Government to favour sustainably produced goods and services
Environmental Choice-ticked products (very short list)
Hunter Lovins talks to ABC about natural capitalism [23MB mp3]
Natural capitalism means businesses a. using resources heaps more productively and eliminating waste, b. altering production methods to imitate nature (e.g. spider make stronger-than-kevlar webs at room temperature sans vats of sulphuric acid), c. become restorative rather than extractive of natural capital. Yeah!
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See in the DomP yesterday Helen announcing plans to have a handful of government departments carbon-neutral by 2012? Replacing petrol limo’s with diesels and hybrids, making phone calls in place of flights, and planting trees on crown land. It’s almost as if she meant what she said in her ‘aspirational speech’ you quoted a month back…
This is good.
yeah almost……as Key said treasury will be planting Bonsai trees on the back lawn!
Re: replacing ministerial limos.
I was thinking about that this morning. Unless the old limos have gone in the crusher (or better still, have been recycled), then replacing them means that there are now simply more cars on the road. Someone else will be driving those Ford Fairlanes somewhere else.
Wouldn’t it be better to keep the Fairlanes, if they need cars at all, and a) use them until they’re dead (i.e. don’t replace them until they’re screwed), and/or b) use them less?
Dan Dan you miss the point it’s all about image..right right!
I trust they have a plan for the old Fairlanes, Dan. I mean, you’ve got a good point, but it’s one I’m sure they would have thought of.
Seriously, nothing about the current government’s environmental policies has proven to be rhetoric; I don’t get where this massive distrust* comes from.
*The distrust I’m talking about is well-spread throughout the country and expressed in different ways, ranging from your Dans to Dennises.
How about the RMA which means windfarms take over a year to approval in the Enviroment Court. Or Project Aqua on the Waitaki River which was also abandoned due to the dopy RMA and the prospect of endless appeals just so we could burn more
coal or the fact we export million of tons of coal to the Japanese (in effect export the problem)or their blind adherence to ‘nuclear energy is bad opinion’ etc etc. Granted much of our crisis in lack of investment in new energy scources is due to National’s Max Bradford privatising the generation systems. Labour have done too little in their term to date.
While you might not agree with the RMA, (or the nuclear stance, etc.), Labour has never been disingenuous about it. What I’m saying is, while you might hold that they have a history of being wrong or ineffective, they do not have a history of lying to the public on environmental matters. So I don’t see why, when Helen says, ‘we want to go carbon neutral’, people jump up and say, ‘I doubt it… they’re just saying that…’ and so forth.’
Labour have done plenty in their term, that’s what you fundies keep getting upset about, remember? It’s just that their focus to date has largely been on social policy, and now they are shifting their concern to environmental matters. Remember when they said, ‘we’re going to get this Civil Union thing going’, and when they said, ‘we’re going to cut those prostitutes some slack’ – sure, you don’t agree with the policies, but they got stuck in, followed through, and did what they said they would. Therefore I have no reason to doubt Helen means what she says on these environmental issues too.
If you disagree with policies, sure, vote for a different party; that’s the joy of democracy – but painting the government as stupid, ignorant, and disingenuous reminds me of the petulance of our old mate Don Brash.
‘You fundies’ – classic!
Re: 9 – Agreed – almost.
Ms Fitzsimmons (who, incidentally was at the same meeting as me this evening) doesn’t appear to be very convinced by the governments promises or actions with regard to the green campaign yet – and she should know.
Richard,
I imagine the Fairlanes would be leased. It which case, when the current leases expire, they’ll either be re-leased, or sold; for cheap.
Re: 9
Okay, I’d agree that the current government has done a lot. In fact, they’re quite prolific in many ways.
But what is there to show for what they’ve ‘done’?
When Steve Maharey was interviewed regarding the ‘hungry kids’ problem (whether that problem exists or not), his first and immediate response was “we’ll throw more money at it”.
You cannot measure the effectiveness of a venture by how much money is allocated to it.
Sure, they might be focusing on social policy, but it appears to be to the detriment of our society, rather than for its good.
On the RMA, it might be more how it’s used than the legislation itself. See Richie Flinn’s informative article, “Windfarms, brothels and you” from Prism Issue 2:
“… the RMA is a magnificent statute which protects the environment without unduly interfering in people’s lives. In theory. Unfortunately the devil is in the detail. Because the Act fails to give a clear direction to local authorities, it has been applied more or less as a traditional planning statute by most councils …”
Thanks Ben, and hence Richie – that’s a good article!
Interesting read there. Got me thinking – is it possible to plant a wind-power-generation facility into a certain space, and then plant that certain space with lowish-growing trees? How much more bang for your environmentally friendly dollar could you get?
yeah Richard Labour sucks ask anyone