How sick that one of the best environmental scientists can be punished this way in NZ?

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Here is one of this country’s best and bravest environmentalists admitting that his advocacy and the science behind his advocacy has been threatened…

“I’ve been openly told, don’t bother applying for this, cos you won’t get it.” Mike Joy, semi-finalist for New Zealander of the Year, says his advocacy work has come at a professional cost

…how sick that one of the best environmental scientists can be punished this way in NZ?

This despicable piece of propaganda by corporate farming thug Doug Edmeades on stuff.co.nz reminds everyone that Fairfax is on the side of the corporations, not on  the side of the people.

A scientist like Mike Joy who has had the courage to challenge the corporate farming pollution of our water doesn’t deserve to be defamed and attacked in this manner, especially when it’s by an industry shill like Edmeades.

This is nothing short of a character assassination and a reminder that Fairfax is there for corporate interests. The Dairy Industry has gone from being an abuser of our environment into being an abuser of science, we just can’t let these sanctimonious pricks get away with this and environmentalists like Joy need to know we have their back.

 

27 COMMENTS

  1. MIKE JOY is a restrained and careful public educator.

    They want him to tell lies.

    john key ( that banker who pleads ignorance ) even had it in for him on international media.

    key sees nothing wrong with lies and has a legacy of so many that it is difficult to list them.

    Some want what is best for NZ and MIKE is among them.

    key is a crony corporate parasite. Farmers drench their stock for parasites.

  2. Interesting that throughout his diatribe and demanding ” that such opinions should be objective and unbiased”, Doug Edmeades does not actually refute any of Dr Joy’s findings.

    In effect, he presents an opinion piece against scientific fact.

    Well, I can do that as well. Fact: electricity flows through power lines, to domestic plugs. Fact: shoving a fork into a live power plug will probably result in severe shock or death. Opinion: I disagree with those facts and insist that shoving a fork into a power plug may or may not harm me. Note: I happen to be working in an industry related to fork-manufacturing. Question: am I prepared to put it to the test? (Probably not.)

    That’s the quality of Edmeades’ argument.

    By the way, as pointed out by one commenter, “POlicy Jeff”, Mr Edmeades appears to be a climate change denier:

    “As a result of his research, Doug is subsequently openly sceptical of the theory of dangerous man-induced global warming. “

    ref: http://dougedmeades.com/about

    A science denier decrying a scientist who presented scientific facts to the public. F*****g brilliant.

    I wonder if Fairfax will public an “opinion piece” from me advocating that the Earth is flat.

    Equal time for fairytales!

    • Doug Edmeades is just another paid extortionist for his National puppet masters no more no less.

      He has guilt written all over his words.

      Mike Joy is an honest credible scientist no other is better qualified to speak about the environmental devastation being wrought upon NZ by big bushiness pundits.

      Keep telling the truth Mike and you will be heard.

    • There is a danger that the scrutinee placed on Mike Joy and the department he works within at Massey University, will lead to changes facilitated to effectively stop further work on Mike’s line of ecology or even see the Department restaffed or restructured.

      They will nobble him one way or another unless he is politically supported with entrenched changes.

      To many the Earth is flat, its obvious.

    • The earth IS flat, Frank.

      There is indisputable sc**(mumble)***fic proof on You Tube.

      You Tube also tells me that the climate change we’re not having is because of aliens.

      You need to get with the interweb geniuses…

      😀 😀 😀

  3. Hah, I learned very long ago, that telling the truth and being up front and blunt, that is hated by many here, and you risk being destroyed for good.

    Look also at Nicky Hager, look at Kim Dotcom and so forth, I am sure there are many more we can think of.

    The system, and some key decision makers do not take kindly towards people rocking the boat of the establishment, their lackeys and the apathetic, brain washed silent majority.

    This is just another name we can add to the long list of victims of mean spiritedness, also seen as ‘tall poppy syndrome’.

    A stab in the back is the treatment dished out, stab the dagger, and laugh and walk away, a common way to deal with each other in NZ politics, in business and work places.

  4. Mainstream media here is nothing more than advertising space, no different to the crappy flyers you might still be unfortunate enough to have stuffed in your mailbox or the middle of your Weekend Herald if you’re stupid enough to buy it. They will support any “opinion piece” from the Dairy industry, Fed Farmers, Real Estate Institute et al and publish their shit as if it is fact because they need their advertising dollars. Most sheep will read it and think it is actually news, never once questioning the source and motive behind the “story”.

    Could be depressing but at least it puts some understanding behind why so many people in the country seem to be brain dead.

  5. there is a solution (as there usually is) though as with other issues it is one that is unlikely to be implemented….simply stop consuming their ‘product’

    • That does not solve the problem, unless you replace the misinformation with good and true information. Switching off may protect from brain washing, but it does not address ignorance. The ignorant stay ignorant, as they have always been, unless you give them education and information that enlightens them.

      • That depends on which problem you are trying to solve….if the MSM get financially punished (even bankrupted) for pressing the case for big business ahead of public good then they will either cease the action or cease to exist…..sadly as i noted the wider public will continue to shoot themselves in the foot by consuming their product

        We all know who pulls their string and yet we still read the crap.

