On her bike

For a bit of 2012 and most of 2013 I borrowed the Auckland Frocks on Bike bike to see if I could get around on two pedals.  I've written about that experience here.  In November last year I decided I'd been dipping my toes in for long enough and invested in a bike, complete with basket, bike lock, rear rack, and good intentions galore.  My mum gave me The World's Largest Bike Bell.  I decorated the basket with some flowers from a broken plastic lei.

It's actually going well.  I have worked out I have poor balance (I fall off quite a bit, have trouble with take off too), and that's not all that likely to go away.  I'm also rather scared of going fast, so I use the brakes a lot going downhill.  People smile at me more when I have the basket on, and it's quite delightful to be able to get around my suburb and a bit further afield and say hello to those I meet on the street; something I could never do in a car.

What I've worked out is that when I cycle I feel I am a part of the neighbourhood I'm moving through, with all my senses, as opposed to being separated from it by the steel and glass shell of a car.  And that's a good feeling.

Cycling has become an important part of my self-care regime, along with nice-smelling stuff from Lush, visits to Savemart, a daily dose of anti-depressants, cuddles from young children of my acquiantance, reading novels, naps, eating cake, a monthly visit to a psychotherapist, and saying a cheery hello to people on the street.

At Suffrage Day last year my colleague and friend Pippa Coom, deputy chair of the Waitemata Local Board, spoke at Khartoum Place about what a bicycle meant to women in the 1800s; freedom.  I must admit I initiatlly thought that was a bit OTT, but on reflection I can feel that freedom whenever I ride.  For me it's a very different freedom from that of my foremothers and -sisters, but still it is freedom that is meaningful to me now.  Freedom from relying heavily on oil, freedom from traffic, freedom from being shackled to using roads to get around (cycleways through parks FTW!), freedom to experience the city around me directly.  Freedom to park for free, and get some sneaky inadvertent exercise, and get more sun, and ring a bell at people with good reason.

I'm not in this for health, although cycling does help me feel better.  I'm not in it to save the planet, because I know I can't do that on my own however much I can set an example.  I'm not in it to save money, appreciated consequence though that is.   I'm in it because in my current circumstances it is simply the best way for me to get around most of the time, and it helps me to feel well.

The bike I was previously borrowing felt like it acquired a name after a while (Bertie), but I haven't taken the step with the new one yet.  I've thought about Decca, and Agnes, and Ingrid, but I'm open to your suggestions.  Bruiser or Freedom seem more appropriate some days!  Feel free to leave your ideas in comments.

That Sam Judd Article - A Dissection

Does it ever make you cringe when you see someone who is overweight gouging themselves on takeaways?

No, no it doesn't actually. I rarely take any notice of what people I don't know are eating - and if I do it's usually because it looks good and I wonder where they got it or how they made it. If they're someone I know, I'm probably more interested in them. Odd how I have better things to do with my time than hanging round judging random people on the street. (Look at me not focusing on the word 'gouging' because there's so much else to rant about.)

It is not just the health problems that irk me 

Oh, you're concerned. How caring of you.

many environmental problems stem from an unhealthy diet also. 

You know, I'll be expecting some pretty significant evidence for this, and a definition of that 'unhealthy diet'.

Just take a walk in the central city early on a Saturday morning and count how many fast food wrappers you see in the drains.

Oh! So it's about rubbish on the streets!  Well there's a detailed macro analysis of the environmental problems we face.

I believe there is an inextricable link between people who don't look after their own health and those who damage our environment.

That would be... governments and multi national corporations, right? No? Oh, you're talking about individuals? Mysterious fat individuals who drop rubbish, despite the fact you don't appear to have seen this actually happen, only surveyed the streets on a Saturday morning. See, you keep talking about fat people and you talk about there being excess packaging on food you perceive as unhealthy, but you fail to make any actual connection between the two, other than the fact that the two together make you cringe. I'd suggest the problem might be one of your perception. 

Single use convenience food packaging and sugary pre-mixed bourbon and cola drink containers are constantly proving to be the biggest source of rubbish on our streets and beaches. 

Bourbon and cola? Really? Not lime baccardi breezers or vodka fuse? I'm happy you can be this specific. Clearly bourbon's the problem - and if we all switched to other drinks the problem would be solved.

New Zealand has the 7th worst obesity rate in the world.

You do realise that obesity is a meaningless construct, right? Oh...

[...]

