Another Green ban
And yet another thing the Greens want to ban:
The Greens are fired up by South Australia’s ban on plastic bags and hopes New Zealand follows its lead.
How long until we have the sustainability police? They’ll raid your home looking for illegal products such as plastic bags, bottled water, fizzy drinks, over sized easter eggs etc.
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Tags: banning, Greens
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Gee David, what happened to the usual sensible analysis?! I share the frustrations at the Greens wanting to ban so much as if they know better (and enjoyed that post you did before the election listing the more than 100 items they want to ban) but I think the majority see the obvious environmental benefits in this. Many are using eco-bags and the like already, so it seems a logical (and not too distant) step to take.
[DPF: The majority can go get fucked. There is no sensible analysis to be done when it comes to banning. The state should not ban things just because it thinks we are better off if they do. What part of a free society do you not comprehend?
I can name 500 things that you can argue we would be better off without. But I don't think we remove free choice from people. Bans should be used for only truly unsafe products.
You also overlook the fact that sometimes a plastic bag is needed. I have the environmental bags also for shopping, but if I need to bundle some waste together I need plastic bag for that]
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
He left his sensible analysis in 2008 judging by today’s efforts.
Anyway, banning plastic shopping bags is a feel good issue, but it doesn’t achive anything except increase the sales of other plastic bags stocked by the supermarkets.
If I take an eco bag to do my shopping, I then need to buy other bags to use as bin liners, etc. So where is the net benefit to the environment?
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 am
Excellent point billyborker- banning one set of plastic bags and then buying another set of plastic bags for bin liners to replace the banned set of plastic bags is insane, but standard Green party lack of thought or reason.
Here in the South plastic bags at the supermarket are still free and charging for them, let alone taking them away entirely especially when supermarkets like PaknSave don’t offer the use of plastic baskets for customer use, would cause howls of outrage.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 am
How long until we have bloggers asking absurd rhetorical questions in order to score points against political adversaries?
The bags clog up landfills, litter streets and streams, and kill wildlife. They are a problem, though I would perhaps prefer encouraging more recycling facilities to be set up, rather than outright bans, as they have their uses.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Change is incremental though, no one intiative is going to have a massive impact by itself. And I would say this one has a bit of oomph to it, rather than just have feel good factor. While we NZers are very litter conscious (and most our plastic shopping bags end in the landfill), having travelled in SE Asia, you see them scattered everywhere. Looks terrible but it highlights how many there are!
I also mean to buy more eco-bags but often keep forgetting to take in the one I have. Good point on the rubbish bin liners. Brown paper bags could be a remedy but no doubt they come with more cost.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
Those plastic bags go from supermarket, to home bin, to the dump. They don’t tend to go anywhere else to cause the afore-mentioned problems.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
The Greens sole reason for existence is to tell others what to do and how to live their life.
Luckily, thanks to brilliant “leadership” over the last few years they are completely irrelevant.
Any chance we can get Jeannette, assisted by Keith of course, to run the Labour shower for a while?
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
Christ, Sean, how old are you? Why is it the youngest generation always thinks they have invented everything.
I remember paper bags for everything. You went down to the supermarket and chose your own boxes that were saved by the supermarket company for packing your food, or bought paper cleansacks and packed your groceries on long wooden benches behind the checkouts. The Checkout operators sat behind massive pull arm mechanical tills. Yeah, you packed your food – no beeps from a laser and dinky plastic bags back then. No staring off into space as if the person in front of you never existed, no outrage if they asked how you were. Holy shit, you mean there was a sense of community back then?
At the end of the week you used the same cleansacks to put your rubbish out. They fell apart as soon as they got damp. The little ones for occasional purchases you got from places like Woolworths later on may not have even lasted the trip from the checkout to the car. The results are historically documented in romantic films dating from the 60’s onwards when pretty young girl carrying groceries has the bottom rip out of her bag and handsome chap comes to the rescue. Ah, how easy love was during those years… all you needed was a paper bag and you were away.
Then someone noticed that plastic bags were waterproof and they became all the rage. Style was more important than substance.
