Discovery Channel and New Zealand

Well... all this week (atleast over here) the Discovery Channel is doing a series on New Zealand, all I can say is that I am soo jealous your land is so perdy.

I really enjoyed the landscape with the LOTR movies but now that I have seen more about the land and the peoples, I must say that yall have got it made.

I can understand a bit more why the NZ government has decided to be nuke free, both in energy and weapon wise. Why it takes soo much to get a single tree to be cut down and your other strives to preserve your natural enviroment.


Don't get me wrong, I still have yet to see a better sunset than over my town in the high planes of New Mexico. Or seeing a little road runner zoom accross the desert floor. From mountains to tropical rainforest the beauty of America is astonishing, I only wish our government, past and current, had the balls to stand up to big business and deny them the destruction of such an awesome land.

[ 27. February 2003, 14:49: Message edited by: Raymund ]

ahh raymund, oz is not nz, common misconception

i'd love australia to be nuke free - but no , instead little johnny's going to buy into the star wars program, upgrade our nuclear reactors, contnue to use nuclear powered ships and subs etc etc etc

a roadrunner hey? - ive never seen one of those

meep meep

Heh why don't they use nuclear power?

Really it's better for the enviroment then any other power source.

But hey radiation makes zombies and godzilla and all kinds of horrible things, atleast according to tv.

and let's not forget the 3-eyed fish called Blinky.

the problem's not so much with the making of the nuclear power - it's what to do with the spent fuel rods and such - they have a pretty long life time

Opps error fixed, but anyhow read it again and this time see the message not the errors!

ray me thinks you need to learn you geography again

oz is the big iseland (same size as mainland USA)

the only nuclare device we have in australia is lucas hights which is a medical resurch. (note the reactor was there 20yrs before the houses started to get built there)

i dont agree with nuclare energy it is way to dangrus. give me hydro ,solar of wind power any day

How is it dangerous? Maybe your thinking of chernobyl which is one disastour in the entire history of nuclear energy. Now consider the fact that what happened with that reactor is only really possible with the russian style reactors. Yes things can go wrong but they sure can go wrong with oil, coal, hydro-electric, natural gas etc...

Hmmm lets see. Exxon valdez. Numerous oil refinery, oil rig, oil tanker, oil pipe line and oil well fires, explosions and leaks causing the deaths of hundreds of people, destroying the enviroment and leaking PCB's and other nasty things into the food chain and the water table.

Lets not forget the massive air pollution.

So lets use hydro electric dams. There has been a few cases of dams breaking and killing a lot of people, they are very very bad for the enviroment. You can build all the fish ladders you want they aren't entirely effective, it floods the landscape upstream and destroys everything there. It prevents the natural flow of sediment from upstream to downstream causing big problems with coastal erosion.

Coal mines are amazingly dangerous places to work. They also destroy the enviroment.

Lets use wind power eh? I guess your willing to give up most of your luxuries because paying for wind power is going to cost you a bloody fortune. It's hardly practical at all. Oh and solar is completly absurd. If you want to power a nation from the sun your totally dreaming. Seriously.

So we have nuclear power that if managed properly (chernobyl definatly was not) is very safe. very clean and very efficient. Yes it makes waste but this waste can be canned up and stored. it's not like the earth is so densley populated that there isn't sparsley inhabitated places to put this radioactive material. It's also not like the reactors prodouce so much material that it is going to pile up and we will run out of space.

[ 27. February 2003, 15:09: Message edited by: Astar ]

who said anything about hydro dams??

who said anything about powering a nation with wind or solar

im talking about home power systems here

friends of mine live on a farm
they have a terbine atached to the waterfall up 1km walk from there house
they have solar pannels (and a solar hot water system) on there roof

and a miny wind turbile

it may cost to set up but once you have it up and running it is free earth freindly power

helping theenviroment starts at home

Not everyone has a personal waterfall to put a hydro turbine on.

considering most of the people in the world live in the city.

I suppose new zealand may have a bigger percantage of rural dwellers then your average 1st world nation.

Grr... no more energy crap, this post was about beutifull land and how it is conserved, and not about who uses what or what is safe and what isnt.

