“Interest rates, oil and gold”
That RNZ tricolon has always been infuriating fluff. In the real world, analysts warn we are heading for a cliff.
Environment
farming
Luxon is toast
Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon. David Lange knew winning the vote didn’t end the matter.
Wrecking the country’s climate change response
If you thought that your contempt for the current administration had peaked let me disappoint you. This week they have taken steps to undermine the Climate Change Commission and the ability of the public to influence future emission reduction plans.
What is the point of taxation?
Chloe Swarbrick and the Greens are changing the narrative on what tax is for.
What would the Greens’ inheritance/gift tax mean for farming?
In a climate crisis world we should be treating farming as a national strategic asset.How would a wealth transfer tax affect that?
ACT’s performative FedFoke virtual signalling
Take your dirty boots off at the door ya numpties.
About that Speech from the Throne
The new Government blows the dog-whistle like the pied piper.
Predatory delay on climate action by Fonterra, Dairy NZ and Federated Farmers
A damning report from Russel Norman on how the agricultural industry blocked climate action for the past two decades.
New Zealand’s Greatest Economic Threat is Fonterra
Fonterra represents New Zealand’s largest internal economic threat. And promise.
National picks a fight over GE
National continues to appease Federated Farmers and has just announced a policy of easing up of restrictions and safeguards on Genetic Engineering.
Voting for our lives: protecting the environment from the late capitalism death cult
Environment Southland gives the ok for intensive farming on the edge of Fiordland National Park. Everyday there’s more news of disastrous decisions being made by people in power. The local body elections in the next month give us one easy and straightforward way to change that.
He Waka Eke Noa?
The He Waka Eke Noa report recommends the introduction of farm-level split-gas levy on agricultural emissions. The anticipated savings are very small and reliant on Government proposals for the sector to reaching the Government target of 10% methane reduction. Are we really all in this together?
Greenpeace: New research finds dairy industry making Canterbury water “undrinkable”
“There isn’t enough water falling from the sky or pouring down Canterbury’s rivers to actually dilute the nitrate contamination produced by thousands of tonnes of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser and over a million dairy cows across the plains,” – Mike Joy
Plant based foods
Worrying news has emerged that New Zealand officials sought along with other agricultural nations to remove references to the benefits of consuming plant based foods on climate change from the IPCC report summary.
Mother Nature gives Groundswell NZ the middle finger
With record floods in Marlborough, half of Westport evacuated, disastrous flooding in Germany and the North East and the threat of record bushfires in the North West of the United States Mother Nature is passing rather cruel judgment on Groundswell NZ’s recent protest.
If a thousand baby flamingos die in the desert does anyone hear them howl?
Farmers aren’t the problem here, they’re the mirror New Zealand is holding up to itself. We say we want change, despite the evidence.
Greenpeace on the cow shaped hole in the Climate Commission report
Greenpeace says there is still a cow-shaped hole in both the Climate Change Commission’s advice and the Government’s approach to climate action, following the release of the Commission’s finalised climate plan.
New Zealand’s Perverse Economy
At a forecast farm gate milk price of between NZ$7.25 and NZ$8.75 per kilo of milk solid, Fonterra is going to fill up its milk tankers, drive back to their suppliers with cash and pump it straight back into the farmhouse like we haven’t seen in a decade.
Regenerative agriculture and climate solutions
Research is now showing the advantages of regenerative agriculture. Are we wise enough to make best use of them?
Sustainability and learning from forest gardening
The Guytons’ 25 year old food forest in Riverton is a showcase of sustainability practice and knowledge.
Water Rights War Brewing
Minister Parker is firing an 18 inch gun round that he’s ready to take on all with his call-in of the Otago water rights plan change.
No Right Turn: Give the Rangitata back
If we want to protect our environment and ourselves, we need to scale this back. And the easiest way to do that is give the river back: remove or massively scale back those consents, and let the rivers flow.
Frogs swimming in the heated pot
The distracting political stupidities in places like the US and now in Russia tend to be entertaining for us southerners. But changes in climate are getting faster and more extreme. The continued instability in the northern polar vortex and the extreme weather it causes cut into our global food creating systems. The foundation of our population and societies. Froggies, the heat is still rising.
Resiliency politics
With news of more global stressors next year, the stories we tell right now are critical to how we build resiliency. Let’s make sure they are good ones.
The Greens on urban farming
This is exactly the kind of approach the Green Party would like to encourage – it’s strategic, it’s intergenerational and it recognises the interconnectedness of our people, the environment and local communities.
What is this regenerative agriculture thing anyway?
Given the state of New Zealand land and water, changing how we do farming should be a strong political topic for the left this year. The Greens and Greenpeace are campaigning for a shift to regenerative agriculture, so it’s timely to look at what that is.
The fragility of our food supply
As climate, ecological, pandemic and neoliberal pressures put our food security at risk, we can take heart from the many people who have been developing and practicing sustainable and resilient food growing.
Happy cows and land restoration
The point here isn’t to go ‘boo vegans’, it’s to point starkly to the problems with the current food and environment debate, and show case the pathways beyond the meat/no meat binary.
Climate and food security: annual cropping vs regenerative agriculture
Science is showing that global food security is now at risk from climate change, farmers and gardeners are showing us how to adapt and mitigate at the same time.
What if plant-based wasn’t the answer?
Instead of burning the world a bit more slowly, how about we don’t burn it at all?
Federated Farmers launches petition against its business model
Federated Farmers has started a petition against an educational resource that teaches about climate change and activism because it does not present their industry in a sufficiently positive way.
Fifty shades of meh
A group of farmers protested against Government climate policies yesterday including policies which the National Party either established or supported.
The NZIER Report on dairying and fresh water
“New Zealand does not face stark choices between having a dairy sector versus having clean waterways. Experience shows that, by focusing on profits, not production, farms can increase their economic returns and reduce their impact on the environment.”
No Right Turn: Ending dairy in Canterbury
Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn writes: “Environment Canterbury has finally proposed nitrogen limits to stop dairy farmers from poisoning Christchurch’s water supply”
National gather fuel for their political dumpster fires
Not so much Zero Carbon as Zero Shits. While National look set to monkey-wrench our climate legislation, we can remember that the real power in addressing the climate crisis lies outside of parliament.
National are lighting political dumpster fires while the Amazon burns
New Zealand’s poster boys for late stage capitalism’s dying throes are fools of the highest order.