From the outset there were a ton of social conventions to opt in and out of. Honestly, weddings are really funny things.

Our first decision, and by the far the most controversial was getting a civil union instead of a marriage. In New Zealand, gay, lesbian and transgender couples are still not allowed to be married under the Marriage Act. It blows my mind that in our life-time, we are still so afraid of minorities in our society. Anyway, in 2002, our parliament passed the Civil Union Act, which meant that any couple (irrespective of sexual orientation) could be united, and have all the legal hoo-hah that comes with marriage, only it couldn’t be called marriage and it couldn’t be under the Marriage Act.

Dave and I agreed, let’s not be part of something discriminatory, and so civil union it was.

Our next big decision was to keep the wedding budget as tight as possible. Weddings can be grotesquely expensive, brides especially can spiral out of control with frivolous unnecessaries (white china cupids etc) We had people coming along way to join us, so we wanted a good party, but not something that we couldn’t afford. The theme quickly became shabby chic with mismatching recycled everything.

And now here is the practical stuff.

Dave and I sat down and made a list of all the people we really wanted to come. Then we looked at the size of our backyard (our venue chosen because of our love for this broken city, and as a demilitarised zone for my warring parents). Adjustments were made, and then next to each persons name we wrote down what special talents they might have that could help us.

For example, Liam is a chef (wedding cake), Arabella is a designer (invites), Simon & Jane own a vineyard (glasses, wine), Meg & Henry just did all this themselves (advice, bunting), my sister makes paper cranes (decorations), Malcolm (sings), Keith (public speaker), George can make funny little icing people, Aunty Sarah (best desert maker), Alison is crafty and can paper make decorations, Mum has a flower garden and so on. Our list was epic. Turns out we were inviting an extraordinary amount of wonderfully talented people who were ready and willing.

So Dave and I just had to fill in the gaps of what was missing.

I picked up some amazing second hand carpet from Trademe to make a runner for our driveway.

We got a selection of mix-matched plates and cutlery from the Eco-shop (which is where the recycling depot for the dump send their stuff). It was great because they added so much personality, and there was no extra waste. We just washed the plates afterwards, picked out a couple of favourites to add to our home’s equally mis-matched collection and then gifted the rest back to the shop for another person’s enjoyment.

We did end up hiring a couple of tables, and a portaloo (for the authentic Christchurch experience).  My dress was made by the crafty Helen Forster, and Dave’s suit by Crane Brothers with the delightfully dapper Harry and Finn.

We decided on partially catering it with the help of Bamboozle, and guests that lived locally all brought sides and salads to share.

Malcolm McNeil sang with his friends Keith Petch, Bob Heins and Dave’s dad Howard on guitars. And music just sort of happened for the rest of the night. Talented people took turns at covering the microphone, it was all entirely unplanned, but beautiful and hilarious (thanks to Ambrose’s dedication of a Tim Minchin song).

All up a very nice little backyard wedding was had.

It was a dream job working for someone I admire immensely, with each day totally different from the one before. But like many things in life, it’s never static. Keith has now retired from politics to re-engage with life, family, sunshine and activism, and I’m really happy for him.

My partner Dave and I got civilly united in our backyard in Sumner, and I’ve now moved back to Sumner Christchurch to live with him, Charlie dog and our garden, which is now an active earthquake zone. Job hunting will commence shortly.

There are some pretty big things I feel like I have flitted past, but perhaps this is intended more of a “hello and brain-storming” post of what is to come, which may include….

“Our green themed wedding”

“Risking job security for love”

“Earthquake community”

“How to relax – challenges faced by compulsive list writer on day 4 of unemployment”

Yes, that’s a start. Stay tuned, this blog is going to get active again…

Pondering why, surely it can’t be because the “New Zealand audience” isn’t projected to be interested in the rest of the world? We are meant to be one of the most externally focused nations out there, with an almost compulsory OE for all young NZders, a self-depreciating form of anti-patriotism that almost everyone else does things better, and the highest population proportional representation of any country within the UN. I’m sure there are other markers for measuring whether a country looks inward or out, but as a whole, I would think New Zealanders are interested in the great wide world out there…

But that’s not really the problem I was getting at, because New Zealand is not alone in this crap news coverage phenomenon, rather, we should be asking why is the news so average?