Can our terrible eating habits be blamed on urbanisation? 

Well, you might want to establish what our eating habits actually are first.

As more people flock to newly developed apartment dwellings in cities, they give up the opportunity to have a garden and teach their kids how to grow food. 

Yeah, where you live is entirely a choice and has nothing whatsoever to do with money, availability, transport, access or anything else.

But Statistics New Zealand figures say that, although the percentage is rapidly rising only around 20,000 of our 4,000,000-odd people lived in apartments in 2006.
Most kiwis want to have their own slice of outdoor space...
So it seems that most of us have the space to grow food, but we are too lazy to do it. It is easier to pile yourself into a car and burn fuel to visit a shop where unhealthy food (likely to be wrapped in single use plastic packaging) awaits our lazy bellies.

Here's the thing. Even when there genuinely is the space - and a lot of residences that aren't apartments don't have it -you may be working long hours. Your landlord may forbid you from modifying the garden. You may not have the startup cash. You may have the startup cash but not be able to take the risk that if you fail you won't have any food to eat. You may be disabled in ways that make this impossible. You may work long hours and have childcare issues and just be plain exhausted. You may have to move between rentals every year and there's never chance to get anything going.
But thanks for making people feel bad for doing what they need to survive, demeaning them and making broad assumptions about their resources. I hope that makes you feel really awesome.
And I still have no fucking idea what this has to do with fat people.

[...]
It is healthier, cheaper and better for the environment to eat fresh food that can be grown at home. 

Not... necessarily. Healthy depends on how well it's grown and what your dietry needs are. Cheaper depends on your resources, economies of scale and what it is you need to grow. And better for the environment really depends on the policies of those growing food on a wider scale - perhaps you should talk to them. Nevertheless...

When we are educating school students about using less waste, one of the best examples that we can use is growing it yourself.
And it really isn't that hard to start. If you don't have the space, or wouldn't know the difference between clay and topsoil- there are many community gardens out there, where people can usually learn essential gardening skills and share a space. You can check out this handy guide here.
Some school students are lucky enough to be getting gardening skills already through the Enviroschools network and other fantastic organisations like The Garden to Table Trust, which is working with Waterfront Auckland on an edible garden by the sea on the north wharf.

Aside from another assumption about difficulty levels, there's actually some good stuff in here.  If your aim was to encourage people to grow their own food, you could have provided these resources and some people may well have used them. But instead you've fuelled fat hate and made people feel like crap for their limited resources. I'm sure this has made people (particularly fat people) who would like to grow their own food more (incidentally I'm one of them) but don't find it easy really receptive to your message. Go you!

Pipe dreams of fracking

Last night I went to see Gasland, a documentary about Josh Fox wandering around the United States and talking to people with fracking rigs nearby about what fracking was doing to their land, their water, their health, their animals.  I was expecting to find it interesting, and that I'd feel more sure we should know the impacts of pouring toxic chemicals and enormous amounts of water under high pressure into the earth in order to help it break apart and release natural gas before we expanded it here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

But I found it much more shocking than that.  Industry lobbyists testifying to US politicians that there is no need for regulation of fracking, because there is "no evidence" of any problems, anywhere.  That they shouldn't have to disclose the chemicals used, because there are no problems.

This is just after we've seen Mr Fox talking to dozens of people with water which looks like tea leaves, or concentrated urine, or the oily remnants of a fry up.  Families with water they can set alight, because natural gas is now one of the things coming through their taps.  Pets with hair falling out.  Prize-winning environmental scientists documenting connections between the chemicals being used in fracking and neurological disorders which some people in some parts of the US where fracking is happening are reporting.

Now I'm an evidence based kind of woman.  Two scientist parents and a healthy streak of "why would that group want me to think that" gave me that.  But I can think of no reason all of these people would be telling these stories of fracking unless they were true.  And I can think of no reason on Papatuanuku why anyone in Aotearoa would support more fracking here unless they cared only about making money. 

So I'm supporting Gareth Hughes in his call for a moratorium on fracking until we know it's safe.  We know it causes "small" earthquakes, hardly of no concern for any of us in our shaky isles.  We can celebrate the fact that Christchurch recently declared itself a no fracking zone. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our world asked people wanting to profit from our land to prove their processes were safe?  Or even more wonderful, that instead of continuing to pillage our land, we put resources into exploring and establishing alternative and sustainable fuel sources.  It could happen here.  Time to cycle to work.

