Red fish and yellow-eyed penguins

Another week has gone by, rather quickly if you ask me. Work didn't go as well for me this week as last week, but it was still decent.

Today I was volunteering for Greenpeace for about an hour and a half. We walked from the Cathedral in the city centre to the Art Centre market and handed out Greenpeace's consumer guide how to avoid the most unsustainable seafood to people we met on the street. That is, the others were doing all the talking and handing out the guides, while I was having fun being our ocean's campaign mascot: Sammy, the semi-sad Orange Roughy fish. My upper body covered by the round red fish costume, I went with the flow, approached families, let children give me a pat (or a tug on the tail!) and posed for many a walker-by's camera.

JBB as Sammy, a semi-sad Orange Roughy fish.

It felt good for once doing something not as an employer and without any performance pressure, but simply for the importance and good of doing it.

A couple of days ago I talked to an elderly guy who had some very interesting thoughts on the origin of the climate change the planet is experiencing. Is it due to human activity since the Industrial Revolution? Because of the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? A consequence of deforestration and ocean pollution? No, no, no! There is a much more logical and plausible explanation.

The whole mess is the fault of the French.

You heard me right! The French have caused global warming! (At this point I should inform you that some Kiwis still hold a huge grudge against the French for bombing the Rainbow Warrior in the 80s.) It's all because of those countless nuclear tests the French did on the atolls in the South Pacific years and years ago. What happened, was that the series of nuclear explosions in the exact same spot over and over again, caused a change in the inclination of the Earth, thus changing the seasons and the climate we had up until then!

Proof of this can be found in the fact that the French eventually stopped their nuclear tests. Was this because of public outrage and environmental organisations like Greenpeace demanding the tests to cease and the Pacific to be made into a nuclear free zone? Again, no. The opinions of the little people don't matter. Governments will do as they want. The tests ended simply because someone way high up, had figured out what the nuclear explosions were doing, i.e. ultimately giving birth to the tool of our own self-destruction. (I'm still talking about climate change. And I'm serious.)

What a conspiracy theory. I was dumbstruck having heard that. What do you respond to something like that? It's not like you can convince someone that deluded of the truth. Poor humanity.

Alright, so that, I guess, pretty much sums up my week. In order for the blog to ever catch up with current events, I'm going to tell you how our journey continued from Dunedin, where I left you at the end of the last post.

The Southern Scenic Route is a coastal journey starting in Dunedin and ending in Te Anau, the heart of Fiordland (or the other way around). You can get the free map of the route at any information centre; it shows where all the attractions are located. There is lots and lots to see, but unfortunately many of the attractions are not located within easy access from the road; to some you need to walk for an hour or two to reach. Other attractions, like the Cathedral Cove, are only accessible a few hours every day due to the tide. Preferrably, you'd split the drive onto several days in order to see as much as possible. We, on the other hand, chose to drive the whole leg in one day. This made us miss some things, but ultimately I don't think it's something we'll regret.

What we did see though, was one of the many waterfalls in the Catlins region (negligible), the 160 million year old fossilised forest at Curio Bay, some yellow-eyed penguins and the Blue Rocks in Riverton. Curio Bay is absolutely worth a stop if you drive the route. The fossilised forest is viewable depending on the tide, and looks really just like imprints of tree logs in the rock cliffs of the beach. When we jumped out of the car to go down there, it was pretty stormy, so we also got to see some huge waves breaking into the cliffs.

Waves crashing into the cliffs in Curio Bay.

We were also lucky enough to spot two yellow-eyed penguins in the bay. They were standing further up the beach next to some low-branched trees and bushes. One of them frequently flapped its wings at a high speed drying the feathers.

A yellow-eyed penguin in Curio Bay.

Because the weather was less than enjoyable, we ended up driving all the way to Invercargill pretty much without further stops. Invercargill was a bit of a disappointment. The largest town in Southland and portal to Stewart Island lacks character and has the charming feel of an industrial town. It has enough promise to tickle one's tentacles of curiosity for an hour or two (at most), but to spend a day and a night in Invercargill would probably mean a day and a night that could have been better spent in a number of other places in NZ. Don't fall for it.

Leaving Invercargill not only improved the scenery, but also the weather. By the time we very briefly stopped in Riverton to switch driver and take three photographs of the curious Blue Rocks, we could almost discern Stewart Island 30 km out at sea.

The Blue Rocks in Riverton.

From there it only got better the further we drove north towards Fiordland and its main town, Te Anau. Gradually we passed into more and more mountainous terrain, eating up the miles with our green petrol-drinker. The sun didn't have much time left above the jagged peaks by the time we arrived in the cozy little town in the most iconic part of the country. Before finding our accommodation (Barnyard Backpackers, a very idyllic place we like very much) 9 km out of town, we quickly familiarised ourselves with the lakeshore and the shopping street, as this would become our base for a while. Te Anau, which lies on the shore of Lake Te Anau, the second-largest lake in NZ, is after all, the gateway to some of the best tramps in NZ, Fiordland National Park, as well as the magnificient fiords like Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound.

Dusk over Fiordland as seen from the Barnyard Backpacker's hostel.

