Public Address | Cafe | Speaker: Vote for Water

Hilary Stace

Thu, 18 Sept 2014 17:42:22 +1200

ECO has gathered party political promises on environment and related areas http://www.eco.org.nz/what-we-do/vote-for-the-environment/environment-election-meetings.html

Hilary Stace

Tue, 16 Sept 2014 07:46:13 +1200

The Topp twins had some interesting things to say about farming such as the benefits of seaweed over nitrogen while playing favourites with Kim Hill on Radio NZ last Saturday

Also Forest and Bird has some useful info about freshwater.

Sacha

Sun, 14 Sept 2014 11:20:31 +1200

the stupidity of degrading a profitable brand perception – 100% pure NZ – for short-term corporate-farming gain is unbelievable

and degrading our corruption-free reputation is similarly costly and lazy

Hilary Stace

Sun, 14 Sept 2014 09:36:25 +1200

Susan Wood has just said on Q and A that everyone supports clean water.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 11 Sept 2014 17:54:21 +1200

from the phantom billstickers site

Hebe

Thu, 11 Sept 2014 10:06:21 +1200

Governments of whatever hue cannot change attitudes through legislation. That takes far more complex and long-term awareness strategies.

I hold no candles for Labour’s record on climate change, the environment or water.

National plans to gut the RMA and remove protections; Labour does not. End of.

For a country full…

Sacha

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 17:11:12 +1200

and the whole atmosphere is about the same size too

Gabor Toth

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 16:41:22 +1200

It's all a Communist plot...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J67wKhddWu4

Which in 1990 Genesis P.Orridge sampled and somehow managed to turn into a poignant tribute to Ian Curtis (though it also works quite well as a pro-water anthem...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsMmxqdbt4c

Hilary Stace

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 16:27:34 +1200

picture of all the water in the world in one drop Precious

tussock

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 15:00:42 +1200

Ahem. Billions, divided by millions of people, divided by decades of work, is under a hundred bucks a year each, more for the mansions and less for the hovels. Only it's not ratepayers at all unless you make councils pay for it all, which you don't, it's the businesses that…

Bart Janssen

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 13:38:37 +1200

My point is that Opposition parties can promise many a brand new day.

One point to note we really have had only two types of government in the last few decades and yes you are right neither of them have performed.

But surely that is an argument in favour of…

Bart Janssen

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 13:35:31 +1200

freeing up kiwi farmers to use UP those natural resources

fixed :)

Hilary Stace

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 13:24:45 +1200

I agree – it's about engagement and active democracy. Let's have more of it.

Hilary Stace

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 13:22:50 +1200

43% of lakes are pristine and they are the ones in the conservation estate – the 44% are mostly lowland see http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/ser/lake-water-quality-in-nz-2010/lake-water-quality-in-nz-2010.pdf for details

Jake Starrow

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 13:16:00 +1200

My point is that Opposition parties can promise many a brand new day. Just like Helen Clark did before her 9 year tenure began. But despite her Government's best efforts, little changed of any real significance on most environmental fronts. Governments of whatever hue cannot change attitudes through legislation. That…

Moz

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 11:53:18 +1200

National have basically said screw it we are just going to make money off the cows and to hell with the future because by then we won't be in power and don't care.

That's a malicious slander, Bart, and you know it. National do care, they care deeply about this…

Angela Hart

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 11:03:00 +1200

Figure out what you want ideologically then let experts get the data and use that data to define how to achieve your ideology or, much harder, to redefine your ideology if the data show it to be flawed.

With dirty politics, any time there's an evidence based need to change,…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 10:59:56 +1200

I'm concerned about what we do now for the sake of us all and future generations.

Bart Janssen

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 10:58:45 +1200

Neither National nor Labour have a good past record on these issues.

The difference is National have basically said screw it we are just going to make money off the cows and to hell with the future because by then we won't be in power and don't care.

By contrast…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 10:38:33 +1200

can somebody tell me what Helen Clark’s Government and its nine-year tenure achieved on the subject
That was then
this is now...

Feel free to live in the past, though.
They do things differently there, I hear...

Andrew C

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 10:30:55 +1200

In the NZ Herald last Saturday there was an interview with Dr Joy, and in the printed version were a couple of large typeset statistics (not shown in the online version).