Another IWD event

Here's another International Women's Day event, to add to these ones I mentioned earlier in the week:

Auckland - Lunch with Kiribati community leader - 12.30pm - 2pm, on 8th March, AUSA Executive Chambers, 4 Alfred St, University of Auckland's city campus. Organised by AUSA with Oxfam on Campus and The Campus Feminist Collective. Facebook event listing, RSVP by 5th March please. Message from organisers:

Pelenise Alofa Pilitati is a respected community leader in Kiribati, one of the Pacific nations most threatened by climate change. Pelenise lives with daily awareness of the effects of climate change. As Chairperson of the Church Education Director's Association in Kiribati (CEDAK) she is acutely aware of the impact climate change is having on the future prospects and outlook of young people.

Recently Pelenise was at the Copenhagen climate change summit in December 2009 where she was one of four climate witnesses at an Oxfam International Climate Hearing hosted by Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson.

The event will also feature Yvonne Underhill- Sem (Director of the Centre for Development Studies) and Anita Lacey (Lecturer in Political Studies)

Anymore events, please let us know :-)

modern life

i like to think of myself as someone who cares about the environment. i'm concientious with recycling & separate out all my paper, vegetable scraps, plastics/glass/cans and other rubbish. i try to reuse plastic containers and bags as much as i can. i avoid buying bottled water unless i'm desperate, use discarded boxes at pak'n'save to take my groceries home, and carry my shopping sans plastic bags from as many retailers as i'm able. i haven't planted trees myself, although my garden is full of them.

but there is one area of my life where i am unable (or more accurately, unwilling) to reduce my carbon footprint. appliances. i love them. i can not possibly imagine living a life without my dishwasher, clothes dryer, dehumidifier, heater, rice-cooker, food-processor, microwave, computer, mobile phone and electric blanket.

i'm talking about the (basically) non-essentials here, ie not just the stove, vacuum cleaner, telephone and washing machine which the majority of households couldn't manage without. i'm talking about all those extra devices which exist purely to save time or to provide comfort. in this regard, i'm a total urbanite. for me, a fun holiday does not involve camping in a tent, cooking on an open fire, relieving myself in a hole in the ground, and bathing in the nearest lake or river. no way. i want a decent motel/hotel with all the modern comforts available.

i know it's naughty, and i often feels quite decadent when the dishwasher, the dryer, the laptop and the dehumidifier are all going at the same time. but i can't seem to help myself. some of these appliances are crucial to me as a working mum with a hectic lifestyle. i just don't have energy at the end of a busy day to be doing a whole pile of dishes or hanging out and taking in the clothes. the dehumidifier is a health requirement - i find that my asthma is a lot worse if i don't use it in the winter months.

but most of them are just habit, a part of modern living. but i wouldn't have any of them taken away. i grew up in the era before mobile phones, but now i can't imagine living without mine. i grew up writing with pen and paper, but now i only feel comfortable composing on the computer. i love the concept of electronic books and MP3s (even though i don't own these), so that you can have access to thousands of songs or books in one easy and small device.

generally, i think progress is a wonderful thing, and i don't tend to look back into the past with any kind of nostalgia. what i'd really like, though, is to be able to enjoy my appliances without any kind of guilt. to me, they represent freedom. in the sense that they free up my time, which means that i can blog, i can volunteer for various organisations, i can be politically active, i can do all sorts of things that i wouldn't have been able to do if i didn't have these appliances.

i think of most of my appliances as feminists devices that enable to me achieve and that give me choices i wouldn't otherwise have had. so what's the best way to mitigate my huge carbon footprint without giving up my beloved appliances?

A few events this week

Monday 19th October - National Day of Action against funding cuts to sexual abuse counselling:
AUCKLAND: Meet at 12pm, Albert Park band rotunda, CBD

WELLINGTON: Meet at 12.30pm, Cenotaph

CHRISTCHURCH: Meet at 12.30pm, Speakers Corner, Cathedral Square (beside Chess
Board)

DUNEDIN: Meet at 3pm, ACC offices (Corner Maclaggan & Clark Streets)
Facebook page here.


