It has been said that our technology outstrips our wisdom. Nowhere is this more crystal clear than in Fukushima Prefecture in Japan. Siting nuclear reactors anywhere on the Pacific rim of fire seems foolhardy in the extreme. Did we learn nothing from Chernobyl? Nuclear energy – a clean servant, but a very dangerous master. In this Year of Science, we need to remember Marie Curie, and the price she paid for the discovery of radium.

Creator God,
Give strength and fortitude to the men working to contain the effects of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.
In your mercy, protect the Pacific peoples from the radioactivity polluting the ocean.

Once again the livelihood of the Pacific’s indigenous people is under threat. Ulrich Delius, notes that many of them have already had to suffer from the many large-scale nuclear bomb tests the United States, Britain and France conducted there. “Many indigenous people still suffer from the radiation that has since made it into the eco-chain.”

Delius says claims by some Japanese scientists that the radioactivity found in fish will be concentrated in the bones, and thus not harmful to humans, didn’t make sense. because “each year, thousands of tons of fish and their bones are processed into fish meal, animal food and in part to fish sticks,”

Ulrich Delius, is an  Asia expert for the Society for Endangered People.

See update from Friends of the Earth

Scientists to test Water in Pacific Ocean

Read Article
UPI.com

The small nations of the Pacific, including New Zealand, have no say in what the industrial giants of the north do, and yet it is we  that bear the consequences. It is as though we just don’t count… or don’t even exist.

I once read about a celebrity  of some kind who had a pet lion that she pampered – treating it like a human child. One day the lion attacked her and badly mauled her. Nuclear power stations are a bit like pet lions, we might think we are the masters, but we are never in control. We think we are so clever. We are so stupid.

And in this case the lion is not inside, it is in the rich person’s back yard, and there is a hole in the fence. It has escaped and now it is running riot in our backyard.

Oh God I thank you for the beautiful bountiful earth… I try to believe that it is the meek who will inherit it. Help thou my unbelief.

“And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.”

Genesis 1/20

The diminishing population of bees is an even greater risk! Whether or not Albert Einstein actually said that after bees disappear the human race could survive for just four more years, it is obvious that they are an integral part of the ecology.  Authorities and scientist have up until now given assurance that safety measures make nuclear power stations virtually fail safe.   We know how wrong those assurances were.   Can we be any more confident about the assurances of manufactures that insecticides are safe if you follow the instructions on the containers?  If you google “neonicotinoids killing bees” you will get enough evidence of the risks of using this and other chemicals in insecticides.

What can we do?  For a start, we can avoid the chemicals and brand names listed at http://www.beecharmers.org/Pollination2.html and mentioned in the panels of that screen.  Notice that many insecticides kill earthworms also. And we need them as well to survive.

We can draw the attention of others to this major threat.

All of us are being served by the beekeepers lobby. The threat is not only to their income, but to the income of farmers and orchardist as well.  More than that the threat is to our very existence.  Sustainable, Green. Organic. Companion planting.  There are very strong arguments for these sorts of practices

- fizzy drinks cost much less than milk
- food banks struggle to cope with greatly increased demand
- the free food shop in Auckland ran out of supplies in an hour
- unemployment is climbing.

Congratulations to Fonterra for showing corporate responsibility in holding the price of milk until Dec 2011

What can we do as a Christian community to love our neighbour?

We have an opportunity here to make our Eucharist real

-       by bringing foodstuffs in the Offertory procession, for distribution through our local food bank
-       by supporting our local branch of the St Vincent de Paul society.

The other likely outcome of higher prices for dairy farmers may be more difficult to combat – how do we act as responsible stewards of God’s creation in face of increased pressure for ‘cubicle cows’ in the Mackenzie Basin with consequent higher emissions of methane gas and excessive consumption of scarce water?

The Earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. Psalm 24.

Dear Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit will guide all that world leaders and concerned individuals do in their efforts to care for our world. Amen.

From Trocaire prayer for Creation

In a functioning democracy Governments can only do what the people allow them to do. I first learned about what was then called the green house effect when I was studying at university in 1971, almost forty years ago.  In that time nothing has been done because we the people will not allow anything to be done; we will not allow our freedoms to be curtailed, or our living standards to be lowered. The legislators, and we the people, maintain the vain hope that the  ETS   will some how miraculously allow us to go on living as we always have endlessly consuming while introducing yet another commodity into the market place; the buying and selling of clean and dirty air.  Yeah Right! We don’t need an ETS; first we need a change of heart…and you cannot legislate for that.

I remain hopeful. The human race has, in its short existence on the planet, always found solutions to its problems, not without first making many mistakes, but we do get there eventually. The Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees believes it would be foolhardy to venture technological predictions for 2050. Even more so to predict social and geopolitical changes. He points out that the most important advances, the qualitative leaps, are the least predictable.

In the meantime, tread lightly on this planet as one walking on water leaving behind no footprints.

We thank you God that we are so wonderfully made



Our ETS is little enough, but will be reviewed, for the fainthearted, in the light of Australia’s, Japan’s and the U.S.’s commitments next year. We need to stand by our decisions, to include all our greenhouse gas emitters, to do our wee bit for God’s creation. Everything that we have, everything in our world, has been given to us, to share and enjoy, but also to hand on to future inhabitants of Planet Earth, whether our descendants or people unknown to us.

We have a finite world, how can we continue ‘extracting resources’ – exhausting resources would be a more accurate description. We need to change our habits, no longer can we blithely drive everywhere, fly off on foreign holidays, eat meat every day, import luxuries as of right. What we are using up is stolen from our brothers and sisters, and it is the poor of the world who suffer because of our excess. How much do we really need?

We have been given intelligence, and there are many exciting and challenging developments in technology, to replace oil as the main source of energy. The Gulf oil rig disaster should make us question the wisdom of deep water drilling. The effects will be catastrophic for many species, including fisher communities all along that coast, for many years.

There are tragic choices to be made: governments do what the electorate wants. Where will we stand – clutching our possessions, our way of life? Or choosing the common good of others?  ‘Love one another, just as I have loved you’ (John 13:34).

Quite apart from the practical difficulties of cubicle cows:
- Setting up costs – buildings, etc;
- scarce water resources in the area;
- the logistics of feed: fresh grass for the cows; grain grown elsewhere in New Zealand or imported;
- huge amounts of effluent to be disposed of.

What message does this send to our trading partners? Yes, our cows need some shelter in the winter, but 8 months inside seems excessive. Do we expect a heaven without our fellow creatures, if we can contemplate using them as objects to get rich from? My 7 year old granddaughter summed it up for me when she said emphatically: ‘But that’s MEAN!’

Some niggling questions surface when I reflect on possible implications of these resource consent applications:
Why change something that already works well for dairy farmers elsewhere in New Zealand?
What really motivates the dairy industry – economics and profit for the milk moguls or concern about environmental issues and animal welfare?
What impact would undercover cows have on consumers?
Is Southland the most suitable place for intensive dairy farming?
Does this herald the demise of the traditional family dairy farm and the bond of families to the land?

Then again, other countries in North America and Europe have dairy herds which spend most of their lives under cover and this has been the agricultural norm for decades. The cows haven’t complained! So why not experiment with new technology – adapt and improve where necessary with Kiwi ingenuity – improve production, protect the environment and control pollution and emissions. There is no clear cut winner in every Nature versus Nurture debate.  The dairy industry doesn’t have to sacrifice the sacred cow for innovation.