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climate change

Categories under climate change

The NZ Defence Force and extreme fire events

Written By: - Date published: 6:08 am, October 7th, 2020 - 19 comments

This Guest Post by The Scud looks at the issues with the NZ Defence Force’s capability in responding to extreme fire events and climate change.

Meanwhile, the climate crisis

Written By: - Date published: 11:56 am, October 4th, 2020 - 44 comments

A large wildfire has destroyed many homes in the village of Ohau in the Mackenzie Country, and hundreds of people have been evacuated.

No Right Turn: The transport policy we need

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, September 30th, 2020 - 40 comments

All of these policies will get fossil cars off the roads, reducing emissions. 

So much for the climate change consensus

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, September 25th, 2020 - 39 comments

Ten months ago National supported the Zero Carbon Bill and called for a consensus between the major political parties on the overall framework through which climate change issues are addressed.  This week National trashed all of that to try and shore up its sagging support.

The Greens on urban farming

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, September 24th, 2020 - 25 comments

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.

Greenland ice sheet is disintegrating

Written By: - Date published: 4:48 pm, August 28th, 2020 - 34 comments

For the last 30 years, earth scientists have been warning that Greenland was nearing a tipping point into complete disintegration. Now authors of a new study published in Nature has claimed that, even if the climate now reverted to the levels where it was stable a few decades ago, that would still happen. It is now clear that the IPCC worst case for Greenland is what is now being observed.

What Might A Democratic Party-Dominated U.S. Foreign Policy Do?

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, August 19th, 2020 - 24 comments

Inasmuch as tiny, distant New Zealand need worry about the foreign policy of the United States, it’s worth a drill into what a Democratic Party dominated United States foreign policy might look like.

The top seven things Covid has changed

Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 14th, 2020 - 47 comments

Covid has fundamentally changed society for the better in surprising ways.

Covid recovery and bouncing forward

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, August 10th, 2020 - 21 comments

Central to the Transition movement from the outset has been the idea of resilience. Usually framed as the ability to ‘bounce back’, it is seen in the Transition movement as being better imagined as the capacity to ‘bounce forward’, i.e. to use it as the opportunity to move forward to something better. How then to ‘bounce forward’ from COVID-19 in such a way that we also move to a way of doing things consistent with the scale of the climate crisis?

The fragility of our food supply

Written By: - Date published: 11:11 am, August 6th, 2020 - 98 comments

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.

The Greens are thinking ahead

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, July 26th, 2020 - 126 comments

The Greens have released a detailed policy document that sets out what they want to achieve if they are part of the next Government and their Labour Relations policies could be considered to be more pro union than Labour’s policies.

Folly of the year

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, July 26th, 2020 - 41 comments

What is the strangest recent proposal for development in New Zealand?

Greens policy announcement: Our Clean Energy Plan

Written By: - Date published: 1:37 pm, July 12th, 2020 - 26 comments

Our Clean Energy Plan is the first part of our transformational proposal to end the use of fossil fuels in Aotearoa. It will help to ensure our grandchildren inherit a world where they can not only survive, but thrive.

National’s dilemma – business as usual is failing them.

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, July 6th, 2020 - 99 comments

Audrey Young’s take in Granny Herald was interesting. “No ordinary Labour speech by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern”. That is because the political ‘business as usual’ approach by the business orientation of National campaigning using the politics of fear and envy doesn’t work well in times of crisis. Business simply has too short a viewpoint to be acceptable in government at present – or increasingly in our uncertain future.

Green Party win: RMA amended to include climate change

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, June 28th, 2020 - 15 comments

“In my view, this is one of the most significant policy changes to address climate change that we have done this term” – James Shaw

A World That Just Doesn’t Need As Much Oil

Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, June 18th, 2020 - 27 comments

BP yesterday sent a really big message that effectively now, Covid-19 is the break that tips the world away from oil dependence.

The wood, the trees and the ETS

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, June 3rd, 2020 - 4 comments

It’s a brutal thing to propose more taxes and costs on business during our worst economic meltdown in a century. But yesterday the Government increased the cost of Carbon.  But we need to do more.

Todd Muller is Simon Bridges with less personality

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, May 26th, 2020 - 68 comments

Todd Muller has announced a front bench that resembles a National Party front bench from 30 years ago.  And his first live interview on national television did not go as well as he hoped.

What would President Biden do?

Written By: - Date published: 7:47 am, May 4th, 2020 - 59 comments

With President Trump doing what we all expected, and killing 67,000 people and counting through chronic poor leadership, and utterly ruining the U.S. economy as well, it’s time to look at what policies the alternative candidate has on offer.

Covid-19 and climate change

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 3rd, 2020 - 55 comments

The International Energy Agency is forecasting that disruptions caused by Covid-19 will reduce CO2 output this year by 8%. To avoid the worst excesses of climate change the world has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 7.6% for the next decade. How are we going to keep repeating the reductions that we achieved this year for the next decade?

His work here is not yet done

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, May 1st, 2020 - 71 comments

Former Prime Minister John Key has said that under current conditions employers are going to sack 20 per cent of their workers even if the company is doing well and that employers should never waste a crisis.

Draconian Tourism or no Tourism?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, April 27th, 2020 - 192 comments

If overseas tourists want to visit NZ, they may have to give up a little bit of their privacy to keep all of us safe.

Russel Norman: Climate change is harder to visualise than coronavirus, but no less dangerous

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, April 24th, 2020 - 6 comments

Executive Director of Greenpeace NZ, Russel Norman writes about the different responses to climate change and covid-19, and the things we can learn from the pandemic.

Greens push for large intercity rail infrastructure to ensure sustainable post-COVID-19 rebuild

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 am, April 19th, 2020 - 122 comments

“The Greens are highlighting fast intercity rail improvements as the type of climate-friendly, job-creating project that should be prioritised for post-COVID-19 economic stimulus investment.”

No Right Turn: Climate Change – the need for a green recovery

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, April 15th, 2020 - 7 comments

The Climate Change Commission – the expert panel tasked with getting New Zealand carbon neutral – has written to the government asking it to apply a “climate change lens” to the post-Covid-19 spend-up.

Greenpeace’s Green Covid Response

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 12th, 2020 - 77 comments

Oil giant OMV finally leave New Zealand, and Greenpeace releases its Green Covid Response plan to the government.

Tourism is the elephant in the living room

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, April 9th, 2020 - 148 comments

Rather than saving an industry that has multiple sustainability and resiliency failures, how about we regenerate local economies and set them to serve our communities?

What about Climate Change then?

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, March 31st, 2020 - 26 comments

Shouldn’t this global shock from this COVID-19 virus make us all wake up to the power of collective global action on climate change?

Climate change – the right schemes and the left despairs

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, March 2nd, 2020 - 27 comments

The Australian Liberal Government has signalled a movement away from solar and wind power  to untested technologies including carbon capture, hydrogen and lithium. Meanwhile the woman who led the negotiations for the Paris Agreement is calling for civil disobedience to force institutions to respond to the climate crisis.

Happy cows and land restoration

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, March 1st, 2020 - 12 comments

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.

WTAF NZ First?

Written By: - Date published: 6:44 am, February 22nd, 2020 - 148 comments

It has been reported that NZ First will oppose the Green’s attempt to make the country’s car fleet more sustainable and that it may hold up proposed gun law changes designed to address the problems clearly shown by the Christchurch massacre.