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Keisha & Rhys push cut-price bangers - $500 raised
Keisha & Rhys push cut-price bangers - $500 raised
“Yes! We have cooked sausage!” So spoke the self-proclaimed BBQ King himself, as he raised the first cooked snarler aloft. Rhys Darby’s bangers were officially ready and the crowd that had gathered could finally sink its teeth into some organic beef and parsley.
The Auckland launch of the Key to Copenhagen fundraising drive took place at the Warehouse in Newmarket. Rhys was joined by the likes of Lucy Lawless, Keisha Castle-Hughes and climate scientist Jim Salinger behind the grill. Shoppers who’d headed down to the Red Shed simply to pick up a garden hose or cut price cassette tape were understandably caught off guard when they saw these well-known Kiwis pushing snarlers for $2.
“Sausages on sale - $1.99!” shrieked Keisha. She was possibly the most determined retailer amongst the team.
For a comedian, Rhys took his sausage-sizzling very seriously. Between autographs and photos with fans, one could spot his furrowed brow over the BBQ range as he sought to live up to his own rhetoric about how good he was with tongs.
All up nearly $500 was raised, as the Sunday Star Times put it, “enough to get Key a third of the way to Copenhagen”. Many people gave money while declining a sausage, just cos they liked the cause. And still more people Signed On to encourage Key to commit to a 40% by 2020 emission reduction target.
See the other blogs on this page for coverage of the range of other fundraising activities that took place around the country on Saturday and make your own contribution online here.
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I am saddened to see that Greenpeace endorses the consumption of sausages to promote its events. I would hazard a guess that not one of the people who ate a sausage actually needed to eat. Let's face it, they did it simply for pleasure. I don’t believe anyone should get their pleasure at someone else’s expense, whether that “someone” is human or any other animal. Therefore I can't condone the eating of other creatures just for pleasure, because that is what this amounted to. You can't eat meat without killing, and farmed animals are killed deliberately. The only alternative to this is to eat something that has been killed accidentally. Other animals, whether farmed organically, free-range or whatever, all share the same feelings and emotions as we do. They are not so different from us. Their lives matter to them just as ours matter to us. Jeffrey Masson puts it this way in his book The Pig Who Sang to the Moon:
"We, too, become tragic, pathetic figures when we live carelessly off the suffering of other creatures" (p224.)
What is the point even of saving the planet if we are to do it by inflicting cruelty on our fellows? How can we say that we are progressing if we lack compassion for our fellow creatures? We should be attempting not only to save the world, but also to achieve a more just world, not only for humans, but for the other creatures that share it with us as well.
I have to agree that using beef was a mistake. Why not use organic pork? That is after all the traditional Kiwi sausage, so you'd keep the mainstream appeal, but pork has a much lower carbon footprint than beef.
It's not necessary to go vegan or even vegetarian 'for the climate', simply eating less beef and dairy makes almost as much difference to your carbon footprint.
They were good tasting sausages too!
It might be time to move on from sausagegate ... today there is a climate emergency response tent in Manners Mall, Wellington http://www.signon.org.nz/blog/lucy-lawless-attends-climate-emergency-in-... ... Get yourself along!
Gee are you sure Nick...I'm sure that arguing over a couple of hundred sausages are much more important than having an effective campaign to prevent the pacific islands being flooded or the extinction of polar bears; but I must be wrong
Good stuff, but there is a hugely important fact that very few people seem to be aware of -
The Meat Industry is the number one contributor to Global Warming and de-forestation in the Amazon.
Everyone needs to know this, and to consider cutting back significantly on their meat consumption. Hence it's quite interesting that a fundraising drive with the ultimate aim of reducing carbon emmissions is using meat products to raise its money...but I am well aware that a vege-sausage-only sausage sizzle probably wouldn't make much money.
Anyway, food for thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3BBPWNXZk
Animal Agriculture in New Zealand is responsible for 50% of emissions into the atmosphere.
Although while eating a vegan sausage may be better for the environment, there is a better reason for eating them as an alternative to conventional sausages.
Eating a vegan diet for the sake of the environment is similar to being against the gas chambers of the holocaust because they polluted the air.
This is a very unfortunate analogy.
