Issue 11

In this issue we have two articles about school related topics. They came from different sources and yet they are both saying something similar, in different ways: namely that our current schooling system needs to be examined as clearly there is a need for new approaches and methods.

A genuinely green car is, of course, impossible. Moving a tonne of steel and plastic around could never use no energy at all and even the zero emissions hydrogen fuel cell cars will require prodigious amounts of energy to produce the hydrogen in the first place.

Many people think of Charlotte’s Web and Babe when they imagine how pigs are raised for meat. Unfortunately, these Hollywood tales do not depict reality.

US President Harry Truman stated, “No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs.” Most people know very little about these fascinating animals. In fact, pigs are curious and insightful animals thought to have intelligence beyond that of an average 3-year-old human child.

Are animal rights the privileged domain of the world’s affluent nations? Dare we, in Africa, care about the well-being of animals while so many of our people are dying of hunger, Aids or in bloody civil conflict?

For those of us who are at the rock face of the developments within the organic industry, it is obvious that the rate of change and growth is increasing daily and exponentially.

Genetically engineered crops may produce herbicide inside our intestines, killing gut bacteria which are essential for our health.

Scientists never really thought that a person could become hooked on sweets like they were a drug. Now a batch of findings is making researchers reexamine the concept.

It is unlikely that you will know personally any of the ten children under five years old who die every hour in South Africa, and so are spared that suffering.

Cape Town’s most famous hotel has embarked on a novel way of disposing of its waste: an on-site worm farm.

We all know about the crime statistics we have in our country. Whatever is being done about it by the authorities isn’t working. How could it? For 20 000 years or more, the emphasis was on to enforce changes of “behaviour patterns” of criminals.

Could this be the catalyst for the major change that we are all so desperately seeking in our ailing education system?

Communities around the world have begun to adopt Zero Waste goals and Zero Waste Plans to implement those goals. The first community Zero Waste Plan was adopted by the Australian Capital City of Canberra in 1996.

The education of parents needs to go hand-in-hand with the education of their children.

The origins of Man, and why what goes round comes round…

“Sometimes, when people do not see the path through enlightenment, you must scare the hell out of them first”.
The Dalai Lama, speaking to the crew of the Farley Mowat.