Posts by ChrisW
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An interesting conceptual challenge to find that one photo of me for me, then this choice was easy – on the tops above bushline on the south side of Dusky Sound, southern Fiordland, January 1978.
A pivotal time in my life, immersed in working towards becoming a rock doctor, but in such an environment nascent interests in ecological science and practice were being nurtured too. The kiwi both real – a female southern tokoeka surprised and surprising in its low-alpine habitat – and symbolic, perhaps foreshadowing my interests in cultural nationalism to come.More layers in the history of the artefact – originally a slide/transparency, long lost with a selection of my best slides, but in the meantime a print in poor 1970s colour dyes made for parents, rephotographed from my mother’s photo-album the week after my father died 30 years later.
The scruffiness of course – to varying degrees it’s always been me. But my kiwi co-subject – for the first time I’ve noticed the matching hairstyles. The kiwi’s grooming is sub-standard, perhaps its mother too would think it had been dragged through a gorse bush backwards (thereby being not far wrong).
The photographer is implicit – my wife after six weeks of the 23 years, mother of our children, friend again. I’m looking anxiously at her – “Quick! take the photo, these claws are sharp, her legs are strong and I’ve only gottaholda-one-othem!”
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Hard News: Drugs, development and reality, in reply to Matt Graylee,
then about 16 trees is you for the year.
.... anyway, that is 81 square meters dedicated to you annually. (4x4 grid under shade with 3m between each tree)
;)I reckon Ben will need to double that 81 sq. metres to supply his coffee habit.
The trees on the edges and corners of the 9x9 m square plot that you're envisaging are shared with the neighbouring squares supplying other coffee drinkers, so it doesn't support 16 whole trees. Easier to calculate if you think of each tree in the plantation as being at the centre of its 3x3 metre square, so 9 sq. metres per tree, 16 trees, 144 sq. metres. But say 160 sq. m allowing for a bit of edge effect and on-site infrastructure like tracks, sheds.
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Walking the dog.
Could be a black dog, but against the rising sun, how could you tell? -
Capture: Coast to Coast, in reply to Jos,
Loud conversation at Ohope beach.
And the eyes of a stink bugVery striking!
In their own ways, both seem to be singing "It ain't easy being green" -
Capture: Coast to Coast, in reply to Nora Leggs,
You've not seen it all before?
Another from yesterday morning then. -
That's the end of summer drifting by?
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Capture: Coast to Coast, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Almost coast, definitely summer, and colour
bands - bands of colour, not so variegated as yours
on the still tidal riverbank this morning.Colour above
and below
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Hard News: Poor Choices, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Also, NZ is a post-Christian culture and Christianity has taught that suicide is a sin for 2000 years.
More than just a sin.
The habitual and almost invariable pairing of 'commit* suicide' conveys the historical condemnation that’s embedded in the language – alongside homicide, patricide, infanticide – 'with intent to commit a crime' …So in this case it’s good to see the occasional (but increasing?) use of the noun as a simple verb – ‘to suicide’ – an appropriate expression of its reflexive nature, a neutral descriptor of the action.
It might even make it easier to talk and write about it. -
Capture: Coast to Coast, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Toddler waves at the beach early morning last week, still cool but heading for 29 degrees.
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Speaker: TPP: Error Correction, in reply to nzlemming,
Genesis: Error Correction
I must admit to curiousity in knowing the genesis to this "opinion piece". Smellie describes himself as ...
I see Pattrick Smellie managed communications for Contact Energy a few years ago. So no doubt he was the electricity industry expert/ principal of BusinessDesk responsible for this crock on Genesis Energy
carried last month by Scoop, NBR, TVNZ.
He’s added his in-depth knowledge and research to re-frame a media release by Genesis as the SOE preparing itself for sale by reducing liabilities associated with its dependence on coal-fired generation at Huntly. Its use of coal is apparently way down -Its 2013 annual report shows that just 7.7 percent of its total electricity production of 13,057 Gigawatt hours came from coal, compared with 52.8 percent from the Tongariro and Tekapo hydro schemes, another 19.6 percent from both old and new gas-fired plant at Huntly, 13.6 percent from geothermal energy, and 4.8 percent from wind farms.
Very odd figures I thought, so checked Genesis Energy’s 2012/13 annual report where at p.17 a table lists its total electricity generation for the year as 7212 GWh, and the breakdown by source, converted to percentage of total, is coal 31.3% (rather than 7.7), gas 37.9% (19.6), hydro 30.5% (52.8), wind 0.3% (4.8) and it has no geothermal (rather than 13.6%).
Then at p.21 I find the source of Smellie’s odd figures, a table with percentages of New Zealand electricity generation by source, and for Genesis Energy’s electricity consumption by primary source, not in gigawatt-hours but oddly in gigajoules. This is a unit 3600 times smaller so 13,057 GJ rather than a surprising third of total NZ electricity production is actually very small, apparently for Genesis Energy’s own electricity consumption as perhaps in offices etc, on the assumption the primary source of that electricity matches the proportions of the overall national production rather than its own. This in the context of quarter-pai reporting its environmental footprint, under an “Environmental Management” heading.
Rather than as described under the Scoop story linked above –
BusinessDesk
Independent, Trustworthy New Zealand Business News
The Wellington-based BusinessDesk team of former Bloomberg Asian top editor Jonathan Underhill and Qantas Award-winning journalist and commentator Pattrick Smellie provides a daily news feed for a serious business audience.– I’d say this was the work of someone deeply ignorant of the NZ electricity generating industry, as well as a sloppy researcher.
And that’s simple stuff compared with TPP negotiations!