Of course, everything from that period has now been revised as evil. No one was interested in reusing anything. People didn’t help other people out. No way hosay. (Or should that be Jose?) No, we were all trying to make the world warmer! How EVIL! And we were secretly stashing plastic behind our homes and using copius amounts of fossil fuels for everything, even washing our hands! Even on carless days! Those evil people! We were bashing our children and enslaving our wives. My god we were evil.
Greenies really need to be less concieted.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:12 am
“They’ll raid your home looking for illegal products such as plastic bags, bottled water, fizzy drinks, over sized easter eggs etc”.
Don’t give them ideas.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Well Borker I finally agree with you. A very good point that is always overlooked. The whole plastic bag clogging up streams etc is not solved by banning one set of plastic bags. It is about teaching people about the enviroment. Towards the end of the 90’s the “clean the streams” and “clean the beaches” campaigns really worked and the plastic pollution (along with other junk and chemicals) was noticeably reduced.
The problem is that when the AGW alarmist started hijacking the green message, people who were concerned about the pollution problem and wanted to do their bit, were sold on hybrid cars (that will pollute the earth in so many ways) biofuel that does everything to destroy the enviroment as huge tracts of native forrest is cleared for production – and don’t give me the algae etc alternatives, the reality is that they are not the crops being used and the native vegetation is being destroyed) and using different light bulbs.
Thats right, I changed my light-bulbs, I am helping the enviroment, I have done my bit…. Shit the beach is a bit grubby … never mind, the temperature might drop by .01 a degree by 2090 because of the lightbulbs and Prius. It is just the way the human race works, has always worked and will always continue to work.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 am
Easy on goodgod, I never implied it would be a new invention or concept but that we could go (back to) using them instead of plastic ones. Though it looks like you enjoyed a trip down memory lane! These days they have waste disposal units in sinks (for wet food scraps) and much tougher paper bags, so I wouldn´t worry about them falling apart, just as long as it doesn´t bloody rain while they´re waiting on the kerbside for collection! Actually some city councils offer plastic bins to put the household rubbish bags in so looks like we can go retro afterall!
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:26 am
Goodgod- cardboard from supermarkets is sent off to be recycled into yes, more cardboard or corrugated inners for boxes. Many supermarkets are also now paid for their plastic waste as long as they’ve crushed and baled it first.
The plastic is then sent off, processed into plastic flakes/pellets and then plastics manufacturers melt the plastic flakes or pellets down for molding into new products like: fiberfill for sleeping bags , plastic lumber , containers, toys , compost bins , stationary and even mixed into T-shirts. Much more environmentally sensible and efficient than in the old days you refer to.
Outrage at the checkout if people are asked how they are? Really? Must be more mental patients out in the community than I thought, or more grumpy old buggers who don’t like plastic bags, laser scan at the checkout or anyone under the age of 55.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 am
Plasic bags are made from ethylene, a volatile gas that is made by naphtha, a by-product from crude oil refining, or ethane, found in natural gas. If it doesn’t get turned into plastic bags it gets flared off at refining plants.
I buy 10 of them every time I go to PaknSlave. I use them to carry my lunch, for bin liners, to put clothes in to keep them dry when tramping. They also break down into tiny itty bits of plastic. Look how brittle they become in only six months or so.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am
RH – regarding the plastic baling and recycling, I agree with your point, I went to a plastic pallet manufacturing plant and was amazed at the plastic junk they used to remold for the new pallets. However the plastic waste you speak of is from the packaging of the inbound products presumably. I think the Greens want to target the packaging of the supermarkets´ outbound goods.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
ah, a thread baited for the green nazi beaties.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
Put it into perspective. NZ produces 3million tonnes of landfill waste a year and it takes 48,000 shopping bags to make one single tonne.
any ban would be to reduce litter, not reduce waste to landfill
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:09 am
Stephen
“They are a problem, though I would perhaps prefer encouraging more recycling facilities to be set up, rather than outright bans”
Stephen. HDPE was up to over $200 per tome – before the crash, now you cant give it away. To collect, sort/grade plastic bags runs at about $300 per MT- whereas landfills wholesale between $30 – $50 per MT.
Who do you expect to pay for these ‘recycling facilities’ – the poor bloody ratepayer or taxpayer?
