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Dedicated to interviewing leading edge experts, practitioners in their field, and people who are living examples of sustainability. Covers environmental subject matter that is not readily discussed in depth in mainstream media.
August 2011 Posts
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John Robinson, who gained his Doctorate at MIT in the USA is highly skilled in global contexts, having worked for the DSIR, OECD, UNESCO, UNEP and UNU. Plus other wide-ranging interdisciplinary work.In this interview John discusses the immediate and long view of NZ within the context of a deteriorating globalized economic, environmental and societal scenario.His focus is to open up the inquiry to NZ's future, at a national level to debates and to argue pros and cons at conventions, and events to enable the discussion to connect both town and country and for engaged NZers to discuss and shape our common future in these increasingly precarious times.When the people lead the politicians follow, and this is how it should be, especially when the populace have accessed the knowledge, are informed and are clear about consequences. Do we want to rise to this level of personal responsibility?
Topics Covered:His research shows that we are a controlled society and are brainwashed, like no other peoples before us. Advertising and media control all the programs, so how do we break out? How do we the people reorganize the media? John unambiguously states that capitalism and unbridled growth has had its day especially on our finite planet. As it is trashing the earth's ecosystems, habitats, oceans and forested areas. There is a limit to growth and we can only expand so far.Science also has to be freed up totally, as there is a great deal of information that has been covered up and closed down and the need for open and free discussion, including policy analysts within Govt to express their views and concerns, including having jobs for all. There is a need for the bringing down of our population and the debate of having fewer children, stop the overuse of the car and stop the roads of national significance. Advocating controlling our currency and restructuring or closing down the stock market . This includes tax changes.Defaulting on our overseas debt, could be a possibility. What could be the outcome? We need to get serious and organize our country and think about having a very highly refined wide-ranging interdisciplinary research system that is linked country wide, that dispenses information, ideas, and possibilities. johnrob [at] paradise.net.nz www.ibws.blogspot.com
NZ can definitely model an organic society and be the planet's ark for heirloom seed, free of genetic manipulation and compared with all countries, we stand apart as having the communication system to bring about an urgent shift in awareness.This being especially now, as food, energy and societal / cultural challenges face us down, when we can take a more simplified strategy to become intimately closer and connected to the land. This is where the value set of this renewing paradigm is based on simplicity, reciprocity and organics - offering one means to that pathway with a very physical hands on approach, around community, the seeking of truth and the many virtues around being human, such as beauty, forgiveness and co-operation.This change needs to be an individual and collective decision making process and not from a top down mechanism, for example, what type of society sprays chemical poisons on its food and then eats it?There is a need, for us as modelers for a revitalised tomorrow to be far more conscious than this!
What is cultural intelligence? What is relationship? How do we align to the web of life? Brendan lucidly covers these topics and asks the question, can NZ provide leadership and not 'followship' in the months and years to come?www.organicsystems.co.nzwww.organic-systems.orgwww.ifoam.org
Under this initiative 39 Community gardens and an increasing number of schools are putting in gardens across the Auckland isthmus.Are you a community based organisation, group, Marae, Church, or school wanting to set up an edible garden? You may be eligible for help.The aim of this program is to make growing your own fruit and veggies the normal thing to do.We are starting with community gardens in places like the Marae, schools, churches, public open spaces etc., so people can re-learn how to grow fresh veggies - and enjoy eating cheap organic veggies.
From that we hope they will go home and plant a few in their own back-yard. This is where it really has to start, out of our own back yards.People working and sharing alongside each other, find kinship and camaraderie and deepen ones understanding of what it is like to be human and embedded in nature. Community is a solution to global economic problems.When we find ourselves outside our house or the building we work in - away from overhead lights, phones, computers and air conditioning and spending time in the garden, or grounds surrounded by trees and shrubs, we enter another realm. This realm is one that we basically disconnected from when the industrial revolution drew us into cities of brick, concrete and steel.Now a grass roots revolution is again happening in the garden.Richard Main Project Manager Community Gardens across Auckland's Isthmus.http://www.dpt.org.nz/Grdn4health/grdn4health.html
Gary Cook is a leading writer on the special nature of the mystic realms that are to be found in New Zealand.An explorer of ancient sacred places and energy sites in the unique New Zealand landscape, Gary has devoted many years of searching and writing of the wonders to be found within the islands of New Zealand and the South Pacific.His extensive journeys and experiences allow him to share much of the deeper nature of the forests, the waters and the mountains that allows us all to connect with the natural order in a deeper and more meaningful way.The interview ranges over what evidence is available of earlier Portuguese and Spanish visits off the Northland coast, back to the Egyptians of Rata and Maui as well as early Chinese indications in the South Island.
To Auckland's energy nodal power point or 'acupuncture meridian' beneath One Tree Hill, Maungakiekie and dowsing to recognizing the sacred of mother earth in having reverence for nature, plus communion with the biota of the natural world, to what is the role of taniwha.The author of two books in the Secret Land series, Gary is a regular contributor to Australian and New Zealand magazines offering readers unique glimpses of the sacred landscape of Aotearoa.
He holds honorary Doctorates in Science and Philosophy, and is a Temple Knight within the Supreme Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem and Knight Grand Commander of Grace and Duke of the Duchy of St Michel de Clermont.http://www.secretland.co.nz
Is there another crunch coming ... as early as late this year? This is what is being perceived that maybe by 2012 at the latest.Why is the Govt not looking at conservation measures or fuel efficiency?The NZ National Government and the Labour Party refuse to acknowledge that global oil production has hit a plateau and that estimates of oil deposits are shrinking and that oil companies have even declined to prospect in NZ waters due to increasing costs.NZ will be hit harder than the USA when it comes to dependence on oil, due to our intensive use of fuels in agriculture, forestry and tourism.
85 to 89 million barrels production per day is a gigantic number that has been basically pumped at the same level for the last 4 years.We have used up this endowment of cheap easy oil and the bubble is about to burst.It takes a 10 to 15 year run up time before production of oil or coal can be deployed, with no huge breakthroughs in finding new oil fields, plus the problem of releasing more pollution into the atmosphere and very few hybrids and electric cars, earth citizens are running out of time and ideas.How do we look ahead at what may happen and what do we put in place to invoke 'the precautionary principle' - do we have to stand at petrol pumps for a number of hours some time in the future to actually ... get it?This is not fear mongering, this is envisioning where we go as a supposedly intelligent species.Denis Tegg; Previously interviewed as the Coromandel Watch Dog, in Stopping Mining inour National Parks.http://oilshockhorrorprobe.blogspot.comhttp://www.energybulletin.net
