Federal Government considering welfare card to limit spending on fast foods

The Australian Federal Government proposes to crackdown on the use of welfare payments at fast food outlets. This would be part of a new welfare card designed to stop people from spending the majority of their government benefits on alcohol, gambling and poor diet.

A trial is to take place involving fast food giants McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Coded named ‘No fries with that”, welfare recipients will be restricted to one unhappy meal per week per family.

The Minister responsible for the Obesity Epidemic, Kevin Morrison, is to join a fat finding mission to the United Kingdom next month. The British government is currently considering cutting welfare benefits to people who will not undergo treatment for drug problems and obesity.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Trudge, insists that the card will not only apply to indigenous people. He has emphasised that, “it would not apply just to Indigenous people. It would be colour-blind. It would apply to everybody according to a set of criteria”. The installation of weighing machines in Centrelink offices could be the first step in establishing benchmarks.

As spokesperson for the Trans Fat National Foods Association, Colonel Ronald Sanders, has responded, “The government must weigh its options carefully. They cannot afford to clown around with people’s health”.

Tecoma Protesters Take #BurgerOff Campaign to McDonald's Chicago HQ

My latest post for Global Voices Online: Melbourne Protesters Take Campaign to McDonald's Chicago HQ

Photo courtesy Michel Pickard flickr
(Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.0 license)

Opponents of building a McDonalds in Melbourne are taking their case to Maccas headquarters in Chicago on Wednesday 18 September 2013. Approximately $40,000 in funds have been raised through an online campaign. Global Voices reported on the conflict in March 2013 Australia: Locals Fight to Stop McDonald's in their Hills

As well as social media, the protesters have used traditional direct action methods such as roof occupations and blockades. These resulted in court action by McDonalds against the so-calledTecoma 8, which has now been withdrawn although injunction applications are apparently ongoing.

An online petition has over 90,000 signatures.

Tim Flannery: Global Warming and Human Rights

Professor Tim Flannery addressed the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Conference on 20 July 2012. He spoke about global warming, climate change and their links to human rights issues.

Among the basic human rights, he included rights to: food and water; a nationality; protection from dangerous rates of change; life itself. He argued that each of these is affected by climate change. The greenhouse gases are the product of our economic success. We must uncoupled this link and there has been some progress over the last ten years in doing this.The most disadvantaged people are the most vulnerable and suffer the most from climate change.

You and me and everyone we know: Rio+20

Giedre Steikunaite, one of the ThinkBrigade team, is a finalist in the TckTckTck Rio Blogger prize.

Her post You and me and everyone we know is a must read for anyone interested in the Rio+20 Earth Summit, plus all those who should be:

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible – Stanisław Lec

Whoever still doubts that our planet is in crisis has their eyes wide shut. The avalanche that is approaching us at a seemingly unstoppable speed presents perhaps the most challenging confrontation of them all, the confrontation with oneself: how far am I ready to go to make future possible again? What am I willing to sacrifice? And just how honest are my replies?

We the snowflakes are rebels with a cause. Our mission is to atone the crimes we’ve committed against our planet – to right the wrongs and never repeat them again. The ways to do it are as diverse as life itself.

More

Please share with your friends and networks.

Road to Rio +20

The Earth Summit Rio +20, a United Nations conference on Sustainable Development & Green Economy, takes place in June 2012.

This video is an introduction that raises some of the issues.

It will be part of the ThinkBrigade online magazine that starts on Tuesday 10 April.

Thanks to Mark Manney's Remix Abscondo for the instrumental, and the UN photo library for some images. With a lick of irony the music is called 'I'll Die Smiling'

State of the Planet Declaration

Debategraph's dynamic map for the Planet Under Pressure



The State of the Planet Declaration from the Planet Under Pressure conference is now available online:

Society is taking substantial risks by delaying urgent and large-scale action. We must show leadership at all levels. We must all play our parts. A strong contribution from all stakeholders should make the UN’s Rio+20 conference a defining moment that sparks global innovation to move us towards a sustainable future. We urge the world to grasp this moment and make history.

...let’s be honest. While some progress has been made in addressing global environmental issues, poverty alleviation and food, water, energy and human security, the scale of actions has not been commensurate with the scale of the problems. The issues to be debated at Rio+20 are the same as those identified 20 years ago, but it is now even more urgent to address them.

