The very hardest climate challenge New Zealand has is in transport, but the latest National Land Transport Plan is pretty much like the wind being resisted by the Climate Commission air conditioning unit. Time to face our reality not our words.
For me the most notable thing about the last week hasn’t been the repetitive and ill-informed braying from the opposition about covid-19. It has been about the announcement that Fermilab in the US has partially confirmed that there may be a wobble in the behaviour of muons. Definitely showing promise of a lever into the 1970s standard model of physics. Explaining this is likely to open new technologies and more subtle ways of working with our universe.
The Guytons’ 25 year old food forest in Riverton is a showcase of sustainability practice and knowledge.
Greta Thunberg is now aged 18. And her activism is still strong.
it looks like just 1.5 degrees will be enough to cook most of the tropics:
The announcement comes with little fanfare, but marks another huge moment for people power, for iwi, hapū, environmental groups, and the hundreds of thousands of people who for the last decade have maintained one of the most relentless campaigns of the modern era to put an end to deep sea oil exploration in New Zealand.
Over in the US of A in the great state of Texas and in surrounding states locals are experiencing unusually cold weather and are suffering from the effects. But instead of blaming their not fit for purpose electrical systems they are blaming the Green New Deal, even though it has not been implemented.
The first New Zealand study to look at the effects of food hardship on pre-schoolers’ nutrition has found that nearly half of families struggle to access healthy food in their child’s first year of life.
What if we actually planned to reduce energy usage significantly while revamping the economy to promote happiness and well-being? Then it would be far easier to replace our remaining energy usage with renewable sources. – Richard Heinberg
Lawyers for Climate Action is threatening to take Auckland Council to court if they reneg on their climate action promises in the upcoming consultation on the Regional Land Transport Plan.
In this series so far I’ve examined three of the four terms in the Kaya Identity, population, economic intensity, and energy intensity. It […]
The huge tyre fire near Amberley in North Canterbury last Friday is in an area with a high water table, extreme fire risk in summer, two kilometres from a town of 2000 residents, and on the edge of one of NZ’s premier wine regions.
Now is the time for people power. The government is about to ask us what we think about New Zealand’s plan on climate action.
UPDATED with links to the report and media analysis.
You would think that after the Trump years the media would be turning away from the reporting of “both sides” of an issue and in many cases they are. But there is a recent example of a hold out urging that extremist views should be given media attention.
On his first day in office Joe Biden executed 17 executive orders making wide scale change to the Trump Administration’s policies.
The distracting political stupidities in places like the US and now in Russia tend to be entertaining for us southerners. But changes in climate are getting faster and more extreme. The continued instability in the northern polar vortex and the extreme weather it causes cut into our global food creating systems. The foundation of our population and societies. Froggies, the heat is still rising.
“We want our government to listen to us as youth and as New Zealanders. Our house is on fire, and soon, all that we know will be too”
School Strike 4 Climate’s rally on Tuesday will present demands to the government on what action needs to be taken now.
2021, the climate emergency is still an emergency. Personal action is not sufficient but it’s still necessary.
Welcome to 2021. This is the year for the Labour Government to be brave. What should it seek to achieve this year?
There is always plenty of bad news when it comes to nature in New Zealand, but this year has had an accumulation of good.
Population has always been a critical driver of events and prior to the Industrial Revolution we lived in a zero sum world, with […]
The Government’s finances are in remarkably good shape. Who would have predicted that dealing properly with a global pandemic would have had better results for the economy than timidly dealing with it and trying to ensure that economic activity continued? But by international levels our Government debt is already low and maybe now is the time to spend on vital areas such as poverty, climate change and the housing crisis.
The Prime Minister is talking about demonstrating a plan for action, but as we move into 2021 we need to settle back into grappling with the urgency of the climate crisis.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff’s recently released budget proposal for Auckland Council contains some welcome proposals to address climate change. But of itself this budget will not go near to achieving Auckland’s goal of halving emissions by 50% in 2030.
For those who don’t trawl through all the comments; a little personal background. I’ve been fortunate enough to have just finished up a […]
Humans have created the most recent virtual super-continent. At least as far as species movement has been concerned world wide. We’ve picked up species from around the world and transplanted them almost everywhere else – including microbiological. Pandemics will be the inevitable result. Could be amphibians dying off. It could be us. Perhaps it is time to have an intelligent discussion about the risks.
Bridging the gap between the people who are involved in proactive, regenerative responses to the climate, ecological and social crises, and those who don’t know this is happening, feel overwhelmed, and don’t know what to do.
Climate goals explained.
Green tech, negative emissions and carbon capture and storage won’t save us, but we have other options.
Parliament has finally declared that the country is in a climate emergency. And it has also told the public service that it has to become carbon neutral within five years.
Australia is likely to have less of an issue with raging bush fires this year. La Niña is likely to give a break to the droughts with a wetter East Coast. Doesn’t stop record heatwaves as is happening at present. Climate change in action. What is also happening is equally predictable – the power systems get affected as well. Interesting to consider for similar climate issues here hitting our power.
I’m sure one needs a particular depth of political nerdiness to give a flying fig about such things, but since I am one of those, these are my highlights from the speech from the throne to Parliament this week.
With news of more global stressors next year, the stories we tell right now are critical to how we build resiliency. Let’s make sure they are good ones.
Until the pandemic, air travel was one of the fastest growing causes of greenhouse gas emissions. And its obscenely unequal, with just 1% of the world’s population causing 50% of the problem:
This government must demonstrate that it has the ability to lead the New Zealand economy where it has stated it wants it to go. It does not want more headlines like the average house in Auckland now being priced at $1 million.
Christchurch transition engineer Susan Krumdieck lays out the realities of the various crises we are facing, and why green tech won’t save us. What can we do instead?