New Zealand has beautifull land, something that I am in awe of, it is conserved very well, I wish that the US Govenment (past and present) understood the importance of conserving our great land.

One day soon, babe, one day soon....

And how on earth did you manage to do the typo of OZ for NZ? The O and the N are really really far away on the keyboard

What amazes me about NZ is the variety in such small spaces, beaches to glaciers in a day. It is like someone just picked all the best bits of the world, and packed them into one place.

Is there boats that go between NZ and AU with a bit of comfort and luxuries? When I make my trip to AU someday I definatly want to go to NZ aswell.

About how long of a sail is it from AU to NZ?

Just like the Fjords of Norway. Was it sluttibutfarst we have to that for those?

sluttibutfarst? sluttibutfarst?!!!!

At least if you are going to get the name wrong you could go the whole hog and say slutti-butt-farts.

Rozi my love we have a lot to talk about hehe like what in samhell is the sluttibuttfart thing??

heheee - sorry Rozi. Unlike some other people around here, I'm not a self-proclaimed Geek into all things sci fi and quirky.

It's been a while since I've done any Hitch-Hiking. Care to enlighten me on correct naming?

probability 1 to the power of 1300695381498436967

and falling


.....

*Takes up a defencive posture infront of his partner*

*Stands behind Ray giggling her head off*

In the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy there is a character called Slartibartfast who designs and builds planets. He is famous for having designed Norway "with all those lovely Fjords".

I suspect he may have had a hand in NZ too.

Interesting NZ factoid: Sheep outnumber people (and that isn't including the inflatable ones)

Is the sheep or the people inflatable?

oh god dont start me with the nz sheep jokes

thats all i need some mad kiwi with velcro gloves on chacing me with a flaming poi
hehehe

Not to mention all the crim jokes about Aussies..

By the way, Raymund, i think the main reason NZ is the way it is isn't so much the government but our lack of westernised history.

We are only 153 years old from a western viewpoint, and the inhabitants before that (whoever they are isn't as certain as you'd think) had already managed to kill off two of the most awesome birds in the world)

All in my own opinion of course...

i work on new zoolund time, its wonky
i even get to talk to new zoolund folks all day! wowsers how lucky am i! but seriously, nz is beautiful and one day i plan to go there and prove that to myself...

Sorry to hear that Charles but look at America, how many creatures have we put onto the extinct list? Far to many. Your track record is a hell of alot better than ours or probably any other country for that matter!

Nice thread Raymund, some very good points made.

I'm told the mountains there make for some pretty choice snowboarding.One of these days I wanna at least visit NZ.

Hhhhhmmmmmm ..... maybe I should start playing the lottery.

Hrm, thats like playing $5.00 slots in the Veges Air Port hehe... just save your money, you will get there faster!

Or if ther eis something momentary you would spend $5.00 on every week (like food you don't really need), stop buying the food and buy the ticket.

That way, you haven't lost any money, but you have a chance to win big...

In my opinion of course...

Lost Money (phrase) def. Money not in my pocket or in my bank I.E. My money is in some other persons pocket because I needed to buy something or was to stupid to keep it in my pocket or bank.


So I have odd definitions, big deal

NZ is really amazingly beautiful. I don't think I've been to a more intensively beautiful country in my life. Except that a lot of the towns are dumps, all straight lines and no character. But nothing's perfect, eh.

In NZ you can spin poi on a sun drenched sandy beach at sunset and look back past rainforest to see the sun glinting off glaciers and snow capped mountains.

NZ seems to be one of those places perfect in the now, but can so easily take the path to destruction due to population growth. It seems in balance, but soon maybe they'll have to sacrifice national parks for fields

The NZ government is really protective, because the ecosystem is so fragile that introduced animals and plants get out of control so easily and destroy the native life. However they're currently rethinking the nuclear free thing. Astar, Chernobyl is the only nuclear disaster???? I think not. It's the largest and most visible, but definitly not the only.

I had some amazing sunsets in NZ, breath takingly beautiful. Unfortunately we had the bush fires in Oz to thank for the extra colour.

Everyone should spend a few months wandering around NZ.