density and a higher nutrient density than ours. It had a higher content of fibre (including fermentable fibre), and a lower sodium/potassium ratio. In short, the mid-Victorians ate a diet that was not only considerably better than our own, but also far in advance of current government recommendations. It more closely resembles the Mediterranean diet, proven in many studies to promote health and longevity; or even the ‘Paleolithic diet’ recommended by some nutritionists [60].
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
that was interesting!
My uncle (born around WW1 I think) used to do that with his salt, got a lot of ribbing about it that he ignored. I have a context to put his habit in now.
I'll be reading the article. The nutrient density doesn't surprise me, the low levels of animal fat does.
Victorian margarine though, what?
Sure. I'd imagine in a possible future, those who find the distinction important will still be able to buy the boutique product from a cow at enormous price with emission fees, pollution fees, animal welfare fees and so on.
And those that don't care at all, or only care about nutritional value and taste, or can't afford the boutique stuff out of a cow, will end up eating cheese and yoghurt and maybe even directly drinking the stuff that comes from industrial vats.
What I'd like to see is more honesty about lab dairy. That it needs to be presented as being the same as cow's milk suggests there isn't as much acceptance of it as you believe.
Do you mean ethical organic farming of animals?
yes.
Humans are omnivores, we can luckily survive by eating clay.
To me lab grown is the other extreme to industrial farming. As far removed from nature and natural occurance as can be giving a false sense of food security while the planet still is being treated as a rubbish bin.
so yes, ethical farming, less eating, paying the full price of food, paying even the full price of gasoline, and such. Cause us here in the spoiled western world we have not paid the full price on anything in a long time. We like the stuff that we eat, that we wrap our selfs in, that we use to enterain us, that houses us all to be cheap.
Just because humans can eat animal flesh doesn't mean they should.
I am genuinely interested in the ethics of killing an animal to eat it (or paying someone else indirectly to do it), which I'm sure the animal doesn't want, and which is unnecessary given humans can exist perfectly well on a plant-based diet.
Besides the blatant anthropomorphising, that's a pretty loose use of "perfectly well".
Both of which I stand behind.
The documentary evidence I've seen of animals going to slaughter kind of shows me they are not choosing to have their throats cut. They are sentient beings who feel terror just like we do.
And a balanced plant-based diet is healthy, nutricious and good for the planet. What's not to like about that?
Taste and texture.
As for the "documentary evidence", yeah nah. Persistent abstract memory, self awareness, reasoned anticipation of future events, and the ability to communicate abstract ideas are all part of a fundamentally different consciousness than biological impulse.
We shouldn't be cruel, but to equate a cow with a human is a moral equivalence that lacks any reasonable foundation.
Totally disagree so let's leave it there.
fair call.
Humans and all other living things must 'consume' nutrients to live. Some humans have an (over-)abundance of dietary choices, and so we have omnivores, vegetarians, vegans et al.
The known risks associated with 'veganism by choice' are easily mitigated, hence the paucity of reports of human health being compromised by veganism in the OECD.
If human civilisation reverts to a pre-industrial state, then veganism may be a less heathly ‘option’, but at the moment it seems a pretty good OECD option for the health of humans and the planet.
Not a choice I could make (yet), because I enjoy eating bacon, chicken, cheese et al. [dribble drool, slaver slobber] It's a delicious habit that is (on balance) bad for my health, and for the planet, but 'from my cold, dead mouth' and all that, although I’m eating less meat than I used to.
Jaeeezusss! 106.7 kilos a year? 2 kilos a week? Maybe Psycho Milt is chowing down that roughly 1 1/2 kilos a week I'm not eating.
I seem to be getting through half a kilo a week just in bacon for breakfast, so yeah, probably eating a few people's shares…
…which I'm sure the animal doesn't want…
Plants don't want to be eaten either, Grey Area. Many go to considerable evolutionary efforts to make it harder to eat them, up to and including making themselves toxic to animals. If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise.
A broccopalypse or maybe a caulicaust lol
It's funny how the idea of differentiating what one consumes is extrapolated into living without killing things – what's with that?
for some reason it brings to mind this lyric and song for me
We walked out – tentacle in hand
You could sense that the earthlings would not understand
They'd go.. nudge nudge …when we got off the bus
Saying it's extra-terrestial – not like us
And it's bad enough with another race
But fuck me… a monster …from outer space
I spose I see us all as earthlings
is the issue what one consumes or what dies so that one might live?
I believe that the ecological cost of mass producing meat is OTT. I think that our western diets are unsustainable. People make their choices to do what they want and they accept their choices – personally I no longer care what anyone else eats – we all make choices. It is a fairness of argument for me re my comment.
As a global trade, and the gearing required to bring it together, you're probably correct – Way too high an environmental cost.
For a local market only, surely consumption can continue with a much better carbon footprint and improved standards.
Re ethics of argument, Grey Area's argument was that killing animals to eat them is wrong as animals don't want to be killed, so people should eat plants. My counter-argument was that plants also don't want to be killed and it's impossible for humans to live without killing things. In what sense do you consider that counter-argument unfair?
Far more than our western diets is unsustainable….the problem is in providing a viable alternative and the transition…and equitably
@ Al1en – needs verses wants I suppose
@ PM I think when you said, "If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise." was my tipping point. Extrapolating for effect just a little too far for me. So that's why I responded.
@ Pat – yeah – I believe the inevitability of the changes will make choice moot down the track – still we can future proof by diversifying while we can and moving to as sustainable as we can be. The dietary lifestyle we enjoy now is pretty decadent and the cost so high imo.
