The Rules To Save The World
Beyond the NGO emotion and singing and joyous arm waving, country leaders at COP 26 actually have to achieve stuff this week.
Environment
None of this is remotely sustainable
The story of New Zealand’s most polluted lake is the same story running through all of New Zealand society. We treat nature as an after thought that we can fix when things go wrong, even when we can’t. What if we told a different story?
Covid alters Auckland
With in-person shopping about to re-start in Auckland next week, this is the best moment we will have to reinvent Auckland: one customer at a time.
Alt COP26: “Get in line or get out of the way”
Climate solutions are coming from Indigenous peoples and other system thinkers who are deeply connected with nature, not the neoliberal diehards who treat nature as a grab bag of resources to be manipulated.
COP26 is on
The show is now on for Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26), where countries show each other how they will achieve the Paris […]
The Entrust election debacle
National aligned C&R has shown how bad it is at running elections by running an election where less than one in ten eligible people voted.
Auckland Light rail options released
Construction of light rail in Auckland, proposed 50 years ago by former Mayor Dove Myer Robinson, is now a step close with the release of working group recommendations for options of a light rail line running between the city centre and the Airport.
Good Again
COVID has reminded us how good New Zealand is, and we should remember how we were reminded.
Greenpeace: More trains, less planes, mobility for all
Greenpeace International calls on Europe to shift from airflight to train travel. What would the New Zealand version look like?
Why Can’t We Do More?
The Government’s dramatic action taken over the past 18 months to respond to Covid and the population’s overwhelming support suggests that it should be taking similar drastic action to address poverty and climate change.
Chevron v Donziger
Despite spending over two years on home detention Attorney Steven Donziger, who successfully sued Chevron for the environmental carnage caused by its activities in Ecuador, was sentenced to the maximum jail time for refusing to hand over devices containing confidential client information protected by attorney client privilege in a prosecution mounted by lawyers with Chevron links before a pro Oil industry Judge.
Priorities?
Is setting priorities just a matter of resources?
China, Australia, and Coal Energy
China, which previously banned coal imports from Australia, is running out of coal. Will Australia uses the resumption of coal supply as a diplomatic play?
Fearmongering or telling it how it is?
42 is not the meaning of life and 13 is not an unlucky number.
Where Is The Real Green Party?
Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?
Hospo resilience: pairing covid response and climate action
We’re now in the time of synchronous and overlapping crises. With Delta Level Two and ongoing restrictions affecting the hospitality sector, and eighteen months into our covid response, solutions need to be for the long haul. One of the keys to that is positive adaptation.
Down With Farmer Bashing
A Guest Post by DB Brown on how and why regenerative stock grazing matters ecologically, and where best to place our anger about climate change.
Ways out of the climate catastrophe
As the IPCC drops its grim, damning report on humans and climate change, and as we are surrounded by social and mainstream media narratives of disaster, we desperately need cogent and hopeful visions of where we can go next, and stories of futures where things work out.
What if saving the world meant life was tasty, beautiful and just long enough?
The nasty, brutish and short meme is a failure of the imagination. We can have less and still live good lives.
The latest Reid Research Poll result
Last night’s Reid Research poll result suggests that the electorate is reverting back to a more conventional dynamic after the stratospheric heights that Labour enjoyed immediately post Covid elimination.
Why isn’t govt hitting utes much harder?
Aotearoa has been super sizing its vehicle fleet for over a decade and given Jacinda Ardern claim that Climate Change as her generation’s nuclear-free moment, why is her government not smacking ute owners and other gas guzzlers much harder than the just the feebate? Large vehicles increase climate change and wild weather. Fringe Benefit tax is payable on them and usually not collected. Plus they are deadly dangerous to pedestrians and other vehicles.
Keep the faith, deep greenies
For those that understand the cyclical, interconnected nature of reality and why growth is inherently limited in the physical world, kia kaha, we’re making headway.
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.
Why Not Support The Farmers?
The Groundswell farmers movement want the new freshwater policy scrapped, the “ute tax” removed, lots of imported labour for farm work, parts of the ETS dumped the new Significant Natural Area policy dumped, the draft policy on indigenous biodiversity scrapped and Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill stopped. How likely is this?
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.
The billionaire race into space
UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.
No Right Turn: Climate Change: Legal action
Lawyers for Climate Action are taking the Climate Change Commission to court over their lax budgets and dodgy accounting.
All the right words on climate have already been said
So I was just driving around thinking, “Ugh it’s hot. Ugh there’s a new fire starting near me at least every other day. Ugh, how is this my life, also this is just the beginning, I feel like I should be waking up from this nightmare at some point and yet I am not,” when the editor finally reached me.
Denis Tegg: Regional Transport Plan Will Increase Emissions And Is Thus Unlawful
Waikato Regional Council (WRC) has approved a transport plan which assigns just 3% of its 10-year budget to walking and cycling, and only 5% to public transport. This must inevitably increase overall transport emission pollution in the region. In my opinion the law requires the plan to reduce transport emissions to achieve consistency with central government transport policy. If emissions will rise under the plan this makes the plan unlawful and places WRC at significant risk of a successful legal challenge.
Let the Mills die
From Kawerau to Nelson to Tiwai Point, our accelerated decline of heavy mass manufacturing factories continues.
Fisheries reform is under way
David Parker has shown a deft handling of the Oceans and Fisheries portfolio and in the past week has announced the accelerated roll out of cameras on fishing boats and a suite of actions designed to address the failing health of the Waitemata Harbour.
He’s baaack
For the first time since the election Winston Peters has reemerged. But instead of talking about the country’s problems such as climate change, child poverty and recovering from the global pandemic he chose to concentrate on the “over” use of Te Reo, cycleways and gangs.
Public transport, to complement cycling?
Jenny looks at extending public transport to include cyclists
Climate transition transport and the rural road tumbleweeds
Beyond the cycle/car wars.
Fear and loathing in cycleland
I am pleased the right have moved on from overtly racist attacks on minorities. But I am bemused by the current level of vitriol that has been thrown at a group who apart from wearing lycra is doing nothing wrong.
The Government’s Feebate scheme
Labour and the Greens have announced the establishment of a Feebate scheme to incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles and disincentivise the purchase of gas guzzlers.