Steffan Browning, Green Party Member of Parliament. Spokesperson on:
Organics, GE and GMO's, Fisheries, Agriculture, Bio-security and Forestry. PLUS, The Grand Daddy of them All: Security and Intelligence.
Steffan has been at the forefront of the New Zealand organics movement for more than twenty years. His aim is to have genuinely sustainable organics in New Zealand's food, fibre, forestry and fishing industries - which he states, needs to be integrated from a holistic perspective and 'also makes good business sense'.
Listen as Steffan divulges the challenges that organics face, on the front lines of GE untruths, agribusiness and the unknowingness of government of both holistic systems and sustainability.
Hear the most powerful and potent statement in NZ's Parliament for decades as Steffan covers the descent on Wellington of multiple layers of the global security apparatus that coincided with the 1st Reading of the GCSB Bill, it's knock-on effect and connecting the dots as to how NZ is cavorting with loss of its sovereignty, enabling the matrix to hover over, and hoover our fast losing innocence as a global moral compass - defender of democracy and citizen rights.
Covering the the machinations of the SECURITY & INTELLIGENCE BILL - THE GCSB BILL.
Steffan Browning on the GCSB and Related Legislation Amendment Bill
21 Aug 2013 | Speech | Steffan Browning Green MP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6kRIlhAftEI
"I implore one of the 61 MPs who has previously supported this legislation to change at this vote and allow a full inquiry first. The Government has failed to provide a real justification for this fundamental attack on our democratic rights and freedoms, and the legislation facilitates the legal establishment of a surveillance State in New Zealand".
This too is mentioned: NZ's increasing involvement with global military alliances, when we need to be an Advocate for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
FOOD GE FREE Organic 2020
The fight with Government inaction on GE in our imported fodder for cattle! GE Free New Zealand and our courageous volunteers battling big interests as of this moment. www.gefree.org.nz
Government inaction again regarding Food Labeling.
That we still have very poor food labeling in NZ as GE and GMO labeling is only voluntary where it needs to be mandatory across the board.
That 'Country of Origin' needs also to be clearly stated on the package, can, bottle as to where ingredients are grown/sourced etc.
BIO- SECURITY:
Pig Farmers and Bee keepers to combine to keep strong bio-security in place. Due to lax importation controls.
Huge challenges here for NZ. Nearly 50% of our pork is imported (why?) and there are 'sars' related global health problems that could easily come in to NZ in raw cuts of pork.
Border controls need to be strengthened far more stringently with more financial backing as shipping containers swamp the authorities and more lax controls are applied.
More unknown diseases, viruses are entering NZ at present.
FORESTRY:
Current rorts in Carbon Credits around deforestation and dairying replacing trees.
The adoption of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard shows that a national environmental standard is possible and the Government should advance one urgently.
That 11 humans are equal to one cow in their capacity to ingest and excrete. A conservative estimate is the number of dairy cows in NZ at present are equal to 66 million people inhabiting NZ, the same population as the UK.
FISHERIES:
Salmon, huge problems with Salmon farms, each ones 'waste' is the equivalent to a town of 40,000 people.
Growing problems with sustainable fisheries in NZ due to vested interests and having to patrol our vast fishing grounds.
1080 arial poison represents an ever-growing threat to New Zealand's 'clean, green' image, according to the New Zealand Deerstalkers' Association. How do the Greens position themselves to this when they are officially wanting an organic world? Steffan's answer to the vexing problem of possums.
And much, more.
Steffan Browning Green MP - Organic Sustainable NZ. This post needs to be seen by far more NZers - especially when we see where all of this is leading. If we do nothing, the children of the future, will not be angry, they will be enraged!
Dr Jim Salinger: Global Warming, his new book, 'Living in a Warmer World' covering NZ Rainfall, Sea Levels, Glaciers, Fisheries, Soils and Crops etc
Ex head of NIWA NZ's National Institute of Water and Atmosphere as well as a member of, IPCC, and UN Climate Recipient for the Nobel Peace Prize 2007.
This interview also stretches the boundaries of Government action and inaction, Media and denial, having a holistic view point, including questions of geo engineering and chemtrails.
NOTE: Expression of predisposition. I do believe that our planet is warming, and in fever, as per the auditory Gaian introduction to this particular program. (Tim).
This interview is a critical overview of most of the challenges coming to face the 7 billion plus of humanity including the mega trillions of biota in our biosphere.