An expatriate friend of mine was recently explaining why he no longer has faith in pretty much most main stream media outlets (an incredible story involving the BBC, murder, mayhem, govt funding).

Funding is a major problem. Finding a reliable news source takes a great deal of critical analysis, finding who owns media outlets, what their bias or background might be, how this could skew reporting, all of this should be considered. And its not necessarily the journalists fault. Apparently people need hype, scandal, and bite size stories for our shrinking attention spans. Our news is being dumb-downed so severely it makes school journals (given to 6+ yr olds in NZ schools) look comparatively academic.

So how do we actually find reliable news when we can’t all be journalists? There are few havens of journalistic intellectual integrity, and I am hoping that anyone reading this might add links to their favourites. I would like to start collecting them.

I for one love ‘The Guardian Weekly’, http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/

Well i mostly love it.

It was an article in there (30.04.10) ‘Court for Climate Crimes also sought by groups meeting in Bolivia” by Andres Schipani, that got me all riled up and now writing this blog. Last week there was the World People’s Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia. Unbelievable that this wasn’t news worthy in NZ.  Attended by 30,000 people (just short of COP15, but still a huge turn-out), they discussed the possibility of an International Court to punish climate crimes. Incredible.

Another old favourite has been Al Jazeera  http://english.aljazeera.net/  just for a different perspective, although with its own target audience etc to still be critical of, but entiely worthwhile nonetheless.

There is also the UN news service, which is limited to UN news and less frequently updated, but still includes a larger scope than what the latest adventures of Shrek the Sheep (sheep that hadn’t been sheared in a long time and got extreme news coverage here), http://www.un.org/News/

Any suggestions? I could use some direction towards worthwhile news blogs…

Might just leave this and see if it grows as i think of new sites and sources to add…

In the past month,  I’ve done several talks here in Christchurch trying to explain what happened at COP15. It’s not been easy, attempting to capture at least 5 different narratives within one coherent talk. There’s the story of New Zealand’s first ever Youth Delegation, the Conference itself, the story of the island nations, the energetic urgent desperate civil society movement and in the end, the incredibly tragic failure of world leaders.

And I’m not being melodramatic, it is a complete and utter tragedy for the people of Kiribati and other low lying atoll nations, for the people of drought stricken Africa and Northern China, for those nations that will increasingly bare the brunt of severe weather conditions. The knowledge of what climate change means in reality right now has definitely changed my outlook and perhaps my ability to relate to normal people.

The talks had a fairly good turn-out, but these were people already aware of the seriousness of climate change. I recently attended a good friend’s wedding. She had told her Dad to avoid speaking to me incase we got in a fight about climate change. It really threw me, i couldn’t imagine wanting to argue with anyone, let alone at a wedding. In fact, 3 days after returning, on Christmas Day, my Aunty and Uncle told me how they thought global warming was a sham and that it was definitely colder this year than last. Its not always appropriate or welcome, or the best possible time to share understandings, so i let it go, but this is nonetheless indicative of how a large amount of people in NZ think about climate change.

Although this is frustrating, and something to work on, I don’t think this is why COP15 failed. There was definitely enough support within wider civil society for a successful result. I also don’t think the endless amount of speculative articles post-COP throwing blame between the US, China, and Denmark were helpful. There are very few people that truly know what happened behind the closed decision making doors.

What we can know for sure is that the current system of global governance doesn’t work. We are faced with a tragedy of the commons scenario gambling with the planet’s resources, now including our atmospheric space and global temperature. State Sovereignty, the idea of the state as the best means of international organisation, the most powerful entity with no checks nor balances, born out of the ‘Westphalia system’, and designed to compete for self-interest first and foremost, cannot deal fairly or adequately with truly global problems.

From here on, we have a Westfailure. In both senses, the state sovereignty model is no longer adequate, and the West (the Sovereignty power house that has reaped the advantages thus far) failed to move beyond the state self-interest model they have grown to know and love.