Wednesday 21st October - Drinking Liberally Akl w Bunny McDiarmand from Greenpeace:
London Bar, cnr Queen & Wellesley Sts, from 7pm.
More on Facebook


Thursday 22nd October - Drinking Liberally Wgtn w Celia Wade-Brown on the future of local government in Wellington
The Southern Cross, Abel Smith St, from 5.30pm
Also more on Facebook

The Age of Stupid

I went and saw the documentary The Age of Stupid the other night. It is good. You should see it. And yes, I cried (for me it was the bit about the Nigerian village that did it). The film was at its best when showing how climate change is already affecting peoples' lives. The most shocking statistic for me was that while only 1% of scientists don't believe climate change is real, 60% of the general public remain unconvinced. (Interestingly, I read a statistic when I was in Australia a while ago that said that a large number of Australians do believe it is real, no doubt because people there are experiencing the effects on a national scale to a greater extent than elsewhere).

The film's Kiwi producer, Lizzie Gillet, had this to say in a NZ Herald review posted on the movie website:

"We wanted to make a film that had an impact," Gillett says "We didn't want to be preaching to the converted. More importantly, I think there is a lot of research out there and people know about climate change but are just not doing anything, so we tried to make a film that engages people emotionally more than intellectually ... to persuade them to do something about climate change.

I agree that the science is compelling, however, the one thing that disappointed me about the film is that it felt very light on what that something is that we need to do about climate change. We saw people from the rich world growing their own food, attending protests, thinking about how they can reduce their carbon emissions on an individual level. One man who was interviewed, the wind farm guy, referred to taking action on climate change as a "moral issue". I think that this misses the point; the best chance we have of addressing climate change at is by facing it as a political issue that can be addressed at the national level.

By talking about climate change as either an individual moral problem, or a global crisis, we miss the point that it is governments that will make a difference here with initiatives such as taxing pollution so that the real costs associated with production and distribution are being included in prices. Again, in Australia last week the news was full of the fact that food prices will be affected by their recently announced emissions targets and there was well-placed concern about the effect that this would have on the poor. To deal with this real problem the Rudd government announced that they would target social assistance to those families affected by increased prices. This is the approach we need to take here in New Zealand as well.

I recommend the film and hope you will have the chance to see it. However, changing behaviour on an individual level to seek to address climate change may feel good morally but what we need to do is to really make progress on this is to take this on collectively through our political processes.

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Fourteen years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his fellow Nigerian activists were put to death by the Nigerian state, with the collusion of Shell Oil. The 'Ogoni nine', as the executed activists are now known, were campaigners against the state-sanctioned exploitation of Nigeria's Ogoni people by Shell. The oil company's long-standing drilling operations on the Ogonis' land had degraded the environment until it had become unlivable; and their objections had been brutally quelled by the Nigerian military. Following a sham trial, and in the face of international outcry and disgust, Nigeria silenced Saro-Wiwa and the other activists by hanging them in 1995.

Saro-Wiwa's son, Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr, wrote of his father:

Ken Saro-Wiwa's real "crime" was his audacity to sensitise local and global public opinion to the ecological and human rights abuses perpetrated by Shell and a ruthless military dictatorship against the Ogoni people.... In response to his campaign, Shell armed, financed and otherwise colluded with the Nigerian military regime to repress the non-violent movement, leading to the torture and shootings of Ogoni people as well as massive raids and the destruction of Ogoni villages.

This month, on the eve of what would have been an historic human rights trial, Shell settled with the Ogoni people, paying $15.5 million in recognition that it had conspired with the Nigerian state to bring about the deaths of the Ogoni nine. Fifteen million will do little to restore the degradation of Ogoni land, or heal the scars of the people. It certainly won't wash the blood from Shell's hands. But it is an acknowledgment, or the beginning of one: and it has been a long time coming.

In the face of this, there is something extraordinarily moving about the graciousness shown by Saro-Wiwa's son:

The day after my father was hanged, I was asked my opinion of Shell and I didn't hesitate to answer that Shell was part of the problem and must be part of the solution. I haven't changed my opinion. I am not interested in retributive justice but a justice that is creative, a justice that enables all stakeholders in this affair to account for and learn lessons from the past so that we can all move forward within a constructive and sustainable framework. We have to remain committed to building the kind of world that ensures that people who live on natural resource-bearing areas are not treated as collateral damage in a senseless race for profit.

Fashion Schmashion

I actually quite like fashion - but on other people. Personally, I can't be arsed with it. I feel vague envy of the tastefully, expensively dressed women I work with from time to time; but I like those who turn up looking unexciting but comfortable. I belong in the latter camp. I also love those creative types who combine eccentric op shop clothing with great flair, and I take my hat off to those who are skilled enough to make their own clothing - that's a talent I'd love to have.

