House sitting and other community-minded things

For the last week and a bit my girlfriend Raven and I have been having somewhat of a staycation, but not in its truest form. A staycation is really meant to be about staying at home and relaxing, but we've gone one better - stayed at other people's much nicer homes.

First up was my mother's house, a really lovely old sunny villa, with one skittish black and white cat and a small veggie garden to look after. It's always a bit of a holiday looking after the place, giving us a break from our usual student squalor.

Second, where I am now, is one of Raven's friend's place, by the beach on Wellington's sunny south coast. Though we must depart tomorrow, we've had a lovely time watching the southerlies role in, feeding the cat and the chickens. And I've learnt how to handle and feed chickens, which is a great skill for a city boy to have.

While people are away (including at green events like ReGen) those still at home can have a lovely time in their houses, or atleast learn some new skills. But most importantly its about community. Helping each other out.

Sometimes helping others may be an inconvenience and feel like a burden in our busy lives, or at least not seem like it's in our narrow self interest, which our modern economy so tells us should be our main motivation for everything we do. This has meant we really are becoming separated from one another, and that's to our detriment when we need help ourselves, and for our happiness of spending time with others.

So, especially now when you should have extra time, make sure you help those in need, or ask for help if you need it. Just remember to say please!

From economics to harsh reality: my last week

So I finally have a chance to post - would love to show you my pictures, but will have to leave it till another time. I write from northern India, Dharamshala, where I find myself and my girlfriend Raven, after a week of travelling.

Since my last post I finished exams (just found I got an A+ in one of them, which is awesome), went to a Ecological Economics conference run by the Green Party of Aotearoa, and then shipped off to India (OK, flew. Sorry future generations.)

The Ecological Economics conference was an interesting way to spend time the day after my last exam (on more conventional macroeconomics) but I couldn't pass up the chance of seeing David Suzuki speak. He's an inspirational speaker, and started the conference with putting us within a bio-centric perspective. Instead of the economy, society and the environment being three interlocking, equally-sized circles, a more accurate model, he suggested, was one big circle, signifying the biosphere, and thirty million circles within it - one for each species. The human one though, takes up 40% of the area, and is rapidly expanding. Population and consumption of resources by humans has sky-rocketed almost vertically and many times in just 200 years - a tiny blip of time in the 150 000 or so years of modern humans. Although lost on some other speakers in the conference unfortunately, Suzuki also pointed out that 80% of resource-use is by the wealthiest 20% of the worlds population - a fact no leader of a wealthy country will freely admit. And so a few days later I was off to where the rubber meets the road in this reality - India.

India is one of the great emerging economies, with a high economic growth rate, a poor population overall, around one billion inhabitants, and an emerging wealthy class, taking more than their fare share. I arrived late at night in Delhi, after a day tour around Singapore, which also has a high growth rate, but is more wealthy overall. Four million people situated on a tiny island, with 90% housed apartments in the sky through a government scheme. It's a very clean and wealthy city, with a mind-bogglingly busy port, and an ironically interventionist, single-part government; ironic given it's incredibly high rate of economic growth. It was a great juxtaposition from the city we were about to find ourselves in.

We had heard Delhi was a horrible place from many different people before we got there, and we arrived a quite Indian man from our hotel to pick us up and take us there. The ride from the airport felt like a destruction derby - with less destruction, and more derby, but the car with the front bumper hanging on by a couple of screws, squealing around beside us, certainly increased the destruction side of things. They are incredibly skilled drivers, as we were to discover, weaving in and out of optimistically-painted lane dividers, fitting in as many vehicles into a small space as possible, and beeping to say "I'm coming through!" rather than relying on the silent and leisurely indicators we use in the West. Our room was nice - three star, and we quickly fell asleep.

Our first day was a bit of a walk to get orientated, around Conaught Place, near our hotel. Dogs, dirt, and toilet smell all through the street. Many an eager rickshaw driver, tout and salesman tried to sell us something, or convince us to use a "Government" tourist bureau. Lots of people complimented my beard before trying their tricks - the next day it was Raven's Indian dress she bought the day before to fit in more appropriately with the culture. Despite our best efforts we were screwed over a couple of times - something that gets easier to avoid the more time you spend in a place. I thought this was free market capitalism at its best - game theory of each person trying to screw over the other, especially as they don't think they will ever see you again in the vast city of millions. Needless to say it was quite horrible.

We got to the Red Fort and a Muslim temple on day two. It was also the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, where they sacrifice animals (best to read the link to get a less simple an naive account...). Coincidentally there were lots of goats being traded that day, and lead around the city to people's homes or wherever. We ate some spicy food and gave ourselves horrible stomach pains, and the next day got the hell out of there, to our relief.