So where now?

It’s not particularly easy undoing an entrenched system of international order. It’s all well and good pointing fingers at failure, but the hard part is figuring out how to fix it. And i haven’t yet got that far. But in the mean time, i think the trick must be to tread lightly, be gentle on our planet and continue sharing, planning, brainstorming and laughing (not because we take our future lightly, but because we must live and love in the meantime).

I’m going to share two wonderful things because i can…

This is William Kamkwamba from Malawi.

I read his book ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’ a week or so ago, and he is truly inspiring. He built a wind turbine from nothing and changed the future for his corner of the world. He was awarded a Ted prize and speaks about his experience here…

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_kamkwamba_how_i_harnessed_the_wind.html

And then, on an entirely different scale, this is spinach soup made entirely from the garden…

No wind-turbine thats for sure, but nutritious and surprisingly tasty.

Traffic though! We have busses, why is there such a hurry even in the holidays?!

Its a different world.

Im finding it hard getting my head around what happened at COP, reading post-COP articles there is a lot of blame flying around, was it China or the US? Was it all world leaders? surely not the Maldives, Kiribati or Tuvalu …

Poster in the airport at Copenhagen

I meant to blog more than i did from COP. The days were long and I quite genuinely felt the weight of the world. Everything I had to say felt very trivial in relation to those whose immediate survival is at stake. Not future survival, but right now.

I guess i have to remember that it wasnt up to me to save the world, and i never expected it to be, but rather i was just one clog in a big wheel (albeit a big failing wheel) we all had parts to play, and perhaps mine was to put what pressure i could on our government. Our shameful government. They made that job easy with their failure of an ETS, and complete disdain for any real emission reduction commitments. But when people are dieing, mine seems like a small half-arsed attempt with excuses for everything.

I’m going to keep this blog going. The movement is not over because COP failed, just indicative perhaps that we need  new leadership. Rod Donald was right, he said Stockholm 1972 changed him, I think COP has for me. At the very least, this is something I’m in for life, in both meanings of the term, for the rest of my life, and for the chance to have a future.

My thoughts are all a bit scattered. This all needs a good deal more thought processing.

The Kyoto Protocol is a legally binding international convention that sets mitigation and reduction obligations for Developed Nations (known as Annex One parties). These are set out in time commitment periods, the first period from 2008 – 2012, the second from 2013 onwards.

There is a common misconception that the Climate Change Conference, known as COP15 (the 15^th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change) currently being held in Copenhagen means an end to the Kyoto Protocol and the obligations developed countries have made. This is not the case, and never has been.

So why has mainstream media got this so wrong?

The Conference is divided into two streams; one discussing the Kyoto Protocol and its second commitment period (known as AWG-KP), the other making new headway building upon the ‘Bali Agreement’ from 2007 for new obligations (known as AWG-LCA), potentially legally binding, though maybe not.

The later involves the United States, infamous for its failure to sign Kyoto. Hence all the hype over the importance of the commitment that includes them, and a feeling that Kyoto is being forgotten. It is hoped that the US will come onboard with any new agreements, but the question being asked is, to get the US onboard does that mean dropping standards to their acceptable level (i.e. non-legally binding targets)? Or will they step up to join the rest of those developed nations that have committed legally?

For the survival of the developing countries, they need a strong second commitment by developed nations from the Kyoto rounds, and they need follow through. Further, there are real implementation problems with Kyoto, countries not fulfilling obligations (including NZ who openly fails to account for land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF)).

Bernaditaz Mueller, spokesperson for the G77 developing nations said yesterday “we are not wanting donor assistance or development aid. We just want follow through with legal obligations… Eighty percent of the world’s emissions comes from twenty percent of the world’s population… we are fighting for subsistence and existence, we just want obligations met.”

So far we have heard statements from developed countries in the plenary sessions noting their concern for the least developed countries (LDC) and small island nations, but this concern is not carried through to the negotiation rounds according to Mr Kahmar, speaking from the Third World Network.