Shopping isn't much fun for me. I find shops claustrophobic (particularly when I have fractious small children with me), and they tend to remind me that I don't have much money. It was even worse when I was overweight - going to the shops just reinforced that I was poor and fat. What a barrel of laughs that was.

In the last couple of years, my late-to-arrive environmental commitment has led me to buy secondhand goods as much as I can - particularly clothing. (A limited budget makes my green principles far easier to uphold.) My kids are still a little too young to have succumbed to sartorial peer pressure, so they don't mind. And I actively enjoy it: I've spent many a happy hour browsing Trade Me or op shops. Down the road from my house is a small tailor's shop - the woman there will alter the garments I pick up for myself for a very low price. It all gives me a righteous glow of thrift, community belonging and environmental harmony.

How do other THMers interact with the world of fashion? And do you have any recession-friendly fashion tips?

Drinking Liberally in Wellington this Thursday and Auckland next Wednesday

Wellington features Professor Phillipa Howden-Chapman on healthy homes tomorrow Thursday night:

When: WednesdayThursday 14th May, from 5.30pm (speaker at 6pm)
Where: The Southern Cross, Abel Smith St, Wellington
Facebook event listing here.

And next week Auckland's DL crew have something of an exciting triple-header - Sue Bradford and Metiria Turei both addressing the topic of the future of the Green Movement in Aotearoa New Zealand, facilitated by my favourite Political Studies lecturer, Raymond Miller. The No. 4 Alfred St Women's Club will be pleased. It's going to be at a different venue from normal:

When: Wednesday 20th May, from 7pm (speakers from 7.30pm)
Where: Galatos, 17 Galatos St, Newton, Auckland
Facebook event listing yet to come.

This will be something of a defacto leadership debate for the broader left to attend if they so desire. Sadly I will be in Wellington that night, but not so sadly I will be at The Hand Mixer! More info tomorrow once we have a few more bits and pieces confirmed.

Apologies for getting the day of the week wrong for Wellington, thanks to an Anon for putting me straight :-)

Quick hit: Lose weight or kill the planet

From Reuters, via Stuff:

Overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

"When it comes to food consumption, moving about in a heavy body is like driving around in a gas guzzler," and food production is a major source of greenhouse gases, researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in their study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

"We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend toward fatness, and recognize it as a key factor in the battle to reduce (carbon) emissions and slow climate change," the British scientists said.

They estimated that each fat person is responsible for about one tonne of carbon dioxide emissions a year more on average than each thin person, adding up to an extra one billion tonnes of CO2 a year in a population of one billion overweight people.

The European Union estimates each EU citizen accounts for 11 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

There are many many reasons why some people eat more than others. And our measures of what constitutes "overweight" are not always very robust. I wish this article was a bit longer and had a bit more analysis about what the problem is and some possible solutions.

Cloth nap unionist

Some days it feels like parental choices only make life harder. Public or private schooling, breastfeeding or formula-fed, natural birth or caesarean, immunized or not, and now disposables or cloth. All of these options have their adherents, and a few in each camp aren’t afraid to be pushy, rude or even nasty about why their view ought to prevail for us all.

Cloth seemed like the obvious choice for us, before Wriggly arrived. We’re stereotypical urban white liberals, who like to think our individual efforts to recycle, compost and use public transport can make a difference. Surely we wouldn’t be the kind of people who would willfully choose to sully Clean Green New Zealand by contributing tonnes of disposable nappies to landfill?

Well, as with many of these choices, the answer is both yes and no. A harmonious blend* if you will.

A newborn baby is a demanding beast and frankly there’s enough laundry already without adding nappy inners, outers and overnight booster pads to the load. Especially if you’re parenting alone, you’ve had a caesearean and shouldn’t lift anything remotely heavy, you’ve got other kids to look after, breastfeeding and sleep deprivation are exhausting you, your partner is working long hours, or you simply can’t afford the outlay. There are many good reasons why parents would choose the convenience of disposable, and some of these apply to my little family.