Our planet Gaia's, fever at present is such that she is shivering and icing up again at the North and South Poles, but towards both the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn our planet is increasingly suffering from heat with both Europe, the USA and Australia breaking record temperatures. And when 'she sweats' with flash flooding - it's also wrecking havoc across her surface.
Just like we breathe in and out and the tides ebb and flow, Jim says that the icing at the Poles are a temporary phase, more so in the Arctic and we will see more melting, in particular other extremes, but not necessarily as fast as originally anticipated.
This was one of the 'significant factors' that I wanted to cover in this interview. Statements that could be classified as alarmist, especially in the short term.
Starting with my last radio interview with Jim back in November 2009 … on the same day of the email hacking and leaking (his included) around Professor Phil Jones of East Anglia University in UK - The emails showed they had problems with the fact that global warming temperatures were not increasingly rising … like a wall chart graph for sales of a very exceptional company.
That though continuous increases of Co2 were being produced, this was not translating as 'startling' temperature rises across the board, but instead the Co2 was being absorbed into the upper atmosphere and deeper into the oceans - and this seems to be one of the challenges still prevalent today. Slower rises in global temperatures.
Also, the science is still young and compared with 40 years ago, there were very few scientists studying our planet as a whole, James Lovelock, the Father of the Gaia Hypothesis, now a Theory was one of the first scientists to do this. He was seen as a poly math, one who is adept in many scientific disciplines and integrating them into a holistic web of relationships. i.e Geophysiology.
So we discuss the number of scientists engaged with climate change and in particular global warming. What institutions and research centers. Are they paid to do this? What percentage of them are? Who calls the shots as to how they are paid? Corporations putting money into universities?
The good news is that more scientists are finally engaging in holistic ways of seeing our planet as a whole super system. This being the next evolutionary step in our planetary world view.
For example, this would include Geology such as mineralogy, petrology & pedology, Hydrology, covering oceanology, limnology including glaciology & the cryosphere. Then the Atmospheric sciences of meteorology, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, and atmospheric physics. As well as disciplines in magnetic and gravity fields. These are but a very few of the many differing (and growing) disciplines that compile the 'earth sciences.'
I then 'pushed the river' in a number of instances because many of the dire warnings about rapid ice loss and more hurricanes that Al Gore many years ago warned us was coming and have not happened - and I said that this plays into the hands of the denialists.
For example in 2007, Al Gore predicted no Arctic ice In 2013 - stating US Navy calculations and that I watched him say this on Utube last night. Then I mentioned James Lovelock who fearing the worst in writing his last two books "The Revenge of Gaia ". and The Fading face of Gaia - he too says that he was alarmist …. He said that Australian Tim Flannery and Al Gore were also.
So what was the story?
That the melting and global heating was not as rapid as they first 'thought.'
Then I asked Jim why the New Zealand Royal Society was not out there actively supporting calls to halt the warming of our planet? Because they mention very little about global warming on their web site. Last posted article: 23 Sep 2010. That was three years ago. They covered acidic oceans … but that was over 4 years ago. In my estimation they seem to be a cozy little club …. and defer to the rest of the world.
Then I jumped over to NZ media especially Leighton Smith on News Talk ZB who brazenly ridicules global warming and has a quarter of a million listeners nationwide and he would be Jim's greatest nemesis on NZ's airwaves. Jim jumps in here and makes some strong points! And then there is Ian Wishart of Investigate Magazine, who has sold huge number of books in his large seller 'Air Con. If it is so important ... WHY ARE NZ SCIENTISTS NOT ADDRESSING THESE PEOPLE?
And that few New Zealanders are championing climate change. To the degree that the present NZ government is pushing for the extraction of oil, and gas by fracking as well as coal mining? Why are the Scientific community not calling the government to account?
Why is the NZ Government laughing behind the back of the global warming scientific fraternity whilst the Act party, who have been supported by NZ's richest men laughs openly at global warming as a total joke?
Brian Fallow, one of the very few aware NZ journalists said in this last month, that the Government's refusal to do much of anything to curb New Zealand's emissions is as economically myopic as it is morally contemptible.
Then we have Rupert Murdoch who runs so much of the global media … he is anti global warming, and recently had a swipe at Al Gore … The multi billionaires the Koch Brothers who are so loaded with fossil fuel money and support numerous anti warming organizations are getting away with buying media coverage, as well as keeping the pressure on to keep mining and drilling for fossil fuels.