I'm similar marty. It's fairness for humans globally, but also fairness for other life forms.
The more people eat local the more this will become apparent. So many people don't understand what it takes to grow good food and do that fairly.
Sadly eating locally dosnt solve it…there are too many locations that require imported food and therein lies one of the problems
where are you thinking needs imported food?
the uk for one…but if you like we could research the number of locations that are net food importers
P.S.
quick search reveals
https://www.indexmundi.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/19/food-exports-and-imports-worldwide/
and none of this accounts for CC…or failed states
@ PM I think when you said, "If you want to live without killing things, you'd better learn how to photosynthesise." was my tipping point.
I think it's a reasonable response. Even if you reject the idea that plants object to being killed, is it wrong to kill a chicken so you can eat it but OK to kill a shitload of mice when you turn your combine harvesters loose on the wheat crop? It isn't currently possible for humans to live without killing things.
that countries import food doesn't mean they have to or that they can't produce food locally. Local food production is largely a function of the relationship between population, geography and climate. Capitalism doesn't care about that because it has fossil fuels and can import and export food at will.
Pat that link appears to be measuring $ not things like calories or nutrients.
@ Psycho Milt
Do you also think that natures predators are also undesirable?…we are nothing more than mammals and we are omnivores, are we to be condemned any more than sharks or lions?…or any other species that ends the existence of another life form
we are nothing more than mammals and we are omnivores, are we to be condemned any more than sharks or lions?
I wouldn't say "nothing more than," but we for sure are omnivorous primates and that means we have a taste for eating other critters, much like sharks or lions.
It's worth keeping in mind that plants are also in evolutionary competition with each other and doing their best to ensure their own survival at the expense of other plant species, same as animals. It just all happens a hell of a lot slower and without all the clawing, biting, bludgeoning etc.
@Weka.lol…didnt you know everything is measured in dollars?….but we can can still infer …and as said that dosnt account for CC nor failed states…which are only going to increase.
@ PM….thats all very well but dosnt address my point.
Sorry, in that case I haven't understood what you were saying. Could you dumb it down for me?
The question was are we to be condemned?….your answer didnt address that….so I shall offer one on your behalf…yes we are, as a result of our success we are destined to out compete everything including our environment.
Pat, lol, yes dollars rule. I wondered if one is measuring commodity dollars how useful that is because it will include things like chocolate, coffee and wine.
That CC and war are going to force big changes in food production is an argument for shifting to local food production sooner rather than later.
7.8 billion and growing…it aint doable.
We are witnessing how humans cope with a resource constrained world….we dont.
All of our petty disputes about how we farm etc are symptomatic of a problem that we cannot solve.
Long before rising sea levels or non habitable heat undoes us we will will destroy each other
Why is it not doable? We know that the end of fossil fuels will make transporting food harder. We know that we need more resilient systems. Both those things are within our reach irrespective of how bad CC gets.
Addressing industrial dairying isn't a petty dispute, it's literally about whether humans get to survive in the future, possibly even you and I. Those big, industrial, nature ignoring, FF burning systems are going to crash. How is relocalising food production not a good response to that?
The question was are we to be condemned?
…
… yes we are, as a result of our success we are destined to out compete everything including our environment.
It does sure look like having self-awareness and the ability to think in abstracts doesn't outweigh being just an upmarket bunch of omnivore primates when it comes down to it. I'll hold off the condemnations until it's clear whether or not we've played ourselves, though.
Its petty because we are creating unnecessary divisions in a society that has little chance of achieving a positive outcome…and it certainly wont if its divided.
The problem is so complicated that the only possible way to address it requires widespread buy in…that is not achieved by attack and demonisation.
Societies are too easily fragmented and as said in other posts long before we are seriously challenged by the physical impacts of CC we will have to avoid the societal conflicts (if we can)
Animals are sentient beings and while plants are alive they are not sentient.
Are you suggesting that boiling a live chicken and a head of broccoli are the same thing?
How do we know this is true? Science is demonstrating that plants in forests communicate with each other, including by using other species. They tend and protect via this communication as well as repel. Maybe that's not sentience as we understand it, or maybe we're locked into particular ideas about sentience that stop us seeing other kinds.
It really is an amazing rabbit hole to dive into for a while. It starts to screw with our concepts of "communication" and even what constitutes an "organism" or a "mind", our role in the world and even whether there is a being of "humanity" that is made up of all the interactions of us people. At the root of it all is the conundrum of the observer who sits behind our eyes and other sensory organs.
John Varley's "The Ophiuchi Hotline" has a plotline in which aliens discover the Earth and identify Homo Sapiens not as a fellow sentient species but as a cancerous growth and eradicate it, leaving the occupants of a base on the moon as the last humans. In the novel, the aliens consider whales and dolphins to be Earth's sentient life forms (perhaps reflecting the fact it was written in the 1970s), but it would be equally plausible that they'd consider plants the sentient life forms, given that aliens could be evolved from any kind of life.
Or even the earth itself as a life form, and our destruction of biodiversity (and ther biological interactions therein) as a literal brain cancer.
McFLock at 8.18pm.
I know. I love it. It really stretches my mind. I find myself going 'that can't be right', then going 'well yeah, it could be'. In the end my position is that there are plenty of good reasons to err on the side of caution and not be cruel to anything unnecessarily. We don't have to know for sure if forests are sentient to decide that cutting one down is something serious.
I feel sorry for humans sometimes with our big brains trying to figure out how to be with our particular capacity for perception.