One of the pro-cloth arguments that annoys me is the money-saving theory. Yes on the face of it cloth nappies could save you money, a lot of money, over the course of the several years your baby will wear them. But the outlay required is rather extreme and thus beyond the reach of many. Cloth nappies can cost $20 each. And that’s without the additional laundry costs, and putting a monetary value on the time of the person doing all that washing. I’ve worked out that I’ll need to use each cloth nappy around 80 times for it to be cheaper than disposables, and even with a booster pad they may not be absorbent enough for Wriggly overnight. I don’t think we did break even on the cloth nappies we used along with disposables when Wriggly was smaller, especially given how long the suckers take to dry after laundering. Round and round and round they went in the dryer in the persistently wet winter we had in Auckland last year.

But I do want to get our boy back in cloth if possible. We’re hoping to get a bit of a cash injection soon and I’d like to put this towards kitting him out in the appropriate outers and inners and covers and whatnot. Like so many of the green initatives we are encouraged to take up, my family can do this because we (will, hopefully,) have the readies. Otherwise we’d be continuing to spend more, and make more rubbish, with disposables, because it’s far easier to spend $2000 over 2 years than $400 in one day.


* Or dialectical materialism if you prefer.

A small victory for green-tinged nerds?

I'm a nerd. I like books and documentaries. I also like the environment, and diligently minimise waste and recycle. For these reasons, amongst others, Christmas sends shivers down my geeky earth-loving spine.

As a parent of small children, I find my house inundated with shite over the Christmas season. Kindhearted, well-meaning family and friends send my kids a world of presents, which they open with excitement at first - but after a while, the sheer volume of gifts becomes tiring, even for two gleeful and energetic little ragamuffins high on early morning chocolate.

When the present-opening is over, the detritus is a horrible tribute to the mindless consumption and environmental destruction that is Christmas. The floor of the lounge can't be seen for discarded paper, and even before the unwrapping is done the kids have lost interest in a great many of their presents. This while other kids do without, including in our own suburb. The presents are, as often as not, cheap and junky things manufactured under dubious labour conditions in desperately poor countries - perhaps made by kids little older than my own. It's hard to feel good about it.

It made me feel slightly better to read this article in today's Dom Post. Apparently, the tough financial times are forcing Christmas shoppers to consider their purchases more carefully, choosing gifts with longer-lasting appeal, such as books and plants, over spangly junky stuff. It seems that one of very few upsides to the global recession is a needed change to our consumption habits.

As a nerd, I do get a secret enjoyment from seeing my kids reading or playing educational games - but nerdish elitism isn't the cause of my biggest objection to junky gifts. My kids have a wide range of plastic and electronic rubbish, and watch lots of TV. If that was all they did, I'd be concerned - but I figure that, so long as they get enough exercise and participate in other learning and leisure activities, time spent with junky toys doesn't matter so much. I have noticed that, because they get so much bright and shiny stuff, it's hard to give my kids something which they'll think is special.

I'm more bothered by the sheer waste caused by one-hit-wonder toys that kids lose interest in quickly. I'm thinking of toys like those remote control robotic dinosaurs that were in vogue a couple of years ago. They were fun to play with for half an hour. After that, they were simply a $100 pile of shite cluttering the house.

What to do about all this, I don't know. There's no doubt that kids like elaborate toys with whistles and bells - I was no exception. It's too late for this year, but next year, I'm thinking about doing a Christmas register for my kids - letting those who feel they absolutely must buy stuff for my kids know what it is that they want or need, so at least there's no duplication. I'm going to get together with parents of other young kids (too young to be discerning) and see if we can exchange gifts to avoid buying new shite. And for myself, I'll continue to buy nerdy, environmentally-friendly gifts like books and plants.

See you in the future

Tonight the Large Hadron Collider fires up for the first time. It could be the end of us, or it could be the beginning of a new era of scientific discovery. Probably somewhere in between.

Anyway the arrival of the future has spurred me to finally write a post that has been ricocheting around inside my head for a while. As I've watched Wriggly become more and more aware of his surroundings I've considered how different his world is from the planet of my childhood, not so very long ago.

Wriggly loves to play with things with buttons. In my day the buttoned items would have been largely restricted to cardigans, maybe stretching to doorbells. These days there is so much more for the energetic baby to fiddle with; remotes for televisions et al, cellphones, and computer keyboards for a start.

Wriggly will probably grow up never having seen anyone actually get up off the couch, walk to the television, and turn a dial to change the channel. For him, telephones will be cordless pieces of plastic which are primarily used, by his mum anyway, to communicate through sending text messages. I imagine he'll start imitating my thumb typing before he mimics me talking into the handpiece. When he's old enough I doubt he'll recognise the generic phone icon of my childhood, with it's characteristic curly cord, as a telephone at all.

