by frog
The editor of the Environmental Research Web ponders what’s next after the Copenhagen climate summit.
Terra Daily reports that the Indonesian military is behind illegal logging, while our govt says it will rely entirely on voluntary legality labelling of imported timber.
Other countries have school food issues too. Grist features a teacher’s experiment in Illinois to eat for lunch only what is served to students for one year.
And check out these cool fluid motion pictures from National Geographic.
Published in THE GAME by frog on Fri, February 5th, 2010
Tags: general debate
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Hmm, I’d love to see the people who were advocating school lunches to solve ‘the problem of hardship in childhood’, sit down and eat an american school dinner a day for a year, too.
Jamie Oliver had a go at the comprehensive school lunch program in the UK a couple of years ago, and discovered kids who’d never seen a raw vegetable, nor eaten half of the most common ones; he not only changed the national school lunch menus, but he took kids from some of the local schools in London and taught them food prep skills, having canvassed for teens who might be interested in a career in food.
Locally, a friend of mine’s brother has just made the transition from chef to Home Ec teacher, and has discovered his College is heavy on boys this year. He’s determined (without showing gender bias against the minority of girls in his classes) to get them all growing, cooking and eating good meals by the end of his first year teaching.
It’s a start, eh.
And before anyone asks, it’s a state co-ed school, I’m not identifying it any further!
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Katie,
Just as I do not have to believe what you do and do what you do, so does a food-in-schools program not have to be identical to those in other countries. That they are abysmal reflects not a flaw in the concept but a flaw in the implementation.
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In Japan, the world’s second largest ecenomy (must be doing something right) schools have kitchens and cooks to supply all children with a cooked meal every day!
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Japan has had massive economic problems for the last 20 years. They are doing many many things wrong
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Maybe rimu.
They are still the 2nd biggest though.
My point however was about school lunches.
Not much obesity among Japanese kids is there.
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Still 7.3%, or has it got worse?
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katie said: …and has discovered his College is heavy on boys this year.
Presume you mean “heavy on heavy boys” katie?
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I am the self-appointed keeper of the “The List” which itemises the National Government’s environmental decisions and I’m wondering if you might cast your learned eyes over it and make any suggestions / alterations which might be required. I’m going to try and post it on various blogs once a month or so as my little piece of protest action.
Since being elected in November 2008, National Ltd™ has:
has been caught out repeatedly lying in the run up to and during the election campaign about its real intentions in relation to the environment
defended internationally the importation of rain-forest-wrecking palm kernel and stood silent while Federated Farmers called Greenpeace “terrorists”
removed a proposed efficiency standard (MEPS) on incandescent lightbulbs
reversed a moratorium on building new gas/oil/coal power stations
removed the bio fuel subsidy
scrapped the scheme that would have penalised imported vehicles producing high emissions
removed regulations for water efficient new housing
renewed leases on sensitive high country farms which were meant to return to DOC
reversed restrictions on the freeholding of vast swathes of land on the edge of the Southern Lakes
arbitrarily excised 400 hectares from the brand new Oteake Conservation Park, including the most important and, ecologically, the rarest part of the new Park, the tussock and shrubland that went right down to the banks of the Manuherikia River, to enable future access to lignite
had nothing to say in regard to the World Commission on Protected areas of IUCN’s severe criticism of its intention to investigate mineral resources and mining opportunities in protected conservation areas including our three UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Te Wahi Pounamu-South West New Zealand, Tongariro National Park and the Sub Antarctic Islands
approved two prospecting permit applications lodged by Australian iron-ore giant Fortescue Metals Group subsidiary FMG Pacific lodged in June – areas covered by the two-year permits include an 8204-square-kilometre area of seabed adjoining the west coast from Cape Reinga to the Manukau HarbouraA 3798-square-kilometre prospecting area of land from Cape Reinga to the Kaipara Harbour including Ninety Mile Beach, the west side of the Aupouri Peninsula, Kaitaia and the Hokianga.
