HERS | Same-sex marriage | Vitamin D & Cancer | Facebook Bullies | 09/2012
current affairs and lifestyle for the discerning woman
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE Exploding the myths
VITAMIN D & BREAST CANCER HIS Tricky Treaty | Obama Nation | Dawkins Vs Design | 09/2012
How vitamin D kills aggressive tumours
WATER RIGHTS
How the treaty has been reinvented
Oct/Nov 2012 $8.60
FACEBOOK BULLIES Delta, Charlotte, and you could be next
PLUS
BEAUTY, CUISINE, TRAVEL, FAMILY, MOVIES, HEALTH & MORE
Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1
Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1
CONTENTS Issue 134 | Oct/Nov 2012 | www.investigatedaily.com HIS Water Rights
How the Treaty got hijacked
Obama Nation
Does he have a second term agenda?
DawkinsVs Design Is Richard Dawkins right?
features Gay Marriage
IAN WISHART explodes the myths surrounding this controversial subject page 10
Killing Cancer
How vitamin D demolished breast cancer tumours page 28
Facebook Bullies
Delta Goodrem, Charlotte Dawson, and the girl next door - how cybervenom is harming us page 26
False Prophets
The commercialisation of Christ page 44
CONTENTS Formalities
06 Miranda Devine 08 Chloe Milne
Beauty & Health 28 30 32
Vitamin D kills cancer Cardiomax trial The promise of BB creams
Cuisine & Travel 36 On a Bali highy 38 Sicily through a wine glass
38 44
Books & Movies
40 Intriguning reads, romance, painters & pregancy 42 The Words
Heart & Soul
44 Real gospel vs fake 46 Sexualizing our children
32 46
42
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HERS / DEVINE
Great green lies recycled Miranda Devine
Y
ou would think the last thing we need is another environmental tax but the great green beast is never satisfied. The latest feel-good eco-furphy to be foisted on us here in Australia in the cause of saving the planet is a proposed 10-cent slug on all glass and plastic drinks containers, described as a recycling “deposit”. The Greens have introduced legislation into federal parliament to try to force states to impose the container tax, which the Australian Food and Grocery Council estimates will add $1.8 billion a year to the price of milk, juice, soft drink and beer. It would cost average families an extra $300 a year or $4 more for a case of beer. At first glance it might seem an attractive proposition, despite the cost. After all, those people who want their money back need only take their bottles and cans to a recycling station, while enterprising people can collect discarded containers and exchange them for cash. But not so fast, says economist Jeff Bennett, professor of environmental management at the Australian National University, whose latest book, Little Green Lies, demolishes the 12 core beliefs of the environmental movement. In a talk at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, he said recycling, of beverage containers, paper and so on, is not a costless activity, because it involves the use of scarce resources. For instance, collecting bottles and cans from remote communities in the Northern Territory, where container deposit legislation was introduced in January, uses a lot of fuel for the trucks carting them. Then there are the “chemicals used in the processing operation, the storage facilities used to house the stock of collected cans”. Recycling just “involves the substitution of one set of scarce resources for another”, says Bennett. Surprise, surprise: costs per bottle in the NT have reportedly risen as much as 20 cents since the legislation was introduced. The war against plastic bags is similarly absurd. The results in South Australia show the ban there may actually have caused worse pollution. Clean Up Australia Day last year found people were dumping more plastic bags on the state than they did the previous year. Even worse, 6 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Oct/Nov 2012
Since most of us recycle supermarket plastic bags as bin liners, lunch bags, footyboot carriers and dog-poo holders, we will just have to buy more expensive plastic bags to do the same job they are now dumping the reusable imported Chinese-made heavy gauge “green” bags – which Peter Garrett used to call “canvas” but which are really made of another type of plastic, polypropylene. Each one equates to 1000 polyethylene bags and, unlike the old bags, they cannot be recycled easily. In fact, the old bags may even be eco-friendly in solid landfill, according to a 2006 cost-benefit analysis by the Productivity Commission, because of their “stabilising qualities, leachate minimisation and minimising (of) greenhouse-gas emissions”. What’s more, since most of us recycle supermarket plastic bags as bin liners, lunch bags, footy-boot carriers and dogpoo holders, we will just have to buy more expensive plastic bags to do the same job. Lo and behold, when South Australia banned plastic bags in 2009, the sale of Glad plastic bin liners in the state went through the roof to double the national average. A similar thing happened in Ireland when plastic bags were subjected to a 15 euro cent tax, according to Bennett. His book sets out to “scrutinise the logic” of the basic assumptions we make about the environment. For instance, that pollution must be banished. “Intuitively we think pollution is bad,” he says. “Here’s the twist – just about everything we do involves pollution. “In fact our very being creates pollution. My being alive has created pollution.”
