Tag Archives: Individual action

Make a difference: Eat homegrown, local or organic produce!

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A while ago I saw somewhere on the sustainability/edible gardening part of the net I hang out in something that said:

  • If you can, grow it yourself
  • If you can’t grow it yourself, buy local
  • If you can’t buy local, buy organic

I can’t find it to point to, so instead I’ll link out to the 100 mile diet, and this on Relocalise.net  :)

There are many good reasons to eat homegrown, local or organic (including taste – homegrown sweetcorn beats the sweetcorn from the market, and the market sweetcorn beats the supermarket corn hands down), but my reasons are sustainability and peak oil.

What could NZ do in response to Israel’s actions against Gaza?

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If the NZ government wanted to do something about Israel’s actions what could we, a tin pot little country on the other side of the world, do?

It’s hard to know what we could do, it’s easy to understand why the government’s response is vague wafflings (although a statement that we think its wrong wouldn’t go amiss), and I’ve struggled to come up with any options, but here are my thoughts

  1. A public statement that Israel’s action is disproportionate, unacceptable and should stop. That seems like the easy one, but I’m sure someone with a foreign affairs background might explain it’s not without cost.
  2. We could go to the UNHCR and offer to take Palestinian refugees in addition to our existing quota. It’s not a public high profile measure, but it would make a real difference to some real lives. 
  3. Working for a UN statement. We might never get one, but it would keep up the international pressure
  4. A travel ban on government and military officials and families? I was scraping the barrel to come up with this one, it seems like something we could actually do and, again, it’s a sign to the international community.

Anything else?

What we can do as individuals is slightly easier; as usual Indymedia is providing a space for people to advertise events. There’s a protest in Wellington today, and one in Auckland on Saturday.