SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

Charlotte Squire with her Grandma - one of the people who taught her to be wild from day one

My name’s Charlotte Squire, I’m the wild founder of Happyzine and I would like to tell you something wonderful about Wild Energy.

A few years ago I heard about the tale of the Mokihinui River here in New Zealand and the hydro dam that’s is being planned for its future.  It’s an interesting issue – hydro damming.  The more I learn about it, the more I see that as usual nothing’s black and white.

The proposed hydro dam will generate more electricity for New Zealand.  It’s a relatively clean way of producing more power, and more dams are being planned for other wild rivers around Aotearoa.  Which leads us to the sticky issue – these dams will flood the valleys that these rivers run through.  Those flooded valleys would herald a totally new landscape and the loss of many of the species who currently reside in those valleys, as well as permanently altering those natural river-scapes.  Many feel aggrieved at the thought of loosing those beautiful rivers. Some think the costs are worth it.

I’ll tell you what I think.

Yes, hydro power is a relatively ‘green’ way of generating power.  Yes, the loss of those valleys is a relatively low cost and low risk way of creating power, especially when you compare the risks and spin off effects to some other methods of energy generation.  But the thing is – I’m a river lover.  I’ve always loved swimming in wild rivers, eating from them, hearing them, watching them, drinking from them, feeling them nearby.  Some say rivers are the life-blood of our lands and those wild rivers that criss-cross our beautiful lands are some of the most pristine in the world.

Actually I think the issue here is creativity.  Or untapped creativity.

In thinking we have to dam those valleys to create enough power for Aotearoa, we’re ignoring an immense reservoir that sits mostly untapped in the midst of us all – our collective imagination.  Our minds, and their complexity, their innate and infinite capacity to dream up fresh ideas and new solutions are the greatest attributes we humans possess.  It’s time to combine creativity with environmentalism and that’s what Wild Energy is all about.

Wild Energy – the international green energy generation design competition – is all about: dreaming up a fresh new way of generating power here in New Zealand.  It’s based upon the assumption that there are exciting new ideas just around the corner, ripe with the answers to our questions.

We are urgently looking for three forms of sponsorship: wondrous prizes to give the winners of our four Wild Energy categories – which are children, youth and adult.  We need financial sponsorship of the entire competition.  And finally we also need a prize for the overall winner.

If you can help with our quest, if you would like to add your creative ‘two cents’ to the issue of green power generation by sponsoring a prize, please email me [email protected].  We would accept offers to the lowest value of $20 which we would ask you to send our winning designers.

We have the amazing panel of judges (including Jeanette Fitzsimons), we have our three Kiwi politicians to pick their favorite three designs, we have some superb sponsorship (meaning we have access to more than 200,000 people over the three months that the competition will run).  Now all we need our our prizes and then let the creativity reign down.

Look out, it’s going to be dazzling.

Contact: Charlotte Squire – [email protected]

Tags: rivers, water