It is not uncommon these days to see advertisements urging us to buy local because local shops have done it hard during the Covid-19 lockdowns. This sentiment used to be confined to the Greens and the new economics groups, but it is now widely accepted. Continue reading “Re-localisation includes local currencies and local banking”
Nearly half of New Zealand’s emissions are from livestock. A shocking 46.1% for the year 2012 as calculated by the Ministry for the Environment. (MfE). A large proportion of this comes from beef and to a less extent sheep. The MfE paper tells us tells us that in 2012 we had 6.4 m dairy cattle, 3.8m beef cattle, 3.1 m sheep and 1 m deer. So a total of 14.3m ruminant livestock. Continue reading “New Zealand’s agricultural emissions are high”
The website of the Poultry Industry Association of NZ (PIANZ) says we kill 125 million birds a year. This tallies well with Stats NZ which gives 124 million, – much the same. This works out at 238 chickens a minute or about four per second are killed day and night. And we would each eat 25 chickens a year. Continue reading “The chicken industry kills four chickens every second in New Zealand”
Hi! I am Deirdre Kent and I live in a retirement village in Waikanae, an hour north of Wellington in New Zealand. For the last 20 years I have been thinking and writing and acting on the topic of New Economics. This site has a lot of blogs about New Economics, including a lot about my last book. However, more recently my passion has been on advocating for Whole Food Plant Based Eating. So here you will find new material on that topic.
Because I am older, I started eating this way for health reasons, although others adopt it for environmental reasons and of course animal welfare reasons. I want to stay alive and I also am glad that eating this way is one of my small contributions to reducing emissions.
I will be blogging here and giving you links to material from the various authorities on this topic.
So enjoy!
Although about a fifth of the South Island high country is owned by Government and leased out to runholders, this is changing. Since 1992 the Government has allowed the privatisation of leasehold land. Called “tenure review” it involves an unusual deal and the government loses. The runholders because of their input into the farm claim the improvements belong to them. They end up getting part of the farm for a song. No I am wrong – they sometimes make money on the deal by a strange mechanism. And then they flip it on, making millions in the process. The less valuable land is kept for conservation. There is something strange about the land valuation process. Continue reading “Time to halt privatisation of high country”
Half hour interview with Karl Fitzgerald of Prosper Australia on the Big Shift. https://www.mixcloud.com/RenegadeEconomists/ Continue reading “Interview on the Big Shift”
This is the trailer for the video record of the Living Economies Expo, from April 2017. Individual recordings of most of the talks will be through the post-production process soon, so those who were unable to attend can still receive the content.
Helen told me she only has 7 copies left out of 42 so that means there have been quite a few sales. Continue reading “Book selling well and I have my first meeting arranged”
Anneleise Hall interviewed me on Access Radio Christchurch. It is a 20 min interview that gets up speed as it goes. http://www.accessradio.org/ProgrammePage.aspx?PID=0454b139-aa11-442d-8479-8f585336c885
So great plans to get to Lyttelton early didn’t work out because of the fog at the airport, in fact fog all over Wellington, most unusual. Lots of people going to the Expo are similarly trapped, some going tomorrow and some the day after. Here is the programme. I don’t get there till Friday now.
That gives me an extra day to practise my talk and work on this website.