Society and environment

The mussel farming industry in Golden Bay has recently increased their efforts to control a larger area of Port Tarakohe. When there’s money to be made, there seems to be strong support from local and central government. With the Provincial Growth Fund looking to put money into the Port, it may raise questions for some. Who is driving the growth? Why do we need such growth? And who benefits most from it? It seems TDC  is right behind the growth agenda and keen to promote the need for growth. Should the council as a ‘neutral’ governing body really be pushing an industry’s growth? Furthermore, how can such an industry be truly sustainable when taking infrastructure resources, energy consumption for farming, processing and exporting into account? These are all questions which get us to look deeper and bring further awareness of a growing local issue. And yes, there are reduced Co2 targets to add to the mix. With Climate Reality becoming more more accepted, how do...

Let’s face it; we’ve all been fooled at some time. The question is, how do we know we’ve been fooled? Famous illusionist - David Copperfield once said, “The real secret of magic lies in the performance”. It’s important to remember, that David Copperfield uses a stage crew, is a meticulous planner and performs to entertain people. David Copperfield. Source: Las Vegas Review Journal . This blog is about modern speech making – impressive presentations and how smoke and mirrors are used to present a particular image to fool an audience’s perception.   But firstly, what is a speech?   Is it an announcement, is it a media release?   To me, it encompasses situations where the presentation has been prepared prior to its delivery. Obviously when watching an illusionist, we’re expecting to be wowed or deceived.... conversely, could the same be said when watching politicians giving a speech?   We probably expect politicians to be fairly boring...