One that grabbed me was something like: "44% of our lakes are polluted" Can anyone shed light on what this…

Jake Starrow

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 10:26:39 +1200

Amidst all this Key-bashing, can somebody tell me what Helen Clark's Government and its nine-year tenure achieved on the subject?
Seems to me such self-serving, anti-Key claims when discussing water or child poverty or rheumatic fever etc are designed to impart the impression that all the bad things in these…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 10 Sept 2014 08:22:06 +1200

Many of these problems are called ‘wicked’ policy problems. There is no simple linear problem – intervention – solution model. People don’t even agree on what the problem is. These are messy issues and require a lot of discussion, collaboration and trial and error before things start improving. The environment…

Sacha

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 23:26:01 +1200

That's what I mean by evidence-based policy.

and that's what I've been seeing across the left.

Sacha

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 23:23:33 +1200

The energy used by a car during its entire life is less than that used in its manufacture, I was amazed to learn during my time with Greenpeace.

And the answer now is public transit and smarter urban design, not neoliberal electric cars. Modern diesel cars seem more efficient than…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 23:10:27 +1200

So a simple specific example: electric cars are good for the environment, right? Well it's more complicated, the batteries used in the cars use rare earth metals whose mining is very damaging to the environment but that occurs far away. And given the relative efficiency of modern internal combustion engines…

Sacha

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 22:44:24 +1200

And especially with the environment the obvious answer is often not the right answer.

interested in examples when you have a moment

Bart Janssen

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 22:42:00 +1200

You mean you don’t vote on emotion?

Well disgust is an emotional response and it certainly has influenced my vote :)

Hilary Stace

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 22:09:16 +1200

You mean you don't vote on emotion?

This new website Ours has a good comparison of party policies on a range of issues including the environment ours.co.nz http://www.ours.co.nz/cheatsheet/

andin

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 19:14:10 +1200

A common political response is that we can’t afford to clean up the rivers as dairying and industry is too important for our GDP
"Political" is right

william blake

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 17:43:13 +1200

The National have a bag of cash to buy and fence waterways. What is to stop this purchase being sold off to their wealthy mates in the future?

I just don’t trust these bastards.

Bart Janssen

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 16:15:31 +1200

The problem I have is that while some parties have good scientific policies on water, there are other places where the policy is unsupported by any data at all.

While it's really clear to me that voting for National is terrible for the environment it is less clear that the…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 16:07:50 +1200

water running to the sea is just wasted draws an indignant response. ‘What about the cultural value, the swimming, the eels?’

For a really good example of this read about the Colorado pulse flow where they managed to get permission to let water flow to the sea again. The public…

Hilary Stace

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 14:27:41 +1200

He's also been called 'the academic Green Taliban' by an unpleasant oily thing in the news recently.

Sacha

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 14:12:02 +1200

Key probably imagines compensating every farmer for lost future herd increases or some such nonsense. Just like handing them public money to fence their stream boundaries.

izogi

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 13:50:58 +1200

Thanks, Hilary. That was a nice contrast to reading Ian Mackenzie's scaremongering this morning, very specifically referring to Mike Joy as someone who farmers should fear as some kind of irrational environmental communist, or something like that.

Hilary Stace

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 13:05:47 +1200

Rivers clean themselves if they are allowed to flow free and the pollution sources are stopped. Stopping pollution and who pays to do that are political decisions. But can be done. I fear that fencing and planting of waterways is only a small part the solution when soils are overloaded…

BenWilson

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 12:47:08 +1200

Prime Minister John Key said such a target was unrealistic and would cost billions to achieve.

"Swimmable is a very, very high and expensive goal. If we were to make that the national standard it would have an enormous impact on the cost for rate payers – billions I think,"…

Hilary Stace

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 12:35:00 +1200

And this from Bernard Hickey on the environment/economy thing.

Angela Hart

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 12:25:12 +1200

Water is life!

Hilary Stace

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 12:18:26 +1200

Dame Anne Salmond says it so much better than I could in the Herald today.

Also I see Internet Mana have a good clean water policy now too.

Public Address

Tue, 09 Sept 2014 12:18:26 +1200

Discussion from blog post.