Yesterday we flew into Dharamshala, and got a taxi to just north of it, Mcleodganj. Here the Dalai Lama resides, we're at the foot of the Himalayas, and everything is Free Tibet. It's a nice quiet place - slightly spoiled by all the rubbish and fast traffic through its narrow one-way roads - but it's great to be here. We're here for at least the next week, and the internet is surprisingly good, so you'll hear from me soon!

Don't allow factory farming of cows in NZ!

Hi Nick,

It was nice meeting you in Copenhagen as part of the New Zealand Youth Delegation. Being there made me realise how important New Zealand's reputation is overseas. People were surprised when I told them how polluted our rivers are, and how we are one of the worst countries in the world for per-capita emissions. At least we still have free-roaming grass-fed livestock here though, and that was always reassuring. Let's make sure our vital image doesn't fall over by allowing factory farming to occur here!

Yours Truly,
Zack

PS To my blog readers - you can send Nick an e-card like mine from here!

PPS To my blog readers - sorry I haven't done a post-COP follow post yet. I'll try to soon, after a lot of reflection time, I tell you what.

Meat anyone?

So, another week and another poll on the beautiful Zackarate Island. But what's this? A gruesome photo? SHOCKNESS!

Yes, the topic we were talking about is related to the killing of innocent animals and no, I am not a raging righteous vegetarian. The poll question was would you consider/do you eat less meat for the environment? The first point I would like to make is less related to the environment, and more to decaptitated cows. I believe that if you can't handle the truth about where meat comes from, then you shouldn't be eating it. That point alone has created many a vegetarian. It also graphically illustrates the fact that city slickers have become quite withdrawn from where there food comes from. Put someone like myself (who has only lived in a city) on a small organic farm on an island in the middle of nowhere with all the food growing that I could need, and, within a year, I would probably starve to death. Thus, even city slickers should be brought up with the knowledge of how to grow food, making us more in touch with our diets, more likely to grow some fantastic home vegies, and thus lead more healthy and sustainable lives.

Back to the poll, when talking about climate change, especially in this country, we happily look at transport and say we can cut emissions here, here and here. The energy and industry sectors come under the same scrutiny, in general terms. But never do we seriously look at agriculture (unless you're in the Green Party of course), writing it off as a necessary evil when it comes to emissions and environmental impact. Of course that's true, to some extent. But the fact of the matter is that we eat too much meat, both from a nutritional point of view and a environmental one.

Simple physical principles come into this whole meat business. According to my year 12 biology text book (so it must be true!) plants take 1/100th of the energy out of the sun that hits their leaves and turn it into biomass (stored energy to make things simple). In turn, herbivores and omnivores eat the plants and take 1/10th of the energy out of them, which they turn into biomass of their own. Omnivores and carnivores can eat this meat and again take 1/10th of the energy from it. So, no matter how you calculate the end result (whether by over-simplifying or not) you need a lot more resources and space to grow 1kg of meat than to grow 1kg of veggies. With veggies you don't need to grow food to feed them, they make their own. Besides that, plants take carbon out of the atmosphere when they grow, animals put it back in. Cows especially produce a lot of methane, which is a gas with roughly 20 to 25 the warming potential of carbon dioxide when talking about climate change.

In an ideal world we would all be vegans (and be happy about this arrangement). But in reality, even if we wanted to, not everyone could become a vegan. Everyone's bodies work differently, and it's about finding the right balance for you. If you can be a healthy vegan, and are happy with that, fantastic, big ups to you. But if not, don't sweat it. It's not worth putting your health on the line for. But in general we eat too much meat. Eating too much animal protein can cause kidney damage, probably among other things. As with everything, moderation is the key.

And as for those nay-sayers who say Greenies are only about less less less in a more more more culture, thus being killjoys who will never win much support, I say SHUT UP! We are all in the same waka, and if we don't start taking sustainability seriously, we will all drown together (though the poor ones on the bottom of the heap will drown first of course). By framing sustainable changes positively, we will do much more to steer ourselves towards sustainability. Who doesn't want to eat more healthy, therefore live more healthily and be happier with more energy? You can count me in.

As for myself, you can put me in the I consciously eat meat less category. Depending on my living situation, I try and eat meat no more than twice a week (including fish). If you don't want to go vegetarian, I suggest you try setting a reduced meat quota. It's amazing how little you notice the lack of meat! And if someone said to me I had to kill the next animal I ate meat from, I would have to. Otherwise I would be a complete hypocrite. But I would be thankful that it gave it's life so that I could be healthy. Such is the circle of life.

(Photo by 10b travelling)

I've been selected!

Youngest candidate receives Pakuranga electorate for his 19th birthday

Tonight Zachary Dorner officially became the Green Party's candidate for Pakuranga, four days before his 19th birthday. At that age he is easily the youngest candidate in the country out of the established political parties.