I'm suggesting that living things don't want to be killed, but we don't have much choice about killing them if we want to remain alive ourselves and that applies to eating plants as much as it does to eating animals. If you personally want to designate "has a central nervous system" as a threshold beyond which you won't kill to eat, by all means act on it and eat accordingly. But that designation is as arbitrary as anyone else's.
No-one answered my question. You reacted but you didn't respond. Bit like plants actually.
And in reply to Pyscho Milt upstream (as I don't see a reply button) aboiut mice being killed by a combine harvester Earthling Ed would ask: "Morally, is there a difference between accidentally hitting a dog with your car and purposefully hitting a dog with your car?”. If you say yes, "then by that logic is there morally a difference between an animal accidentally being killed in crop production and an animal purposefully being killed in a slaughterhouse?”.
If it were impossible to drive your car without accidentally hitting a bunch of dogs on your way to your destination, I expect many of us would be put off driving. People give less of a shit about mice and other field critters, on the out-of-sight-out-of-mind principle.
I didn't answer your question, no. The question was essentially a reframing of McFlock's comment further up:
We shouldn't be cruel, but to equate a cow with a human is a moral equivalence that lacks any reasonable foundation.
You've swapped out "cow/human" with "broccoli/chicken" but are making essentially the same argument. I notice that your response to that argument from McFlock was "Totally disagree but let's leave it there." Given that response, why do you assume we'd answer your question?
I wasn't assuming anything. I was busy at work and didn't have the time to challenge the statement that I don't accept. I happened to see some activity around the issue and decided to re-enter the fray.
And anyway that was in response to him this afternoon not you this evening.
Seeing as you have a bit more time, then. My shorthand on the issue for a while now has been "could [animal X] write an essay entitled what I did on my holidays?"
Some mammals and cephalopodes probably could, given the right communication interface. Not all of them, though.
Cows and sheep, I doubt it. And if they can't, even if there's a type of impulse-driven or momentary sentience, it wouldn't exist without farming. If we can give them a reasonably happy life and end it without their anticipation or pain, by several methods of moral accounting (utilitarianism or whatever) I'm not seeing a net negative.
Contrast with slavery, or cannibalism of captive humans. Lots of negatives and suffering for a simple meal or delaying mechanisation.
I mean, theoretically the math might add up, but Kevin would have to make a lots-better-than-Michelin dinner for that to happen. 🙂
My shorthand position is that killing other sentient beings to use them as a food source is immoral, cruel and for those of us in the "West" unnecessary.
I see cows, pigs, sheep, etc as someone, not something. Especially not something for us to use.
They are creatures often with personalities and intelligence and with a capacity to feel emotions like we do.
Humans seem to have such huge capacity to f*ck things up. We use and abuse everything around us and the climate crisis we are in the middle of is mostly the result of that.
So taking off my vegan hat and putting on my climate change one, animal agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and if we are to have any chance of at least slowing climate collapse animal agriculture needs to be hugely reduced and better still eliminated.
We can't afford it anymore.
And if I shared that perspective, I'd probably agree. Or eat people. But I've been around livestock of various types, and didn't see the same spark of humanity that you did.
As for climate change, the main event will always be fossil fuels. Substitutiopn is necessary, and if it's not sufficient then global vegetarianism probably won't be, either.
So limit meat intake in the same way we stop using plastic straws – it might encourage people more powerful than us to address the elephant.
yes the line is arbitrary – because you can live within the choices – so the question is then, what are the factors driving the choices – that is where the morals get really interesting
what are your drivers?
the footprint of the choice is important
buying local is important
fairness is another driver – I'm anti capitalism and exploitation
truth also is when I became a vegetarian 39 years ago it was because I couldn't handle the suffering inflicted on the animals – I suppose my species boundary and what falls out of that, is different to science and normal western thought.
I don't think it's all that different. Vegetarianism is hardly rare in the West, or amongst scientists.
It's a line that is philosophical, spiritual, logical, emotional, practical… everyone draws it in their own place. I'm not sure anyone is in a place to judge anyone else's placement of that line – just whether they're being dicks about it 🙂
Yep I spose the reals dicks will be the meat eaters who chose to not reduce their meat especially when reports like the one below come out. The vegans are the good guys although shrill and annoying.
That's quite nice framing by Hans-Otto Pörtner I think
meh
Thinking more of the monomaniacs, but each to their own
"the footprint of the choice is important
buying local is important
fairness is another driver – I'm anti capitalism and exploitation"
Pretty much mine too. Interesting we come to different conclusions about what that means.
"truth also is when I became a vegetarian 39 years ago it was because I couldn't handle the suffering inflicted on the animals – I suppose my species boundary and what falls out of that, is different to science and normal western thought."
I was vegetarian around the same time. I don't think being vegetarian is at odds with western thought especially in a country like NZ where lots of people care about animals. I do think we are behind in the science though and that care for the wellbeing of ecosystems as a right (rather than just how they serve humans) is going to become more mainstream off the back of the leading edge science.
i find lab 'grown' as gross as the practices of industrial dairy farming.
One of the TV news's had an item last night on an Aus company that's just grown kangaroo meat in a lab – story here.
It was pitched as being a way for billions of humans to have a meat diet without affecting the environment (bullshit detector going off big-time at that point). The process takes stem cells from kangaroo meat, puts them in a "nutrient-rich solution" and waits for the stem cells to make kangaroo meat out of the solution.
So, if billions of people are going to eat this stuff, that's shit-tonnes of "nutrient-rich solution" that has to turn up from somewhere – industrial farming, I hear you say? Surely not…
My wife's only comment: "Wouldn't you cut out the middle-man and just eat the "nutrient-rich solution?”
