Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Akiraho Street April 2008 (C) GREENPEACE / TAYLOR

We’re cleaning out the inside of the building - lots of dirty work but we’ve had lots of good keen volunteers down to help so we’re making good progress and it’s not costing too much.

Primarily the building was chosen because of it’s proximity to Mt Eden Railway station (right next door), proximity to major bus routes, several on Mt Eden Rd as well as Symonds st and finally as the CBD, very close. Size was also a factor. Greenpeace NZ has grown in size over the last 10 years and continues to do so. The new building offers enough space to combine the functions of the campaigning and operational arms of the organisation and leaves a bit of room to move.

One of the best things about refitting an old building like this is that it gives us a blank slate to work with. We’re now in the happy position of being able to do some ECO innovation that was either infeasible or just plain impossible in our old rented space in Valley Road.

Here’s some of the things we’re trying to fit into the budget. Read more »

In asking himself the question, “what do I and a bumblebee have in common?” Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, hit upon a new way of looking at man’s relationship with nature that could not only revolutionise the way modern food production is handled, but also vastly improve soil quality and the general sustainability of many farms.

Filmed at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design - an annual meeting of thinkers and innovators from around the globe) in 2007, and made available for free online this year, Pollan urges a re-think of our relationship with nature, arguing that Darwin’s evolutionary ideas need to be taken to heart if we are to increase production in any sustainable fashion. Read more »

The new Greenpeace NZ building in Akiraho Street, Mount Eden, Auckland April 2008 (C) GREENPEACE / TAYLOR

Hi there, My name’s Rob Taylor, I normally work as a Greenpeace international action and logistics coordinator or project manager, I was asked at the beginning of the year to consider doing a couple of contracts with the NZ office. Now this suits me just fine, being based in NZ and having most of my work happen overseas always increases my carbon footprint and takes me away from my family, two very good reasons why I increasingly dislike going overseas.

Read more »

This is pretty amusing…

We at the Flat Earth Society have spent so many years out in the cold, shunned by Government, science and most of society.

But on Friday night a glimmer of hope appeared for us in the form of the climate sceptic group, the NZ Climate Science Coalition. They were hosting a talk by the Australian climate sceptic (and stratigraphist which is about rock layering) Bob Carter, at the Royal NZ Yacht Squadron in Auckland… People thought we were protestors - HELL, NO, we said – we seek solidarity, we said! We are reaching out in friendship! Some really didn’t believe us. Terry Dunleavy (of the international climate science coalition fame] was, for some reason, apoplectic.

From the Flat Earth Society NZ website

This video supports a campaign being run by Greenpeace in Europe against the use of palm oil by Unilever, the makers of Dove beauty products.

Unilever are buying palm oil from suppliers who destroy Indonesia’s rainforests….

Talk to Dove before they destroy Paradise Forests: http://www.greenpeace.org/dove

Read the full article on the Greenpeace International website.

The video is a parody of the Dove ‘Onslaught‘ ad.

Waving goodbye to the Warrior (C) GREENPEACE / Sharomov

Six weeks ago I packed my trunk in my bedroom in Grey Lynn Auckland, boarded a bus and rode downtown to Princes Wharf. There I walked up the gangway of the Rainbow Warrior. It was hot, late summer. American tourists crawled about the Viaduct. On the ship, there was excitement in the air and alleyways; a TARGET CLIMATE CHANGE banner ran between two masts. My cabin was downstairs and to the left. It had “Expect the unexpected” written on the door. I shared it with three others and it smelt like essential oils. I didn’t yet have my favourite spot to sit in the mess during dinner. And I didn’t yet know how to avoid pissing off the first mate. This would all come later. Read more »

Research Failed (C) GREENPEACE

Japan’s factory whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru was “welcomed” into Tokyo earlier today, by Junichi and our team from Greenpeace Japan, along with the word “failed” to accompany the ubiquitous and Orwellian “RESEARCH” painted on its hull.

During its five months at sea, the Nisshin Maruwas responsible for taking 551 minke whales from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary - far less than the 1035 whales planned, but more than a hundred than were killed three years ago. Our ship, the Esperanza, shutdown Japan’s entire whaling operation for 15 days, during a 4300-mile chase of the Nisshin Maru across the Southern Ocean. The whalers are blaming the protestors (that’d be us then) for missing their target. Read more »

Written&directed by Johannes Kuemmel
Produced by Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Read more »

Lord of the Fruit Flies

History shows that human society can change if some moral force (civil rights, women’s rights) challenges convention. However, before we can be optimistic about solving the environmental crisis, we must be realistic. Otherwise, our confidence is delusional.

Human analysts struggle to assess our predicament because we live inside the experiment we are attempting to understand. We are the fastest changing variable in the experiment. Sixty-thousand years represents only a blink in the story of life on earth (one-thousandth of one percent), yet those millennia comprise the entire history of humanity from a million wide-eyed hunter-gatherers to six-billion humans clinging to a shrinking resource pool. From inside this surging human wave, particularly from one single lifetime, it is difficult to witness the forces that erode civilization. We must take a step back. Read more »

Following the success of his presentation / move ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ Al Gore has released another similar video presentation.

In order to become optimistic (about climate change) we need to become incredibly active citizens in our democracy. In order to solve the climate crisis we need to solve the democracy crisis.

Read more »

 

 Snippet of Al Gore's presentation [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download