Photo from Greenpeace Aotearoa on FB. "Greenpeace activists...protest in front of the Polarcus Alima in Port Taranaki late this afternoon. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko. Greenpeace NZ is campaigning against the Government’s sell-off of deep water drilling rights in New Zealand." Greenpeace / Amos Chapple
Police protect US oil giant Anadarko's survey vessel in Port Taranaki "Blogpost" by Nick Young, October 17, 2011 at 11:13, This morning, a team of Greenpeace activists were met by an overwhelming police presence at the Port of Taranaki.
Early this morning the Polarcus Alima - a survey vessel chartered by the US oil giant Anadarko - slipped in to the Port of Taranaki.
They no doubt hoped to keep a low profile before embarking on their scheduled assignment to explore for deep sea oil reserves off the coast of Raglan but we cannot let this go unnoticed. This is the pointy end of the looming deep sea oil rush in New Zealand coastal waters.
Greenpeace had a small team there to meet it with a peaceful protest but the police seem unusually interested in preventing anything coming between Anadarko and New Zealand’s promised deep sea oil reserves. How did they know we were coming? We’re not sure. But what is clear is that someone is determined to keep any protest well away from the Polarcus Alima, including the news that they are in town.
The situation is still unfolding so watch this space.
John Key was completely wrong when he said there there is no correlation between the Rena oil spill and his Government’s deep sea oil drilling plans. Anyone with even a modicum of common sense can see that.
The Rena has spewed oil into the Bay of Plenty and demonstrated with jarring clarity just how damaging an oil spill can be, and just how impossible it is to prevent the damage once the oil has spilled.
Deep sea oil drilling would expose New Zealand’s coastline to catastrophic oil spills.
So to push ahead with dangerous deep sea oil drilling as oil continues to wash ashore on beaches in the Bay of Plenty adds insult to injury.
If the Anadarko’s survey is successful, the drilling of wildcat oil wells off Raglan could begin as early as next year, in waters possibly even deeper than the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Anadarko were part owners of the ill fated Deepwater Horizon well which leaked 780 million litres of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last year. By comparison the Rena spill represents about 2 teaspoonfuls of the bucket that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and we are struggling to deal with even that.
The ship will later go on to prospect in deepwater areas off Stewart Island, a formidable area for weather let alone oil prospecting, in a permit area due to be taken over by Shell Oil.
It’s time for the government to stop spending millions enticing the deep sea oil industry to New Zealand.
The following photos in this post were posted by Greenpeace Aotearoa's Facebook presence:
"The Polarcus Alima arrives at Taranaki Port. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko." Greenpeace/Amos Chapple
"The Polarcus Alima arrives at Taranaki Port. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko." Greenpeace/Amos Chapple
I use a breadmaker to make our daily bread - just to avoid the millions of plastic bags. BUT in doing so, we often have the smell of fresh bread in our home, can add cool ingredients to the bread. Also, we know what we are eating.
So that's the bread - BUT my husband also likes to get those really fluffy white buns with sesame seeds on the top, which happen to be sold in non-recyclable clear plastic bags. Living sustainably shouldn't have to mean losing out on things like fluffy buns - at least, sacrificing all the time will mean that my family will revolt. So, I schemed a way to regularly have buns without all the plastic. And a realistically easy way as well - breadmakers take all the time out of kneading the bread and waiting for it to rise - something you do twice with bread-rolls.
You will need: 4 tsp yeast 450g white flour (I replace 25g with this with wheat germ, makes it healthier) 1 tsp salt 4 tbsp milk powder 4 tbsp butter (or margarine) 1.5 tsp sugar 270mL water Permanent items: 1 good quality breadmaker (It's worth getting good tools, trust me.) 1 scale
Do this:
Measure ingredients and throw them in the breadmaker metal tin. (Make sure you have the kneading blade in first - I have actually forgotten this a few times after cleaning it.)
Set your breadmaker on the appropriate "dough" mode. My dough mode takes 2 hours and 20 minutes.
After the dough is done, it will have risen in the doughmaker. Either right away or within a couple of hours, throw some flour onto a surface, and throw the dough onto it. Skwoosh it down, making sure the flour touches the sticky dough before your hands. Knead it and punch it down and cut off bits with a plastic spatula, or with your hands, and make little balls. I place them into a greased pan with sides so they can rise up contained, not just splatting out in every direction, similar to the ones you buy bagged at the store. I fit eight balls into each large bread loaf tin.