This is repulsive. The UN panel on climate change has reported that meat production contributes more to global climate change than the entire transportation industry combined, and here in NZ agriculture is responsible for almost one half of our total emmissions. And here these people are selling beef in an effort to raise money to combat climate change? Ridiculous. If we are really serious about reducing GHG emmissions and addressing climate change, massive downscaling and sweeping reforms of the animal agriculture industry are imperative. I am now convinced that this campaign is nothing but greenwashing, allowing people to feel better about themselves simply by throwing money at a cause without seriously addressing how personal consumption practices and broader institutional structures deleteriously impact the environment, and the other creatures we share our world with. I want nothing to do with this charade any longer - how do I "sign off"?
"Beef produces 30kg of CO2 equivalent emissions per kg where as carrots and potatoes produce a total of 0.42 and 0.45kg CO2 per kg respectively. That means eating beef is about 60 times more destructive to the environment/life on earth than vegetables. What an incredible statistic. Source = (Carlsson-Kanyama & Gonzalez, 2009)
"some 799 million people are undernourished, 50,000 humans daily die of poverty-related causes" (Dine & Fagan 2006: 48), the fact is that "almost 40% of the world’s [food] grain currently goes to feeding livestock and is therefore unavailable for human consumption". (White, 2000) You make your own conclusions."
Eating meat is killing us and everything else around us.
You greenpeace people have to be one of the most contradicting organisations out there, selling sausages from land that used to be native forest, you humans consume far to much meat and it goes to show why there so much cancers and bad health.....
"Clean, green New Zealand?!? In contrast to the green, ferned, rainforested, wildlife filled place that's espoused as the public image of NZ, most of it is actually a barren, treeless, sometimes rolling green hi...ll, but often moonscape, that's already 87% deforested. If you don't believe it, take a peak with google earth. Industrial dairy farms suck whole rivers dry and throw down heaps of chemical fertilizer just to grow grass for cows. The rest of the land is chewed down to the nub by millions of sheep. Huge container ships full of NZ's commercially grown forests (75% of remaining farmed forests or 420,00 hectars of forest) are getting shipped out every day to make room for new 1,000,000-cow mega dairy farms.
Greenpeace my ass
Come guys wake up
haven't Greenpeace been jumping on ships lately protesting about Fonterra and the industry farming?
Why yes Pete, we have. We have an active campaign, not against farming, but against intensive, industrial dairy farming, which includes the import of unsustainable rainforest-destroying palm kernel expeller for Fonterra dairy cows. http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/ but also involves a range of other climate crimes: www.greenpeace.org.nz/smartfarming.
Note that we used organic sausages for Darby's Barbie, meaning there's zero chance they were feed on palm kernel supplements, because there is no such thing as organic palm kernel. Any supplementary feed given to those cows would have been organic maize, hay or sileage.
Greenpeace is not, and never will be, anti-farming. As you point out, it's not the farming, it's how we're farming.
Given that New Zealand's dairy industry produces half the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and given that this is inherent in the scale of the farming, how can you reconcile the assertion that it's not the farming that's the problem?
Are you aware of James Rachels' essay 'Vegetarianism and the Other Weight Problem'? You should be.
Palm oil is a completely separate issue.
More and more, I wonder if Paul Watson was right to call Greenpeace the Avon Ladies of the green movement.
I think you guys are being a little melodramatic here are you not? We need to change our ways to fight climate change but we don't all need to be cave dwelling vegans for fu@!s sake! Farming doesn't need to stop completely - it just needs to be done better. We need to eat *less* meat/fish not stop entirely ... if that's what you're asking people to do then you'll never get anywhere - you'll be marginalised as a vegan nut. I'm into stopping this climate change thing but we need to be reasonable.
Vegan's dwell in caves?
I'm sure some of them do but that's not my point. My point is that there is no point pushing extreme solutions like giving up eating eating all meat, fish and dairy products ... people just won't do that and if you ask them to then they marginalise you and your message. Much better to propose more palatable ideas like eating less meat, less fish, less dairy, buying local, buying organic and farming better. I'd quite like to live in a cave.
It's like a peace activist group selling machine guns to raise money and then a supporter admitting - yes, we need to cut down on the amount of machine guns sold. I suppose it is a start, but the underlying hypocrisy of the matter is dumbfounding.