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 am
Does anyone know how many shopping bags New Zealand goes through per year?
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Then Greens are fast becoming irrelevant. They should be gutted by the last election result. Not only did they fail to capitalise on a chance to bleed support from Labour, their only supporters now in the House are the Opposition, and as such, they have little if any influence. Let them bang on about banning this, that and the other thing – it only makes them look even more fringe and loony than they already are.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 am
Wasn’t there a rather interesting thing on television about us exporting most of our recyclable waste to China? It was more cost effective to ship the bottles / cans to China for reprocessing than it was to recycle them here. I remember something like that.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
Sean said : “We NZers are very litter conscious ” – What a load of bollocks. It appalls me to see the amount of litter that kiwis leave all over the place. You guys have a lovely country but seem intent on fouling the nest at every opportunity. Every main road in the country has crap strewn all over the verges, mostly fast food wrappers, drink and especially beer bottles. It depresses me to see it.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
“Then Greens are fast becoming irrelevant.” …. Indeed they are. And the impending economic storm will sink their ship completely with a bit of luck.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:46 am
People are waking up to the possibility that banning is a Stalinist purge.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Some australian/pommie ‘futurologist’ or marketing gimp was predicting among other things, the fall of the organic food trend as people tighten the belt and return to basics – I think we can fairly extrapolate that trend to vanity politics like the greens.
article was in the UK Times on Tues/Wed think.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 am
I would like to stop my wife and daughters from voting but its banned
I want to have a slave to do my washing up but its banned
So no slaves I want the kids not be educated so they can say at home do the chores .. Can’t bastards banned it
Lead paint just flows so much better ..banned ,the bastards
I want to send kids up chimneys, banned
A bbq in a National park in the height of summer would be good I am responsible …banned though
I love the flowers of old mans beard (Clematis vitalba) but I can’t plant it THEY have banned me
Collective punishment is a war crime under section 33 of the Geneva Convention ..not allowed ..banned( unless you are Israel)
I want to drive at 140 kmh everywhere not allowed I’m banned
However Plastic bags aren’t banned which is good http://savekauai.org/oceans/great-pacific-rubbish-dump
I hate those blue pristine waters
[DPF: Oh the false analogies. Yes banning plastic bags is just the same as banning slavery. Except oh well it isn't. Most of the other examples are conditional situations - bbqs are not banned - only in national parks.]
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
expat – “the fall of the organic food trend as people tighten the belt and return to basics” – ROTL – you don’t see the irony in what you said?? ” Basics” = homegrown food = vegetable gardens, belt tightening = not spending money on unnecessary chemical pesticides/herbicides=organic growing
It’s already happening to a marked degree. You are way out of touch on this issue and your ‘extrapolation’ re the Greens is enormously wide of the mark. As to the rest of you, your bleating over plastic bags is hilarious and beautifully illustrates how voluntary programmes won’t work. Given the choice, you’d .. make no change! Good on ya, ya eco vandals!
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
HDPE? MT? Ah well. I was more referring to the recycling facilities that I see at supermarkets which are just for plastic bags – not much sorting needed there I would venture.
Is it necessarily one or the other?
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
greenfly – what are you talking about?
The organic produce industry produces very expensive consumer products.
Punters are reverting to cheaper produce that does what it says on the packet.
The Greens are a luxury item.
Not my issue, a strategic brand consultant / futurologist who makes his money advising corporates on consumer trends said this.
Take it how you like.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Growing your own organics – cheap.
Buying organic produce – more expensive.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
“The Greens are fired up by South Australia’s ban on plastic bags and hopes New Zealand follows its lead”
Just another Brick in the wall.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
“which are just for plastic bags – not much sorting needed there I would venture”
how many different types of plastic bags are there – of course they need sorting, but if your concern is for plastic bag litter then you are incorrectly putting the burden on supermarkets – most plastic bag litter is from service stations, liquor stores and lunch bars etc.
Think about it. People dont generally fill up their pantry from the supermarket shopping , then throw the empty bags onto the road
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Ryan Sproull – “Growing your own organics – cheap.” Yes. It’s a rapidly growing trend
Satisfying too. Healthiest option around. You’ll not need a single plastic bag either.