Hmmm. Matrix comes to mind, where steak was an example of why cypher(?) wanted to live in the machine rather than eat the protein gruel in the "real world".
I guess they won't have kangaroo stem cells in the future…
Mixed with alcohol that would make a great breakfast for those who want to forget, even before the day has produced the unforgettables.
Would also see off all those boring "Make sure you eat food when you're drinking, never drink alcohol on an empty stomach, etc" messages. Two birds with one stone…
Yeah it'll take a lot of nutrient-rich solution. But most of that nutrient goes into growing the flesh cells we end up eating, rather than most of it going into just keeping a hulking great host alive and walking around and only a tiny bit goes into muscle growth in a live animal. So growing the nutrient feedstock should require a lot less space and inputs than growing all the vegetable matter a live animal needs to produce the same amount of edible "flesh".
Then there's the matter of eliminating the methane emissions from live ruminants. Although roos aren’t ruminants and are pretty low emission critters.
Personally I'll probably be quite happy with just a moderately realistic facsimile of mince for burgers, sausages, salami, spag bol etc. But bacon is going to have to be fkn convincing before the pigs are out of trouble.
Yes, it would certainly make way more sense than growing crops to feed to livestock – but that has to be the stupidest form of agriculture ever invented.
I guess it just irks me that people talk about replacing meat with plant-based alternatives (which is presumably where this nutrient solution comes from – I sure as shit hope they're not getting it by grinding up sea critters) as though creating industrial-scale crop monocultures were some kind of improvement on grazing livestock. If it is an improvement, the improvement's marginal at best.
To a large extent, the potential for improvement comes from eliminating the methane emissions and effluent problems of live animals.
But cows and sheep are also incredible inefficient at turning the calories and protein they're fed into calories and protein available to humans eating them. Around 1% conversion efficiency for calories and maybe 4% for protein. Pork and poultry do a lot better, around 10% for calories and 15 to 20% for protein (as well as emitting a lot less methane).
If vats didn't do a whole lot better, say at least 30% conversion efficiency, then yeah you'd question the point. But since cells in a vat only have to grow, and not sustain a whole bunch of other metabolic processes, the potential has to be there.
As for where the feed comes from, yeah, ground sea critters would be disastrous. But seaweed could be interesting.
Then there's the whole question around the merits of grazing animals in hilly ground not suitable for cropping. Dunno, maybe if the cell vats become a reality, hill country will be where the boutique "real meat" gets produced.
It's fkn hard finding hard info that isn't obviously pushing some sort of barrow. But the numbers presented in these two pieces are about what seems to be the consensus of stuff I've seen elsewhere.
https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-meat-eaters-guide-to-climate-change-health-what-you-eat-matters/climate-and-environmental-impacts/
https://www.wri.org/blog/2016/04/sustainable-diets-what-you-need-know-12-charts
Fonterra posts another massive loss at $-675 million
And more to come next year.
Do we have anyone in this government who can forcefully represent the whole interests of New Zealand to Fonterra?
This is not a business we can let die.
If the vat-grown whey and casein efforts linked above actually come to fruition, what's going to happen to Fonterra?
I'm guessing the commodity milk-powder business – gone. Commodity cheese for pizzas and burgers – gone. What will be left? Boutique products where the customers will really want to believe they come from happy cows lovingly tended to in green grassy pastures. And that business is extremely vulnerable to the kind of shit highlighted today by weka and lprent.
Commodity milk powder exists because milk cant be stored in its natural form and milk powder can. Cows are milked everyday and the fresh milk has to be processed the following day
The commodity milk powder provides the dairy products for 30 mill people outside NZ for all sorts of reasons.
Just a note about Fonterras loss , they are just book keeping writedowns of assets.
Its not a cash loss as they are awash in it , like the paddocks the cows are stuck in over winter
Perhaps you are demonstrating to us that we are alike the cows in that we are awash with money in this country but stuck up to our knees in debt incurred as we just try to get regular food and find a place to lie down.
If my life was wrapped up in Fonterra I think the aspect worthy of attention in the info is the amount of the write down that relates to market share erosion. Start-ups doing it better than NZ's biggest company.
The rise of domestic competition and abroad.
We don't hold many picture cards. That's one of them, we should be leading the world in the milk fields. If Fonterra were the All Blacks, they couldn't beat Mount Albert Grammar.
Great big Brontosaurus that can barely get out of it's own way. So many desks and so few udders. Subsidiaries struggling in prospering centres around the globe.
We should be brilliant at this. We're not even average.
I paid a premium for cheese in Sweden, about 50% more than here. I visited a Swedish dairy farm. For half the year each cow is hand fed in it's own stall in a heated barn. They had their names on their stall doors.
We don't know how lucky we are. We should be creaming it.
The Swedes are cunning socialists. I think it's because they spend 4 months of the year sitting around fires in the freezing dark slamming shots of rocket fuel, sharing their hearts, dreams and Spring plans.
Dairy farmers felt the winter pinch. Many crop farmers face 5 months of a permafrozen farm. They found a solution that works for everybody. It's easy to push a log around on ice, farmers drop trees, trim them, spray their code on the end and leave them beside the road. The co-op truck with a Hiab grapple stopped at the end of the drive, loaded the logs up and took them to the co-op owned processing plant.
Crop farmers on Graso were as concerned about growing Pines as they were corn.
Ad,,
we are worried about this as it seems that the Chinese are unndermining Fonterra so the share price fall will give them the soluution to buy Fonterra as a luididated bussiness asset.
China are playing us to take over our entire farming industry.
Write down in investments in Australia, Venezuela and Brazil as well as the sell off of Tip Top in NZ . So not just China.