was forced to release its Ministry of Economic Development (MED) report under the Official Information Act that proclaims “significant mineral potential” in the Fiordland, Kahurangi and Paparoa national parks – the report said the Waitutu area of the Fiordland National Park had sufficient petroleum reserves to be “worthy” of inclusion in a review of conservation land protected from mining
secretly granted the minerals industry the right to veto proposed National Park boundaries and permission for any such vetoes to be kept confidential – in spite of recommendations from its own officials against any such a veto
Minster of Conservation Tim Grosser, on 29 August 2009, called for caring New Zealanders to halt their “emotional hysteria” and recognise that conservation land should be mined for minerals and went on to say “Mining in a modern, technological way can have a negligible effect”
Associate Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson, in an interview in “Canterbury Farming” rubished her own department, DOC, suggesting it was incapable of looking after the high country reserves and parks under its control
gutted the home insulation scheme
pulled $300 million out of public transport, walking and cycling schemes and added it to a pot of $2 billion to ‘upgrade’ state highways
changed the law to provide billions of dollar in subsidies for polluters via the ETS casino which is now a target for scamming by international criminals
begun a process of gutting the Resource Management Act to make it difficult/impossible for the public to lodge appeals against developers
removed the ability of Auckland to introduce a fuel levy to fund planned public transport upgrades
left electrification of rail network up in the air without promised funding commitments
removed the Ministry for the Environment’s programme to make Government Departments ‘carbon neutral’
removed funding for public tv advertising on sustainability and energy efficiency
pulled funding for small-town public litter bin recycling schemes
cabinet ministers expressing public support the bulldozing of Fiordland
reduced Department of Conservation funding by about $50 million over three years
canceled funding for the internationally acclaimed ‘Enviroschools’ programme
usurped the democratic role of local Councils of determining policies for their citizens by requiring the abandonment of the efficient and well-established tree protection rules for urban areas
set about revamping Auckland governance in a way that is likely to greatly reduce the ‘Environmental Watchdog’ role of the the current Regional Council
took a 0% emissions reduction target to Copenhagen. Yes, seriously, that isn’t a misprint – that was the lower bound of their negotiation platform – then missed the 01/02/10 deadline for commitment to action it had agreed to – meanwhile 55 of the 80 countries which attended did make the deadline
secretly cancelled the internationally recognised scheme for the mandatory labelling of exotic woods to ensure the timber has not been taken from rain forests in direct contradiction of its own statements made at the 13th World Forestry Congress in Argentina
supported the Department of Conservation’s decision to open up the pristine Cathedral Cove to an ice-cream franchise
taken no action to reduce existing pollution pouring into the Manawatu River and is “leaving it up to industry” to come up with solutions to heal the river which was described by the Cawthorn Institute as “one of the worst polluted in the Western world”
announced a $1.1 million industry subsidy to kick start marine farming without identifying no-go areas nor putting in place a consultation process for individiuals, communities, and other general coastal users
blamed New Zealanders after a Japanese whaling ship deliberately smashed into a smaller, more vulnerable craft in the open sea
Regards
BLiP
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Makes the BlueGreen arm of the National Party look more like a shrivelled finger, crooked in the direction of the New Zealand public.
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Got a couple more . . .
- celebrated the opening of the foreign-owned Pike River Coal Ltd mine on DOC land adjacent to the Paparoa National Park from which 1 megatonne of coal will be extracted per year for the next 20 years – Pike River Coal Ltd has announced that it has found additional coal in the national park
- removed Auckland’s metropolitan limits and opened the gateway for unfettered urban srpawl
- approved an additional prospecting permit for Fortesque Metals in relation to 3568sq km right next door to the Kahurangi National Park where the Heaphy Track is
- was forced to release documents under the Official Information Act which confirm that DOC has “giving up” on ecologically valuable high-country land in the Mackenzie basic because of funding cuts. The released documents cite “statements made by ministers”, “diminishing funding” and the Government’s new high-country policies as reasons for the changed stance – the comments from DOC were made after Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which manages the tenure review process, ignored DOC’s previous conservation recommendations for the farms.
. . . amazing can of worms, really. It would seem National Ltd™ has quietly set about freeing up as much land for sale and/or mining as possible; sell, baby, sell – dig, baby, dig!
And what have the bloody useless Maori Party got to say about te whenua – zip, zilch, zero, nada, nyet, kore. I saw John Key give Pita Sharples a gentle, apparently supportive rub on the back during the preliminary Waitangi Day function – no doubt Key’s just double checking where the fleshy part of Sharples back is for when the knife goes in.
Unless they’re in on it as well . . .
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I see Australia has done a record coal deal with China.
So much for an ETS there, and NZ will surely follow suit. Which is excellent news, as ETS is, and always was, a total sham.
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BLiP – and that’s just the environmental reversals. Some educational ones:
Removing millions of dollars from tertiary education,
forcing structural change on polytechs that amalgamate faculties and replace academic programme leaders with ‘business managers’,
freezing funds for new early childhood education,
removing Training Incentive Allowances for single parents (both Paula Bennett and Metiria used this to gain an education).
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I/S declares, “Good News”!
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/02/roaring-success.html
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The Green Police:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2010/02/the_green_police.html
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anyone who’s got money in the stock market, sell everything now. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=SPX%3AIND
mark my words
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