Then you cover them with either a plastic bag you are trying to get rid of, which is greased, or you could use tin foil - or paper - something so that the balls don't dry out as they are rising again. Let them rise to double the size (could be half an hour, or more).
Then you brush beaten egg on the tops, and throw some sesame seeds all over them (the egg will stick them on), and bake them. They will bake quickly - 180 degrees Celsius for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown.
They will be just as good, or better than those "boughten" rolls!
Can I just say I love Noam Chomsky? He is for politics what David Suzuki is for the environment.
He is renowned in his field as well - a famous linguist. And a brave magic person.
Check out what he says about the Wall Street protest, Obama, other current political situations in this interview by RT's Marina Portnaya, which aired October 2, 2011:
Text from the interview:
Marina Portnaya: RT's sitting down with world-renowned scholar, linguist, author and MIT professor, Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky, thank-you very much for taking the time to speak with our team.
Noam Chomsky: Glad to be with you.
Marina Portnaya: The first issue I want to speak with you about is the recent clashes that have taken place on Wall Street between Americans who are turning out to demonstrate and police officers. From what I read you recently sent a message to support the activists of this group called Occupy Wall Street, you've called them courageous, and honourable; could you just talk to me about your take on Occupy Wall Street?
Noam Chomsky: Well, Wall Street is just a shorthand for the financial institutions. The banks are bigger and richer than before, corporate profits are reaching record levels, and for much of - and unemployment today is about the level of the Great Depression, real unemployment.
These people are saying 'Oh let's blame the corporates and the institutions behind them, so... fiscal policies like taxation, rules of corporate governance, deregulation and so on. It does set in motion a vicious cycle which is getting worse and worse, in New York, walk down the streets and you can see it, very serious poverty, on the other hand phenomenal wealth, right side by side, very much like a third world country. It's what you see if you go to sub-Saharan Africa, and while infrastructure is collapsing, schools are collapsing, and all of that increases the - it keeps the cycle going and in fact rising. Well, it's about time for some protest. Marina Portnaya: What may be new, in the coming year, for the 2012 election is that many, including yourself, have speculated and assumed that the campaign spending for the US election in 2012 will exceed 1 billion dollars.
Noam Chomsky: For each candidate. Marina Portnaya: For each candidate. That is a massive amount of money.
Noam Chomsky: It'll probably be much bigger than that. And where does that come from? Well, you know, basically alot of it comes from financial institutions. In fact if you look at the 2008 election, what's won Obama, what gave him the election was primarily financial institution contributions - they preferred him to McCain. They expected to be paid back, and they were. And the next one will be even worse, and certainly that's only a part of it. In parliamentary systems, including our own, up 'til maybe - 20 years ago, positions of influence in a functioning parliamentary system, let's say - chair of a committee, comes from - principally at least - from experience, seniority, legislative contributions and so on - that's gone. Now they're bought. If you want to become chair of a committee in the House of the Senate, you have to pay off the Party. You have to pay for it. And where to you get the money to pay for it? Same pockets. You know, so - provides even more influence to the already overwhelming influence of concentrated capital.
So it's harder and harder to distinguish between the elected officials and economic concentration - it never was easy to distinguish I should say, this is not something novel - but now it's reaching an extreme level. Marina Portnaya: But what's left of America's democratic system if this is the process that has been cemented in place, I mean, what is really left if, if, from every angle there is these financial institutions?
Noam Chomsky: Well, just take a look at public opinion, they'll tell you. About two-thirds of the public thinks that the entire congress ought to be thrown out. Marina Portnaya: But that doesn't mean that it's going to happen!
Noam Chomsky: No, but it means that the system isn't working; and the public knows it. The popularity of - favourability rating for congress is in the single digits, [for the] President, not much higher, and the same runs across all other institutions. It's a very widespread sense that everything is going wrong.
That tells you the democratic system is just not functioning. Now in fact, I don't want to suggest that this is totally new, so you, you go back a century, and you can still predict throughout all this period pretty well the outcome of elections by campaign funding. But there are degrees.
And now it's gotten extreme, the levels to which the US has departed from other capitalist societies are pretty remarkable. Marina Portnaya: You released a book recently called "9/11, was there an alternative?" focusing on the US assassination of Osama Bin Laden and the continuity, you say, between George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Noam Chomsky: I'm telling you that Osama Bin Laden is an interesting case. It was done in such a way as to infuriate the Pakistanis, which is extremely dangerous - that's the most dangerous country in the world [if you]go into it, they have a professional army committed to the sovereignty of Pakistan, and Pakistanis were already oerwhelmingly anti-American; this shoots it through the stratosphere.