Fonterra is a strange mix of being a Coop and a shareholding company – almost entirely in shares only dairy farmers can own.
The Coop side doesnt make a profit and returns all its earnings to farmers through the milk price.
Normally the payments to farmers each would be 90% or more milk price and the rest 'share dividend'
Maybe someone can look at the accounts in detail and see what share of revenue is Fonterra Coop and how much is Fonterra Ltd
How much of the write down of investments have resulted from the illegal US sanctions that have been inflicted on Venezuela?
The economic collapse ..? Almost all I would think.
Its weird but the US gets all worked up when Russia even thinks of wielding its massive gas exports as an economic weapon.
In fact they want Europe to buy US CNG at higher prices.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/11/16/why-america-struggles-to-sell-lng-in-europe
That's the kind of joint venture they can get behind, where they take over the joint.
Well Fonterra should learn the lesson=$8,000,000 p.annum is NOT the going rate for TALENT!
Earthquakes – just looking. One felt locally, a little jolt.
https://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/statistics
Three weeks ago – more than 24 weak or light
Two weeks ago – 19 w or l.
Today – 5.2 at Mot is regarded as a light earthquake.
6 in last 24 hours.
I noticed south of Snares Island, south of NZ mentioned; I hadn't noticed before.
4th and 5th August 5.6 and 6.3 south of Snares
29 July 4.6 south of Snares
27 July 4.5 "
18 July 5.1 "
18 July 4.6 "
17 July 4.7 "
I noticed that Seddon was continuing in the listings.
Napier had some recently ?
have you just moved there as they are very regular events, like all the other towns along the east coast.
maybe you should have moved to Northland where they are infrequent compared to Napier
Nah Dukeofurl.
I am mostly in the hills above Gisbrone near BOP border, and was born in Auckland in 1944 and raised in Napier 1951 to 1964, didn't you read my posts on the Fox river debarkle?
All us 'Napierites' have very keen knowledge of when the usual swarms of earthquakes do occur with annual frequencies.
This time last week when we were there, it was very odd when the earthquake hit us.
It was at a time when we don't usually expeirience 'swams' of quakes' so that is our concern.
Thanks for your concern.
Shit if I wanted to move from earthquakes I would;
go back to Canada
or my last home Florida
as they don’t have earthquakes,
But Canada's weather is shit
Florida has hurricanes.
So I am good at present above the pollution, noise, and truck gridlock, here in the hinterland of rural NZ hill country.
Bloody new lambs wake me up though now.
The Motueka eq was within the forecast parameters ie a 99% probability of a m5-m5.9.within 12 months of the forecast.
https://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/forecast/
Well we won't be putting the forecasters in prison like the Italians did then?
Should've locked up the politicians etc behind that decision.
Ignorant #$%^&*! with no understanding of science & its uncertainties seeking to deflect from there own failings…
Poission;
That reminds me of the promises made when big tobacco excecs were all linned up in front of a congressonal inquiry promising that smokng was safe???
According to the National Research Council, no toxicity data are available for over 39,000 commercially available used chemicals.
And this also;
Approximately 80 million people or three out of every 10, in the United States can expect to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. The National Cancer Institute has estimated in at least one communique’ that at least 98% of all cancers may be linked to chemical exposures,
According to Lynn Montandon, founder of the Response team for the chemically injured.
Until recently, the Federal Government has concentrated most of its resources on researching cancer and the effects of acute chemical exposures, paying very little attention to the effects of long term low level chemical exposures, or to the neurological, reproductive, developmental, or immunological effects that chemicals may cause. The government is just beginning to look into these non-cancer health risks and the existing research into these other health matters is, on the whole, inadequate and non-existent.
I understand that deep earthquakes in the subducting Pacific Plate such as this one are outside the forecast area which applies only to the (relatively) near surface – approximately to top 20 to 30 km.
The Snares earthquakes are associated with the Puysegur Trench subduction zone where the Australian Plate is descending below the Pacific Plate.
Seddon earhtquakes are likely continuing aftershocks of the 2013 Grassmere quake and/or 2016 Kaikoura quake (several faults in the Cape Campbell area ruptured at the surface in the Kaikoura quake).
Given there are ~20,000 record quakes per year in NZ, its not unusual to have several in a week that are felt to some degree.
If you're interested in where the known acitve faults (on land) are, check out GNS's active faults map: http://data.gns.cri.nz/af
Capitalism finally weaponizes ignorance, and being ignorance, shoots itself. Media moguls setting up fast tracking promedia nra, cc, and now the trifecta, tv personality president, have they no sense. Why are Act members always turning up on tv? first they attacked Greens for not getting into bed with big polluters, now Greens are power starved like 6% down from 10% was a means to demand more. Now I get that we do need balance in tv but just right-wing talking heads, and disgruntaled former Greens, really, is that all they dan find. Seems to me when the ecology, climate, resource limits are hit, or whatever, the media will be the culprits.
The SFO clears Thompson and Clark.
Somehow i knew they would.
Now up next the SFO and the investigation into the National parties donation scandal.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/08/12/surprise-surprise-the-sfo-clears-thompson-clark-spying-heres-the-real-reason-why/
Sounds like a good mystery tv series – what was the one with Gillian Anderson in it? Like that. We can put everything on tv like a real Reality Show. Sit and watch things like on The Truman Show. Tonight we are going to have a prison break – who will get away and who will be shot?
The SFO can be dressed like Sherlock Holmes with really giant magnifying glasses and computer nerds tracing people on grids all round town with Tumpson and Clerk giving directions. The miscreants would have the choice of being in the show, or going to Court and paying their own legal fees whether they are found guilty or not.