Then there is Exxon Mobil. Doing the same and over the past decade, they have spent US$207 billion to buy back their own shares. This means if they can own or control 51% of their Corporation, they can do exactly whatever they want. Dictatorship of their own entity!
We also covered the challenges for NZ. Increasing sea levels - such as Auckland Metro Magazines January 2008 publication showing a number of frightening pictorial scenarios of Auckland being drowned in various levels of inundation by rising oceans. Note, both Auckland's main motorways are lest than a metre above sea level.
Then we covered fisheries and fish migrating towards the south more and more, then soil and 'biological farming' that Graeme Sait is a champion of as well as Arden Andersen, which Jim was not aware of as a major new initiative to change soil health as well as keep carbon in the soil.
Then livestock and flatulence as well as GE and GMO's (Jim expressed no keenness to run with this) and other subject matter to finally get to geo engineering.
I asked Jim about geo engineering, and he said that the UN will be putting out a statement next year about this. He said he was reluctant to engage in this method, that nature should be able to work within her own means to sort things out, not by mans tinkering.
Next chemtrails and Jim said that they were ice coming off the wings of aircraft at altitude. However, I stated that then they should dissipate after a short time, why do they remain in the atmosphere for hours on end sometimes stretching nearly from horizon to horizon?
As an ex Air NZ flight crew member myself for 17 years, I felt that I had seen enough aircraft 'vapor trails' over the years to notice how they peter out and disappear after 10 minutes or so, but these stay for several hours and that I had been up in New Mexico in the USA in July this year and photographed them from the backyard of the place I was staying at in Sante Fe.
I cover this more in depth in Earth Files at the end of this write up.
In closing Jim said, that we all have to get educated, and work towards a changing world, that the young Zero Generation , the youth of today is who he has faith in and that we need to become involved in the discussion as our future and children future are most definitely at stake.
EARTHFILES for this week.
That there is an increasingly ardent call by people and groups of citizens especially across America that the atmosphere is being clouded by long stretching aircraft chemtrails from horizon to horizon is gathering momentum.
The question; is a covert operation to curtail global warming, by spraying nano particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space - happening? This being an emergency measure to halt overheating? And this is why hurricanes have been minimized and why James Lovelocks computations that global warming was going to be rampant by this time has not occurred, but has been held at bay, or limited by this chemtrail action?
Physicians are also talking about health concerns relating to breathing difficulties around the sudden spike in super fine particles of both aluminum and barium being found in both the environment and increasingly in health tests.
This vexing question is certainly raising more questions than answers and so am giving just one web site that you can scrutinize to peruse for yourself.
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org
Why are alternative and complimentary currencies on this GreenplanetFM program being constantly emphasized? The reason is very clear, the global economic system is out of control, with bankers out of New York and London calling the shots (assisted by acquiescing politicians), and are printing money at will, leveraging bonds, hedge funds, derivatives, promissory notes and every sneaky, cunning ploy of chicanery being fostered on the unknowing public.
These snake oil banksters and hucksters are out to CON everyone who is unknowing, implying that everything is REALLY OK, that it is all under control, nothing to worry about - just keep buying. It's called keeping the status quo alive in an unsustainable consumptive and dishonest economy.
And you will never hear a squeak out of the Government, or any Government. Mums the word! (Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Act 1, Scene 2:' Seal up your lips and give no words but mum.'?
However, if things do slide and quickly and funds become scarce and money is in short supply, we have PLAN B, another method that is grass roots in intent and can be easily put in place. This simple 'Living Economies Educational Trust' could save communities across the country a lot of angst, frustration and even despair, enabling them to communicate with each other and at least put food on the table and also into the soil and assist in pulling the strings of community together towards an outcome of peace.
This erudite interview covers the problems, (being endemic and global) the challenges - (power structures) and the solutions - possibilities and empowerment at a localised community level.
That we need to learn what is going on and move quickly to solutions.
That growth for its own sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Phil deconstructs growth ideology on a finite planet, to the degree that we extract and take more and more resources especially from the environment, at the same time pollute and contaminate more and more until we run out of everything except our pollution that basically poisons and contaminates us - in our own waste.
That we have found ourselves in a debt economy that is really a pyramid scheme that has been running for a few hundred years and that it needs constant growth (and a growing population) to exist, if not it will implode, which it is having to face as of this very moment.
The problems of environmental degradation, resource over use, of pollution of inequality of social injustice, poverty, despair, wars all stem from a monetary system that requires continued growth to keep the momentum exponentially growing to keep paying the interest.