        • In the socio economic order we have, they are virtually ALL driven by profit earned through advertising sales, which compromises media outlets.

          What is left of ‘public media’, i.e. state funded or community funded media?

          It is marginal, and as the dominant media force is profit driven, following KPI guidance, making comfortable arrangements with business, and thus acts in a ‘mindful manner’, that pressures RNZ and others to join the same game, doing more or less the same, so not to upset the string pullers.

          So only radical systemic change will bring true change. That can only happen if a government reigns in on the media as we have it, and invests in public media, and allows more freedom and frequencies and online space for community and alternative media.

          • Well you’ll be a happy man then….we have a new government, increased funding for public service broadcasting and the internet is available to almost all.

  6. its a case of shoot the messenger the truth isn’t is there interests its real mafia stand over tactics isn’t it about time federated farmers got given some of the own medicine back

  7. It is standard practice in NZ to attack truth-tellers, especially when truth-tellers point out point out that systems that are providing a comfortable living (albeit short term) for establishment figures are destructive and unsustainable.

    Not only do corporations and individuals cheat and lie in order to justify continuation of unsustainable practices but city and regional councils do exactly the same.

    There is no hope for a smooth transition to sane practices when a society is as deeply rotten as that of NZ.

    I gave up environmental activism several years ago for the very reasons stated above, and now await the ‘implosion’ that will be a natural consequence of the ignorance, greed and corruption that characterise NZ society in general and its governing institutions in particular.

    • I hate it, but I have to agree with you, there will be no peaceful, fair and publicly supported change, the ‘masses’, brain washed and conditioned as they are, and deeply tied into this system, having ‘invested’ in it, they will have to take it to the limits, until it implodes, this rotten system.

  8. As I understand it, Jim Salinger got pushed out of the top job at NIWA for daring to say that global warming was a real phenomenon that needed to be urgently addressed.

    • Basically he was “pushed out” because he didn’t go to his superiors first and ask them if he could say what he did.

  9. Don’t worry about that stupid Edmeades article. He openly admits he doesn’t know what he’s talking about then says it anyway. It won’t have any cut through to anyone but pollution-deniers anyway.

  10. Great respect for Mike Joy of course but maybe a bit of perspective on the history of this problem might provide a clearer understanding of the wider issues:

    First off this isn’t a new thing. The myth that NZ was clean and green at some distant point in the past is a myth. For example, up until the 1950’s sailors entering Auckland harbour were recommended to wear face masks to avoid ingesting faeces floating on the water surface. Bear in mind that Auckland didn’t even have a waste water treatment plant right up until the 50’s. Prior to that all the crap was pumped untreated into the Hauraki.

    To this day a large number of small townships still have no waste water treatment plant and of those that do, most haven’t spent a dollar in maintaining them for the last 40 years. People worry about, say, urea levels in the rivers of the Canterbury Plains and falsely attribute it all to cows, when for example the entirety of Darfield relies on private septic tanks.

    Nobody knows how much of the problem is stock and how much is human caused, not even Mike Joy. We don’t have enough continuous monitoring points to pinpoint pollution sources but the best guess of my water treatment colleagues is that it could be about 50/50.

    A nationally led audit of town sewage treatment systems is urgently required because local councils just aren’t competent to manage it themselves and may be hiding the truth to avoid spending money. I’m confident this would lead to a multi-billion dollar effort to clean up human effluent in regional NZ.

    In short, this is much bigger than just cows!

    • Well,we have to start somewhere, Andrew, and doing nothing hardly seems an option. Aside from messing up our environment, it will ruin our tourism industry. If you live in a messy house, you tidy it up. It’s time we cleaned up the country.

  11. “Nobody knows how much of the problem is stock and how much is human caused,…”

    That is true enough and it is worth noting NZ has been the beneficiary of a fortuitous accident of history and geography, not some inherent conservation predilection.
    Unfortunately we have spent the past 15 odd years doing our utmost to undo the source of our previous good fortune and are destined to make all the same mistakes as those of our species less blessed.

  12. By the way, Dr James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute at NASA, got rapped across the knuckles many times by his ‘superiors’ for pointing out that global warming was potentially the greatest threat to continuation of life-as-we-know-it…commencing 1988.

    The ’empire’ is utterly corrupt and totally unsustainable. But it is also vicious in the defence of the corrupt and the unsustainable, and it will keep ‘screwing’ everything and everyone for as long as it can.

  13. I agree with both Samewise and ‘let me be frank’: It’s no use sitting on our hands doing nothing. We need a national strategy to solve the whole problem, not part of it.

    This might include:

    Establishment of ‘river authorities’ like the UK has to make a single body accountable for water quality and give them independence and legal authority to act against polluters, regardless of who they are.

    Installation of many more continuous water quality monitoring points on rivers to improve data capture.

    Independent auditing of municipal outfall water quality. (I can hear the howls of anguish from councils across the country on this one!)

    Mandatory detention tanks, fencing & riparian planting and ground water testing for high intensity farming activities. Farmers have had years to get their act together so by now they shouldn’t have too much difficulty complying with this)

    Note: This is a 10-20 year program

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