Revelations that more conservation land will be mined, whatever the outcome of public consultation, have drawn vehement opposition from environmental groups, who say conservation land is about to be destroyed.

The Government is planning to consult the public over opening up more land for mining, but Prime Minister John Key signalled to Parliament yesterday that there would be significant changes to which areas are protected.

Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act protects about a third of the conservation estate from mining because of its conservation value. That equates to 13 per cent of New Zealand’s land mass.

It is expected that the Government will seek consultation this month on removing land in Coromandel and the Mt Aspiring, Kahurangi, Fiordland and Paparoa national parks from Schedule 4.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said it appeared Mr Key had already decided the outcome of the public consultation process, before the public had been given an opportunity to see what was being considered.

“Clearly he is proposing an unlawful process.”

The result would be that some of the most important ecological land would be destroyed, causing irreparable damage to New Zealand’s green image and tourism industry.

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Wait patiently for three months for the real oil in the Budget before passing judgment on the Government’s latest and seemingly insipid prescription for shifting New Zealand’s sluggish-performing economy into the growth fast-lane.

That is the message from Government insiders. Only then, they say, will the exact extent of sweeping tax cuts planned to take effect from this October become evident.

National took a fair bit of stick yesterday in the aftermath of the Prime Minister’s tabling of his Government’s new 23-page economic and social policy programme in Parliament – most of it without flinching.

The Government remains unconcerned that between now and the Budget in late May, Labour and the Greens might sway those on middle and lower incomes into believing they will suffer from the projected rise in GST from 12.5 to 15 per cent.

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After we have settled in we are going to plan our food forest according to Perma-culture principles and we are looking forward to seeing wwoofers live and learn with us to achieve a self sustainable eco-system that will provide us and our visitors with all the food we need.

The future looks bright again.

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I’m equally easy with the fact that our way of live is unsustainable and we need to adapt to a more eco sustainable lifestyle.

But when the likes of Al Gore go from $ 2 million to a $ 100 million dollars because he owns a company which sells carbon credits and live in very eco unfriendly houses I smell a rat.

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The carbon emissions of Bono’s band’s world tour are equivalent to the waste created by 6,500 average British or Irish people in an entire year.

What if celebrity news carried its own version of a nutrition label? But instead of calories, or health risks, how about a label that gets at celebrities’ impact on the planet?

Imagine if each time a tabloid or movie or TV show fed our celebrity addiction by running the image of Angelina, Bono or Gisele Bundschen, they also were required to put the celeb’s eco-footprint in the corner of that image? If the tabs really wanted to knock themselves out, they could also run a kind of eco-ingredient list — the number of hours the celeb spends in the air, the square feet of housing she owns, number of children he has, and so on.

It’s an idea with real timeliness, if I do say so myself. A few weeks ago, uber-feminist Naomi Wolf praised Angelina Jolie’s independence, symbolized by her ability to fly her own plane, without even mentioning that if every woman did that, we’d need a million planets worth of resources to support the human population.

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The carbon emissions of Bono’s band’s world tour are equivalent to the waste created by 6,500 average British or Irish people in an entire year.

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What if celebrity news carried its own version of a nutrition label? But instead of calories, or health risks, how about a label that gets at celebrities’ impact on the planet?

Imagine if each time a tabloid or movie or TV show fed our celebrity addiction by running the image of Angelina, Bono or Gisele Bundschen, they also were required to put the celeb’s eco-footprint in the corner of that image? If the tabs really wanted to knock themselves out, they could also run a kind of eco-ingredient list — the number of hours the celeb spends in the air, the square feet of housing she owns, number of children he has, and so on.

It’s an idea with real timeliness, if I do say so myself. A few weeks ago, uber-feminist Naomi Wolf praised Angelina Jolie’s independence, symbolized by her ability to fly her own plane, without even mentioning that if every woman did that, we’d need a million planets worth of resources to support the human population.

Flying High

Food prices rocketed by 2.8 percent last month – the biggest increase in 20 years.

Figures from Statistics New Zealand show that food prices have soared by 8.4 percent in the 12 months to June.

The bad news for those picking up the weekly supermarket bill is in sharp contrast to the official figures for overall inflation – which show that the annual rate has dropped to 1.9 percent.

SNZ said that the big lift in grocery bills in June was the biggest monthly increase since a 3.8 percent rise in July 1989 – but that rise was fuelled by a lift in the rate of goods and services tax.

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A second tube could simultaneously suck cool water from the depths to the surface.

Microsoft founder Gates and a dozen other scientists and engineers have a patent pending for deploying such vessels, which they say would collect water through waves breaking over the walls of the tub. Some variations have the water moving through turbines on their way down, which would in turn generate electricity to suck up the cooler water.

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Canadians need to understand the context of today’s announcement that Mexican citizens will require visas to visit Canada.  We also need to understand the root cause of the rising number of Mexican refugees coming to Canada.

Food products—staples such as corn and beans—are flooding into Mexico.  Since the 1995 implementation of NAFTA, US corn exports to Mexico have quadrupled.  These products are flowing south at prices below Mexican farmers’ cost of production, and below the cost of production in the US.  Subsidies enable farmers to produce below cost.  NAFTA dictates that Mexico must allow this food in.  The NAFTA timetable required that on January 1, 2008, Mexico remove its final restrictions on the imports of staple food products—opening its border completely to imports of corn and beans.

Mexican farmers have been devastated by low prices for corn and other crops.  Farm families have been forced off their land, and forced to relocate to large cities and border-town maquilidoras.  NAFTA’s body-blow to Mexico’s farm sector has meant a rapid rise in the number of Mexicans who are landless, unemployed, poor, and desperate.

This growing number of desperately poor Mexican citizens has created social unrest and instability and, in some cases, a pool of people willing to work for the drug cartels.  Expanding drug cartel violence, the attendant corruption of some police and justice officials, a growing sense of lawlessness, declining safety, and declining economic prospects have driven many Mexican families to flee their homes—some have come to Canada to try to obtain refugee status.

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He was part of Prime Minister John Key’s four-countries-in-four-days Pacific junket and claims the trip left him fearing for the future of some of the Pacific’s most pristine tourist destinations.

Unchecked pollution and poor management has left many beautiful spots in jeopardy, he says.

He singled out Tonga and the Cook Islands in particular, saying these places should be seen as world heritage sites, but their government officials were failing to give attention to the rapid degradation of their environment.

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The Emissions Trading Scheme, as it stands, would sink Fonterra’s plans to grow milk production by between 1 and 3 per cent each year.

“If you put the system that was in against the dairy industry then you would have a 5 per cent drop-off in production because of the extra cost to the farmer and the extra costs to Fonterra,” said Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier.

It’s Ferrier’s view the cost of carbon emissions should be carried by the farmers rather than by Fonterra.

“If it’s paid on-farm every farmer gets treated the same and it’s the farmer who can adjust.

“If you want to push change we can’t change it, the farmer can.”

However it works, a drop in production was counter to Fonterra’s growth plans, he said.