Veganism is not an extreme solution. I recommend Gary Francione's discussion of abolitionist animal rights.
In normal circumstances yes, we'd use vegetarian food for a Greenpeace activity or event, but this was, quite strategically, a traditional Kiwi sausage sizzle. With the Sign On campaign the important thing is for us to reach out to all Kiwis, not just our usual soy-sausage munching friends, so we decided we needed to keep Saturday's event as traditional as possible. It's worth noting that when we do vegetarian only, we get complaints from people who think we're too left wing, unrealistic and hippies etc. While i agree with many sentiments about issues with meat, on this occasion and given the urgency of the overall climate debate, i stand by our sausages.
I think you messed up. You are actively promoting a product (meat) the manufacture of which (large-scale animal agriculture) produces externalities (GHG emissions and other environmental problems) completely in opposition to your goal. And quite apart from the fact that it makes your message entirely contradictory ("help stop climate change, eat less meat - buy a sausage!"), appealing to one group (meat-eating NZers) by oppressing, exploiting and abusing another group (farmed animals) is morally vacuous. Sign me off - I mean it. I don't want to be a part of this.
Well said Jovian.
I really think people need to look at the bigger picture here about what that activity was trying to communicate - that we need John Key and Governments around the world to Sign On to a 40 per cent by 2020 emissions reduction target in order to save our arses from the worst impacts of climate change.
I don't understand why you guys aren't discussing the broader implications of climate change rather than focusing on sausages. I mean lets face it over consumption whether you're a vegan or a meat eater causes irreparable damage to our planet.
Vegan sausage = soy. Soy is responsible for deforestation in the amazon. No-one person can change the course humanity is currently on - thats why we need governments the world over to sign on to strong emission reduction targets and actually enforce them nationally - without this the small things we do will be for nought.
Statistics show that at least 80% of the world’s soybean crop and more than half of all corn produce is realised specifically to feed the global livestock population (Koneswaran & Nierenberg, 2008).
well put, Ben
You're absolutely correct that huge swathes of central and south American rainforests are being destroyed to make way for soy production. But most of that soy gets fed to EU livestock, not people (wikipedia search "Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest") - don't blame the tofu!
The fact of the matter is that animal agriculture is the single most destructive human activity on the planet, in terms of GHG emmissions (google the UN's 'Livestock's Long Shadow' report). Beef is particularly bad:
"Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG intensive than chicken or fish... Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food (3508)" (Weber, Christopher L., and H. Scott Matthews, “Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States” Environ. Sci. Technol., 42 (10), April 16 2008, 3508-3513)
Even organic or grass-fed beef is a big environmental offender when compared to organic plant proteins. This is not just about sausages - this IS about the broader implications of climate change, and what we should do to stop it.
This will be my last post, Greenpeace have responded to my emails and will be signing me off this incoherent campaign.
I knew that by having one line in my comment about soy and rainforests etc that you'd latch onto it - so this time without any comment about soy...
I really think people need to look at the bigger picture here about what that activity was trying to communicate - that we need John Key and Governments around the world to Sign On to a 40 per cent by 2020 emissions reduction target in order to save our arses from the worst impacts of climate change.
I don't understand why you guys aren't discussing the broader implications of climate change rather than focusing on sausages. No-one person can change the course humanity is currently on - thats why we need governments the world over to sign on to strong emission reduction targets and actually enforce them nationally - without this the small things we do will be for nought.
I can see your point on the potential mixed messaging here. But the way I see it is that if Greenpeace were campaigning to stop Indonesian rain-forest clearance it would be wrong to then buy any old kwila BBQ furniture for our event ... but on the other hand, it would be fine if that BBQ set was made of FSC certified kwila.
Of course in a perfect world we wouldn't make or buy any more wooden furniture at all - we'd sit on the ground - but that's just not practical for most people.
Similarly, Greenpeace is campaigning against the intensive industrial farming model (specifically Fonterra's industrial dairy model) because it is bad for the climate. So it'd be wrong to use any old sausages (or milk) at an event but it is OK to use organic products - especially on special occasions.
