It’s a WRAP
The Greens have been working with environmental groups on a campaign to save the wild and special Mokihinui River from an inappropriate monster hydro dam. The plight of my eely cousins has compelled frog to also step back and think about our insatiable thirst for energy and its increasing pressure on the environment: not just thermal on the atmosphere, but also hydro on wild rivers. A recent RadioNZ insight documentary gives some insight in the alternative options on the West Coast. Reporter Geoff Moffett even meets “the ultimate Greenie” with a backyard hydro scheme!
One group of Kiwis, WRAP, are doing more than just thinking wider: they have a web petition and lots of info. Frog has enjoyed sploshing around their site and highly recommend you also leap in and sign their petition. They point out that while water is renewable, rivers are not. Every one you dam is one fewer left running free.
A sign that the Government and others are waking up to the increasing pressure on our environment by demand for new generation is the inclusion of this statement in Policy 3 of the proposed NPS on Renewable Energy:
When considering proposals to develop new renewable electricity generation activities, decision-makers must have particular regard to the relative degree of reversibility of the adverse environmental effects associated with proposed generation technologies.
It’s good to know that the Green Party has a strong policy of doing energy efficiency and conservation FIRST. Following the ETS negotiations NZ will now invest $1 billion  of work on making our homes more efficient, warm and dry. Not ideal conditions for a frog, but the humans will be happy. I’ll WRAP this post up there.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I notice that in one of the links on the WRAP site (to an article in The Press), the author David Round states: “The only truly sustainable long-term solution is for our country to draw back from our unthinking commitment to “growth” - of population, the economy, everything. But no-one in the environmental movement now dares say so. The Green Party certainly does not. It is as wedded to development as anyone It just prefers wind farms.”
Reassessing the paradigm of “growth” is absolutely necessary, and my impression, contrary to David’s, is that the Greens are ALWAYS challenging “growth economics” and promoting green economics instead. In relation to energy, they push efficiency and conservation ahead of even new renewable generation. Surely the $1bn frog mentions is proof of that?
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Hmm. Colin James had an thoughtful article in the Herald yesterday:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10530061 &pnum=2
In it he notes that …The [National Party] Bluegreens state the issue bluntly: “Economic growth and improving the environment can and must go hand in hand.”…
I reakon that some parts of the economy can grow (like recycling, solar and public transport), but others must contract, otherwise economic growth means emissions growth, resource depletion, energy demand growth, etc. Overall though, it is hard to see that we can pursue economic growth forever without it just ratcheting up the impact on the environment, despite bluegreen desires otherwise. E.g. National plans to fasttrack infrastructure will simply force hydro dams through, and isn’t David Round a National candidate? How does that stack up?
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:56 pm
What a simplistic view of economic growth. You can grow the economy, and lower the effect on the environment at the same time, depending on how you do it.
Let’s cut the DPB, for starters. Less people, less pollution.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:37 am
And the Greens population control policy is?
reason for asking is that while the population increases so will growth. This growth will be at least equal to the growth in population. In the last fifteen years New Zealand has grown by 1 million. They need housing, schools, jobs (or welfare), a burial plot, etc. Plus have transport needs, recreational desires, etc.
So the Green population control policy will be interesting. Xenophobic like NZFirst on immigration? Child number control like China? More abortions on demand?
Personally prefer a big lake behind a hydro dam. Nice and placid, so useful for the recreational pursuits of the people. Plus feed the grid for the electric PT options.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Quick answer before work.
The problem for the Greens is that you can’t protect the environment without affecting humans and what humans do. Humans are the problem not the environment.
As for xenophobia: A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.
Some people (such as skin heads ) might see the issue in that way. Others see (the 1 million new arrivals in 15 years) as a process to benefit a group at the top (developers and the construction industry) with negative returns for those down the bottom.
The Greens don’t have a population policy and believe people (workers)should be able to live wherever (in the world) they wish.
September 4th, 2008 at 7:50 am
jh,
I remember toad saying they were formulating one (population policy).
It is prety hard to have environmental policies without a reference to population control.
if we all were able to live where we wanted, you could not control the environment.
It is one of the major reasons for the RMA.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Suggesting population control is totally politically incorrect and with the global warmers saying human activities are heating up the planet you would think someone would suggest we do something about the population. But alas nobody has so far.
Looking at the China model - they have had the one child policy for about 25 or so years now and they are going to be the next superpower. But the main advantages that can be seen now are to do with education. Since you only have one child you will look after that child therefore there are no unwanted children. You don’t have teenage pregnancies, drug problems in school or any social problems associated with kids with nothing to do.
There is a crime problem but i think it is nothing compared to some western countries.
The big thing is education - they are graduating heaps of enginneers geologists and whatever they need for the future.
So I think having some sort of effective population control is a good idea but talking population control is political suicide
September 4th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
If this all sounds familiar, it should: “Overpopulation� was an all-purpose bogeyman much like anthropogenic global warming is today. Just as some alarmists today envision New York under 25 feet of water, some population alarmists predicted global population in excess of 100 billion
http://www.catholicexchange.com/2008/09/03/113661/
September 6th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
C’mon, jh, don’t be fooled by such hyperbole and red herring logic: Humanity is fairly and squarely responsible for, at the very least, the environmental degradation and hastening of species extinction on this planet. Your source is a well known claimant of ‘Man being given dominion over the Earth and all that dwells therein’ Surely it should also be prepared to accept some responsibility for humanity’s actions. Or does it take up a similar position to our friends the pro-market lobby, namely that the market is sacrosanct and as such must be followed without question, thus abrogating humans of all responsibility?
September 6th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
I thought it was interesting to see a Catholic site taking that view on agw. Presumably it isn’t the official view of the church.