The army is bitterly angry, not only at the invasion of the country and the murder of someone on their soil but also that they're being pressured, forced, to take part in an American war in Afghanistan. Some of the not-so conservative military analysts who wrote about the Bin Laden assassination, I quoted some of them, pointed out quite accurately that a shift between Bush's policies and Obama's on this, Bush - Bush's policy was to kidnap people, whatever they thought about them, they'd tak'em to Guantanimo or Abu Graib or some other torture chamber, and they'll try to extract some information out of them - we know what that was like, I don't have to describe it - Obama's policy is just to kill them. They're killing them all over the world - that's targeted assassination campaigns, you don't have to kidnap and torture them, just kill them, and the Bin Laden assassination was a case in point.
It's hard to remember, but there used to be a system of justice in the West,which said if a person is a suspect, until he's proven guilty, until then - he's a suspect - he's innocent until proven guilty. Well, that's gone. Now you just kill them if you think they're guilty. So he was apprehended - no resistance, he was alone, with his wife, no defence, nothing - highly trained commandos could certainly have apprehended him. They didn't, they were under orders to murder and then toss his body into the ocean - acts that are almost designed in such a way as to increase anger and hatred throughout the Muslim world, in fact, among anyone who's got their eyes open. Marina Portnaya: You talk about the Obama administration and how the US actions right now could be infuriating the Muslim world, the Arab world. The Obama administration has supported the Tunisians, has supported the Egyptians, has supported the Libyans, and the so-called Arab Spring. The Palestinians have officially submitted an application for UN membership and statehood. The US says that they will cast a veto against it if they have to because they believe that direct negotiation should take place between Palestine and Israel before there's an independent Palestine.
Noam Chomsky: Well, first of all I have to make a qualification: the United States and its Western allies did not support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, they opposed them - they backed the dictator - and Tunisia was mostly France, that's their colony, (?)'s colony - the United States and Birming(?), they supported the dictator's until the last minute, and when the army turned against them and it was no longer possible to support them, then they said, 'Ok, democracy is wonderful", and then they moved to try to ensure that the regimes would stay pretty much as they were,that's why it's a very old pattern.
But putting that aside, it's true that the United States announced that it would cast a veto, for about 35 years the United States and Israel have been rejecting a political settlement that is supported by virtually the entire world: the Arab League, the organization of Islamic States which includes Iran, Hamas supports it; almost no relevant party disagrees with it except that the United States and Israel won't let it happen. Marina Portnaya: How about the fact that Egypt right now, and Turkey, have really severed their relationship with Israel?
Noam Chomsky: See that's an effect of the Arab Spring. What's happened, there are changes in the world, what's happening is, Israel is getting far more isolated, meaning the US is getting far more isolated - for example a couple of months ago there was a meeting of the oligarchs, the people who pretty much own the economy - they warned the government that they better accept something like this resolution, because otherwise Israel will be as they put it, South-Africanized, even more isolated, boycotts, refusal to load ships and so on, their economy will collapse. Now it's interesting that Israel is reacting pretty much as South Africa did - and if you look back at the history, by about 1960 - we have the records, the South African foreign minister called in the American embassador, described this to him, and said We don't really care as long as you got this, because you're the one vote that matters. And that's how it worked out. Right through the 1980s, the UN embargo, corporations were pulling out, sanctions all over, boycotts, they were doing fine, the gan administration was backing them. And as long as the US was supporting them, nothing happened. Then the US withdrew support, and almost instantly apartheid collapsed. Marina Portnaya: So you're saying it's in Israel's best interest, and possibly the US's to allow this Palestinian UN membership and statehood...considering the change in landscape?
Noam Chomsky: For 35 years..nnw that it's been for almost 40 years, there's a choice between security and expansion - a very clear choice. Now Israel is like other states, preferring it...since the early '70s, it had a choice between security and expansion- can have peace, but not with expansion into the territories, which incidentally is recognised to be criminal by everyone, including Israel. They can get away with it as long as the most powerful state in the world backs them - and as long as Europe goes along.