Climate Change and the Food Crisis: ActionAid

 

 The message: support women farmers. 

Climate Change and the World Food Crisis: A Solution is an ActionAid video:

The UN Climate Conference in Durban needs to support women farmers in order to tackle the growing global food crisis. Agriculture is being increasingly threatened by climate change. 

Small scale farmers produce half the world's food and most of them are women. With access to training, technology, financial services and markets - the number of people going hungry could be cut by 15%. With 7 billion people on the planet this year, this solution is more important than ever.

For more, visit HungerFREE or visit the Activista bloggers.

Andrew Charlton: Balancing Progress and the Planet

A binding agreement on carbon emissions is a totally unrealistic expectation of next week's Durban COP17 climate change conference. So what are the alternatives?

Adam Morton, Environment editor at The Age, explored some solutions with Andrew Charlton, author of the Quarterly Essay Man-Made World: Choosing between progress and planet at the Wheeler Centre on 23 November 2011.

“Progress has its price. Each step of human advancement has left a footprint on the planet. Today our two defining challenges are managing climate change and eliminating global poverty. In Copenhagen we learned that these challenges are inseparable.”

According to Charlton the lesson from Copenhagen is that changing geopolitics mean that the needs of the developing world must be met, as well as those of the developed world.

This will require an enormous effort globally of an unprecedented scale. On climate change, he argues that we need a total re-engineering equivalent to the Second World War. Similar action is required to double food production during this century as world population continues to climb.

He sees ingenuity as the key to the kinds of solutions necessary in both areas. Power needs to be less expensive but more available in developing countries by making clean energy cheaper than fossil fuels.

Current technologies such as wind and solar cannot deliver the kind of cutbacks in greenhouse gases that the Greens believe possible. Nor can carbon prices by themselves. Alternative solutions will necessitate a massive shift in focus to research and development of breakthrough technologies.

Charlton was not without some optimism. He believes that China is misunderstood. Its leaders are driven by four motives that together offer hope:

• overcoming poverty through development
• obtaining energy security
• reducing air pollution
• tackling climate change

Most of the big gains in technology will happen overseas. Australia needs to collaborate with countries like China on the technological solutions. When questioned about our carbon legislation he stressed that it is necessary, though even the 5% reduction from 2000 levels by 2020 is ambitious since it represents a 30 - 40 % decline from projected emissions.

He emphasised that the 'balance of risks' has moved on both climate change and poverty. Despite his misgivings that the risks are real, nuclear power must be part of the solution for many countries. Similarly GM crops have the capacity to meet the food challenge, as organic farming cannot deliver the necessary increases. We must be alert to the possible dangers without ruling out these unpopular options.

Needless to say, Andrew’s views were not popular with many in the audience, especially those supporting approaches such as the Beyond Zero Emissions plan, which he contested during the session.

Political leadership will be a decisive factor. Our leaders must focus on the cost of not acting.

Charlton’s presentation had the desired effect. It will be weekend reading. Watch this space or buy a copy.

Women Writin’ Science For Themselves

One panel session that was easily overlooked but a real gem at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival was Writing in Lab Coats :

Dr Elizabeth Finkel (The Genome Generation), journalist and publisher Jane McCredie (Making Girls and Boys) and award-winning Age journalist Jo Chandler (Feeling the Heat) talk to Radio National's Natasha Mitchell about what makes great science writing (and what makes great science).

The Cube at ACMI was packed with a very appreciative audience for these three authors. The session title seemed a misnomer. So did the asymmetrical venue that is cramped, dark and much smaller than the presenters deserved.

None of the authors works in a lab. Elizabeth was a professional research scientist in biochemistry before becoming a science journalist with publications such as Cosmos Magazine.  Jo and Jane are both journalists with extensive backgrounds working in the media. Neither claims to be a scientist.

In fact Jane spoke of the need to find her voice and establish “authority” as a non-scientist. Her time as an editor at the Australian Doctor must have helped. She sees herself as a critical friend of science, a questioning observer. Jane’s book has a descriptor ‘inside the science of sex’ but it’s the nature of gender that she explores. What is gender identity? What makes us boys or girls?

