by Gareth Hughes
I’d like to congratulate Brittany Trilford, who is off the Rio +20 Earth Summit in Brazil after winning the Date With History contest.
She won it after posting this amazing short video – The future I want:
Brittany, meeting with Holly Walker and Gareth Hughes
It was a pleasure to meet her this week along with Kennedy Graham and Holly Walker. We talked about how Brittany, now gets the opportunity to address the Earth Summit and speak to leaders and officials about the environment. It’s a huge opportunity, but I also imagine a bit daunting for this 17 year old Wellingtonian. I’m sure she’ll give a wonderful speech and does us all proud to see a Kiwi addressing the summit. We congratulate her and wish her all the best for her big speech in Rio. The only shame is John Key won’t be at Rio +20, which shows his priorities.
Published in Environment & Resource Management | THE ISSUES by Gareth Hughes on Fri, June 1st, 2012
Tags: Brazil, Brittany Trilford, climate change, Earth Summit, Rio
More posts by Gareth Hughes | more about Gareth Hughes
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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FROG! A NEW GENERAL THREAD!!!
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Don’t worry Britney, I’ve already solved the worlds problems – right down to the child abuse and biological weeding. Now all I need is giant crown to go with my giant ego.
I even conceived of a “closed resource circuit” society here:
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2009/06/club-economies.html
Btw: Humans are born innovative – education, as you know it, kills it. As soon as you’re “teaching” creativity you’re probably destroying it.
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What a wonderful young ideologue! Her indoctrinators have done a fantastic job!!
Well done.
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Who is paying for the carbon offsets to fly her and her entourage to Rio? BTW Haven’t you guys heard of teleconferencing? If you want to save the planet, you have to walk the talk.
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What are the “committed” changes based on the emissions we’ve already put into the system.
What if we succeeded beyond our wildest expectations, and I was declared Emperor for a day and the CO2 Tax and Return of $300/Ton (payable in “real” dollars) was put in place… and as a result emissions of CO2 stopped abruptly?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/modelling-the-apocalypse.html
It still ain’t all that good for the planet as a whole, but I think we’d be seeing a whole HEAP of visitors from places we haven’t heard of… at least as long as our heads stay above water.
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While you are wearing the king-for-a-day crown, order roofs to be painted light colours so they reflect rather than absorb the sunlight. That will cool things down a bit – not much but every little bit helps.
Trevor.
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Planned obsolescence:
One of the easiest ways to reduce carbon emissions (for you people who buy all that stuff) is to make products so we don’t have to keep making them. That is, outlaw planned obsolescence. It would also make us richer and in turn liberate more resources for more effective environmentalism. And improve living standards and reduce poverty – Obviously.
http://andrewatkin.blogspot.co.nz/2010/05/planned-obsolescence-get-rid-of-it.html
And why have I never heard the Green party talk about this? Or maybe they have and I just don’t know? It should be a hot topic for them because the outlawing of planned obsolescence represents an excellent eco’ bang for the buck, is good for all people except wanker-type corporations, and does not require any radical retooling of anything.
Can someone please answer this question.
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Andrew, that is an excellent point.
Planned obsolescence is absolutely immoral in my opinion, especially when flaws are actually engineered into a product rather than the whole item wearing out.
Anyone that uses tools of any description knows exactly what we are talking about.
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“Planned Obsolescence” is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is debt based money. It is connected to “planned obsolescence” by the interest rate on the money, which requires continued growth in consumption in order to pay the interest on the previous debt-money that was created in a positive feedback loop that has only one possible ending.
The requirement to increase consumption so as to make more money (in the sense of CREATING more money), is built into the definition of the money. “Planned obsolescence” is part of the pantheon of strategies provided to ensure that consumption continues to increase.
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FROG!!! A NEW GENERAL THREAD!!!
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The war on drugs has its “traitor” class. Surprise, the banks strike another deal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/02/western-banks-colombian-cocaine-trade
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Shunda barunda:
Thanks for the nice words. Did you know that if you make the filament in light-bulbs just slightly thicker they will never blow out(?)
bjchip:
I don’t think planned obsolescence is a symptom in itself of a fractional reserve monetary symptom. We can outlaw PO via durability regulations and strict product transparency. The real question is why don’t new business start-ups design their products for serious durability, and use that marketed durability as their core selling point? Maybe suppliers to those businesses rebel? Fractional reserve banking may have weird macro-economic effects, but it should not impact the motivations of isolated businesses as such.
I understand that FR banking inflates the monetary supply (of course it must – someone, somewhere, somehow must be “printing money out of thin air”), but I don’t see why this should equate to forcing more economic growth in itself. It can just equate to inflation.
I’ve heard the concerns about FR banking before, and personally I don’t think the problem is as simple as it’s often represented. I’m not too sure. But, I certainly support the idea of a stable monetary system. When banks can print money out of thin air they inherit unusual power to affect and control resource allocation and therefore infrastructural investment in society, and therefore society’s developmental form.
-Banks don’t give other than what they take. Inflation (a direct result of credit inflation) is an indirect tax. Banks do not “drive economic development” they simply claim authority over how existing resources will be allocated.
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bjchip:
Chill out with the general thread begging. You’re probably giving Frog the motive to NOT post one!
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If there is a new policy it should have been discussed or at least ANNOUNCED, and if there is not, the general thread is now three weeks overdue. I am not begging Frog, I am on the verge of boycotting the site for lack of responsive and responsible administration. I am ANGRY now Andrew, this is not a joke.
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Trevor.
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Regarding planned obsolescence. A requirement for the expected life of a product to be printed on the packaging would go a long way to even the playing field. Light bulbs would be one example. Also efficiency should be given. (In the case of light bulbs, this should be in lumens per Watt or equivalent.)
It is in government’s interest to cut down on planned obsolescence as government ends up with the responsibility to deal with the failed products, i.e. rubbish stream.
Trevor.
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The real strange thing is that whenever I use the admins name to question why there isn’t a general debate thread, my comment disappears never to be seen again. Other people are using the F word FFS! Pretty rude admin practice if you ask me.
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Andrew
It is only one of the many strategies of increasing consumption, of encouraging “creative destruction” and the philosophy behind it is very much enabled by the F-R monetary system. An ALTERNATIVE monetary system needs to be understood, accepted, created and defined.
I have my own set of ideas around that. If you hunt through the archives you’ll find some of them argued in 300-400 message threads. Before we get started I’d as soon hear your own answers… but there is in my opinion, a great deal of evil in the F-R system, and it is evil that affects the environment as well as the control of governments and the distribution of wealth.
Of all the things we could change, this would be the most important.
BJ
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What´s good in RIO+20? Caetano Veloso´s show!
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