2009 is the Year of the Natural Fibre – the perfect opportunity to explore and introduce alternatives to plastic across the board. Plastic bags are a good place to start.
expat – “the Greens are a luxury item” Those who are embedded in the throw-away society might think so. Mr Farrar is doing his oily, coal-powered bit to ensure that you continue to believe it.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
“a strategic brand consultant / futurologist who makes his money advising corporates on consumer trends’ – gospel.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
greenfly, the Green policies are almost all idealistic in the sense that ‘world peace’ is idealistic. The Greens announce these ideas as if no-one has ever thought of such a thing before, and their implementation plans never take such little things as human nature into account.
On top of that they appear to have a hidden agenda they never talk about, which seems remarkably similar to the social engineering concepts practiced by communist societies.
Despite this they always achieve at least 5% because that’s the proportion of the truly insane and every now and again they manage to convince some politically naive but sane people to vote for them ‘because they really care.’
If they weren’t in politics no-one would notice from a policy perspective but I must admit they do provide an amusing lighter-side outlet. It’s just they’re a complete waste of money.
Finally, your comment DPF “is doing his bit to ensure you continue to believe it” is very revealing. For me anyway, nothing DPF has ever said has swayed my opinion one iota, on anything. I like his information and insights but no-one tells me what to think. The fact you appear to imagine his site has influence in a propaganda sense, speaks volumes about your own mindset, and not in a good way.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
reid – Mr Farrar will be feeling deflated to read that you say,
“nothing DPF has ever said has swayed my opinion one iota, on anything”
Your comment
“you appear to imagine his site has influence in a propaganda sense”
gave me a great laugh – thanks reid!
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Anyway greenfly, as a futurologist, care to share some of your more interesting predictions that you’re happy to put into the public domain – perhaps on the General thread lest we stand accused of trolling?
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:01 pm
reid – I’m no futurologist, merely a widely despised garden pest
, however, some things coming our way are easy to predict.
will be recognised as the critical factor it is and sharing will take on new importance.
More people will grow their own food at home. Food security will become an even greater issue world wide and the solution will be found at the grass root level – individuals and communities will provide for their own needs. Access to seed (GE free naturally
Plastic bags will be banned by the present government in New Zealand, following an epiphany experienced by their propaganda doyen Mr Farrar after reading comments on his blog
The Green Party will prove devestatingly effective in opposition, and will have a far greater influence than ever before, on the direction New Zealand takes over the coming period.
I’ve screeds of opinions about our future reid, though by now no doubt you’ll have decided they’re tosh
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
ROusseau got many things wrong. But he got some things right.
He insisted that people should be free to act as long as they did not harm others. He was opposed to coercion of all kinds because he believed that if people were allowed to live a simple life close to nature then nature would instruct them how to live. He sounds like a green.
However, he was equally adamant that any government or ruler which claimed the right of coercion on the grounds of people’s “good” or on the grounds of knowing better than the people what was good for the people was on the first step to despotism and the first step jusitified all those future steps which lead to tyranny.
Marx, Hegel, and Lenin, and Mao all believed they were justified in their despotism because it was for the good of the people.
The Smart Growth people also claim that we should live where they dictate “for our own good health etc”.
We are not children but if of course if we are treated like children then we become children who accept no responsibility for our actions.
Every now and then my wife and I take a plastic bag with us on our morning walks with the dogs and pick up the beer cans and soft drink bottles and plastic containers which riddle the road side. Heaps of Lion Red and Sprite – not a Black Mac or Oyster Bay bottle to be seen.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Access to seeds is a critical factor, greenfly.
One thing that’s always concerned me even though I support GE as a scientific endeavour, is the unfettered commercialisation of it resulting in two issues that are anathema to me.
First is the commercialisation of the human genome allowing patents to be granted which will mean that owners of said patents can charge whatever they like for genetic treatment. This was based on a Supreme Court decision granting a patent for an engineered oil-eating bacteria, previously US law said you can’t patent a living organism. The Justices didn’t understand what they were doing and over time the commercial lawyers have widened the definition into what we see today. Anathema one.
Anathema two are the terminator seeds. Utterly irresponsible and IMO, criminal.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Does anyone care?