It is about being ‘enabled’ rather than ‘supported’ and this kind of nuance becomes very important to the negotiations. The particular use or omission of a word can be debated for hours, and has huge implications for our future. (Just think of our Treaty of Waitangi and the impact two differently worded versions still have!)

Martin Koh of the South Centre explained what we need is a three-layered cake (though there are a lot of cake analogies going round, this is not to be confused with Yvo de Boer’s christmas cake outcome);

1. The retention of the Kyoto Protocol Commitments (KPC)
2. A comparable effort by those not in the Kyoto Protocol (*cough* USA)
3. Strengthening of the KPC and enforcement mechanisms

Mr Koh explained “Science says we cut emissions 100% by yesterday, we are only asking 40% by 2020.”

Things will change at COP15, I can guarantee it. We get all these messages in the media playing down expectations for this COP, but that’s all tactical, play it down before hand so leaders feel less pressure and can somehow get off the hook if they fail. But failure is not an option. Its really frightening but this isn’t just a matter of public transport over cars, or me eating veges out of my middle class gardening experience, this is peoples actual survival, right now.

In the afternoon yesterday we broke into regional groupings. There was one for Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa, South Asia, Central Asia etc then Australia & NZ together, and another for the Pacific Islands.

I spent 3 years growing up in the Solomon Islands when I was a kid. From 9 until I was 12. At the time it was the longest I had ever stayed in one country. I loved the Islands. I went to a local school ‘Chung Wah’, not the International School like the other expat kids. It was a beautiful country with beautiful people, they had the best values. They valued intelligence and respected their teachers. They sung outloud at every opportunity, perfect harmonies too. We lived on Kola Ridge, my best friend Noelyn just round the corner. Below the ridge where our stilt house sat was the market, the main source of food for those on Guadalcanal. It was all fresh produce – grown or caught that day.

These people live in perfect sustainability, and they have for the past thousands of years. I remember at the time thinking how much they had got it right. Any problems the islands faced – the one ‘alcoholic’ on the island our taxi-driver pointed out to us in our first week, or the new casino that was being built were all Western introductions.

So I went along to the Pacific forum instead, with the purpose of listening. I have a reasonable idea of how Australia and NZ are going with climate policy.

The Pacific forum was heartbreaking. It put everything into a very real and sombre perspective for me. There were 10 actual islanders; 3 from Fiji, 3 from the Solomons, 2 from Vanuatu and 1 from Papua New Guinea. That leaves another 12 Pacific Island nations unaccounted for.

They spoke about what climate change means for them. The sea-levels are rising, there fresh water supplies are becoming salinated, so they don’t have access to the river-based fresh water they use to drink from. The salt water affects the crops, as does the temperature rise which is accentuated by being closer to the equator. And they are facing increasing extreme weather disasters. Islands are under-water, not will be, but actually are. People have been moved from their ancestral homes and placed on other islands with different languages and cultures, resources are scarce. And some people wont move, they would rather drown with their island than be taking away from their ancestors.

This isn’t just a film we can turn off, it is their survival, and its very real and happening right now.

The worst thing is, there is nothing they can do to change it. They already live perfectly sustainable lives, its not like they can all choose to bus or car pool, most of the islands don’t even have roads. Their cultural and historic practices have no shame or part in this, yet they are suffering because of climate change.

It is the developed world that has done this. Strong binding targets at the UNFCCC Copenhagen means life or death, it means the continuation of their culture or not.

I was talking to one of the Pacific delegates about what I could do, whether putting pressure on my government (in any way I can) would help. They said they were scared that speaking up as an individual country might lead to their development aid being pulled.  It is so hard, they don’t have a lot of bargaining chips, they can’t withhold oil or cars or any of those products we rely so heavily on. They are reliant on other governments (those contributing to climate change) making the right decision, and in the meantime, all they can do is tell their story and hope someone hears.

To some extent this is progress, we have an international system whereby we can trade and learn from each other, which wouldnt have been achievable if we remained in agrarian societies. BUT, its frustrating too! I know plenty of people working 9-5 office jobs who look out their windows and dream of lifestyle blocks with pigs, chickens and vegetables. Further, some where along the way our trading system became imbalanced. Product values are disproportionate and the “developed world” consumes far more than their fair share.

