HERS | Same-sex m

arriage | Vitamin D

& Cancer | Facebook Bullies | 09/2012

Oct/Nov 2012 $8.60

PLUS BEAUTY, CUISINE, TRAVEL, FAMILY, MOVIES, HEALTH & MOREHIS

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current affairs and lifestyle for the discerning woman

SAME-SEXMARRIAGEExploding the myths

VITAMIN D & BREASTCANCERHow vitamin D killsaggressive tumours

WATER RIGHTSHow the treaty has been reinvented

FACEBOOK BULLIES

Delta, Charlotte, and you could be next

Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1

Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 1

f e a t u r e s

Gay MarriageIAN WISHART explodes

the myths surrounding this controversial subject

page 10

Killing CancerHow vitamin D demolished breast

cancer tumourspage 28

Facebook BulliesDelta Goodrem, Charlotte Dawson,

and the girl next door - how cybervenom is harming us

page 26

False ProphetsThe commercialisation of Christ

page 44

H I S

Water RightsHow the Treaty got

hijacked

Obama NationDoes he have a second

term agenda?

Dawkins Vs DesignIs Richard Dawkins

right?

CONTENTS Issue 134 | Oct/Nov 2012 | www.investigatedaily.com

http://en.bulgari.com/department.jsp?cat=cat10310013

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CONTENTS

Formalities06 Miranda Devine 08 Chloe Milne

Beauty & Health28 Vitamin D kills cancer 30 Cardiomax trial32 The promise of BB creams

Cuisine & Travel36 On a Bali highy38 Sicily through a wine glass

Books & Movies40 Intriguning reads, romance, painters & pregancy42 The Words

Heart & Soul44 Real gospel vs fake46 Sexualizing our children

32

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109298 Investigate Oct-Nov12 eden.indd 1 8/31/12 3:38:31 PM

6 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Oct/Nov 2012

You 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 parlia-ment 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 recy-cling 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 Uni-versity, 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 “chemi-cals 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 report-edly 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,

Great green lies recycledMiranda Devine

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 plas-tic, 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 Pro-ductivity 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 dog-poo 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.”

Since most of us recycle supermarket plastic bags as bin liners, lunch bags, footy-boot carriers and dog-poo holders, we will just have to buy more expensive plastic bags to do the same job

HERS / DEVINE

Oct/Nov 2012 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 7

“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-indepen-dent within the next 20 years, having harnessed the tech-nology 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

8 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Oct/Nov 2012

For 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. Mislead-ing 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 par-tial 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.

Smoke and mirrors

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 direc-tor, 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.

Chloe Milne

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

HERS / GEN-Y