Lol. Steven Molyneuax equates lipstick to an erection and channels his compatriot and stablemate Jordan Petersen's virulent hatred of women.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=12257679
Women had fun in the Twitter comments!
I can't wait for his next post, probably wanting to ban women licking icecream in the workplace.
And if, in some insane universe that he inhabits, he is actually right, what does that tell us about women wearing black or purple lipstick? I shudder at his possible explanation!
[Different e-mail address?]
UK 'Conservative Home' newslinks for 11th August 2019
https://www.conservativehome.com/frontpage/2019/08/145979.html
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/boris-johnson-pledges-2-5bn-for-10-000-new-prison-beds-8d7nh0gmf
Interesting ..
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/10/dominic-cummings-owns-farm-got-eu-subsidy
"In the government’s first major piece of legislation mapping out post-EU policy, Environment and Food Secretary Michael Gove is set to present sweeping changes Wednesday to the agriculture sector. Gove's plan will phase out the EU’s sacrosanct direct payment scheme under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which props up farmers' wages based on the amount of land they own, and instead link farmers' payments to environmental standards.
Isnt that a good thing ?
https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-presents-post-brexit-plans-for-agriculture/
Its a common fallacy that most of the things the EU does are somehow fine and dandy
Theres opportunity under a new Fisheries policy after Brexit to make well overdue changes as well
Hey, the screaming skull is smashing the system from inside! Fight the paua!
Important in so many ways
https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/tribunal-releases-report-on-maori-prisoners-voting-rights/
With Diana and Unity, too.
Margaret Thatcher liked Pinochet I think!
Australian snow event has local bouncing for joy.
Giving the prisoners the vote eh?
Well if the criminals’ and con-artists that run Corporations are found guilty and not jailed for ’embezlement, cheating, extortion and other offences under (the list below; – some exeptions as it is a US list); then are still allowed to vote, why should we ban any prisoners from voting?
https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/view-all-criminal-charges.html
[Deleted long list that was straight from the link provided. Remember that some people read TS on their phone and have to scroll through – Incognito]
Will light rail be the new Passchendaele for public transport passengers.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-12/pedestrian-hit-by-canberra-light-rail/11404506
Trains vs brains in NZ.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ll4icg2x3ftq6sx/Near%20miss%20media%20reel.mp4?dl=0
Wage theft and the hospitality industry. I think it goes much deeper than that and is across many industries, especially those employing low skilled labour and migrant labour.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/114853237/wage-theft-has-become-a-business-model-in-the-hospitality-industry
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/396504/metropolitan-based-power-culture-targeting-fishing-industry-jones
The Minister for Regional Economic Development has launched a stinging attack on urban liberals, accusing them of trying to take the fishing industry down….
He said the attacks came from people who did not always understand what was at stake, and the industry had to fight back to protect itself.
Mr Jones said it was not just the fishing industry that was threatened, Māori who had invested much of their economic heritage in the business were threatened too.
"Those of us such as me as a Māori, who have our legacy interests via the treaty in the fishing industry, need to gird our loins and protect ourselves," Mr Jones said.
"Rest assured, there is a largely metropolitan-based power culture, which seeks to do damage to our industry."
Mr Jones said this was a very serious problem to people who had stored their full and final wealth from Treaty settlements in this industry.
Can Shane Jones walk and chew calamari at the same time?
Thats Jones being the glove puppet Sooty. With all those big donors expecting fighting talk…and they got it.
That'd be the same Jones who took Sealord from being NZ's biggest seafood company to no. three or four? Not an expert on fishing by any stretch of the imagination – just a parachutist.
had to larf at Neal Jones dealing to the nationals party squealer Mathew Hooton on 9-noon this morning.
Jones had Hooton on the back foot right from the start and the more he got backed into a corner the more hooton squealed as all his right wing memes and tropes came flying out of his gob unbidden to show the real hooton. not nice.
Indonesia has interesting history.https://asiapacificreport.nz/2019/08/09/the-bloody-1965-66-slaughter-behind-indonesias-mass-killings-secrecy/
A report from link picked up from TDB about Indonesia with help from USA JK and Australia (NZ?) and the killing of up to million people, and imprisonment of about million, of 9 August 2019,
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2019/08/09/the-bloody-1965-66-slaughter-behind-indonesias-mass-killings-secrecy/
Can someone please explain why I see a Reply button on most but not all posts? I've tried three different browsers and get the same result. On my Android mobile I seem to see reply on every post.
@Lprent may know.
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Tamki Makaru had a couple of tawhirimate nights
Its great to see more attention for OUR Mokopuna future environment but to have a clean environment one needs to clean up poverty aswell no use having a clean environment in one hand and thousands living under the bridge. national made a big mess of our environment and caused a housing short in Aotearoa in 9 years I have see miles of forest turned into Dairy Farm in the central North Island that is not good for the environment. All prosecution for effluent entering our waterways stop .To many things national did negatively to our environment to itemize
. Its great to see alot of Tangata Whenua challenging local council elections post in Hawksbay kia kaha times are changing it happening all around the Motu.
That was a huge beautiful crocodile on the roof of a house during the India monsoon floods great picture.
That is a great phenomenon getting thousands more to give blood awesome Sir Henry
Great To see a shopping mall Goldsmith in America doing things to save our mokopuna future environment.
Nothing wrong with being nice some people think Im weak because I nice .?????.
Great to see the Eco Maori affect is still getting reka .
Ka kite ano
Ka pai to the Wahine who wrote this story and Kia kaha to the Students Strikes to champion a clean environment for their mokopuna grandchildren .