Europe is remarkably cowardly - they don't like this, but they don't like to step on the toenails of the master, so they go along - so as you notice the quartet has backed the United States, Tony Blair - you know....I don't have to comment on him, they might as well have picked George Bush to bring the message, 'do what the United States tells you, stop this nonsense about statehood and go back to negotiations'. But that where we now stand. It's up to the people in the advanced industrial countries to compel their governments to go along with the world.
Marina Portnaya: Professor Chomsky, thank-you very much for your time.
I just got the documentary on David Suzuki. I ordered it from Canada, as it wasn't out here yet, and my parents posted it on to me.
David Suzuki is a great man - his talent is communicating science to regular people. He is a rare person, with both logical and intuitive abilities. First, he conducted genetics research, conducting experiments with fruitflies. Then he became a much loved TV host in Canada, a gentle, friendly Japanese man who helped people understand about nature in the show "The Nature of Things". Then as he saw how things were connected, he went on to speak all over the world about the danger of going past our limits as a species on Earth, consuming all the Earth's resources without allowing them to replenish.
He grew up not speaking Japanese, but integrated into Canadian culture, surrounded by Caucasian people. He wasn't allowed by his father to date white girls, so he would go off and explore a nearby swamp - observing and discovering many magical things.
The most freaky, and important part of this movie is a metaphor that he uses to help us understand clearly the science (and danger) of unlimited population increase on a planet with limited resources. It is so important, and crystal clear, that I have listened and written down every word of this part. It's something that we all need to think about, and try to live accordingly, with all of our ability. It is scary, but don't get depressed watching it! I am a fighter, this awareness can help us to change things:
David Suzuki: "Our home, the biosphere, is finite and fixed. It can't grow. And if the economy is a part of and utterly dependant on the biosphere, the attempt to maintain endless growth is an impossibility. Let me show you why. Steady growth over time, whether it's the amount of garbage you make, the size of your city, the population of the world, anything growing steadily is called exponential growth. And anything growing exponentially has a predictable doubling time. I am going to give you a system analagous to the planet - it's a test-tube full of food for bacteria. So the test tube and food is the planet, and the bacteria are us. I'm going to add one bacterial cell to the test tube, and it's going to begin to divide every minute."
[Screen behind him shows one cell splitting into two, and from two into four behind him, which continues as he speaks...]
"That's exponential growth. So at the beginning, there's one cell; one minute, there are two; two minutes, there are four; three minutes, there are eight. That's exponential growth. And at 60 minutes, the test tube is completely packed with bacteria and there's no food left. So we have a 60-minute growth cycle.
"When is the test tube half full? And of course, the answer is at 59 minutes. 59 minutes, it's only half-full, but one minute later, it's completely full. So at 58 minutes, it's 25% full. 57 minutes, it's 12.5% full. At 55 minutes of a 60-minute cycle, it's 3% full.
"So let's suppose at 55 minutes, one of the bacteria says, 'Hey guys, I've been thinking...we've got a population problem.' The other bacteria would say, 'Jack, what the hell have you been smoking? 97% of the test tube's empty and we've been around for 55 minutes!' They'd be five minutes away from filling it.
"So bacteria are no smarter than people. At 59 minutes they go, 'Oh my God, Jack is right! We've got 1 minute left! What are we going to do now? Well, we better give that money to those scientists! Maybe they can pull us out of this.' But the world for the bacteria is the test tube and food. How can they possibly add any more food or space to that world? They can't. They can no more add food or space than we can add air, water, soil or biodiversity to the biosphere.
"This is not speculation or hypothesis, it is straight mathematical certainty. And every scientist I have talked to agrees with me - we're already past the 59th minute. So all the demand for relentless growth is the call to accelerate down what is a suicidal path. And by focusing on growth! growth! we fail to ask the important questions, like how much is enough? Are there no limits? Are we happier with all this stuff? What is an economy for? We never ask those questions.
There was also a great part where he traces the path of one breath of air to show our interconnectedness with our environment (video embedded below).
David Suzuki visited his daughter and new granddaughter, living in a Haida community in BC, as his daughter met and married a Haida man when David helped them defend their forest from logging. I felt the contrast between their lives, the community that they had, and the beautiful forest setting - with the far more lonely modern lifestyle of my family and other families in the developed world in comparison.
David Suzuki, speaking at his Legacy speech:
"And ever since that first encounter with Guujaw, I have been a student, meeting aboriginal people around the world, and witnessing that same attachment to place. Whether it's in the Amazon or the Australian outback, aboriginal people speak of the Earth as our mother and they tell us we are created by the four sacred elements: earth, air, fire and water. So I realized we had defined the problem incorrectly. There's no environment out there and we are here, and we somehow have to watch the way we interact with it. We are the environment.
