Auckland in the morning

Could it be? Am I actually in New Zealand in again? This little country that captured my imagination and admiration 3 years ago is once again my home. I’m ecstatic!

This time I’m here on a three month internship with the New Zealand Green Building Council in downtown Auckland, in the North Island. Unfortunately, everyone I’ve told so far while in NZ about my job seems to have no clue what I’m talking about. This doesn’t necessarily surprise me as this country is notorious for its poorly designed homes. No insulation and no proper heating systems mean that this winter (switched seasons you see) I will be freezing!
Lucky for New Zealand I love it no matter what! Also, the opportunity for improvement is massive!

A few other things that make this country special include:
- every toilet has dual flushing
- being bare foot downtown is very, very common
- pedestrians do NOT have the right of way.

Posted on Behalf of Prof. Stepan Wood, member of IRIS

Why the WGSR should not follow Professor Ruggie’s advice on defining the scope of social responsibility

by Stepan Wood, May 2010

The Issue

The Working Group on Social Responsibility (WGSR) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will meet in Copenhagen from May 17 to 21, 2010 for what is likely to be its last meeting to work on ISO 26000, an international guide on social responsibility. One of the central challenges for the WGSR is to define the scope of an organization’s responsibility for human rights abuses committed by third parties. Should an apparel company be responsible for violations of workers’ rights in its suppliers’ factories? Should a mining company be responsible for illegal killings and assaults by private security forces contracted to protect its assets and personnel? Should manufacturers of law enforcement equipment be responsible when police use them to suppress lawful assembly and expression?

My friend and colleague, Prof. Ellie Perkins recently forwarded an article to a number of us about the “cost of eggs”. I assumed that it was all about the nutritional value of hens’ eggs and expected to read that I could soon keep chickens in my back garden in Toronto – and why not? Vancouverites can. With the advent of the growing season, I am currently in an “urban agriculture” headspace, as well as engaged in the ongoing battle to increase the number of vegetarian meals that my family eats (for both cost and carbon footprint reasons) to over 50%. It turned out that Ellie’s article was a very curious piece about the high value placed on the eggs of students with high SAT scores by couples hoping to conceive via fertility treatments and egg donations! Eggs are parts of life cycles, and all organisms need food as they go through their life cycles. Food security and sustainability of supply are huge issues.

My latest set of blogs are a bit delayed, because following on from teaching BIOLOGY 2010, York’s Plant Biology course, and the arrival of a very early spring, I am writing a lot about food – security and sustainability. These blogs take a lot of fact-checking and research and are time-consuming to write.

So, here’s a quick shout out to the LCBO – the Liquor Control Board of Ontario – who this past weekend, likely did more to promote cycling as a form of sustainable transportation among non-enthusiasts, than all of the cyclists, cycle clubs and cycling advocates that I know, put together, including the City of Toronto cycling office!

[photopress:LCBO_french_lessons1.jpg,full,centered]

They put a very handsome young man, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit on a bike, and made it the cover of last weekend’s flyer promoting French wine. This arrived as an insert in our Saturday paper.

From the Western media, you may not have known that a historic climate change conference was held last week in Bolivia. Hard on the heels of the failure in Copenhagen, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, proposed the people’s conference as a counterpoint to the pessimism and big power politics in Denmark.

Over 30,000 people attended the conference and met in 17 + 1 working groups to hash out a people’s agreement. Along with a proposed universal declaration for the rights of Mother Earth, enormous energy and spirit is being unleashed in the Global South to bear on the existential threats facing the human species, something to keep in mind in the complacent North that is sleepwalking through the unfolding disaster.

And despite the predictable and almost deliberate media blackout, it is again the South that is taking the lead, and amongst them, the poorest of the poor.