International Days of Prayer and Action with Standing Rock
What we know is coming largely from outside the mainstream. Which is how it should be.
Environment
science
The Essential Forest-Gardener
Robert Guyton begins a weekly series on life in a Riverton food forest.
Why we need to stand with Standing Rock
For seven months the next movement of social and environmental justice and resistance has been growing. We should be paying attention.
When the levee breaks…
Bar the ear-worm, nothing to do with Led Zeppelin.
Big Oil in plain packaging
Big Tobacco was hit this week in New Zealand after Parliament passed laws requiring smokes to be sold in plain packaging. The science about the health threats posed by smoking is settled, as is the science over climate change. When can we expect laws being passed against the oil companies?
On the whiner’s excuse “but we are so small”
Damon over at civicanalysis wrote an interesting post over the weekend “How New Zealand can help save the world” (and then pointed my attention to it 🙂 ). It looks at what we can do to structurally alleviate climate change. But also looked at some of the economic benefits
Water quality too important for bird-brained excuses
Nick Smith’s latest excuse for inaction on water quality is birds. Yes birds. You couldn’t make this shit up.
For a dose of blessed sanity, watch the (10 min) webcast by Dr Mike Joy explaining what the real problem is.
The elephant in the room
Fair and sustainable economics
Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter starts a conversation about post-neoliberal economics.
Abrupt climate change: CO2 equivalent now at 485 ppm
We are now at 485 ppm CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations, up from 250 ppm in the 1700s. And climbing fast.
Key vs science on water quality
What if there were only 34 more whitebait harvests left?
Water is life not merely wadeable.
July 2016 was the hottest single month recorded since 1880
July 2016 was the hottest month ever in recorded modernity.
NRT: Calling bullshit on “P-contamination”
I/S at No Right Turn writes on meth testing, false positives, and Housing NZ.
Financial capital is crazy OP. Time to strip it back to basics.
Financial capital is way over powered in our current political economic system. Every aspect of our lives has been financialised and securitised, from our homes to our educations. From our drinking water to our power supply.
Wasted food and carbon footprint
The Italian intiaitive encouraging supermarkets to give unsold food to those in need is a great move. Helps the poor, reduces waste, win win. But it’s just a start. We need to massively change attitudes and behaviour to reduce food waste.
Free Petrol Pt IV
Part IV of IV
Free Petrol Pt III
Part III of IV – a focus on road transport.
Free money from climate change deniers
Double or nothing?
Free Petrol Pt II
Part II of IV. How to achieve zero carbon from the shipping and aviation sectors by the 2030s.
Free Petrol Pt I
Part I of a IV part series of posts on what we can do to hold global warming below 2 degrees C.
Climate change pedal to the metal
Avoiding 2 deg C warming is a ship that’s sailed. Global warming is now happening at about 4.3x the previous long-run rate. And it might go up to 18x the previous rate over the next few years. That’s what the pundits call “abrupt climate change.”
Chris de Freitas now is the time to be afraid
As the temperatures increase and the sea rises Chris de Freitas still claims that anthropogenic climate change is not a happening thing. Â And shows his inability to analyze by misinterpreting a Jarrod Gilbert article which describes climate change deniers as charlatans.
Predator free a fantastic goal – but…
Feel-good promises for 2050 are easy. Add this one to the list with a cycleway the length of NZ, a secret plan to end Japanese whaling, the War on P, our emissions reduction (hah!) targets, plans to be a “financial hub”, the promise of pandas, and so on and so on.
Climate Change on our doorsteps (literally)
In the wake of Wellington’s storm over the weekend, it’s time to future proof our critical infrastructure.
Climate change and trees – a palliative and not a solution
One alleviation for the effects of climate change is to plant trees, or some other form of vegetation. This is to suck up surplus carbon dioxide and to put it into a solid and relatively inert form. And it does. However it simply won’t work when we have rapid climate change.
God Botherer
God’s been a bit of a let down recently. Is it time for Him to retire?
The Chrematistic Camel
So this post is about a suite of frameworks not to adopt if the goal is to avoid 2 degrees of global warming.
Generation Zero – Zero Carbon Act
“We’re not going to wait around for our politicians to do the right thing any longer; we’re going to draft a bill ourselves with help from experts and collaborators, and work to get all political parties to support it and pass it through Parliament.”
A bit wet lately
It’s a Side-show, “Bob”.
From the circus that never leaves town.
A Tale of Two Droughts
Climate change is now causing extreme dry weather events and is increasingly blamed for water shortages. But what we are doing on the ground has just as much influence on our experience of drought. As New Zealand farmers call for drought relief this winter, it’s time we looked at how we manage land and water, and the critical role this plays in whether humans can live with variable rainfall in the age of climate change. Here’s a stellar example from India.
Another shocking environmental record
The world’s news is full of new environmental records. Here’s a shocker.
This is what sustainable fishing looks like
“It turns out there will be no jobs on a dead planet.”Â
While New Zealand is struggling to maintain integrity around fishing and resource management, an ocean farmer in the US is leading the way in economic and ecologic sustainability. This is how we can do things differently.
Official climate change fraud
Scientists and experts have been knowingly understating the unfolding climate change catastrophe to governments and decision makers. Why? For the sake of what is “politically palatable”.
Scottish Parliament votes to ban fracking.Â
Imagine a country where the political divide is over whether to ban fracking outright or to be opposed to fracking but have a moratorium first in order to gather more evidence.