Computers are in many houses and most workplaces now, and in many of our pockets too. Wriggly will be able to listen to music via a computerised player bought for a pittance, rather than having to save and save for one of those new-fangled cassette Walkmen. He probably won't even know what a cassette tape is, or a video tape. And camera film? Definitely a thing of the past; my son will expect to see the photo instantly, and be able to go again if he doesn't like the look of it.

Wriggly will expect to be able to put cold food into a box and have it come out hot, in a matter of moments, and put dirty dishes into a bigger box and have them come out clean, in a matter of an hour or less. For him the connections we make online will be old hat, he'll probably have a chip in his neck which gives him instant contact with all his friends on some level that is beyond our ability to comprehend now, just as this blog would have been beyond my Nana's understanding.

From a feminist perspective, I'm encouraged that Wriggly is unlikely to come to his electoral majority at a time when women MPs are a rarity, when a politician's sexuality is a matter of public interest, and when Parliament is whiter than the ice that hopefully still covers the poles (unless we go all The Handmaid's Tale of course). To his generation the words "the first woman to..." will rarely feature in the news, because the "weaker sex" will have broken through in so many fields that our presence is no longer remarkable.

To Wriggly and his peers the idea that opposition to racism, sexism and homophobia is just "PC gone mad" will, fingers crossed, seem absurd and so last century. They'll have zero tolerance for violence, domestic or otherwise, and they'll be evolved enough about sex to know that rape isn't "sex you regret." I hope that the adults of tomorrow will be empowered by us, the parents of today, to have honest communications about sex which mean asking for consent becomes a commonplace occurrence that is considered the turn-on it should be.

I try not to get down about the different physical environment Wriggly might encounter. That there may be species I take for granted now which he won't remember ever seeing, well it makes me sad. I couldn't read the 100 months stuff because it was just too depressing, in the context of mothering a child who is not yet even 10 months old. If I think about these matters at all I become rather anxious that Wriggly might not get much of a life and that there's nothing I can do to save him, so I turn away from it instead. The cowardly thing to do, I know. Let me turn away now, and back to some flippancy instead.

In the future, which is nearly upon us all, I hope that there is teleportation. Or if not, I hope that there is a decent public transport system for Auckland, and in particular that the plans for underground train stations in Auckland's CBD take root and flourish. I would love it if Wriggly grew up to know the wonder of living in a city with a Metro; if he could navigate through the intricacies of dozens of stations connected by different coloured lines with ease, while his father and I have to stand at the map scratching our heads and peering through our reading glasses in confusion.

There will be many instances in the years to come where Wriggly rushes ahead of me into the future, while I stand around in a daze, not quite ready to step out of the past. If I ever re-visit this post in that not-so-distant time I'm sure I'll be startled at all the things I didn't predict which seem so obvious with the benefit of hindsight.

I'm looking forward to finding out, with my son, what happens next.

And somehow, I find myself defending rugby players

In response to my earlier post on sport and violence, I found the following comment:

…the idea that because a man is an environmentalist or admits that he is suffering from depression he must be less violent than another man is quite an amusing one.

The response refers to my comment that Anton Oliver's environmental activism and John Kirwan's raising awareness of depression represent a move away from the thuggery of the 'Foreskin's Lament' days of the rugby club. I stand by my point; but I admit it needs some clarification!

Twenty plus years ago, my partner was an earnest young left-wing man who liked to read NME, discuss the work of the French feminists and decry nuclear testing. He also liked to play rugby, and (by his own nostalgic account, at least!) was quite good at it. He gave it up though: there was just no place for him in the rugby culture of the day, in which violence, homophobia, misogyny and racism were rife. The very worst and most destructive aspects of male behaviour were celebrated in rugby clubs.

A couple of decades later, things have and haven't changed. The recent rape of a young Auckland woman by four English players reminds us that the link between sport and violence remains intact. However, in those intervening years, some individuals have taken stands aimed to erode the worst excesses of rugby culture, and I'd like to give them credit for that.

I chose Anton Oliver and John Kirwan to illustrate my point because neither is known for violence on or off the field, in stark contrast to some of their contemporaries. Anton Oliver has been critical of the All Blacks' culture of drinking to excess; behaviour clearly correlated with violence.