If this text was more boring than usual, hopefully the next couple of entries will be more inspiring as I cover our first trip to awesome Milford Sound and our four day tramp on the Kepler Track! 'Til then, keep it real!

Reflections

A new chapter has begun in our journey. Last Saturday we left Tauranga, where we have been working for the past months. We'd like to say thank you one more time to our extremely helpful and generous flatmate Matt in Mt Maunganui. It was lots of fun flatting with you. We're looking forward to be able to act as hosts when you get to Finland.

At the time of writing we are in the capital of NZ - Wellington. We didn't, however, drive here straight from Tauranga, but made a couple of days' detour to the volcano Mt Taranaki on the west coast on our way down. We'll write about what we experienced there in another blog post pretty soon, but now I'll just say a few words about what I've experienced in Tauranga while living there.

It is with some sadness I'm leaving the life in the Mount and the fund raising job for Greenpeace behind. The past three months have been pretty good for me. It was nice to settle down for a while after having traveled for nearly two months. It was nice to have a room of my own, and a BED of my own :) It's remarkable how important that bed is for making you feel at home when you think about it... Anyway, I also enjoyed living only minutes away from a gorgeous beach, and going to the gym regularly.

The Tauranga door team. It was fun working with u guys!

From a long term perspective, however, the most significant thing for me during the past months has been my job. Even before becoming "the Greenpeace Man" who knocks on doors and talks about saving the whales and ancient forests, I had my concerns about the environment. Especially about climate change. But, like most people out there, I wasn't aware of the breadth of the destruction, nor how bad things really are. That has changed, and I am now horrified of the prospects of the future, even though there is still hope for this planet. I could probably spend the rest of the evening and the whole night telling you of all the wickedness going on and dropping one mind blowing fact after another, but I'm just going to settle for a few:

Did you know we only have 20% of the Earth's ancient (original native) forests left? Did you know that fish stocks all around the world are collapsing due to destructive fishing methods like trawling, and that by 2048 we will have no seafood left in our oceans? Did you know the north pole might be completely without ice cover summertime in five years time due to global warming? Did you know extreme weather conditions like floods and droughts due to climate change have massive economic impacts (e.g. the drought in the Waikato area in NZ a year ago cost the farming sector 1.24 billion dollars!)? Did you know that a third of all plant and animal life on Earth faces extinction by 2050 due to climate change?

I could go on and on, and I haven't even mentioned genetically engineered food or what's wrong with today's food business and all the additives and shit we are pushed to eat by the big food producers. When it comes to food, there is an excellent book by Felicity Lawrence I think everyone should read. It's called "Eat your heart out - Why the food business is bad for the planet and your health". It will change how you look at food, I promise you!

In all this doom and gloom, there is still a sliver of hope. Climate change is the perfect opportunity for a revolution of how we humans think of the environment in this modernised and industrialised world. The old system of exploitation and abuse is obviously not working anymore. Maximising profits with no regard for the consequences on the environment is not viable in the long run. We need to change, to evolve, before it's too late. Otherwise our children and grandchildren will grow up in a world where the oceans are dead, the ancient forests are gone, fresh water is scarce, an increasing number of people face starvation and the climate is unrecognisable.

The good news though is that the solutions to climate change already exist, we just need to implement them. We need to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by, for instance, shifting to renewable energy sources and invest in novel energy efficient technologies. We have only 8-10 years to significantly reduce our emissions unless we want to risk dramatic and unpredictable changes to the climate. This is why the UN summit on climate change taking place in Copenhagen in December 2009 is so important. We need to make sure that the delegates of all nations going there take climate change seriously and are there to act and not just talk b#llshit. It's basically the last chance the leaders of the world have to tackle climate change, so you should get your voice heard NOW! It would be fantastic of you to join an environmental organisation like Greenpeace, but I'm not going to ask that of you since I know everyone can't afford it (although it often is a matter of choice). I am, however, going to ask of you to do what you can in your local community; put pressure on your local representative, sign petitions, recycle, be more energy efficient, reuse stuff, say no to plastic bags, favour locally grown and organic food, eat less meat, fish and dairy products, participate in protest marches for the environment and sign up for FREE emails from Greenpeace to keep you informed of what's going on (either through the international site or from your own national site - FI).

DEMAND ACTION! After all, it is ultimately not the planet we are fighting for, it is life - human, animal and plant - as we know it right now that is in jeopardy.

Now I know there are still you skeptics out there. In my job as a fundraiser I've talked to thousands of people. Some are deeply concerned, some ignorant, and some just have the facts mixed up. Climate change is no longer a matter of belief, it is a matter of fact. If any of you advocates-of-business-as-usual want a debate with me, bring it on! :)

Although my job for Greenpeace is currently at an end, it doesn't mean I don't care about the environment any more. The job has taught me so much it has become impossible for me to ignore what we are really facing. In the future I will most certainly be involved in environmental protection, if not professionally, then at least in my spare time. Why? If for nothing else, then because I don't want to some day have to face my grandchild's question:

"What the hell were people thinking?"

Photo credit: Roger Grace/Greenpeace

Any opinions and factual mistakes above are mine alone. I can dig the references for you if anyone wants to know where it all comes from.