And as for moaning about clogging up landfills….WTF? Landfills are for clogging up. That’s what we use them for and there are plenty more holes in the ground that need filling up.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
We send coal and recycled plastic to China? Oh well maybe the greens will grow a brain cell one day.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Greenfly – Ihate almost everything the Green party stood for. Control, Cotnrol and more Control. How anarchists and disaffected yoofs could vote for them is beyond me. They are more controlling than any conservative I have ever met.
Hwoever, we do grow a lot of our own veges and use no chemicals except horse shit, compost and dihydrogen monoxide. Very tasty they are too. You don’t need to be a Green stooge to be conscious of organic food. The plastic bag thing is bogus crap. They break down into practically nothing in no time at all and they are made of a waste product that would otherwise just be burnt off. I think they are a very Green alternative to chopping down trees for paper to make bags.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Brian Smaller – That dihydrogen monoxide sounds like nasty stuff – wouldn’t have it on my garden
(Cheers Sue and Jackie)
therein lies the attraction of the Green Party.
Disaffected yoofs recognise the value of limit setting, though they are bound to challenge each and every one of them. Anarchists are doubtless the same
Perhaps you are a National/Act voter Brian? Does it puzzle you, the antipathy both exhibit toward organic farming and food production? I’d be very interested in your comments. Your claim about the rapid breakdown of plastic bags is very wrong and thinking that they fade away into harmless nothingness shows you have a blinkered view on that issue. Are you aware of the oceanic ‘gyres’ – our ‘plastic islands’? Makes great reading and as a yaghtsman, I’m looking foward to the day when I get ‘becalmed by the floating heaps of ‘harmless plastic’. Mind you, out of sight, out of mind…
Chopping down trees to make bags… expand your horizons Brian! Is paper from trees the only alternative you can think of? Fibre, sustainably produced is the way foward for so many things .. I think hemp..stir, stir…
reid – access to seed is critical.etc.. tell me, have you secured any at all or are you a theoretical kinda guy? A real answer would interest me a lot. I’ve lots to say about our vulnerability and the foolishness of a ‘theoretical approach’ to an issue that is rounding on us now.
Whale – happy to offer your backyard for a landfill, once the others are ‘clogged up’? How far out does your backyard extend? Would you like a cluster of them set up beside the river your town/city draws its drinking water from? Leachate – tasty!
D4J – thoughtful as always – reliably perceptive as ever!
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The market will take care of it. Borders already charges 10c (“for charity”) if you want a bag for your books. Supermarkets in the UK do the same thing. It has f-all to do with being green and everything to do with lowering in-store costs. Guilting people into buying re-useable bags is all part of the same trend.
We use the re-usable bags and, of course, purchase plastic trash bags where we previously used shopping bags.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I’m very happy in the knowledge the communist Greens are an irrelevant, unimportant political party which can no longer advance its Luddite “hippie-gone-mad” agenda agenda of protectionism, welfarism, control, and intrusion in the lives of private citizens.
Lets take their opinion on banning plastic bags as further proof of the lunacy of the Green Party .
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Greenfly – “Whale – happy to offer your backyard for a landfill, once the others are ‘clogged up’? How far out does your backyard extend? Would you like a cluster of them set up beside the river your town/city draws its drinking water from? Leachate – tasty!”
Plastic bags do not clog up landfills, neither do they leach
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“reid – access to seed is critical.etc.. tell me, have you secured any at all or are you a theoretical kinda guy…”
Greenfly, no I haven’t because the terminator seed issue has not yet become critical. Anyway even when it does, the kind of thinking whereby the recommended solution is for a private non-farmer citizen to procure stockpiles of seeds, is nonsensical hippy fantasy.
See I’d be assuming that a normal political party, if it thought terminator seeds were an issue, would have better solutions than that, given that it’s their full-time job to consider these issues and they have access to vast taxpayer-funded resources, not to mention they can use other important resources such as a unique portal into the media if it needed that to get their message out. So far I haven’t heard a lot about their position on this and I’m left wondering what is the Greens’ strategy for resolution, in realpolitik terms. That’s why I think they’re a waste of spacetime and money.
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Spacetime is curved. Most money is curved too.