We will be striking again for climate change
OPINION: Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure on politicians worldwide to pass bills which will take action to reduce the impacts of climate change.
I know, you're probably thinking "again, really?" and so are we. You'd think millions of people marching, rallying, lobbying, protesting and even a couple climbing buildings would be enough to get governments worldwide to actually treat this issue as a crisis, but apparently it's not. So we're going again
We want our government and governments worldwide to do everything in their power to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by ending the use of fossil fuels and investing in a regenerative and renewable economy. Additionally, we are asking the government to acknowledge the severity of climate change and declare a climate emergency.
On 24 May, we walked out of school alongside hundreds of thousands of students around the globe. We won't sit and watch our futures disintegrate, and we invite you to join us to strengthen our movement. That's you, reading this column; that's the next person you talk to; that's the waiter who gives you your coffee and the woman sitting in front of you in the car/bus/train, it really is everyone
Climate change isn't just a youth problem, even though it'll hit us the hardest. It's everyone's problem. Everyone has a responsibility to act, in both practical ways and through joining the strike movement on 27 September.
If you have a child, niece, nephew or young person you care about, it's your problem. Do you think they look into their future and imagine travelling to various islands and cities, bays and beaches? Or do they wonder if the sea will have swallowed them by the time they're your age ka kite ano link below.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/114926802/we-will-be-striking-again-for-climate-change
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
Some Eco Maori music for the minute.
Kia Ora Newshub.
A avalanche at Mount Cook lets hope that the 5 people caught in the avalanche are all good.
A tornado hit the water front in Tamaki Makau flipping 30 ton yachts tawhirimate is a powerful entity.
Mike the Pigeon Valley fire was huge you say it started by a farmer plowing his paddock with heavy disks which created sparks.
The People of Papatuanuku need to combat climate change to help our Pacific Island cousins it is their biggest threat to a happy healthy future.
The New Zealand Airforce needs to have the equipment to patrol the Pacific Ocean we have a huge Tangata area to patrol the new Aircraft being delivered in 2023 is needed to protect our fisheries and tangata who end up in strife in Tangaroa.
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
I do think that the commercial mussels spat catches need to respect the environment that they catch their spat from they should have vehicles that have tyers that spread their load to save our tuatua . This is how the neanderthal capitalist work they thrash a resource till it collapses this happened to tuatua wet fish fisheries I also have great concern about the Manuka honey industry on the East Coast there are hives everywhere on the coast they wonder why they have had 2 to 3 bad seasons it because they are over exploiting the resource.
Awesome that the Coalition Government is investing to fixing Rotoruas museum there would be some great taonga in their care to display to the public.
In Porirua the state housing they pull down functional whare to cramm flash new housing any intelligent person will know that the rents will go up too cover the cost of the building of the whare capitalism ways are most salespeople tell you what you want to here .
Lyndon PEE is a powerful poison that takes control of the user who can be manipulated to do just about anything we need more advertising to educate te tangata about the crap it great that this program is happening in Te Taiwhiti the crap is making a big mess up there.
A lot of people don't understand that A warm whare is a healthy whare Eco Maori say a education program needs to be run about the effects of a cold damp whare has on te tamariki respiratory system it's not good Eco Maori always has a warm WHARE.
Ka kite Ano.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Great tune… loved this performance of Dylan's "Hard Rain"… seems to fit with the weather and the topic
That was choice thanks roblogic
speaking of great covers..this one still stands..
Well, all kudos to those in South Auckland… they've done their people proud,… pacifist, benevolent and upholding their culture.
They've conducted themselves well. Faultless.
There's hope yet.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Kia Ora The Am Show.
The statistic mess is from simons time in Parliament along with many others kia ora.
The Australian idiot who stabbed people they are being empowered by people who use hate to gain power.
People who go to WAR often suffer mental trauma .The Pilots whos autobiography book that the Wahine was describing him being cold in nature no hugging ect.
I see all the moves that you try to manipulate me just wasting your time and money.
You would think that a organization like Cambridge Analytical would use the data they harvest off the internet would be used for good purposes like governments planning for the future .
You know its ridiculous that humanity has not learnt by its mistakes we discovered a resource and exploit it till it collapses or nearly collapses thrown our arms in the AIR and make all the excuses in the Papatuanuku to push the blame to others as to WHY the resources collapse. I have seen it with fishing farming Honey many other valuable species and resources are over exploiting by humanity. What should happen is when a resource is discovered the planing should be put in place to harvest it sustainably from the START not the AMBULANCES at the bottom of the hill that we have going down at the MINUTE. You see we might be still catching fishes but the amount of diesel burned to catch te ika will have gone up 50 % from 30 years ago the fishermen wanted to have horses power limits to control the fisherys instead of the quota system that would have limited the catch effort on the fishery you see it is basically horse power that catches fish .The fishermen would be able to buy and sell the right to the use of horses power to catch fish that system would have limited the pressure on our fisheries to what it was 30 years ago.
But the corrupted money men got their way and a dump ass Quoter system was implemented that can be exploited very easily by the crooked MAN big fail Aotearoa Quoter management system .
Ka kite ano
You're dead right about the QMS – the tide has gone out on that nonsense bigtime.
The bureaucrats, for whose convenience it was introduced, will stick to it come hell or highwater of course, but it seems that both are coming fairly soon now.
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute.
Kia Ora Newshub.
I say a national statement to protect our precious whenua that produces our food from housing development good on you David Te Atua is not making anymore.
That is the way people with power have to be held accountable for their abuse of power and abuseing people The opera singer Placido Domingo.
