The Standard

Environment

Categories under Environment

Prime Minister Ardern on Climate Change and the economy

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 9th, 2022 - 33 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, February 2nd, 2022 - 107 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, January 31st, 2022 - 30 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, January 19th, 2022 - 12 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, January 16th, 2022 - 151 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, January 6th, 2022 - 132 comments

Mike Hosking Covid Australia

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.

Written By: - Date published: 5:43 pm, January 1st, 2022 - 92 comments

This one goes out to all those good people running round like their hair’s on fire.

Hope Punk 2022

Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, January 1st, 2022 - 11 comments

Here’s a kind of map to a future where things work out.

A few random predictions for 2022

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, January 1st, 2022 - 117 comments

A few random predictions for 2022.

Our Energy Upheaval

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, December 23rd, 2021 - 79 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, December 22nd, 2021 - 22 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, December 21st, 2021 - 37 comments

Coming up surprising quickly in 2022 is the Australian federal election – and Labor has a good shot.

Goodbye, Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, December 14th, 2021 - 21 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, November 24th, 2021 - 14 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, November 14th, 2021 - 15 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, November 7th, 2021 - 36 comments

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.”

The Rules To Save The World

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, November 4th, 2021 - 7 comments

Beyond the NGO emotion and singing and joyous arm waving, country leaders at COP 26 actually have to achieve stuff this week.

None of this is remotely sustainable

Written By: - Date published: 12:31 pm, November 3rd, 2021 - 43 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, November 3rd, 2021 - 22 comments

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”

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, November 2nd, 2021 - 30 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 12:02 pm, November 1st, 2021 - 39 comments

The show is now on for Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26), where countries show each other how they will achieve the Paris Agreement climate goals. How will we do? Set in Glasgow, it will bring together negotiators from nearly every country on earth to assess progress, and to determine the scale of sacrifice we’re […]

The Entrust election debacle

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, October 31st, 2021 - 56 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 8:09 am, October 29th, 2021 - 23 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, October 28th, 2021 - 23 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, October 28th, 2021 - 57 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, October 16th, 2021 - 35 comments

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

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, October 9th, 2021 - 12 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 pm, October 3rd, 2021 - 16 comments

Is setting priorities just a matter of resources?

China, Australia, and Coal Energy

Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, October 1st, 2021 - 31 comments

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?

Written By: - Date published: 5:14 pm, September 25th, 2021 - 29 comments

42 is not the meaning of life and 13 is not an unlucky number.

Where Is The Real Green Party?

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, September 17th, 2021 - 48 comments

Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?