Coincidence?
January 2nd, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Gee. For a moment there, David, I thought you meant the Greens were being banned.
Silly me.
Bugger!!
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
reid – though terminator seed is something to be borne in mind, it’s not the pressing issue. Where do you think packet seeds (veges in particular) come from? He who controls the supply of food or seed … Your lack of confidence in power of the ‘private citizen’ really interests me – great believer in the belevolent, all powerful State are you? You’ve not spoken to many (any) Greens about this issue, I can see.
They fill other environmentally destructive niches.
Patrick – I didn’t say plastic bags leach (often their contents will though (love those disposable nappies
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
DPF:
Why not? It bans murder for that reason. Along with all other crimes.
David. Either:
(a) You’re being reactionary and silly. Either that, or
(b) you just felt a need to keep the reactionary and silly element of your readership happy, or
(c) both
I’m ging for (c).
[DPF: Don't be idiotic. There is a world of difference between banning crime which results in direct harm to other people and (for example) banning apples because you think more people should eat oranges]
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
D4J — do you know why NZ exports coal to China? (Clue: it’s to do with the sort of coal we have)
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Yes harpoon I understand that, but explain the happy valley protesters who all claimed to be tree hugging greenish voters?
They must have plastic brain cells.
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I live very close to a landfill. It takes ‘product’ from a fair chunk of the southern North Island,
Early management was a disaster. Now the leachate is pumped back into the “fill” to accelerate the breakdown
of the rubbish.
Nasty methane!! is a bi-product.
Currently it is burnt off but will shortly be collected and sold for fuel – after further processing.
This is expected to make a tidy sum for the operators.
The Greens should be banned – they dont know the difference between shit and clay – and if they did they would probably pick the clay.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
“Spacetime is curved. Most money is curved too.”
Care to expand, Ryan?
Must say I’ve been enjoying your contributions of late.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 pm
“great believer in the belevolent, all powerful State are you”
Not at all greenfly, as you’d know if you’d been following this blog for more than 5 mins. Your faith in the ability of private citizens to operate against the tide of corporate activity when these are combined with govt regulation bought about by specific donations made by said corporates, astounds me.
Don’t you know how things work? Do you just imagine that (sh)eople will “rise up” the minute something ugly rears its head? They haven’t yet, have they? What makes you think they will? More info? Don’t be fucking stupid.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Harpoon (40) Vote: 0 2 Says:
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
D4J — do you know why NZ exports coal to China? (Clue: it’s to do with the sort of coal we have)
>> Its the type of coal the chinese pay hard cash for.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
reid – I think you misread me
I’ve followed this blog for years.
The ability of private citizens that so astounds you, is something I have watched for years also. I’m taken-aback by your lack of experience here. I’ve not even hinted at an uprising – I’m guessing that concept emerged from some latent hippie streak you have. The kind of movement I see has been happening over a number of years and won’t be ‘whipped up’ the moment ’something ugly happens’ – it is already well developed and is not at all ‘revolutionary’. Again, you lack contact with real grass roots development, it seems to me. Would that be correct?
Thanks for the advice to not be so ‘fucking stupid’. I’ll certainly do my best, though you’ve got me tagged already, I suspect.
You do seem to have a fatalistic view of the strength of corporations and governments, I have to say. Again, that hippie streak of yours might explain that.
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
greenfly, you’re saying you see the “grassroots” are springing forth (non-revolutionarily). This movement you’re seeing however, where is it? Specifically.
Lest you be confused, I’m referring to this: “The kind of movement I see has been happening over a number of years and won’t be ‘whipped up’ the moment ’something ugly happens’ – it is already well developed and is not at all ‘revolutionary’.”
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:18 am
I think he’s still got an erection over the Greens getting another couple of list seats
(He forgets they may have won a small battle, but lost the war)
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 am
Beautox said: “Sean said : “We NZers are very litter conscious ” – What a load of bollocks.”
- why don´t you read it in the context it was written? In the same sentence I was comparing here to countries in SE Asia.
While we are not litter free, compared to countries in that region we effectively are!