That shows that Aotearoa was a land of the giants with another discovery of a giant penguin in Aotearoa .
A nuclear accident in Russia we should not be wasting precious resources on weapons of mass destruction but I get it yin yan it's about the balance of power.
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Good Idea having a online petition to get Jacinda to visit Ihumatao I think it's about time Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa got a win
I don't think that there should be a problem in The Tauranga whenua Waitangi treaty settlement's Its a fact that Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa lost millions of hectares of whenua.
I am sure that the mussel spat harvester are just chasing the $$$$$$$ without considering the effects that there actions have on the environment I know someone who is in that industry.
I think it's good that our Armed personnel the Army and Navy are covered by Accident Compensation Corporation who paid for their accidents before the Army and Navy that is stupid they are KIWIs that is the reason why we have some ex personnel not getting the correct help they needed.
Kia Ora to the Tangata Whenua O Aotearoa living in Australia awesome that you are keeping our culture going strong in Australia Te manawa ora teaching te raku ka pai I know those whanau names We need to keep our cultural pumping and pass it on to our mokopuna in a stronger state that is one of my main goals .ka pai to Jess in Uawa winning the Great Ideas for life Awesome Ideas Mana Wahine
Ka kite ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Lets hope that they come up with smart simple solutions in the Pacific Island form Government meeting in Tuvalu to help them survive prosperously on their own whenua that means coming up with solutions for them to create their own wealth to teach a person to ika is better than giving the person a ika
Its called showing respect for our biggest tradeing partner that is what Jacinda is doing she not stupid. But Eca Maori wants Australia to be committed to slow down and stop their use of COAL.
The tide has changed on Global warming sea level rising human caused climate change. Russell the Bird shoe man gave a excellent opinion. Once Business Figure Out that the Green Industry is the next big Gold rush The changes we need to make as a society will speed up real fast thats part of capitalism The tipping point is just around the corner but WHANAU don’t let up keep championing for a Clean Green Environment for Our Mokopuna. Yes Australia needs to do more once they figure out that a bet on Carbon is a losing bet. The Green Energy Revolution has Started they will be rushing to catch up to Aotearoa we need to embrace 5 G technology to help generate a Clean Green society.
Pukana man is doing great in Cricket its was great that Aotearoa Cricket and Pukana man managed to sort out their differences and keep him playing for us Mark.
I think it's stupid that the prison system is giving that Idiot more publicity trying to get a new law that will take rights away from all the other prisoners when they have laws to control the Christchurch idiots communications this stuff up is just giving him more publicity.
If you want to be treated respectfully one must do the same it's not rocket science Newshub.
Herbs Song For Freedom movie gets Nation Wide Release Today I will go and watch the movie. Music is great for the Wairua I have to set me up a 12 volt radio system. Those dawn raids of the past in Papatuanuku was a politican trying to use HATE to gain votes he didn't care about the lives he ruined Ilolahia ka pai great name Herbs original manager.
Ka kite ano
Kia kaha Greta we all know whom is a puppet in Reality keep up your great mahi championing a clean healthy environment for our next generation
Greta Thunberg sets sail for New York on zero-carbon yacht
Climate activist begins voyage from Plymouth to Trump’s US with father and two-man crew
On white-crested swells under leaden skies, the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has set sail from Plymouth on arguably her most daunting challenge yet.
A two-week crossing of the Atlantic during hurricane season in a solar-powered yacht is the first obstacle, but it is unlikely to be the toughest in an odyssey through the Americas over many months
This will be both the ultimate gap year and a journey into the heart of climate darkness: first to the United States of president Donald Trump, who has promised to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and then down to South America, possibly including Brazil where president Jair Bolsonaro is overseeing a surge of Amazon deforestation.
In between, the 16-year-old Swede will add her increasingly influential voice to appeals for deeper emissions cuts at two crucial global gatherings: the Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September and the the UN climate conference in Santiago in early December.
The reception awaiting her on the other side is likely to be mixed, with the climate issue a polarising point in US politics
In a taste of the hostility that is likely to come from supporters of the fossil fuel industry, Steve Milloy, a Fox News contributor and former member of the Trump transition team, described Thunberg on Twitter earlier this week as “the ignorant teenage climate puppet
Ka kite ano link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/14/greta-thunberg-sets-sail-plymouth-climate-us-trump
oops – old OM
Kia Ora Newshub.
The Minister has apologized to the Papatuanuku because some of the prison staff drop the ball and let this idiot post inappropriate letters. The Prison Director should resign anyone with a brain will know that any letters that he writes and gets to post could gain publicity I agree prison guards are corrupt.
trump playing the bully with the might of the USA behind him is a cause for concern the stock market dropping.
Its great that our government has stepped in to clean up another national mess The Christchurch earthquake shambles repairs giving the people money to fix the shoddy repairs made when national was in government so there whare can pass a inspection to get insurance.
Allan Jones is just a neanderthal he is trying to boost his ratings making statements like that he should retired and let someone from the next generation have his mic ma te wa he probably has a lump of coal under his bed.
Ka kite ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Ka pai to the Pee that was seized in Vags
The Casson Whanau its hard to figure out and find people who you can trust there are people who are just hustlers and don't care about the damage they do to others whanau.
That's wise The Provenance Growth Fund investing in giving tangata whenua Technology skills that is the low carbon industry that could quite easily beat the dairy industry in export income.
Its cool to see the hearing impaired getting taught tangata whenua O Aotearoa te reo and cultural awesome.
Ka kite ano my device cursor starts jumping all over the place when I write too Te Ao Maori News the sandflys are trying to stop me posting to Maori TV