I wont bore you with the finer details of international trade and human rights (a topic close to my heart and the topic I wrote my Masters thesis on), but instead use a simple children/tree-hut analogy :

Imagine a beautiful tree hut made with wooden-planks 2 metres high with a ladder to climb up to it. Imagine 10 children are playing and some begin to climb up to the hut. The first 3 children  get up there and find 10 cushions, 10 cookies, 10 cups of juice. Basically a hut equipped for 10, but instead of helping the others get up to the hut, they pull up the ladder and keep the goodies to themselves.

This grossly simplified example is analogous to the way the developed world have used and exploited many of the earth’s resources at the expense of developing nations. And this is a major issue for the Copenhagen Climate Conference because production and industrialisation have caused much of the worlds carbon emissions. So those developing nations (at the bottom of the tree) are expected to participate in an international trading system, which has few trade protection barriers (a good thing to stop them being exploited) but are being expected to catch up (in terms of production and industrialisation) with reduced carbon emissions.

There have been some pretty major clashes on how to deal with this. I would like to see developed nations acknowledge their responsibility (as those that contributed to excessive consumption of resources and climate change) to provide the safer, smarter, greener technology so developing nations can catch up if they want to.

But this in itself wont solve the overall problem, we need to change the way we look at economics to include imports, exports, costs, production BUT ALSO sustainability, and regeneration (but this is a discussion for another day).

Again though, all of this is a simplified blurb on international trade, but this blog is about individual responsibility and aims to provide discussions on what individuals can do…

Conscious Consumerism!

Everything you buy is a political statement. In our society, apart from perhaps voting, where and what we choose to spend money on is a way for individuals to make major statements. And it can make a major difference.

Take coffee for example…

When i moved to Christchurch in 2003, C4 was the edgy coffee hang-out. The roastery C1 was a major supplier of beans to many of Chch’s cafes. Fair trade coffee was not well-supplied in Chch, and i went to talk to the C1 roaster about the possibility of getting fair trade beans. He said absolutely not, he insisted that consumers didnt care about that kind of thing.

A group ‘guerilla justice’ suggested people that wanted fair trade go into C4 and ask politely for it at the counter  i.e. “do you have fair trade coffee?”, that way it is clear consumers do care about it, and if they say no, then be polite and leave without buying. But they didnt change, they still dont serve fair trade coffee at C4.  And Im pleased to report the roaster couldn’t have been more wrong. 6 yrs later, a new roastery ‘Underground’ that only uses fair trade beans has entirely taken over the C1 market.

Lytelton Coffee Company - fair trade beans (thank you Trade Aid), roasted locally (thank you LCC), delicious!

Apart from coffee, thinking about whether products are local or not, whether the business uses practices you agree with or not, whether their product is sustainable etc these are all statements you can be making when you chose what you buy.

I would love to hear from anyone/everyone reading this, on anything you make an effort to buy or not buy, and your reasons why.

[In other news, Dave and I have the worst luck with camping. Last time we went it was torrential downpour, this time crazy cyclone winds, and we ended up camping in my grandparents' lounge!]

Firstly, cant believe I didn’t mention the guerrillas…

Guerrilla gardeners are a group in London, probably elsewhere as well, that basically got sick of all the concrete, and started planting seeds in cracks, on roofs, in basically anyplace where something might grow. It has to be one of my most favourite forms of activism, because it’s so inoffensive, unaggressive, inventive and beautiful…

Being inventive is kind of the fun of making gardens work when you only have a small space. We started our first garden over summer last year, by jig-sawing holes out of part of the deck that wasn’t being used. We planted up rows of leeks, artichoke, spinach and beans. Some worked, some really didn’t. For example, plants labelled ‘perennials’  means they wilter but come back to life again, which means you shouldn’t dig them out and chuck them away!!

Garden round the back deck. Had to pull out the first crop of lettuces and mulch in mustard greens and compost to give the soil a boost. Healthy soil means healthy vegetables!

