Category: Sustainable Settlement and Agriculture
The Generator is founded on the simple premise that we should leave the world in better condition than we found it. The news items in this category outline the attempts people have made to do this. They are mainly concerned with our food supply and settlement patterns. The impact that the human race has on the planet.
admin /1 March, 2009
Social researcher and Pullitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond, has predicted a 49% chance western civilisation will collapse, due to the way politicians and key decision makers are dealing with the current crises – the world economic meltdown, peak oil, overpopulation, and the ongoing rape of the environment.
One of the main historical predictors of a civilisation surviving is role of its decision makers. “If decision makers themselves suffer from the consequences of their actions, they are motivated to make decisions good for the whole of society,” says Diamond. “But if decision makers are able to insulate themselves from the rest of society, then they are more likely to make decisions that are bad for the rest of us.”
admin /22 February, 2009
From the UK Guardian
Environment ministers overcame seven years of obstacles today and committed to reducing the world’s mercury pollution.
In a sign of America’s return to a global leadership role, United Nations environment ministers meeting in Nairobi agreed to take immediate steps to limit exposure to mercury.
admin /22 February, 2009
Greens senator, Rachel Siewert, tabled a motion which was supported by a majority of the Australian Senate, condemning violence by the Japanese whaling ships in the southern ocean and threatening to take legal action against the Japanese whalers in the international courts.
A transcript of the motion follows.
admin /22 February, 2009
Four days after the Australian Senate passed a resolution condemning Japanese whaling, the Australian Federal Police boarded the anti-whaling ship, Steve Irwin, and confiscated months worth of video and audio recordings as well as the log books and documentation of the ship’s anti-whaling activities in the Southern Ocean. Skipper of the Steve Irwin, Captain Paul Watson, said “The Rudd government was elected on a promise to take the Japanese whaling industry to court for their illegal whaling activities. Now they seem to be more interested in taking Sea Shepherd to court for our efforts to intervene against illegal whaling operations.” He has successfully challenged illegal whaling operations in many courts over the twenty years he has operated his crusade against whaling. The Steve Irwin is named after the famous Australian animal activist, who died after an encounter with a sting ray. His foundation is a major supporter of Sea Shepherd.
Read the resolution of the Australian Senate
admin /15 February, 2009
An environmental vandal was fined $400,000 for destroying 486 hectares of wetlands at Yarool Station in the Gwydir district in northern NSW. The Gwyir wetlands are the breeding ground for a large range of water birds inluding ibis, herons, spoonbills and ducks. More than 90 percent of the wetlands have been cleared in the last two decades. The farmer had been warned in 2004 not to clear the land but claimed that he thought the warning actually gave him permission. The land was cleared by two giant bulldozers linked with chains.
admin /15 February, 2009
A new Queensland farm lobby group, FutureFood, was formed last week to represent farmers whose land is under threat from proposed mines. “We are not an anti-mine group, but some prime farmland simply shouldn’t be mined,” said co-chairs Geoff Hewitt and Charlie Wilson. “It defies logic that a farm capable of producing premium food for thousands of years into the future, would be permanently destroyed to allow for 20 years of coal mining.” The group described food security as an issue that could put the Murray Darling crisis in the shade.