However, those weren't the points I originally made. I drew attention to these players' environmental activism and depression campaigning respectively, because each of these represents in its way a stand against the larger, brutish rugby culture which saw the young Auckland woman victimised. In my partner's day, nothing would have gotten you branded a 'fag' quicker than showing green concerns or admitting to having a mental illness (and being a fag was clearly no good thing). Each and every attempt to broaden the definition of what it is to be masculine, away from stereotypical thuggish behaviour and towards something more socially responsible, should be supported by feminists, I think. We're not talking about large-scale heroism from Oliver or Kirwan, but I believe the stances made by these men took some gumption, and involved some personal cost.

It's quite true that having an environmental interest, or fronting a campaign which affirms it's OK for men to have emotions, doesn't mean a man is incapable of violence. However, both indicate an ability to think beyond and challenge the conventional rugby ideal of masculinity which is at times so destructive. Both show a willingness to try to do some positive thing for society. And although I'm not personally interested in rugby – I don't see the point of running about in mud, and find cauliflower ears alarmingly unattractive – I'm one of those woolly caring-and-sharing type liberal lefties who want to build solidarities with anyone who might share some common ground with me.

The feminist purist in me sees problems with my own stance. The pragmatist in me is willing to have a friendly political conversation with anyone – female or male, feminist or otherwise – who might be prepared to listen.

Being the Change and All That

Last night was Earth Hour. All over the world* people pledged to turn their lights off from 8pm to 9pm (local time) to show their commitment to reducing the parasitical impact humanity has on our planet.

In my house we gave it a go. We turned off most of the power switches in the house,and sat around by candlelight playing cards. After a while Wriggly needed a feed so we did that in the semi-dark too. It was good to turn the telly off for a night** and I think it reminded us that there are things to do that don't involve passively sitting around watching the box in the corner of the living room.

Engaging in individual activity as part of collective action, on a local, national or global scale, is a good thing, in my (never really very) humble opinion.

But...

Too much of this environmental action is about individuals putting their hands up alone, and frequently having to put their hands in their pockets. Take Air NZ's recent announcement that passengers can choose to offset the carbon costs of their flights. If Air NZ were serious about these measures they would simply make it part of the ticket cost, not an optional add-on. The costs as the airline has calculated them are quite low, relative to the overall cost of flying with Air NZ, so the only real advantage (to our National Carrier) that I can see for the separation is so they can use it as a promotional tool.

Deborah wrote an excellent post on this exact issue in relation to Ecobags a while back. Supermarkets are externalising the cost of a more sustainable approach to a small part of the overall packaging problem, by encouraging us all to buy reusable shopping bags. This is despite the fact that they could be shifting to using biodegradable plastic bags themselves. Even the Cook Islands' supermarket has greener carry bags that most in NZ.

And Maia has a new piece up at Capitalism Bad which points out that even union rags are falling for the soft, one-person-can-change-the-world, options here - for those on low incomes saving power is something they do in the first instance because it costs so damn much.

The capital-intense "solutions" so often suggested are simply not an option for many people. Even for those who do own their own homes the money to install solar water heating does not fall from the sky in great dollops everytime it rains. Nor is it an option to rebuild your abode to take advantage of passive solar. In fact even though in my home we try to be a bit green around the edges we have still not switched completely over to the low energy power bulbs - I'm just swapping over to them as the old ones run out, rather than just going around and changing them all at once. At $5 a pop they are quite a hit on the grocery bill.

As long as we have power companies that exist to make a profit, and aren't above a bit of Christmas Lights Competition Frenzy to do so, I'm not sure that we can make much of a difference, as individuals. What's necessary is to get larger organisations involved, like the Schoolgen programme Genesis Energy has started up to get solar power into schools (Hattip: Directions, the AA Magazine). If government departments get on board with real change to their resource use, as Idiot/Savant suggests the carbon neutrality policy will require, they could lead the way. It would be great to see the widespread adoption of sustainable practices by businesses, but I suspect few will put it high on the agenda unless it is, like the Ecobags case, good for their bottomline.

As individuals we can do a bit, but we can't do it all. To make real change, lasting change, it won't just be what we do in our personal time that shifts the balance.

* Well I'm going to be a bit sarky here and point out that probably it was mainly the wealthier parts of the world. After all a lot of the world doesn't have access to electricity at all.

** Even though Mean Girls was on! Luckily I have already seen it.

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