For 85 years Poppy Day has been an annual event usually held on the Friday before ANZAC Day. It is the most important fundraising appeal of the year for the RSA, providing funds specifically for the assistance of returned servicemen and women and their dependants in need. The remarkable story of how the Poppy became an international symbol of remembrance for fallen servicemen and women begins with the publication of Canadian John McCrae's poem, "In Flanders Fields", in 1915.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
You can read the original
here:
For those looking to attend, here is the timetable for the 2007 ANZAC Day service in Queenstown.
-
9.15am Assemble at Memorial Gates, Marine Parade
-
9.30am Parade to Memorial Hall
-
10am Service at Memorial Hall
Seeing as the local memorial starts after 9am, 3 hours later than most other places, I hope to see a lot of you there.
Moving on, what are the issues facing the Wakatipu region on the lead-up to November's local body elections. To quote from The Mirror's interview with Queenstown Mayor Clive Geddes, the following are on the Mayor's agenda if he is successful in his re-election bid come October the 13th.
-
Kerbside Recycling
-
The continued U-turn on contracting public services out to private companies
That was pretty much all there was. The aquatic centre is underway, the council is soon to decide the future of 24-hour drinking licenses, and apparently the following have already been dealt with:
-
The fallout of rapid growth
-
The lack of affordable housing amid runaway real estate prices
-
Traffic jams and restrictive downtown parking
-
The transient work force and it's negative impacts
With Queenstown property prices increasing 4.6% for the year ending February, this really can't be helping the general affordability of living in the region. Although growth is seen as a good thing in todays economic model, how much growth is too much? And at what point is it sustainable? And has Queenstown put too many eggs in the tourism basket? What would happen if for some reason, tourism numbers started to drop off?
What could cause tourism numbers to drop? If I had to pick two things that could have major effect on New Zealand's tourism numbers, I'd pick Global Warming and Peak Oil.
One of the local newspapers had a rather good article, that highlighted growing concern over Queenstown's future on the back of growing concern over global warming. TVNZ ran a piece about how ecological guilt could affect New Zealand as a global destination, as some start to call New Zealand 'a pariah destination'.
"For some European travelers, a holiday Down Under is now seen as ecologically irresponsible amid growing concerns about carbon emissions from long-haul flights.
At the world's biggest tourism expo in Berlin earlier this year, New Zealand and Australian zones were dubbed 'the halls of the devil'."
Tourism provides one in 10 jobs in New Zealand, but this is now under threat in no small part to conscience-pricking films about global warming such as An Inconvenient Truth, which features former US Vice-President Al Gore.
Source:
I've already discussed some of the local consequences of global warming for us here in Queenstown. You can find more information here:
Queenstown.com Weekly 9
Queenstown.com Weekly 10
Here are some simple statistics on aircraft emissions:
-
Single flight from New York to Stockholm - 51.5 tonnes of kerosene burned
-
100 kilograms of CO - High altitude ozone formation: Greenhouse Gas
-
162 tonnes of CO2: Greenhouse Gas
-
51 kilograms of SO2: Acid Rain
-
900 kilograms of NOx - High altitude ozone formation: Greenhouse Gas
-
63.8 tonnes of H2O - Forms cirrus clouds: More global warming
Total aviation kerosene burned annually - 130 million tonnes
So, what alternatives are available to make air travel more 'green'? Ethanol (a bio-fuel) seems to be being touted a lot as our saviour for this crisis. Well I have news for you. Ethanol weighs up to 60% more than kerosene, on top which you need 64% more volume to get the same energy. An ethanol fueled Boeing 737 would need a 25% larger wing and engines with 50% more thrust just to get airborne, says Boeing. Ethanol also freezes at low temperatures so fuel tanks would need to be heated. A 2002 report by the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution suggests that because of these problems, planes will continue to rely on kerosene for at least 40 years.
But do we have 40 years of kerosene left? This raises my second point, Peak Oil. The subject of Peak Oil has been raised once before on Queenstown.com and that article can be found
here.
What is peak oil? - From
PeakOil.com
Peak oil theory states: that any finite resource, (including oil), will have a beginning, middle, and an end of production, and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output. World discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s, and has declined since then. If the 40 year cycle seen in the US holds true for world oil production, that puts global peak oil production, right about now; after which oil becomes less available, and more expensive.
Today we consume around 4 times as much oil as we discover.
Dates of when the 'peak' will arrive are a point of large debate, with pessimists saying that we are roughly at peak now, with optimists saying that we have until 2030. So, it's not 'if', but when.
Next week I'll explain more about how Peak Oil could affect living here in Queenstown, but for now, have a great week, and see you all at the ANZAC service on Wednesday Morning.
Nathan - Editor
Joke of the Week
Taxi Incident
A passenger in a taxi tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him something. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, then the driver said, "Please, don't ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me."
The passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said he didn't realize that a tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much, to which the driver replied, "I'm sorry, it's really not your fault at all. Today is my first day driving a cab, I have been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."