Nick, you do not appear to understand the problem. Organic sausages do not avoid the greenhouse gas emissions and other problems associated with animal farming. Campaigning to reduce climate change by selling meat is like fucking for virginity.
What is the point of reaching out to normal New Zealanders by pretending that it is possible to solve environmental problems without changing our lifestyles?
Our lifestyles are the problem.
It's always the same old story.... humans with no self control...., over populate..... miss manage natural resources....which then leads to mass slaughter or extinction/culling of humans..... and then human complain why have things gone wrong..... Society depends on nature for resources
[Editor's note: This comment was overly long and has been truncated]
Reading all the other comments I am reminded of the saying 'divide and rule': Vegans verses non-vegans rather than all of us trying to get John Key to Copenhagen. Surely the thing that we should be addressing here is that our country will not be properly represented at Copenhagen and that a target of 10-20% is way too low. We need numbers to convince John Key so we need to appeal to the wider public rather than preaching only to the converted (who might see the rational behind veggie sausages). Forget about the sausages for now and get folks on board with the bigger issue. There are lots of ways that people can reduce their carbon footprint.
Well said Jo - thank you. Within those that care about the climate there are lots of different opinions on meat but we all agree nothing less than 40% will do at Copenhagen and that is the most important thing!
Jo: The massive backlash you are getting here is not a sign of 'divide and rule'. It is a sign that hypocritical and contradictory tactics will alienate your core constituency, and will help to make you a mockery in the public eye.
If were are to achieve a 40% cut - which, based on the Stern Report's projects and the last IPCC Report, unless I'm very much mistaken, is around half the cut we need to stabilise climate change below 3 degrees - we need to change our lifestyles. This isn't about veganism - although there is no excuse for an 'environmentalist' to eat meat - but about recognising the bigger context in which the Sign On campaign sits. Sign On is not just about Copenhagen and John Key. It is about addressing climate change. We will not address climate change without changing our lifestyles. If John Key commits to a cut of 40% but New Zealanders don't change our lifestyles, we will see no progress.
"If John Key commits to a cut of 40% but New Zealanders don't change our lifestyles, we will see no progress."
Brilliant.
What a wonderful, succinct statement. This is the sum and substance of all who are critical of Greenpeace running a sausage sizzle.
Seeing as though I can't say anything better than this, I will bow out from this blog with my full support behind the wisdom of David Tong. Well done David.
Save the whales, but kill the cows! This is complete hypocrisy 100%.
Where's your integrity Greenpeace? Killing cows, whether organic or not, is far from peace. You drink her milk, like a mother, then you slaughter her? That is killing your mother (sad).
You can't have peace as long as there is cow killing. Impossible.
climate change is a tax fraud.....
No it's not.
If ya did ya research you would notice it a scam manipulated by the rich controlling mafia families that manipulate the reserve bank and everything else that you think is a justified world....they print the money...create the weapons.....manipulate little terriost groups to cause fear on people....spend 4 trillon dollars on warfare between 2002 and 2007 and now your telling me they want to tax us, because by taxing larger companies they inturn increase there prices which inturn effects us....
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
I am totally behind all of the people who have asserted that Greenpeace is being hypocritical by using a sausage sizzle to promote it's message about climate change to the everyday Nzer. This promotion was held outside of a red shed. What about a car wash fundraiser in the carpark instead? [using a method to collect the suds so they don't go down the stormwater drains]
I think Greenpeace is also mistaken if they think that the everyday nzer won't notice the hypocrisy either. In these sorts of battles, integrity is everything.
Well Ben, I find this debate and your comments all a little absurd. The point is we all have an impact on the environment and climate and pointing fingers at each other when, in reality, we should all be on the same side (ie trying to protect the environment) is a little stupid.
Yes, eating meat, particularly in the quantities most NZers eat it, is bad for the environment; but so is wearing leather shoes, driving a car, eating important fruit and vegetables and living - and it is a bit holier than thou to be harping on about other people's alleged sins. And I am quite sure all of those casting stones do some or all of those things?
Based on this logic we'd simply stop all activity designed to protect the environment....I mean national park rangers could stop working since this would save the carbon footprint of their vehicles.
How about a bit of balance and rationality in these debates instead of extremism and absurdity?