"And the leading science corroborates this ancient understanding that informs us that whatever we do to our surroundings, we do directly to ourselves. The environmental crisis is a human crisis. We are at the centre of it, both causing the problems and as the victims of the consequences.".
Photo / Greg Bowker The Government has been criticised for promoting coal and lignite use.
Opposition to the extraction of low and high grade coals in the South Island is mounting.
An Environment Court challenge has been lodged and the Government is coming under increasing attack for backing coal and lignite use.
The West Coast Environment Network has filed an appeal with the Environment Court against resource consents awarded to listed Bathurst Resources which wants to mine up to two million tonnes of high grade coal from the Denniston Plateau north of Westport, citing the 200ha as being of high conservation value.
Separately, state-owned enterprise Solid Energy started constructing its $25 million pilot lignite-to-briquettes plant in Southland last week. The Coal Action Network Aotearoa has criticised Deputy Prime Minister Bill English for supporting the use of "low-quality, dirty brown coal" which it said would cause a huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
At the forefront of environmentalists' concerns is the release of carbon into the atmosphere, while the Government and mining sector see coal and lignite as vast energy sources with huge economic benefits, regionally and nationally.
While operating separately, Solid Energy and Bathurst have adjoining coal tenements on the West Coast and have agreements to assist one another with infrastructure, access and transport arrangements - which could total four million tonnes of export coal between them every year.
Dual-listed Bathurst has spent more than $100 million getting to this consented stage, but in that time has raised about $242 million for the project, which covers 10,000ha of tenements but is at present targeting 200ha of the southern escarpment of the Denniston plateau.
Subject to the Environment Court challenge, Bathurst wanted to begin production by the end of the year and ramp up to full production of two million tonnes by the end of next year.
Coking coal is a key ingredient in steel making and is in demand from Asian economies.
Bathurst's resource consents came with many conditions, which the company has said are palatable, and claims its rehabilitation and replanting of the landscape would leave it looking original to the untrained eye.
On Bathurst's plans, West Coast Environment Network spokeswoman Karen Mayhew said the open-cast mining would dig up a rare landscape and habitat for threatened species.
"This mine would more than double New Zealand's coal exports. Once the coal is dug up, the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is guaranteed," she said.
"Given the scientific consensus on climate change and its impacts, we consider that this issue should have been considered properly by the resource consent commissioners."
Mayhew said the network's appeal would be based on ecological, climate and economic grounds and the group hopes to have eminent Nasa climate scientist James Hansen appear via a video-conference link.
On Solid Energy, Network Aotearoa spokeswoman Frances Mountier said developing lignite was significant for New Zealand because of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
And it was hugely significant to eastern Southland because of the damage large-scale lignite mining would cause to air quality, living conditions, and the high-quality rivers and streams on which Southland depended.
I shared this recommendation all over the place, but I have never put it in blog. I would like to share it for all time - use RethinkNZ.com organic cotton fruit and veggie bags! (To avoid using plastic film ones, of course.) They rock!!!
I got 3 multi-packs (2 large, 1 small bag) at $5.99 NZ each, and was set up for life.
The large bags are strong and hold alot of heavy fruit with ease. The checkout clerks just weigh the fruit in the bags. If they ever get dirty, you throw them in the washing machine with your laundry. We often leave the fruit or vegetables in these bags in the fridge as well.
Photo from Greenpeace Aotearoa on FB. "Greenpeace activists...protest in front of the Polarcus Alima in Port Taranaki late this afternoon. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko. Greenpeace NZ is campaigning against the Government’s sell-off of deep water drilling rights in New Zealand." Greenpeace / Amos Chapple 
Police protect US oil giant Anadarko's survey vessel in Port Taranaki "Blogpost" by Nick Young, October 17, 2011 at 11:13,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Article ends- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"The Polarcus Alima arrives at Taranaki Port. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko." Greenpeace/Amos Chapple
"The Polarcus Alima arrives at Taranaki Port. It is due to leave shortly to start exploring for deep sea oil off Raglan on behalf of the US oil giant Anadarko." Greenpeace/Amos Chapple 
Cleared out and made way for new things.... 
Opposition to the extraction of low and high grade coals in the South Island is mounting.