On becoming the Green candidate for Pakuranga, Dorner said “I am excited to be able to represent the Green Party in Pakuranga. I am seeking the Party Vote, which is the most important. I want everyone in Pakuranga to know that we in the Green Party have practical solutions in our approach to the big issues of our time. I am positive about the future, creative ideas and a ‘can-do’ approach is abundant in New Zealand."

Although Zachary Dorner's chances of getting into Parliament are slim, the lack of representation for young people in Parliament was a major motivation for standing. Mr Dorner does not rule out a serious attempt at becoming a young Green MP in the future.

“Young people are a glaring omission from the so-called 'House of Representatives.' I want more young people to follow in my footsteps by standing and participating in the democratic process. The Green Party is the only Party that truly represents a youthful perspective at the moment, and I see no sign of that changing.

“In an election supposedly about trust I want people to ask themselves who they really trust. Who do they trust with taking serious action on climate change? Who do they trust to provide New Zealanders with safe, sustainable and healthy food? Who do they trust with their children's future? Their best answer to that question is for them to Party Vote Green on November 8.”

Happy Earth Overshoot Day!

A day after Car Free Day it's Earth Overshoot Day! This is the day that, according to Global Footprint Network data, we have used all the natural resources that earth will generate this year, and from now on this year we are getting ourselves into natural resource debt. As has been the trend for many decades, we are borrowing more this year than we ever have before, now requiring 1.4 planets for our current consumption rate.

There's many more interesting things for you to read about on the link above, but I will mention this. The first year that we were in debt was 1986, which was one day of overshoot. This year it is about 98 days of overshoot. At 18 I have never lived a day of my life in a year that we used less than the earth provided for us. Given that next year I may have to take out a student loan, and my parents have always been in debt to pay for our housing, monetarily I have also never lived free of debt. Why must our economy run like this? Even though GDP has grown, can we really say quality of life has improved, or do we perhaps need to measure a lot more than just money?

On a related note, an interesting discussion has been happening lately about food and it's impact on the planet. The chairperson for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has come out and said we need to eat less meat. This has had varying reactions, including people like Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London unfortunately) coming out strongly for the carnivores, advocating, if anything, an increase in the consumption of meat. More on this interesting topic later in the week, but in the meantime you can vote in this week's poll.

In the jungle, the mightily diverse jungle

Getting back to jungle-mania...

We arrived in Manuas from the Amazon river boat, left our stuff in the hotel where the people who didn´t want to go into the jungle were staying, booked a trip, had breakfast, packed our stuff, emailed loved ones to tell them we were still alive and got into an old car that took us to port again so we could get on a boat to take us to our jungle-destination. All in about two hours. Busy busy, and back onto water after very little time on solid ground.

The boat first took us to where the rivers Rio Negro and Rio Sallamon (I´ll edit the spelling of that one later) mix. Or rather don´t mix. There is a clear line where the black Rio Negro hits the brown water of the other river. Quite strange looking, and it goes for a long way. It´s tanins - like in tea - that make the Rio Negro black, and it really does look black.

From there we continued up the Rio Negro to a souvenir shop, where there were also giant lily pads. They were well over a metre in diameter, and were used by bugs and birds alike as landing pads.

We then continued, stopping at animal abuse point. Three people - two of whom were children - jumped onto the boat to show the tourists their animals from the jungle. It made me very uncomfortable to see people paying them to have their photos taken with animals like that, so needless to say I didn´t participate. They had a baby anaconda, a sad looking sloth, and a baby monkey. The boy carrying the sloth bandied him about like a teddy bear, and the poor thing obviously just wanted to get back into a tree, as they are made to cling. The next worse off was the baby monkey, which was tiny and clinging to the little girl´s arm. He/she needed its mummy! The anaconda was the one I felt least bad about, as there is the possibility that they can be brought up as pets and cared for alright, given the right person. Of course it was impossible to judge whether this was the case, but it could well have suffocated it´s captor if it really wanted to. It was only eight months old, so just a baby, and obviously raised from small by humans. It was still massive though.

After that it was lunch on the boat (more boat food - yay! Though not half shabby this time) and then we made it to our floating log cabin (another night on the water). There we met our guide, and soon were out piranha fishin´.

As the river waters were quite high, we were surrounded by half-submerged trees. We had to go through these many times - difficult, and sometimes painful. Piranha fishing was no exception. The rods were made of sticks, with nylon string tied to the ends. The bait: fresh meat. We got a few bites, but nothing too exciting. It was quickly clear we wouldn´t catch enough for dinner. Our guide finally caught a baby one, but it still had very sharp teeth. We threw it back. I was the next closest to catching one, pulling one up several times. One big one I almost had, but I didn´t lift him far enough out of the water in time. Damn.