I see no rationality is your position. Ad hominem attacks are not rational. Your analogies are poor. Eating meat is hardly comparable to eating fruit, in environmental terms. Your hyperbolic ramblings won't change the hypocrisy here.
Wrong David...if the fruit is flown in from Australia or South America or parts of Asia (which it often is) then the analogy is perfectly reasonable. You tell me which part of your life doesn't have an impact on the climate and then you can cast the next stone.
For people who understand what cognitive dissonance is, they will understand why Chris thinks my comments are absurd: my comments don't fit into your worldview, and so with the job of the mind being to accept and reject, thus you reject them as absurd.
130,000 Vegetarians or Vegans would do way way way more to reduce GHG emissions than 130,000 signatures.
I am a Vegan and encourage all others to cut down on meat consumption, evolve to a Vegetarian diet.
Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world" And thats exactly what I am doing.
Einstein said: "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." This is wisdom.
Good luck Greenpeace, with the agriculture industry producing roughly half of NZ's GHG I think John Key quite rightly realises that 40% reduction is absurd given that agriculture is protected like gold.
No Ben, I don't think your comments are absurd because of the logic of becoming a vegetarian or vegan; I think they are absurd because the way to get change is to build a coalition of people all pushing in the same direction, we may not all agree on the strategies but if we expend are energy criticising each other rather than trying to achieve change we will get nowhere. Essentially I agree with you on the issues of meat.
And 130,000 signatures and the campaign that goes with it have already had an effect on changing the debate around climate change in NZ and the NZ Govt's attitude....we need to change the way agriculture is managed in this country and Sign On is at least partly about a healthy debate around that which you could be supporting.
First of all, I support less meat eating, I support vegetarianism and especially those amazing and strong people out there who are vegans. These are a core of people (who I'm sure Greenpeace loves and appreciates) who are the leaders of well needed behavioural change at an individual level.
However, I am not sure exactly what are the critics of this barbeque suggesting as a solution? Soy sausages are wrapped in plastic - a by product of the petroleum industry. This is not exactly the purist 100% perfect answer either.
We are at a critical point where we need to relate to middle New Zealand to create some major and real shift on our political landscape.
Painting ourselves into a corner with a "locally grown vegetable clay oven bake off with wood burned from the local wood plot" will only alienate ourselves from the mainstream.
We will continue to sing to the choir or in this case serve vegetables to the vegetarians.
We need to relate to as many people as possible so the big message can get through. Then slowly as more people get it we can slip them a falafel or two.
"The task of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much personal integrity as possible; it is to dismantle those systems."
Lierre Keith, Vege thinker
No one seems to have pointed out the GP probably used a car to get down to the warehouse, was using gas to cook the sausages etc - why? Because it is accepted that using cars etc is a necessary part of working towards changing how our society interacts with our climate.
Greenpeace could be a bunch of hippies living a completely sustainable lifestyle out in the bush somewhere - but they couldn't do this and also be effecting change across our society. Likewise, they could only have served vege sausages, probably only to people that were already aware and concerned about climate change. Instead, they chose to have an event that was accessible to a much wider section of society and were able to take their message to more people. The evil buggers - they must be stopped!
Changing our personal consumption habits is important - but it is not what is going to stop climate change. Real action to address climate change is what we need from our leaders, with real reduction targets based on what science is telling us and real action to achieve these.
Climate action, from individuals and groups like Greenpeace, that is able to communicate to, and mobilise, society is what is going to force this type of political action.
Rather than criticising Greenpeace for finding an inventive way to speak to a wide audience - but using a couple hundred meat sausages at the same time - criticise our leaders that are failing to act to avoid climate chaos.
Or sign off and go munch on a soysage while moaning about people that are taking action, if you must.
What your basically saying is that the future of humanity relies on a bunch of politicians.
That worries me Pete. That worries me a lot.
The only solution to climate change is focusing on the root cause. Greenpeace you are missing the root cause of climate change. That root cause is the consciousness of humanity being perverted, thinking we can dominate nature and laud over it as if were our right to do so. This is our disease.
The government cannot instigate the necessary paradigm shift required to shift people's consciousness to a higher level.
We can Pete, only we can.