Change nothing
You get to a point – and Ardern must be close – where the most you can do is hang on.
Environment
Climate Action Mondays: slow fashion
It’s time to act as if our lives depend on it. Here are the things we can do and we can require government and business to do.
3 Waters Reform Must Happen
If you’re out there in ZB land and believe that water management should be democratically elected, you won’t find respite here. Local Government has done a terrible job dealing with water and change is urgently needed.
Climate Action Mondays Tuesday
It’s time to act as if our lives depend on it.
Crisis, What Crisis?
There is only so much New Zealand and its government can do to soften the blows of the instability that are besetting the world. And the problem is without dramatic change New Zealand will remain one of the most car-addicted, petrol reliant societies on earth for several decades to come.
Climate Action Mondays
It’s time to act as if our lives depend on it.
Who Pays the Price of Sanctions
New Zealand’s sanctions on Russia have not stopped the war in Ukraine. They may have made our parliamentarians feel better, and Tony Blinken was quick to congratulate us on falling into line with the US “high-impact sanctions.” The language is combative, but the evidence shows sanctions do not work. They can have significant blow-back effects, particularly if not combined with effective diplomacy.
The difference between Labour and National
There has been the occasional criticism of Labour for not achieving enough progressive change by people who then propose supporting National. What are they thinking?
Pick a side
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelinsky has made a direct appeal broadcast to the United States Congress. That will sort out the Putin supporters from the rest. And with climate change beckoning it is time to pick a side.
The world in 6 months
In six months time the world could be in a very precarious position.
The empire strikes back
Labour’s announcement of a temporary reduction in fuel excise duties and a halving of public transport fares ups the ante on the debate on how to alleviate hardship caused by overseas induced inflation.
Is This The Boom We Wanted?
New Zealand’s time as high end ingredients producer to the world has arrived. But it has big costs.
Two years of living dangerously
Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the first Covid case in New Zealand. What a time it has been.
Dennis Meadows on the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Limits to Growth – Post Carbon Institute
Only rarely does a book truly change the world. In the nineteenth century, such a book was Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. For the twentieth century, it was The Limits to Growth.
Free public transport for Auckland is a very good idea
Efeso Collins has announced his first Mayoral campaign policy and it is a biggie, free public transport for Auckland.
Everyone is over Covid
Jacinda Ardern said yesterday that everyone is over Covid. She is right. We all want this to end.
Global Britain fell with Singapore
Today February 15th is the 80th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 1942, described by many as Britain’s worst military disaster. It was a massive strategic fail, and its effect is still powerful today, most notably with Australia’s lockstep with the US. Current British strategists don’t seem to have learnt a thing.
The long cost of Covid-19
There has been a depressing large study published looking at the medical risks of having covid-19 on the cardiovascular systems in Nature Medicine. The news isn’t good. Having Covid-19 increases the risks of a range of cardiovascular diseases from heart failure to strokes over a year. It does it across all demographics.
Can this government get re-elected?
Where will the votes come from to get Labour a third term?
Chloe Swarbrick Needs A Reset
Chloe Swarbrick has requested that the government help Auckland central’s restaurants. But in a post Covid pre climate change world this is not going to help.
Prime Minister Ardern on Climate Change and the economy
The full text is worth perusing across multiple areas, but Prime Minister Ardern’s speech in Parliament yesterday gave useful hints about how the economy and climate change are being integrated into a single economic strategy.
And what have they done anyway?
With Ardern getting a good-old media beat-down, remember here’s how to change a country for good like no one else but Labour can.
Light Rail: The State Is Back
The light rail route and mode decision this week shows something new. It’s in the nature of the state itself.
Let’s help Tonga
In 2010 the poor but proud Island Nation raised $705,000 to donate to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Fund. If New Zealanders were to reciprocate their generosity we would donate over $30 million. It is time for us to return the favour.
The Department of Earthly Gifts
Where western minds are busy arguing if indigenous knowledge is science, botanist and first nations woman Robin Wall Kimmerer exemplifies how to do both at the same time.
Australia’s Omicron problem
With over 61,000 new Covid cases reported yesterday Australia is in the midst of an infection surge that it has not seen before. What lessons can New Zealand learn from Australia’s handling of the pandemic?
New Year. Good News.
This one goes out to all those good people running round like their hair’s on fire.
Hope Punk 2022
Here’s a kind of map to a future where things work out.
A few random predictions for 2022
A few random predictions for 2022.
Our Energy Upheaval
Ministers Wood, Shaw and Parker (Energy, Climate Change, and RMA reform respectively), must pull their eyes downward from the misty clouds of climate change and stuff multiple decades away and down into the jagged, shadowy deal-by-deal path of the transition to clean energy.
Revisiting Riverton: the Longwood Loop food resiliency project
Key here is the resilience politics of greenies, DIYers and anarchists, where we just don’t wait for the government to act, we get on with and build the new ways ourselves.
Can Labor Win Australia Back?
Coming up surprising quickly in 2022 is the Australian federal election – and Labor has a good shot.
Goodbye, Auckland
For the hundreds of thousands of Aucklanders who have decided to holiday at a town near you, just be careful: they may never leave.
He Waka Eke Noa?
While a core of farmers protested a few days ago against farm environmental regulation with long lines of tractors, the organised form of agribusiness, Maori and government working together have concluded that making a climate different isn’t possible.
COP26 Results
The deal is done. Together with lots of side-agreements, big-up pledges, finance, and no definite language the phasing out of Coal or fossil fuel subsidies.
New Zealand’s New Low Carbon Economy Stays Difficult
Southland Mayor Gary Tong has justified felling a forest to construct a coal mine by saying “[w]e all want to make a cleaner, greener planet, but we can’t do it in five minutes.”