GROSER AND GROSER

i’ve mentioned the Groser approach to aid before. Watch for corruption to rear it’s ugly head. When it does, the media will drop the ball in the same way they did the BNZ (quick question – who is the currnt Cabinet Minister who had a company debt in the early 90’s, to the BNZ, what happened to the debt? Why didn’t you hear about it?) so don’t expect the story to come to light clearly. It will be something like ‘aid’ marked for a pacific island, going to a firm owned by a Cabinet crony (or similar) who ‘just happens’ to be ‘tendering’ for the work. Or similar. Watch this space…..corruption will always absolutely…..

A bit today, so it’s in headings….

GOOD ARTICLE

In the ODT, Trade Aid man on global fiscal madness. The only underlying prob is population, of course, and future energy supply. Good stuff, though, worth the read.

HOUSE INSULATION.

The Business Council for Sustainable Development (don’t mind the oxymoron) calls for house insulation. Too right, too late too little, but too right. Conservation (of energy) won’t actually save us, but it is an imperative first step, and the rewards are forever. This last few frosty days, the sun melts the ice on the (outside of the) walls of our house (see a pic of it by googling: ODT Murray Grimwood Jennie Upton). Insulation works. Go Peter Nielson, you’re heading in the right direction.

AUSTRALIAN RETAIL SALES UP?

Yeah right! This is the fiscal version of perpetual motion. Government ‘borrows’, ‘gives’ to ‘taxpayer’, taxpayer ‘spends’.

Think it through -They buy ‘stuff’ made with? bits of our finite planet. At the end of the day, the debt on the ledger will remain unpaid, and will represent nothing more than unreconciled environmental degradation. Result, as Mcawber said, misery!

AQUACULTURE DEAL

No wonder it was fast – how else do you get public terrain into private hands? Via Maori, and the ever-flexible Treaty. Then when they fall over, you pick it up. Recreational aquatic space? No money in that…. a concept known as ‘the tragedy of the commons’.

GANG PATCHES

In Victorian England, they flattened slums to eliminate poverty, or they sent it to Australia, we just outlaw gang patches. Now, I’m not for organised crime, drug or other, but if you understand scarcity of opportunities (read resources) and the way it resembles musical-chairs, there will always be disadvantaged. Whether to pick them up, or hit them with a baseball bat (three strikes) is a measure of a society’s maturity. Or lack thereof.

The fact that the folk who voted last night, are the same ones who eye up public assets for private gain, is ironical. That push only demonstrated(es) thair lack of unlimited opportunity in what they tout as an unlimited world. ‘Tis a fallacy, a word carefully chosen with the type of men involved, in mind.

BUDGET SPENDING CUTS?

Bet your bottom dollar (or theirs) that DoC and Environment get shafted. Nick Smith is like a fox in the hen-house, and Shane Jones would be about as better as a ferret.

WORK

Had a wee email interchange last night with a hard-working media man, t’was food for thought. He seems always ‘too busy’ to me, and I gave it some cogitation, ….work comes in two categories; environmentally sustainable, and environmentally unsustainable. You can sub-set sustainable into socially-useful, and socially-useless. I view his activity as both sustainable and useful, but if the folk in the other categories came over, he would be less likely to suffer from burnout, stress, heart failure….. and he would have more ‘life’ time (in both senses).

My immediate instinct was to offer to help him out, gratis- it’s just my way. Of course, the system doesn’t easily allow that. Maybe I should just blog better – take some weight off his keyboard.

MY DAY

Battening down the hatches today – seal up the south wall of the conservatory, re-set the rainwater filter, get the last of the chopped firewood up, shift the unchopped to the chopping-block. Maybe weedeat the grass down by the garden, and set up another compost. And an article, but it may wait until the weather hits…. water the tomatos, put the washing out, do the dishes, challenging, challenging……

I gave them Hvalsey Church

I got to the DCC hearings, and heard a few giving them a hard time, as I have these last years. And I got to thinking…..if their eyes go hibernate when you show them graphs, and it hasn’t worked so far………I gave them the story of Hvalsey Church – straight out of ‘Collapse’.

I had their attention, especially when I pointed out that they had the example of the vikings, and so wouldnt fall into the same trap. You wouldn’t catch the DCC building a massive stone edifice on the shores of their fjiord, with lots of expensive glass, when they should be addressing pending climate-change, resource depletion, and the need for sustainability.

I think they listened……..we still need a new bunch with new thinking, though, and we’re out of time.

Spent the rest of the day unsuccessfully trying to thread a coaxial cable through Potamos’ mast. Home tomorrow, I have an article to write about Hvalsey – will try the ODT with it, will put it here anyway. If I ever get the chance, I will load all the past ones, an amazing number of which are still relevant.