That night we went alligator hunting. Alligators, pirranhas, birds, monkeys, snakes, jaguars, panthers, so many plants. You don´t know the true meaning of biodiversity until you´ve been to the Amazon. It was astoundingly beautiful and infinitely fascinating. Anyway, baby allis. Our guide spotted one quickly in his torch light, with the charateristic red eye reflection. He jumped out of the canoe, and was back in five, holding one. It was about 30cm from head to tail. I was the only other one to hold it. Better this time as we weren´t harming it, and releasing it again once we were done. From counting the rings on its tail, Charles (the guide) determined it was 12 months old. It eats mainly insects - poisonous ones. This causes problems if it bites you. It had long been set free by its mother; left to its own devises. All the older, larger alligators aren´t around that area when we was there, so just babies. The one I held will grow to be about three metres. A lot smaller than the largest species, which only grows to eight metres.

The next day we went to a nearby village. We were greeted by a very old woman, who was the mother of pretty much the whole population. She was very nice, but spoke to us in Portuguese and expected us to know what she was saying, no matter how many times we told her otherwise.

The village was small, but full of a huge variety of plants. We saw vegetables growing that we´d never seen before, plus many old favourites like bananas (smaller than us westerners are used to), passionfruit (slightly bigger, and yellow-skinned, used mainly just for juice), avacados (massive - more than twice as big as in NZ, and delicious) and other favourites. We also saw acaí berries, which have only recently become popular all over Brazil. You can only eat the skins, as the rest is seed. The skins are boiled to make various things like ice cream, an acaí mash thing and jam. The seeds are used to make jewlery as they are very hard. Acaí berries supposedly have many health benefits. They are a deep purple, and have quite a distinctive flavour.

That afternoon we went for a paddle through the trees in our canoe. Lots of bugs, and we eventually saw monkeys! All around us, in the trees above. Scurrying around, but obviously quite curious.

In the evening we went to a native dwelling, near the village, to stay the night. There was a mother and father, with most of their nine children, plus some others, like a nephew and a granddaughter. It was a wooden building on stilts next to the water. Very basic. The family obviously had it set up so visitors could stay in hammocks. A bit of a money making venture for them. We couldn´t communicate well unfortunately though, due to the language barrier. They had chickens, dogs and cats. And a pre-emptive rooster.

Next day it was jungle trek day. And what a beautifully overcast day it was. By the time we got to the track, it was raining quite hard. And then we had to paddle up it for about 20 minutes till we reached land. It was hard rain, what with us being in a rainforest and all. Still, it was great to be walking through the Amazon, with someone cutting our path with a machete. Charles, a Native from north of Manuas, had an extensive knowledge of the plants in the jungle. Whilst we have an extensive knowledge of how to operate in our environment of cities and so on, so do Natives know how to operate in their environment. It´s astounding that their isn´t more outside interest in the huge range of plants in the Amazon, with their many uses.

Firstly, he showed us the Amazonian panadol. You make the leaves into tea, which lower fevers and reduce pain. We bit the leaves, and they numbed the tongue. He would just stop at a tree or a vine, recognise it straight away, and show it to us. There was the vine quinine, the cure for malaria (and used in some malaria medications that we´re familiar with too). There were ants that you get to climb on your hands from their nest. You can then squish them, and rub the scent all over your skin. Natural mosquito repellent. You can also make them into tea, which supposedly cures peoples´ vision problems that we generally correct with glasses and contact lenses. There was a vine that you can cut and place on insect bites, which makes them go down. You can also dry it and smoke it to "help relax". There was a tree that produced a smelly resin. When out in the jungle, hunters use it´s inflammability to light fires. They also place it around their campsite in a circle. Its unpleasant smell keeps out everything from insects to jaguars. We saw a rubber tree. The dried line of sap on the outside was far more stretchy than a rubber band. Charles coaxed a couple of tarantulas out of their holes for us to see. They were massive, and not fully grown. Frightening for some. There was a small plant whose roots are extremely toxic. You can kill someone with them, or grind them, put them into water, and kill all the fish. Easy fishing, but now highly illegal. It sucks the oxygen out of the water, so kills everything. There was a diarrhea cure as well as other things he showed us, but I think you get the idea, and I´m having trouble remembering them all. Lots of teas though.

After a freezing and extremely wet boat ride back to the lodge, we got ready to go back to Manuas. The rush was not over. We had to take a speedboat back to get there in time. Then we had an hour and a half to get ready to leave. We had another night bus, that would begin the long and massively potholed journey from Manuas to Santa Elena in Venezuela, where I currently am.

A very busy, and very exciting end to my stay in Brazil. After almost two months there, it was sad to see it go. I´ve learnt a lot about Brazilian culture, a little Portuguese, and had a great time. Bring on Venezuela and it´s confusing Spanish.