With Lisa Er.
Sponsored by www.TheAwarenessParty.com
It is no secret that we are living in interesting and challenging times, and that we are in great need of not just innovative, but collaborative strategies for sustainability to address our planetary emergency head-on.
Nicole M. Foss is Senior Editor of the well-read website The Automatic Earth. Since January 2008, she and co-author Raúl Ilargi Meijer have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance, energy, environment, psychology, geopolitics and real politik in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it.
Nicole is also an international speaker on global finance, energy and environment. She has lectured in hundreds of locations across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and has made numerous media appearances in a variety of countries.
Nicole describes our financial predicament, vulnerabilities, and the end of economic growth.
She speaks of strategies for coping with the financial collapse suggesting that the way to survive will come from the ground up, in community initiatives rather than from the top down.
She describes the functions of money, why it matters that the financial system is about to have an accident, and the cycles of economic expansion and contraction and how at the peak of an expansion phase, it involves credit (giving value to human promises to repay).
Promises only have value if people believe the promises. During an economic contraction phase promises are broken and cease to have value which results in a money supply crash and economic seizure, like in the 1930s, increasing probability of a systemic banking crisis as we see now in Cyprus.
Solutions include a financial strategy of no debt, of holding cash and gaining control over our essentials of existence. Building up businesses with local supply chains and distribution networks is required.
Other basics of robust systems include community building, time banking, local currencies, building social capital and relationships of trust that all build resilience. Nicole says you can’t change the waves but you can learn to surf!
Prior to the establishment of The Automatic Earth, Nicole was editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and finance. She also ran the Agri-Energy Producers' Association of Ontario, where she focused on farm-based biogas projects, grid connections for renewable energy and Feed-In Tariff policy development.
While living in the UK she was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level. She also has significant previous experience practicing as an environmental consultant.
Her academic qualifications include a BSc in Biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate diploma in air and water pollution control, and the common professional examination in law and an LLM in international law in development from the University of Warwick in the UK.
Nicole is in New Zealand to speak on “Limits to Growth and where to go from here”.
Her web site is www.theautomaticearth.com
The Good News:
There is a big increase organics in NZ.
In past 3 years organic produce sales have increased by 25%, organic beverages increased by 80% and organic wine has quadrupled production.
Franklin organic farmers grass roots organization of 300 people are organizing themselves by taking back control of their food supply, establishing community networks.
Humans no need to be competitive, but cooperative relationships brings connection and happiness in community
Organics NZ are still committed to be the worlds first organic country but Bhutan, Bali and Costa Rica are far closer. NZ organic growers definitely want NZ to lead.
What we are dealing with:
Though our Government is not talking organics to the world, ironically the world is talking organics to NZ. Especially China and Taiwan and milk supply for example, and if our food is contaminated the Chinese will instantly halt buying, because they are wanting 'NZs 100 percent pure products.'
This superb, newsy, laughter ridden interview covers:
Nestles - its problematic partnership with Fonterra.
Fluoride - which is a toxic waste product in our drinking water.
Cadmium - across NZ farms, in superphosphate - impacting both our health and animals. Damages the liver and kidneys in cattle and sheep that these organs in lambs and cattle over 18 months old are not allowed to be used for human consumption … and are being used for pet food? - is there a connection with NZ cats and renal failure?
Plus, NZ cadmium rates are already higher that the maximum standards that they have in the European Union. This heavy metal is a time bomb in our farming sector and needs addressing. In Waikato where more than 160,000 hectares are contaminated to the point that would have been officially labelled as a contaminated site. It can no longer be classed as contaminated because changes to legislation in 2012 removed agricultural land from any contamination classification. A contemptible way to get rid of the problem, by our NZ Govt moving the goal posts.
Milk - there is a growing consumer demand for raw milk in rural communities, that's not stripped of its nutrient value of probiotics, when milks is pasteurized, homogenized, UV'd etc. Raw milk is especially good for children and our Government actually knows
this, but is reluctant to champion it.
Food Labeling - If you cannot pronounce a food - don't eat it, and keep away from processed foods and eat only whole foods.
Remember - food is medicine, drugs are not medicine.
Diets - why low fat diets fail.
Biotechnology - the constant allure of untold riches for big tech corporations, that our Government supports.
Christchurch rebuild - organic gardens booming and better networks and health outcomes ensuring the security of their food is growing communities here.
GE & GMOs - the continuing problems, the imperative of food labeling of contents and country of origin. GMOs pose a 59 billion dollar threat to the NZ economy and our Clean and Green image.
Irradiated food - especially from Caboolture in Qld Australia, that radiates, tomatoes, capsicums and mangos with Cobalt-60. (don't touch)
Buy local - grow local, eat local = fresh.
Hospital food - the need of fresh vital food so as to heal ones body of both sickness and wounds, but under successive Governments has been ignored, but more so under the present Govt.
Chicken cages - abolishing in 2023, but pigs in sow crates are doing better 2015.
Bees - decline as are the butterflies = GE and pesticides.
Keeping Auckland GE free - Pass local laws so that Ratepayers do not bear the costs if a GE outbreak takes place. Compel the biotech corporation to being responsible for their mistakes.
GE Agriculture - is a dead end culture in the final analysis.
Go organic, become healthy, get wise.
www.organicnz.org.nz
What is it that compels a very fit and energetic octogenarian, to come back to NZ for a visit to give talks and share his insights across the Auckland region?