“It’s not that pollution is inherently bad,” he says. But we need to balance the good things associated with pollution with the bad. From the belief that people are a scourge on the planet rather than a resource, to the myth of “food miles”, Bennett shows that seemingly well-meaning attitudes do more harm than good. At the heart of green ideology is a deep pessimism about human ingenuity. For instance Bennett’s first “Little Green Lie” is the “peak oil” scare, the fear that fossil fuels are running out. But, he points out, “as known reserves are depleted, oil price
rises stimulate more exploration and technological advances.” This is exactly what has happened in the US, now in the middle of a new oil boom. It will become energy-independent within the next 20 years, having harnessed the technology to extract shale oil and gas resources thousands of metres below ground. Short of deleting ourselves from the planet, we need to accept that there is no such thing as zero pollution and have faith in ourselves to solve problems as they arise. devinemiranda@hotmail.com
Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 7
HERS / GEN-Y
Smoke and mirrors Chloe Milne
F
or once, I actually agree with the tobacco industry. Don’t worry, I won’t be taking up smoking any time soon, but their latest campaign sure has got me thinking. The “If I create it, I should own it” crusade not only demonstrates that the tobacco industry has a lot of money to spend on marketing, but that they may, for once, actually be right. I believe they should own what they create, be it packaging to differentiate themselves, or lung cancer that kills its users. The health effects such as strokes, heart disease, blindness and erectile dysfunction, just to put a downer on things, are as much a creation of cigarettes as the packets they come in. Surely if the cigarette companies wish to claim ownership, it should be for all the things they have created, the good, and the not-so-good. According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco products will kill half of their users, or 6 million people per year. That’s information you won’t find at agreedisagree. co.nz, nor will you find an opportunity to disagree. Misleading advertising? I think yes. It’s not very often that a company agrees that their product is harmful yet has no intention of taking steps to remove, or lessen that harm, yet British American Tobacco New Zealand has done just that. Smoking is a serious threat to our health and arguably our clean and green image, yet you don’t see people holding placards and yelling in the streets about it. Everyone seems to be more concerned that overseas investors might be able to purchase part of our state assets. God forbid that New Zealand might try to lessen its ever-growing debt. Labour’s Clayton Cosgrove has referred to John Key’s partial sale of state assets idea as, “hocking off the family silver to the foreign pixies.” Who knew people from China were “foreign pixies”? Here I was thinking that Chinese people were human beings just like you or I. Which makes me think; is it so bad that some other human beings wish to purchase some of our assets? Perhaps people opposed to the sales are worried that New Zealand is going to turn into a communist, Chinese speaking country, or worse, a mythical land, where pixies like Tinkerbell are tinkering with our assets. Let me tell you, when I was in China I didn’t see any pixies, but I did see two midgets and that’s kind of the same thing.
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Smoking is a serious threat to our health and arguably our clean and green image, yet you don’t see people holding placards and yelling in the streets about it I don’t want to play the race card, but no one seemed to bat an eyelid when James Cameron purchased over 1000 hectares of land in Wairarapa. Admittedly some people probably think he is the famous Oscar wining Kiwi director, and sure, he passes the Paul Henry “looks like a New Zealander test,” but has everyone forgotten how annoying and loud Americans can be? Speaking of loud and annoying I think we can all agree that Jamie and Sally Ridge are two “assets” that would be better owned and operated offshore, however, I guess much like our economic debt, we did create them, so we should take responsibility for them… unless of course some foreign pixies come up with a good price.