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 am
I find all of this talk about plastic grocery bags interesting. I find it interesting because over here in the States I have a small cabinet shop that I run out of my basement and in the past had a real problem with saw dust and scraps proliferating. I solved my problem at the grocery store. I ask for paper bags instead of plastic which I then use to fill halfway with saw dust from solid woods with a little paraffin oil mixed in and, POOF!, it all goes up in my shop’s wood burning stove. This method actually heats my whole house.
Now, I fancy myself as an environmentally conscious guy, but I also have to survive and feed my family so I feel like my paper bag solution is a pretty good one that’ll make everybody happy.
- It solves my dust problem.
- It mitigates plastic bags “clogging up” the landfills (Whatever that means).
- It heats my house without using gas, heating oil, or electricity.
- It uses the whole tree which reminds me of how we romanticize the American Indians…er..uh..Native Americans for using up the whole buffalo.
This will make everybody happy..right?
I doubt it. See this Green Movement is the New World Religion and everybody is a sinner and the change agent priests of this religion can never be made happy because the more you acquiesce to their demands, the more they will demand. If you don’t believe it, your sustainability police are already going through peoples trash in Hartford Connecticut and levying fines for not getting the recycling right.
I am the epitome of evil because my trade is one that uses trees.
Most folks’ hands are several steps removed from carbon output from heating their homes because they use electric, gas, or oil which requires third parties to handle the offensive fossil fuel. My hands not only handle the fuel, they manufacture the fuel, and you can actually see the smoke coming from my chimney instead of the smoke stack at the electric company which makes my carbon footprint more anecdotal than everybody else’s carbon foot print.
I work hard in my little shop which causes me to breath hard. This means that I am using more oxygen and emitting more CO2. Therefore I am more a scourge to the earth than the average person.
To help me in the shop, I have three kids which is more than the prescribed two kids that the Green Priesthood would allow us to have.
I try to finish everything with Shellac which is made from excretions of dead bugs, and I feel pretty good about it being an all natural product and all, but I’m sure the Greenies can find something wrong with that too.
Anyway, it’s 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside and I have to wrap this up because there is about six inches of global warming to clean off of the windshield of my fossil fuel guzzling pick up truck.
If you would like to see my evil wooden product, visit http://jcscarpentry.com.
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Patrick Starr – we won a small battle? Hooray! I feel bouyed up by that news – you’ve made my day
Loved your comment to Harpoon, Mr Farrar,
“[DPF: Don’t be idiotic. “
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:26 am
OMG: It’s a greenie dork-a-thon.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
Read
Patents expire. And GM seeds take many millions to develop. The inventors have about fifteen years to get their return for their risk investment. Terminator seeds are a means of promoting the research in the first place.
But what is the problem? Hybrids are normally “terminator” plants. You cannot breed from them or cannot breed true.
Mules are sterile hybrids. Should they be banned?
Plant breeders have been breeding sterile hybrids for decades – otherwise it is not worth their while.
And finally no one forces you to buy terminator seeds. You will do so only if they provide a superior return compared to the competition.
The problem with “the free rider theory” is that without patents which give monopoly rights for a short term there is no incentive for the innovator to do the costly research because as soon as they put it on the market the copiers move in and an sell at a lower price because they have not put up the cash to finance the research.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:53 am
Owen
I strongly disagree that, as you allude, biotechnology horticulture returns substandard profits without terminator seed stock. Terminator seed stock may provide some interesting developments but overall horticulture based on terminator stock is designed to gain market share and remove the self perpetuating opposition from the market place with a monoculture with all of its inherent weaknesses. Not a good thing for biodiversity.
January 3rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
“And finally no one forces you to buy terminator seeds” – Hilarious Owen! You’re a wag! Expat’s explanation, while it sounds as though it comes from Greenie, is correct. You might like to consider the role played by hybrid plants as well and the impact they have on the independence and self reliance of individuals and communities.
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
DPF posed the question …”How long until we have the sustainability police? They’ll raid your home looking for illegal products such as plastic bags, bottled water, fizzy drinks, over sized easter eggs etc.”
Simple answer. Just as soon as there are enough dumb arses out there in voter land to elect a Greens/Labour Government.