Finally, there were some really ace messages left on the last post, and I think they’re definitely worth mentioning again…

For people that want fresh organic vegies, but don’t have the space/ facilities to grow much more than herbs, then organic vegie delivery boxes can be well worth while, as is visiting a local farmer’s market.

Swapping with neighbours is a rad idea! We planted all our lettuces at the same time, (beginner’s mistake), which means we are heavy on the lettuce now, but will be left-wanting later,. Further, we actually have more Bok Choy than we can ever eat – that is a challenge to all you in Chch, please come by if you would like some, or help yourself if no-one is home. And we are soon to be overwhelmed by mini-cabbages (really hoping that isn’t another name for Brussel Sprouts, because if it is, I’ll be keen to get rid of some of those too!).

Likewise, if you are renting, it may well be worth asking your landlord whether it’s ok to plant some vegies, because it can really add value!

If all that wasn’t enough, check out the tasty meal Dave and I made with our first crop of new potatoes, fresh lettuce from the garden, and Aoraki Salmon, yum!

Dave enjoying his lunch and supporting West Coast brewery Monteiths

Starting with a disclaimer is never a good sign!

There are a ton of issues relating to food that I want to cover, and I think its probably easiest if I break it up into the following:

Part 1: Grow your own

Part 2: The power of consumer choice / Supporting local

Part 3: Climate Change vegetarianism

Part 4: World food shortage

Growing your own

I’ve never been a natural gardener. I remember my mum when I was little trying to “teach me the value of money” with 20c incentives for filling up a barrel of bark chip and wheeling it to whichever part of the garden she was landscaping. Then there’s my gran, probably the greatest gardener ever, true story. She cleans up the Country Women’s Institute flower comps every year. Comes home with a good 12 or so red 1st place cards, and you ask her how she did, and she’s ridiculously modest.

At boarding school having a plant in my room, I’d consider it a success if it lasted the school term without wilting. However, times have changed! I now have constantly grubby fingernails, and find gardening incredibly cathartic.

Now don’t get me wrong, kamikaze flowers still wilt when I walk past, but vegetables and me, well, it’s a match made in a beautifully luscious, nutritious, green heaven.

We all know veggies are good for us, and some of us eat more of them than others. Keen vege muncher or not, I swear nothing tastes better than the ones you grow yourself. But beyond just the taste points, growing your own can mean cutting down on the carbon footprint of your food, known as ‘food miles’.

In London, my old supermarket in Crouch End, use to label food miles next to the price label on the food, it was awesome. In some cases it would have the name of the farmer as well! This all sounds well and good if you have a large section with copious amounts of room to grow, but what about the others, the apartment/halls of residence/Auckland dwellers/ those with no time to prance about their gardens?

Well, its surprisingly easy, takes as much time as you have for it, and something will grow almost anywhere. i.e. pot of basil on the windowsill, or bucket of mushrooms in the cold dark corridor.

Start with Seedlings

Coffee cups filled with soil are a great way to start seedlings off. Bury the seed according to the instructions, water, then cover with cling-film (with a few forked holes in it) and put on a sunny window-sill. Instant glass-house effect! As the seedlings grow bigger you transfer them into the garden or bigger pot, and voila all of a sudden you have vegetables.

oh-oh, blog cut short! We are going camping in mum’s flower garden and the car is packed, just waiting on me! This will be finished as soon as i’m back, promise! Will leave you with a few  before and after photos of my vegie garden, point is i’m a complete novice, so if i can do it, anyone can…

Dave bashed up the concrete, then used an old bed frame and railway sleepers to frame the soon to be vegie patch

We layered pebbles, then compost, then soil and planted lettuce. Sept 09.

Vegie garden built! Seeds planted, now just wait...

And voila! Photo taken only minutes ago of current state of vegie garden…

Photo taken from roof of car, but still couldnt get everything. Currently growing silverbeet, baby cabbages, celery, more lettuce and bok choy than we can eat, courgettes with beautiful yellow flowers, carrots and i cant remember what the 6 little clumps at the end were, they will be a surprise. More carrots in recycling bin, and italian parsley next to them in black bucket.