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Mokihinui River by Craig Potton

(While I raise my son and grow my good news website).

I’ve just been reading about the potential future of New Zealand’s pristine Mokihinui River and I think this issue actually illuminates some opportunities.  But first, I must rant:

Hello!  As Wayne would say “are you mental?!”. Do we look like a country crying out for one less magnificent, ancient river-scape? Do we seem like a nation of people just begging to light our houses with our rivers?  Sustainable everything (food, transport, fashion, paint, building, sex, laptops, fridges, cleaning products, shoes, animal food, ahhh the list is infinite!)  is en-vogue and our old-school government are opening their legislative doors to this?

The good news is, this amazing river still exists, in its wild, natural entirety.  The not at at fantastic news is that its facing a totally different future – as a flooded dam.  Pah!  I don’t think so!

Ok.  So this is a feisty blog.  And it pleases me, so I’m going with it.

Well.  As far as I’m concerned, ‘it aint over till …’ you know how the saying goes.  There are so many ways to generate energy.  You’ve only got to poke around in the back-blocks of any town and you’ll find all manner different power generation systems in action that are good-news for the environment.

Now, if you’re reading this blog, if you’re on the Happyzine site, then I know that you know this already.  So you know that I already know that you know.  But just bear with me, I’m like a cheerleader in the full throws of a … cheer (yeah I’m still ranting).

We’ve got to go small scale.  We really do.  Not for the economy, for our environment (and when I say environment, I also mean people because we are one and the same).  I really cannot understand how short term economic gain could tempt enough people to go this way.  You know, New Zealand could hold the main-stage as an international leader in sustainable energy design.  I’m not the first person to say it.  We could be implementing cutting edge energy generation plans that not only provide us with more than enough power, but also contribute to our sustainable tourism industry, and to the general image and demand of our products in general.

Now these are lovely, dreamy ideas to be sharing with you, but there really is an actual potential future wrapped up with these words.  New Zealand can become a world leader in sustainable energy generation.  We have the skills, the resources (wind, water, sun) and the creativity to make it happen.  Our power supplies can be tailor made to suit each unique community’s needs.  Sounds like hard work, but it’s actually moving from working on a large-scale, insensitive level, to the way that nature generally works most efficiently – within smaller scale systems.  This isn’t an option, it’s the only way forward.

I’m just in the process of co-developing a green energy design competition.  We are going to show you that people are already living on clean-power, off the grid, and it’s easy.  We’re also going to show you the myriad of ways that power can be generated – for a family, a community, and for a nation.  It’s time to take the determination of our ancestors (who really did have to fight for their lives) and drive it into meeting our power needs, creatively, sustainably.  We can do it.  All we need is a little optimism and tenacity.

I mean, come on!  I thought we were the number eight wire pure NZ country.  I thought we were a nation of innovators and small business owners (ie brave, independent, creative types).  Actually, I know we are all these things.  So lets get busy mak’n sustainable power and preserving our wild rivers.

Can you help?
So at present we’re looking for judges (architects, experienced energy generation designers, engineers etc) for our green energy design competition, and we’re looking for awesome prizes to entice some great entries.  For those of you who got this far down the page (yeah!  Now that’s grit!) we haven’t officially announced this project to the world yet as we’re still fine-tuning.  But we will soon.  You’re the first to know! So do me a favour and tell all your inventor friends about the whispers of the up-coming design competition that Happyzine are going to run.  And keep the faith in the Mokihinui River’s future.

I leave you with Wayne and Garth. They were cutting edge.

Today’s rating: 7/10

Tags: good news, rivers