Elizabeth spoke of the amazing “new universe” that we’ve been catapulted into since the mapping of the genome. Her book, which has yet to be released, is an exploration of its “new cosmic laws”, as old scientific dogmas have been left by the wayside. She aims for a "judicious, calm voice" like a “judge in a courtroom… weighing evidence”. Easier done than seen to be done. She is no stranger to the “combative corner” as her earlier work into organic food and genetically modified foods copped criticism for its findings.

When researching her book on climate change, Jo sometimes felt “like a non-scientist asking dumb questions”. That research took her to the rain-forests in Namibia and stunning vistas of Antarctica. She asked "what is balance in coverage and what is authentic storytelling".  She rejected the “objectivity lie” where the journalist tries to leave the self out. In her “overcorrecting” Jo has tried to go into her research as “confused”, like war correspondents going to the front without a particular agenda. There are parallels with embedding as she “inserted into research teams” in the field. She described it as “an epic adventure… going off the edge of the known universe”.

From Chapter 3 Buried Treasure:

The modern quest to dig into the ice is driven by the urgent need to see into the future, to track how the planet has behaved through history when the atmospheric composition has swung through sometimes dramatic cycles of change, when tipping points have been crossed. Here the consequences of change are written in mysterious script into the chemistry of the ice.

I haven’t had the opportunity to read their books, except for the sample chapter of Feeling the Heat that is online. Put these three writers who are ‘ringing on their own bells’ in your non-fiction shopping cart for some spring/summer reading.

(Unfortunately there was no video but hopefully ABC Radio National will broadcast it later in the year.)

Activista Swarm: Some Fresh Faces

Meet some fresh faces from the Activista Blogger Swarm who are doing their bit for our collective future.

Activistas: Blogging for Their Future

Some excellent news amidst all the gloom lately. Introducing the Activista Blogger Swarm:

Today we announce the names of 10 Global Voices bloggers and 11 activists who will be working together virtually over the next months as part of a new mentoring initiative developed by Global Voices and Activista, the youth network of international development organization, ActionAid.

Activista has selected activists from 10 countries on five continents to form part of a “Blogger Swarm”which will be blogging on the Activista website over the next 12 months. Their goal is to get youth around the world involved in discussions about development, and especially food and climate justice
Global Voices Bloggers to Mentor Youth Activists from 10 Countries

It is my pleasure and privilege to be mentoring one of the bloggers, Benadette Chandia Kodili, from Uganda. Kodili's first post on the Swarm is not about climate change or the food crisis but another aspect of food altogether:

For a moment I wished people who are out there advocating for women’s rights were here to witness this magical moment: we were being served by an African man as the women looked on!

It may be a small gesture, but for those who know how women have always been treated in most African traditions, men as the boss and women as servants. This moment was precious.
What makes a man a real man?

Please support the Activistas by reading and joining in their conversations.

One Story from Madagascar

"Just one story to represent over 1.4 billion poor rural people who live on less than $1.25 a day. This is the story of Séraphine and her daughter Maria who live in rural Madagascar."



For more from the International Fund for Agricultural Development: IFAD

Mango Madness Threatened by Global Warming

Mango lovers beware! The juicy end of the food crisis will certainly be facing troubled times if predictions about global warming are correct.

There have been 2 news stories about this year's mango harvest in Australia's top end in as many days:

First Queensland, where they aren't exactly sure what caused the poor season. La Niña is one of the culprits because it means moderate weather with higher temperatures. Mangoes need cold nights to produce flowers and fruit.



In the Northern Territory, climate change is being blamed as one of the possible culprits:



When we lived in Katherine in the NT, a warm dry season brought frowns all round from the local mango growers.

Mangoes are are big business as well as a seasonal fruit for private consumption. This promotional fundraiser gives a indication of its iconic status in Oz:

The first tray of mangoes of the season has been bought for a cool $30,000 at Sydney Markets' annual charity auction.
First tray of mangoes sells for $30,000

Crisis Reporting: Food Insecurity 2010

My latest post at Th!nk3: Developing World

I hadn’t visited the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting until it joined forces recently with Global Voices. It is an amazing website overflowing with online journalism about international issues. GV health editor Juhie Bhatia is leading the Global Voices on Food Insecurity project.
Crisis Reporting: Global Food Insecurity 2010