by Te Radar
In the process of filming me helping the planet, there were routinely at least four and at times up to nine cars at the farm, each of which had travelled the 45-kilometre trip from Auckland.
Brendan the editor, who travelled out each day to edit the day’s filming, calculated that over the six months that he spent travelling to the farm, he totalled over 11,000 kilometres. That’s the distance from Auckland to Bluff and return three times. Plus some.
When the mountains of camera batteries were put on to charge, I swore I could see the lights of Auckland dim.
When we began this experiment 10 months ago, sustainable living was the hot topic. People were talking about the importance of eating local produce. There was talk of the end of cheap fuel.
Over the period of time that it took to film the show, much changed. Although fuel didn’t run out, the price of it continued to rise. Countries around the world began having food riots—pasta riots in Italy, rice riots in Asia, and tortilla riots in Mexico.
With the price of food rising everywhere, people don’t care so much about eating local. They just want to eat. Drought is devastating crops. Biofuels, thought to be the saviour of the globe, have in turn been blamed for worsening people’s lives as they use up precious farmland and grains that are used to feed stock and people. They are even blamed for the destruction of ever-increasing areas of rainforest, as people scramble to find more land to grow them.
If we do stop using so many shopping bags, will we really make any difference in stopping global warming, if it even exists?
For those who wish to become more sustainable, there are so many dilemmas. It may simply have been too many hours alone in the tent, then the caravan, but there were a lot of problems I never solved.
Take the matches versus the lighter dilemma.
I could have got a refillable lighter, but I keep losing lighters, so why spend too much money on them? The fact that they are made of plastic, contain gas, and are disposable makes them a great example of the wicked modern petrochemical world we inhabit, doesn’t it?
Matches, on the other hand, are made from wood. But there must be a lot of forests out there dedicated to solely growing trees for matches. I have no idea what kind of wood they are made from, nor if different varieties are used. What I do know is that if the packet of matches gets wet, as it invariably does, then the matches become useless. So what to do here?
There are many other smaller, but equally mind-boggling issues.
Like what can I use instead of tin foil if I don’t have access to banana leaves or suchlike?
What should I burn in my lamp—kerosene, gas, or citronella oil?
Are insect coils carcinogenic? I always imagined incense was, because after all, it does produce a lot of smoke.
I read somewhere that the ground-up powder of roasted beetroot makes for a good coffee substitute, but would that really make for the kind of refreshing beverage I love?
The axes I use have some kind of composite plastic handle. Are these better than a wooden handle? Looked after properly, a good wooden handle can last for years. The catch is to look after it properly. I am not sure I am overly suited to doing that, so maybe a plastic handle is more sustainable for me, providing I don’t simply lose the tool somewhere.
I may have children one day, and then I’ll face the hoary old cloth-nappies-versus-disposables dichotomy. It’s argued that by the time you take in the complete environmental impact of cloth nappies—including electricity for heating washing water and running a dryer, detergents, the effects of monocultural cotton plantations, and the time all this labour takes—then maybe disposables aren’t too bad.
Toilet paper is a classic. Could there be a more disposable product than the toilet tissue, the paper towel, and the nose tissue? There’s always a hysterical rumpus from the masses when it’s suggested that maybe we should use fewer leaves of paper. We’re not animals, we cry. But some countries don’t have toilet paper and they seem to do okay. We could all go continental and use bidets instead, but then we’d be wasting water.
In reality, who really has the time and the stamina, indeed the sheer bloody-mindedness, to sit down and not only analyse the studies and what they declare the best decision to be, but compare them to each other, research who funded or has vested interests in them, then base them on your situation, and follow them, until another study comes out negating the previous one, or a new product comes onto the market?
There are so many opinions, it’s difficult to know who to believe.
The result of this is that we live in an age populated by infinitely more eco-worriers than eco-warriors.
For me, and I suspect for many others, life is too short and too busy (even if we are busy doing very little) for things to be an effort. Sustainability is like a diet, and a diet that is difficult to follow and not very enjoyable won’t last. In other words, a sustainable lifestyle needs to be sustainable. And enjoyable.
But it is possible and it can be fun, and there are ways to make a difference without busting a gut. I’ve certainly seen that. It can be as simple as a few pots with some herbs or tomatoes planted in them, or as effortless as planting a few fruit trees around the section. If you have a pre-mix faucet and you only want to use cold water, turn it all the way over to the cold side, otherwise every time you use it you’ll be draining a little of your hot-water cylinder. Tune your car. Buy some chickens.
All it takes is a few small steps. I’ll be taking some, which will more than likely be those steps from the car back into the house to get the reusable shopping bags I’ve forgotten and that the note on the dash reminds me to get each time I hop in the car.
And I’d like, just once, to perfect a compost pile.
As darkness falls on my last night at Te Whenua o Te Radar, a procession of cars travels down the long driveway to come to my last supper. Many of those who have helped and shared and mentored and tolerated me are here.
I get the sense that in many ways, this show has not been about sustainability. It has been about community.
Just as Christmas the turkey needs to be with his own kind, so I have needed the help and support of the local community. Just as he was taken under the wing of a broody hen in his hour of need, I too was taken under the collective wing of a community of people who protected me, taught me and fed me.
There is no self in self-sustainability.
It’s time we found Christmas a special lady.
One of my last acts on the farm is to throw some feed in the paddock, wait for Christmas to distract himself with it, and grab him by the legs. It’s the first time I have held him since I put him under the chicken. He is deceptively hefty, and after an initial fluttering is content to hang upside down in a state of confusion.
He is going home, not that I suspect he knows it.
Taking him back to where we first met him, I take him out of the cage, and set him free. He stands there and looks at us, as if to say: ‘What?’
Eventually he strolls off, calling and listening, and eating.
Several hundred metres away is the distinctive shape of a group of turkeys waddling over the horizon. He’ll finally have some buddies—possibly even female ones.
I’ve come full turkey circle.
I’m sustainable. Sort of.
Now, get growing, New Zealand.
No, really.
Get growing.
Acknowledgements
To all the people who helped me, who gave of themselves, and tolerated me, and humoured me, including you, fearless reader, I thank you.
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published 2008
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
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Copyright © Te Radar 2008
Te Radar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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ay be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
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National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Te Radar.
Off the radar : a man, a plan and a paddock / Te Radar.
ISBN 978-1-86950-765-7 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 4567 8 (epub)
1. Te Radar. 2. Sustainable living. 3. Environmental
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