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.
It’s time to act as if our lives depend on it.
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?
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.
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.
Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the first Covid case in New Zealand. What a time it has been.
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.
Efeso Collins has announced his first Mayoral campaign policy and it is a biggie, free public transport for Auckland.
Jacinda Ardern said yesterday that everyone is over Covid. She is right. We all want this to end.
Where will the votes come from to get Labour a third term?
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.
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.
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.
Here’s a kind of map to a future where things work out.
A few random predictions for 2022.
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.
Coming up surprising quickly in 2022 is the Australian federal election – and Labor has a good shot.
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.
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.
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.”
Beyond the NGO emotion and singing and joyous arm waving, country leaders at COP 26 actually have to achieve stuff this week.
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.
The show is now on for Conference of Parties 26 (COP 26), where countries show each other how they will achieve the Paris […]
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.
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.
Greenpeace International calls on Europe to shift from airflight to train travel. What would the New Zealand version look like?
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.
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.
Is setting priorities just a matter of resources?
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?
Where’s the hairy knuckle-dragging woke when you need them?
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.
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.
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.
The nasty, brutish and short meme is a failure of the imagination. We can have less and still live good lives.
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.