From the NZ navy, to the police to a farmer who went into local politics for 6 terms and realized that we should NEVER allow more than 4 terms maximum as any more than this and you lose your enthusiasm, energy and panache.
Saw town planning become so restrictive and that produced the growth of bureaucracy.
Realised in the 1960s that it was not National or Labour but 'the system' that was wrong, where Social Credit offered another viewpoint around finance and economy, he stood at different times against Bill Birch and also Winston Peters and Colin Moyle.
Always pushing the envelope he owned a health store in Australia and then 'moved on'. What motivated him was he did everything because he wanted to see how he could help people.
As a farmer he used to kill his own animals for meat and states that fat on meat is so important as it helps digest the protein, and that it is imperative that we have fat on our chops or whatever. Same for raw milk, it is essential that it is raw as pasteurized milk destroys beneficial bacteria along with the bad ones and destroys enzymes essential for nutrient absorption.
But there is an organization called the 'Organisation of Food Protection.' He says it is a mighty force, and he attended the last conference of 2,500 people, comprising of the manufacturers of instruments needed for testing things, the bureaucrats, the microbiologists and the lawyers who want to sue the farmers for various infringements etc. Evidently, Governments worldwide are looking to this organization for advice.
They want to sterilize every food, which entails the destruction of all enzymes etc too. What Geoffrey noted as a visitor, that they are opposed to raw milk being available to people as a choice. Fortunately, California and some other states in the USA allow raw milk as well as in Europe where it is sold via vending machines. Also now in NZ's South Island.
Some of the Subjects Covered:
We must be able to have choice to eat and consume genuine foods that give us energy dense nutrition and that greens are so necessary for iron for our body.
Too many people today are anaemic due to a lack of minerals in the soil, due to incorrect farming methods. Biological farming being the new innovative answer.
Also, that magnets and magnetism has an untapped future in the growth and yield of plants and its affects on the soil in general.
That cadmium in market gardens in Pukekohe is frightening … (and throughout NZ). That Clean Green NZ is being compromised?
Soy comes in for criticism because it it is being linked to a thyroid issue and that iodine needs to be absorbed through the skin to offset this, best get good advice from a doctor, health practitioner, or naturopath first.
With changes to the chemistry of the environment men are growing larger breasts in the USA and are having to engage in breast reduction surgery because of the estrogen in soy.
Imperative to keep family farms in NZ. Corporate farms are always driving the bottom line, and thinking chemicals always to increase output.
Use of pendulum or divining rod, especially for children to learn how to use a pendulum so that they can quickly test to see if the food they are about to eat is good for them.
An exceptionally interesting interview that covers a wide range of health matters and life experiences by an exceptionally strong and vibrant 87 year old with much wisdom to share.
http://www.westonaprice.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston_A._Price_Foundation
http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/07/the-truth-about-the-weston-price-foundation.html
Leanora ~ Out of Africa, Ex IT Silicon Valley, to bee keeping, lavender grower, organic gardener of the inner self ~ a woman's journey.
When we close our eyes to the outside world and become self reflective, we realize that we are all we have got. That if we want change in the outer world, we need to recognize that we need to change within as well.
From our first breath as a baby we soak up the imprints of our first contact, to our mother, family and extended family to community.
Surrounded in love we are secure in our localized environment and this allows us to be nourished and acknowledged and find our place in life.
Leanora traveled extensively to finally find NZ and a tiny island microcosm nestled on Waiheke Island in a community who practiced organic principles.
Here in the secureness of warm relationships she engaged in both inner and outer growth giving her an understanding of the psychological patterns that we as an emergent humanity need to become aware of as we clear our being of the need to drop anything that does not serve us. In this process of healing she encountered that there are many methods of clearing trauma and energetic imprints in our body, that hold us back from living our fullest expression.
The more we show up to connect with our sovereign self and owning who we are, the more we can shift to a deeper and clearer countenance of being.
That there are now many modalities of 'whole' practices, we don't have to go to the outside world for answers, shaman, priests, gurus etc
Being present and connecting to the wholeness of our selves, is a direct method of looking within to release all the old patterning in our make up which, can be accessed, cleared and sped up.
Conscious awareness, and not seeing things through the filter of what we have been programmed with - by our parents and society is in many ways the first step of many.
When we show up with an open curiosity, 'something else' can be revealed.
The key being to drop into our heart and ask what would love do, and where would love take us when requiring healing at soul level?
This is a soft and sweet approach to healing of the self, the divine self and the sacred feminine.
And for men, to drop down into ones heart and feel from this place of reverence, where our inner light connects us to our sacred male.
A time for us as a person, to the greater community to recognize that the journey to awakening opens up through our heart.
Remember ~ 8 hugs a day to keep your oxytocin levels up, and Leanora's stall on Market day on Waiheke is known as the hug corner as the bonding connections, enlivens the community.
www.Embodytruth.com
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~waiblue
Gavin, originally from the emerald isle of Ireland now lives in NZ, brings an insightful and holistic vision of how NZ can lead sustainability both locally and globally. And due to the unique and potent comments and articles in Element Magazine it's now becoming an important educator in both the business world as well as schools and community to looking after our children's future.
The whole idea of the Element publication is to use media to create (drive) positive change in society in a world that is all about consumerism and how we can make more money.
Using the triple bottom line and finding the balance between economic prosperity, health of the biosphere and the health of the people that live within the biosphere.