Which basically is an eternal ponzi scheme, with the central banks all acting in concert to keep propping up this house of cards with huge injections of capital - printed money!
The present high tech web related system slushes funds at light speed around the global casino and in the process syphoning more and more money off the 99% into the hands of the 1%.
SOLUTIONS:
Smart approach is the holistic one, the grass roots one with the community utilizing these parallel systems of localized currencies as well as the current traditional monetary system. Bringing together a strengthened neighborhood, more resilient economies and localized involvement that respects nature as being integral to the process of community livelihood.
The www.le.org.nz system, allows for the extension of credit and issues IOUs and assist you in finding needs or wants - and sell what you wish, and a buyer can also be found, all without using NZ dollars - where you can also purchase software to run your localized green dollar system and time bank.
Time Banks value everybody's time equally. One hour of an accountant is equals to one hour of mowing lawns = very egalitarian. A lot of tie-in with voluntary organizations that good deeds and work can be accounted for and be rewarded. Time Banks can act as a central coordinating location for all exchanges to take place. The community when allied to voluntary organizations end up assisting and looking after one another.
So successful was Lyttleton's Time Bank in the Christchurch earthquakes that NZ Civil Defense calls it a great model for connecting community that they are encouraging time banks across the nation via the Civil Defense organization.
http://www.lyttelton.net.nz/about-project-lyttelton/earthquake/lyttelton-timebank
Savings Pools. Based on trust, are both very simple and interesting, because they can trump the banks by not having you pay any interest. Working in localized groups you pay into a common pool and over time build up a substantial kitty and by utilizing the 'reciprocity indicator' it uniquely calculates the divvying up of the cash that is in the collective pool, and is then ready for loaning out.
Necessities:
Urgent need to form a new grass roots economy across the nation, because due to escalating interest rates the NZ current account is in a more dire predicament than the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister will ever let on as they do not want to spook both 'their' voters or the market! Meanwhile, the Labour Party still continues to slumber and sleep at the wheel. Once the interest we pay overseas entities leaves NZ it never comes back! The big one for NZ is our growing private debt.
A very informative and empowering interview that Phil in his closing statement calls for a powerful renaissance within NZ communities to extend into more 'conscious connection' to acknowledge the 'commons' and the choices we make. That we actively commit to understanding and participating in alternative and complimentary currencies, as our future may very well depend on it!
http://www.le.org.nz
http://www.le.org.nz/index.php/support-us/37.html
With Mother Earth under increasing assault from Corporate-Machine-Mind-Man, we are witnessing 'business as usual' being increasingly ramped up to the doorway of the Beehive as unconscious miners, drillers, extractors and takers - beat their way to the welcoming mat of the Prime Ministers Office.
Aotearoa is up from grabs at present as hide bound macho-male-men prod, poke and plunder the deep recesses of natures secrets. Nothing now is sacred, other than the god of money and the power that it wields … REALLY?
What happened to ex PM, Helen Clarks emphasis on Sustainability and NZ being a leader in this field? It was lobotomised by internal memo to all Govt Departments within days of the Clark administration leaving office!
Well, fracking has now come to town in our fair country, as a quick fix for PEAK OIL, and for a few short years, we in NZ will join the Western frenzy of 'keeping collapse at bay' by skimming, sucking and raking off 'minor gains' in fossil fuels, as a breather from what we are leaving our fast coming future and children to deal with - an addicted 7 billion plus oil culture, with a physiological and a psychological dependence - that very soon runs dry … or becomes exorbitantly expensive! (This previous statement is countered by the industry saying it's giving us time for more renewable energy sources to be developed and deployed.)
Meanwhile climate change and our ecological footprint are figments of ones imagination - just whistling into the wind.
The annual $2 billion oil and gas industry of just Taranaki hosts 62% of New Zealand's 638 wells - 470 onshore and 168 offshore - boosting to thousands the number of jobs in the region. However:
So far, there have been 43 wells subject to 69 incidences of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Taranaki.
Its a growing business and it's being opened up with unknown consequences.
Fracking is rupturing the inner geology of the ground beneath our feet. Where underground streams of water at differing layers, course silently in many directions filling up aquifers and nourishing in unknown ways the planetary body and ecology as it does with the human body.
What we are doing is we are drilling down deeply into the 'mother' - up to many kilometers down and then many kilometers horizontally,
A mix of water, sand, and various chemicals is pumped into the well at very high pressure in order to create fissures (sometimes small amounts of explosives are used) in the shale through which the gas can escape. Natural gas releases itself through these fissures and is drawn back up the well to the surface, where it is processed, refined, and shipped to market. But, some gas actually escapes up through the ground along the horizontal fissues breaking out at surface level seeping up into the atmosphere.
