Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

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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This morning on the wireless (there’s a rough recording below of the actual snippet) I heard Tim Cossar the Chief Executive of the Tourism Industry Association along with Damien O’Connor interviewed about the challenges facing tourism NZ. Damian - our Minister of Tourism - said something like this…

… tourists worried about carbon miles when flying across the globe to reach our isolated little island don’t need to worry because their carbon emissions will be adequately offset by their experience here in NZ where they will learn about the environment in our pristine clean green pure NZ.

That’s not a direct quote but near enough. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I did have a good laugh when I saw this on The Standard though…

Heads in the sand indeed. There’s some scary levels of ignorance down there in the beehive as this post over at hot topic also confirms.

Reminds me of some street theatre we did last year…

Heads in the sand

 

 NZ Tourism Interview snippet [1:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well the time has finally come for me to leave this project for Greenpeace NZ. I am doing this only one week from the move in date for Greenpeace and although it appears like I am running away I need to get onto my next Greenpeace contract, which I have already delayed for some time. I’m gutted to do this of course at such a critical time and after six months getting us to this point but I think it’ll all be OK, I’ve handed over to an old counterpart of mine Mal Wren and I’m sure I leave it in capable hands.
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Over the weekend I attended the BlueGreens forum on Waiheke. I was invited to give a presentation and so naturally I jumped at the opportunity. I chose the topic what is necessary, what is fair and what is wise when it comes to tackling climate change and also used the chance to challenge the National Party on its recently-released energy strategy.

This is the second time that Greenpeace has been invited to the National Bluegreens conference and it’s a good thing. There are 80 plus National party delegates and members that show up and it’s a good opportunity to talk to them directly. John Key opened this year’s conference, outlining the party’s target of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050 and explaining that they’d do some tinkering with the ETS next year if in power - which I have to say was not nearly enough to convince me they are taking climate change seriously.

I was then on a discussion panel with Nick Smith, (the National Party’s Environment spokesperson) and Phil O’Reilly from NZ Business. Greenpeace was clearly the odd one out. Very few people at the event seemed to grasp the link between the environment and the economy and the fact that unrestrained growth can’t be the only thing we’re striving for. The planet is simply not up for it.

Here’s the full text of my speech for the record. Read more »

There is something truly inspiring about the enthusiasm of school kids, and there’s no doubt, its really infectious.

My name is Dan and I have the fantastic job of promoting and coordinating Greenpeace’s newest inter school fundraising / campaigning project. Its called the Greenpeace Climate Challenge and is designed to encourage and show young people about the solutions and benefits of moving towards a less carbon intensive lifestyle. I generally work as an on-street fundraiser and can’t count the number of times adults have told me ‘its the kids you wanna talk to’. It’s true, after all its their World and this project is an opportunity to empower kids and reward them for a range of tasks from changing light bulbs to writing to local MPs. Changing society starts with individuals and issues like climate change can seem overwhelming, for young and old alike, that’s why small changes deserve recognition and young people need to know their actions and opinions count.
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Kila Oumabe shows Greenpeace China forest campaigner Yi Lan how a local medicinal plant has a painful sting. This stinging nettle is used to take away the pain of childbirth by application to the small of a woman’s back.

IN PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea activists from the Esperanza have stopped a ship loading piles of logged timber from the Paradise Forests of Papua New Guinea. The peaceful direct action was supported by many local people who joyously watched from boats, amidst much singing and dancing.

Three activists from Papua New Guinea and one from New Zealand are still harnessed to a crane in the dark and have been there for over 8 hours.

Another Kiwi, Dean Baigent-Mercer on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza writes this update:
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The pirate fishing vessel, Luna Rossa, cut off its illegal driftnet and fled from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise. © Greenpeace / Gavin Parsons

There’s an interesting story about Tuna over at the Greenpeace International blog today.

On the tail of the Rainbow Warrior’s recent tour of the Mediterranean MaltaToday has been served with seven libel suits for daring to publish the facts about one of the great fisheries scandals in the region: tuna laundering.
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Two more weeks gone since I last wrote and we’re now fast closing in on the office move, no more than two and a bit weeks away. It’s kind of scary in many respects when I look around because it still looks like we have quite some way to go.

The plasterboard fixers and plasterers are still onsite and hard at work, G8 interiors and Brown holdings doing the hard yards in the weekends as well. Most of the paint priming work is now complete on the first floor area and the Greenpeace volunteers, staff and also a couple of our Auckland Voting Assembly members showed up to help and all have been hard at work over the last week to help make this happen. We’re working nights in the week now as well as the weekends to make this happen. Biopaints have given Greenpeace a full donation of product for this which is simply fantastic and I have to say the finish is really starting to look good. I’ve been a bit hard on everyone making sure we sand between coats but the finish makes it all worth while. We have a couple of volunteers who are very sensitive to things like paint fumes but they’ve been working as hard and as long as anyone else with no ill effects whatsoever. Brilliant product and all naturally based with plant and water based products. Well recommended to anyone interested in painting.
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In the UK today, six brave Greenpeace souls will be appearing at Maidstone Crown Court for the start of a trial centring around Kingsnorth, coal and climate change. In October last year, they took a personal stand to protect the environment and climbed to the top of the smokestack at Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent.

Now, the Kingsnorth Six (Ben Stewart, Emily Hall, Huw Williams, Kevin Drake, Tim Hewke and Will Rose) are being prosecuted for criminal damage and trespass.

The trial could last for up to two weeks. While we’ll be restricted in what we can write for legal reasons (including switching off commenting on some blog posts - sorry), the Greenpeace UK team will be blogging and twittering from Maidstone every day.