This is a submission that I made to the Wellington City Council supporting lowering the vehicle speeds in the Inner city.
You can make a submission too. The deadline for feedback is 5pm on Friday 16 July. Go to http://wellington.govt.nz/haveyoursay/publicinput/2010-06lowerspeed.html and fill out the online submission form. State that you support the proposed changes. And at the end you can have a little rant about why you think it is important. Here’s my rant:
I love cycling. I am not a ‘cyclist’, I am just an everyday New Zealander who recognizes that it is cheaper, healthier and better for the environment. Not to mention thrilling in a Wellington gale!
This year, the first of the baby boomers are eligible to hang up their hats and step into retirement. So what are they planning to do with their time? Can one have a purposeful retirement?
My hope is that they will develop a retirement ‘portfolio’ (like I have a work portfolio) that consists of leisure, leadership and legacy. Because let’s face it, at 65 people are potent. They have experience, are highly qualified, generally well resourced and as of soon, they have a lot of time on their hands. After 6 months of playing golf and gardening, they might start asking “is there more to retirement than this?”. Some will serve on boards, and although I think that governance is an important place to have their experience and expertise, I also hope that there will be more active transference of knowledge being brokered.
A few years ago, I had an idea to create a website which would enable consumers to critique and question companies about their products. Consumers could rate and comment and celebrate brands who were making an effort to become more sustainable.
I’d like to announce that website has been created. It is still in hyper-beta (its got a long way to go from the whinge-fest that it currently is) but it is live. Better still - I didn’t have to make it! Some other guys did.
“By helping each other we can make more informed buying decisions, influence business behavior and, with enough of us involved, make the world a better place - one brand at a time…Brandkarma represents our collective wisdom on brands - we believe that none of us is as smart as all of us.”
The sheer amount of issues feel like too much for one person. Too much for a facebook group to tackle. All the issues that I bang on about (climate change, crime, poverty, mining, whaling, peak oil, individualism blah blah) are all symptomatic, and all come from the same collective blind-spot.
Our suffering is caused our failure to be the inspirators and writers of our own story.
Today’s U-turn by choc industry giant coupled with the latest youtube viral video has given me the last smidgeon of evidence that I need to back my personal belief that Human Beings Can Do Anything They Put Their Minds To.
In less than a fortnight, tens of thousands of people outraged over the injustice of the milk solids being replaced by palm oil have exerted enough influence to see a tail between legs apology from Cadbury.
Isn’t it weird that it takes us being incensed about something as seemingly trivial as recipe changes to a luxury food item to discover the profound environmental impacts of our food choices, but also to begin to understand the potential power and influence of our collective consumer voice and preference?
A few years ago, I had an idea to create a website which would enable consumers to critique and question companies about their products. Consumers could rate and comment and celebrate brands who were making an effort to become more sustainable.