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Ross – don’t we already have ’sustainability police’? Those who monitor dairy farms for excessive effluent release and stock in waterways, fisheries inspectors who police the paua and cray harvesters and local council officials who keep an eye out for water wasters in the drought of summer and officers at the airports checking for the illegal traffic in endangered native animals. Will the present government send these ’sustainability police’ on their way, do you think?
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
greenfly,
So where are these police that force me to buy terminator seeds?
How many vegetable gardeners grow all their plants from recycled seed stock?
I guess half my tomatoes are reqrowth and some of my potatoes and pumpkins (from the compost)
but we still buy seeds from the store for beans, carrots, and of course I buy my olive trees and fruit trees.
And I buy grass seed. How does this affect my independence or self reliance.
Do you really want to put all the seeds stores and nurseries out of business?
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Owen
If you were an Indian farmer, you wouldn’t be asking that question, you’d know from bitter experience. Terminator seeds are not the primary ’seed’ issue here in NZ, I believe – accessibility to open pollinated seeds is. A number of gardeners do grow on from their own seed – more power to them! You need to take care with keep lines of potatoes, as virus can be an issue. It pays to have someone in your community doing that job as a speciality. Beans, carrots etc. can easily be done, provided you haven’t begun with hybrids. Fruit trees don’t need to be brought. Learning to graft will free you from the nursery treadmill. Why don’t you save and use your own grass seed? As to ‘putting the nurseries out of business’ – do you mean that people shouldn’t become self reliant?
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Of course people shouldn’t become self reliant.
Civilisation is based on the specialisation of labour.
I am not on a nursery treadmill. I buy trees and plants from nurseries because it is the best use of my time.
I have moved onto this property only a year ago and want to eat some fruit from the trees before I die.
So I buy reasonably sized trees.
And my time is too valuable to spend saving grass seed.
And I am not an Indian farmer so why should I ask the question.
If someone is on a benefit and has no earning power then maybe these labour intensive activities make sense. But although I am officially an old age pensioner I cannot afford to grossly waste my time.
And anyhow, who are the police that force Indian farmers to grow terminator seeds? Of course they are not allowed to steal them but then who has the right to steal private property anywhere. IF I want a copy of Jamie Oliver’s gardening book I have to buy it.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Owen – fun and games!
“And anyhow, who are the police that force Indian farmers to grow terminator seeds?”
Monsanto (of course!)
“Of course people shouldn’t become self reliant” – hardy har har!
“I buy trees and plants from nurseries because it is the best use of my time.”
sucker – get independent! (You can’t be so old that you can’t afford to take control of your own destiny!)
I “want to eat some fruit from the trees before I die”
jeeze Owen, have you only two years left in you? My grafted trees planted two years ago are bearing now! I grew that fruit (cost me $1:50 each tree – could have done it for free)) – I have 150 different ‘heritage’ fruit trees in just one of my 5 gardens btw.
Why would you want a copy of Jamie Oliver’s gardening book ???? There’s far better stuff produced here that relates to our bioregion. Better still, go talk to an older guy who has been growing in your area for ever!
“And I am not an Indian farmer so why should I ask the question?”
We’re a global community now Owen. We can learn (and be warned) by our neighbours.
When are you going to get it right Owen? You’re not too old to learn!
January 4th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
greenfly,
When he was sixty my brother dropped dead from an aortic dissection/embolism – a genetic condition.
Two years ago I suffered a similar event but survived.
I essentially live from day to day. I know my own life condition – and you do not.
On my last property my wife and I planted 80,000 trees and plants. Since my illness we have downsized from 20 acres to 5.
I was the first to grow olives and truffles in my area and one of the first to grow grapes. I am the older guy.
I haven’t got Jamie Oliver’s book although we have over 5,000 books in our libraries. I just used that as an example.
Your arrogance and ignorance is what turns so many people off the “greens”. Live your life as you see fit but do not presume to lecture me on how to live mine.
I realise now you are probably a teenager who naturally knows everything.
Both states will soon pass.
And Monsanto does not force Indian farmers, or any farmers for that matter, to buy Terminator seeds. They have no power to do so.
Just as knowone forces me to buy a Mac or to buy a Susuki or to subscribe to Sky.
I pay my money and make my choices.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
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