Also, the mixture of chemicals, that the gas industry uses is kept secret and does not publish and there are up to 700 different chemicals, benzine, diesel fuel, detergents, solvents and stuff like corexit that was sprayed on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, all kinds of carcinogens, things that you don't want in your drinking water, your food or the air you breathe.
Fracking has been banned in France, Quebec in Canada, Pittsburgh, Buffalo in the USA and the Karoo region of South Africa. The EU has proposed a moratorium while investigation is carried out. Moratoria are in place in New South Wales Australia and New York State. The National Toxics Network in Australia has called on state and federal governments to introduce, as a matter of urgency, a moratorium on all drilling and fracking chemicals until they have been examined independently. However: *** This is not even on a discussion paper in NZ.***
Where is the precautionary principle?
This is a far ranging interview from stories of water taps bursting into flame when lit with a match. To the struggle to get media on side - to be heard, lack of finance to fight cashed up corporations, scientists fearful to speak up, lack of political will (NZ for example) when there are jobs being offered in this mix. Long term poisoning of the aquifer, huge amounts of leaking gases out of the ground going into the atmosphere. Cancer clusters, health problems for humans and animals the list goes on.
http://www.dangersoffracking.com THE MATHEMATICS
500,000 Active gas wells in the USA X 8 million Gallons of water per fracking X 18 Times a well can be fracked. 72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals needed to run the US current gas wells.
http://cleanwater.org/page/fracking-process
Here's a step-by-step look:
*****
And earthquakes or swarms of them are problematic too especially in geological unstable parts of NZ.
Land owners in the Taranaki are now offering their land up as 'dump stations' for rock slurry and the chemical discharge of contaminated waste of what has been under the ground and are holding all this in large ponds with berms or bunds but, there are breaches and spills that get into waterways and creeks that do eventually get out to sea. What happens if they have continuous torrential rain?
Also, spreading this slurry over farms to have the sun draw out whatever moisture is in it furthering atmospheric pollution to the extent that Fontera has warned farmers that they will not collect from farms that are doing this process for fear of damaging their 'clean green' branding on milk products. Hooray for Fonterra.
Then there is the control or lack of it from the release of methane from deep under the ground. A good percentage, some estimate up to 6 or even 10 times as actually produced leaks out and vents straight up into the atmosphere and methane is 10 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than Co2.
Also, in this interview Steve covers the idea that our modern monetary system is a proxy for energy and that those who control the energy, basically control the money - that global trading is intrinsically bound up in oil flows.
Plus, the energy returned on energy invested, once 100 years ago for 1 barrel of oil you could get 100 barrels in return, today it is 1 barrel equivalent for every 10 barrels in return, the fracking ration is now 1 to 7 and basically it's becoming uneconomic at this scale …tar sand 1 to 5 and biofuels as low as 1 to 2 … and we are polluting our planet's water supplies in the meantime too
Again ... Where is the precautionary principle?
Question for readers and listeners?
Why are we being systematically excluded from the process of a say in how we use our natural resources? The public in NZ are being explicitly denied their voice - in this case of Fracking, only iwi and hapu and local authorities are being consulted (Note the Govt tie up with the Maori party here) and democracy has been suspended as in Environment Cantebury as there is no obligation under the law, as the Crown Mineral Act does not even require the Govt to consult with local authorities!
NZ also has the one of the lowest royalties rates on wealth as we grovel to offshore mining and oil corporates stealing from 'the commons' that's been gifted to humanity from the very beginning. Why? Because NZ is a 'cheap date' we give ourselves away and in return, get very low royalties as a country.
We need to educate ourselves fast on as many issues as possible and build up our awareness of whats at stake and organize appropriately.
I ask that you on-send this email to your networks and sub networks. Don't keep this to yourself, or be fearful of the consequences. This is a time to be courageous!
Phil Stevens formerly of Arizona now NZ. www.le.org.nz
RESOURCES:
http://www.lockthegate.org.nz
http://www.frackingtaranaki.blogspot.co.nz
Frack Free - Tararua | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/FrackFreeTararua
http://www.eco.org.nz/key-issues/mining/fracking.html
Article by Dell Panny - Convener of the Environment Standing Committee for the National Council of Women, New Zealand