Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

   - Originally posted by Brian over at Greenpeace International

So, Japan has a new government. For all of us who have been single-mindedly pursuing a complete end to whaling for decades now, there’s only one question that matters: what does this mean for the country’s whaling policy?

I suspect the bureaucrats responsible for whaling have gotten a little fed up of questions in the press about the cost of the programme to taxpayers (about 60 million US a year), the continuing decline in sales, the continuing increase in unsold whale meat, and the mounting foreign relations disasters the “scientific research programme” trails in its wake. The whaling industry in Japan right now is a wounded beast, and like any wounded beast it’s lashing back with abandon — as evidenced by the arrest of our activists, Junichi and Toru, for daring to expose corruption in the whaling industry.

Today a new bit of evidence of a bunkering down by the industry comes in. Read more »

Population: The real inconvenient truth

In 1972, Ben and Dorothy Metcalfe from the budding Greenpeace Foundation in Canada attended the world’s first UN Conference on the Human Environment, in Stockholm, where they succeeded in putting nuclear bomb tests on the agenda with the help of Australia and Japan. However, one critical issue failed to make the agenda of this historic meeting: human population.

Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, urged the delegates to discuss ways to mitigate human population growth as a driving force of ecological destruction. Barry Commoner, the scientist who first detected radioactive Strontium-90 in children’s teeth, argued against Ehrlich, insisting that human population growth did not pose a critical environmental threat. Technology, he believed, would allow us to feed billions more people, and the real issue is wasteful consumption by the rich.

Ehrlich agreed about excessive consumption, but maintained that sheer population growth would degrade the planetary ecosystems and lead to humanitarian and ecological catastrophes. He urged environmentalists to advocate a global contraception drive to reduce unwanted pregnancies and the human fertility rate. Ehrlich’s proposals, however, collided with cultural, political, and religious resistance. The Stockholm conference avoided discussing population, and the environmental movement since 1972 has almost entirely ignored human population growth. Nevertheless, the nagging issue remains, 36 years and three billion people later. Read more »

Hello, my name is Josh (or as I said to my new colleagues here in the Greenpeace NZ office - Josselin for the more reckless). Indeed, I am French.

Given that Greenpeace was moving to a new office, my first week here has been intense. I’m very pleased with being part of this great team, so merrily engaged in fighting ecological recklessness!

As part of my studies in Political Sciences and History, I’m doing an internship in Greenpeace NZ. Not only is it everyone’s duty to work in the cause of ecology, human rights and (sometimes) civil disobedience, but as a Frenchman, I’m carrying the heavy burden of past governmental blunders on my shoulders …
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Bunny McDiarmid

Originally published in the Christchurch Press
By Bunny McDiarmid
Executive Director - Greenpeace NZ

Taking action on climate change is proving a hard thing for some to stomach in New Zealand, largely because the problem for us lies predominantly with agriculture. It’s the elephant in the room, except it’s a cow. Just to confuse matters, the cow is sometimes referred to as a “golden goose”. But what if the goose was laying itself into an early grave and dragging clean green New Zealand down with it?
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This is a fascinating look behind the scenes of the Greenpeace US homeless polar bears campaign.

This is a must watch!

Pupils at one of the schools taking part in Greenpeace’s Climate Challenge ( www.greenpeace.org.nz/theclimatechallenge ) have put together a video called “Turning down the Heat”. It’s all about figuring out the characteristics of a great environmentalist (which bytheway are found to be: DETERMINATION, IMPACT. KNOWLEDGE, COMMITTMENT and (being) ADVENTUROUS). They also get down to figuring out what New Zealanders can do to help tackle climate change.
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Chris Robinson, Lloyd Anderson, David McTaggart, Tony Marriner and Brice Lalonde on Greenpeace vessel “Vega” before heading to Moruroa to stop a nuclear weapons test.

(Originally posted by Brian Fitzgerald from Greenpeace International)

Chris Robinson died of cancer a few hours ago at the age of 57.

Chris was a salty dog, a Greenpeace activist who spent his life on the sea, one of the original Rainbow Warrior crew and later captain of the Vega.

I find it hard to believe he’s gone. He was the guy who could sail through anything — from Pacific typhoons to Mediterranean storms in which the tiny Vega was doing 11 knots on bare poles. He ran inflatable boats under radioactive waste barrels being dumped in the sea. He challenged the French military again and again by sailing into their self-declared “exclusion zone” around the Pacific nuclear weapons test site at Moruroa. He went up against war machines and trident submarines. One activist who sailed with him said he was one of the few who you knew, if you put your life in his hands, he’d shepherd it safely through whatever it was you had to face, and hand it back to you.

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This is Francios Lesage at his leaving party (C) Cranston

Sad news, I am leaving New Zealand in two weeks from now… but, before I go, I felt like sharing my feelings about my time here and describing New Zealand and Greenpeace through French eyes. Then I asked myself: how do I do this? To highlight my true feelings, I reckon the best way is to give you special access to my personal diary. Needless to say, what you are about to read must remain between you and me.

23th June 2008, 10pm, in my youth hostel dormitory.

Dear Diary,

Tomorrow is my first day as an intern at Greenpeace NZ. Stressed? Well, I wasn’t until my mother asked me if I knew what to wear… Should I wear a shirt? What about my formal shoes? Anyway, another thought just hit me: what will these people think about France? I may be the first French intern since the one who spied to get information and bomb the Rainbow Warrior…

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This opinion piece from Bunny McDiarmid our Executive Director is published in the NZ Herald today …

When the Emissions Trading Bill passed last week, Greenpeace sighed with relief. Not so much because this particular piece of legislation is now law, but because politicians can finally stop squabbling over it and get on with implementing stronger, more immediate climate policies.

The bill is a small, necessary step towards New Zealand making a valid contribution to global climate change. But it’s too generous to agriculture and other big polluters and won’t result in the deep emission cuts required.

In the time political leaders have been playing politics over the climate and our biggest polluting companies have been campaigning for massive public subsidies, the Arctic ice cap entered a “death spiral”.

The Arctic Ocean could be totally free of summer ice by 2020. For the first time, it’s possible to sail right around the North Pole.

Meanwhile, it was roundly concluded that a string of particularly ferocious natural disasters worldwide is in line with climate change projections.

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It’s been a pretty unusual ten days for six Greenpeace activists in the UK but yesterday was truly extraordinary. At 3.20pm, the jury came back into court and announced a majority verdict of not guilty! All six defendants - Kevin, Emily, Tim, Will, Ben and Huw - were acquitted of criminal damage.

To recap on how important this verdict is: the defendants campaigners were accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had ‘lawful excuse’ - because they were acting to protect property around the world “in immediate need of protection” from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.
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