Environment

science

NRT: Climate change: Action is affordable

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 34 comments

Catastrophic climate change can be averted without sacrificing living standards according to a UN report, which concludes that the transformation required to a world of clean energy is eminently affordable. “It doesn’t cost the world to save the planet,”. The average cost of adapting to climate change next year is less than $30. Remember that next time Bill English stands up in Parliament threatening economic Armageddon if we try and do anything about it.

Drill baby drill

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 40 comments

Two days after the IPCC has warned us of the threat posed by climate change and Simon Bridges has announced a huge block offer of parts of New Zealand and much of its territorial water.  This will include the pristine waters off Auckland’s west coast, home of Maui’s dolphin.  In a world that has to address its consumption of petroleum you have to question if it is worth the risk.

NRT: Climate change: “Adaptation”

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 51 comments

No Right Turn notes the typical response from politicians to the Fifth IPCC Assessment report. Perhaps that promoting legislation with a penalty of long prison terms for political negligence would help? It sounds like a good way for lazy politicians to retire. After all the law recognises negligence as being a criminal action in other spheres – why not for our political servants?

 

Act thinks the IPCC is scaremongering

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 65 comments

The latest IPCC report has been released and not only are scientific views on the existence of climate change hardening, but the effects are becoming more pronounced.  Meanwhile ACT has described action to try and save the planet as “moral exhibitionism” and has said that not improving the ETS is a bottom line for any future coalition with National.  If you need any reason to work to get rid of this Government this has to be it.

NRT: Climate change: War, disease, and famine

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 38 comments

The biggest single threat to civilisation from human initiated CO2 forced climate change is going to be in food production and distribution. In a leaked version of the IPCC’s AR5 second volume ” the report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade for the rest of the century – at a time of rapidly growing demand for food.”

Positive Things

Written By: Bill
Date published: - 21 comments

Change becomes embedded when it emanates from and across many quarters and traditions.

Role of Government

Written By: Bill
Date published: - 46 comments

Governments are holding on to their traditional roles and functions, but the world has changed. We need something else.

State of Nations

Written By: Bill
Date published: - 25 comments

This post isn’t a ‘contrast and compare’ piece on the policy announcements of National, the Greens and Labour. Enough to say that National are pursuing privatisation while both Labour and Green are at least trying to do good things.

Shame about the reality of the bigger picture then.

Deep sea oil drilling

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 91 comments

Deep sea oil drilling is in the news.  Labour’s position is to require increased environmental standards and drillers would have to display an effective ability to clean up any disasters.  The Greens would prefer to leave the oil in the ground.  If there is a change of Government this year resolving this issue will pose a fascinating test of the parties.

There is science, and then there are dickheads

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 153 comments

Over the last three centuries science has established a pretty robust technique for overturning consensus and examining the weirder areas of science. You have to publish. Waving an untestable vague idea of cause and effect around based on wordplay is something that is better left to politicians, con artists, and religionists. Waving his dick around like Rodney Hide did on Sunday merely proves that he doesn’t think with his brain.

The politics of food: Oxfam report

Written By: karol
Date published: - 10 comments

Some MSM reports crow about positive economic indicators, & decreases in the time people spend on benefits. Such statistics fail to show inequalities, & struggles of people on low incomes.  An Oxfam comparative international report on food security is not good news for NZ, or the world.

Its not easy being Green

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 175 comments

There is an important debate for both Labour and the Greens to have about the level of cooperation they should display this year.  Some commentators have suggested that the Greens will be sidelined and that the battle will be between Labour and National but this is MMP and every vote counts.  The goal for progressives has to be to increase the overall left vote.

Even David Cameron believes in climate change

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 255 comments

Some extreme weather events around the world are being cited as proof by the ill informed that global warming has ceased.  Rodney Hide, Donald Trump and the commentators at Fox News rank amongst the most sceptical.  But when even Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron concedes that these weather events may be linked to climate change then the failure to make fundamental change becomes even more puzzling.

New Zealand is doing nothing about climate change

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 178 comments

The latest report on New Zealand’s performance under the Kyoto Protocol is out and the news is disturbing.  Net emissions compared to  our 1990 CO2 equivalent emissions are predicted to treble by 2030 at a time where they should be trending to below the 1990 level.  And Government policies are shown to be making little difference.  Meanwhile a report by Prof Euan Mason advocates that Agriculture should be in the scheme and that with a proper price for ETS credits significant reforestation with attendant benefits could occur.  And meanwhile RWNJs continue to show their belligerent lack of understanding of the science of climate change …

Polity: Who believes in climate change?

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 84 comments

Cool-yet-depressing finding on why some people change their mind on climate change from one day to the next.

It can be summarised by saying Republicans in the US are scientific morons, and many Americans decide based on the previous days weathers.

NRT: Climate change: More windfall profits

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 19 comments

The Emissions Trading Scheme was never a particularly good way of curbing greenhouse emissions and the way that National gutted it made it distinctly worse. Now we are in a position where National has found a way to use it to providing even more polluter welfare.

Breaking News: Aratere to be used in the event of a major oil spill

Written By: susannact
Date published: - 38 comments

As Greenpeace make a bid in the High Court to challenge the EPA’s decision to grant Anadarko permission to deep sea drill, we can reveal the content of secret documents detailing the contingency plan in the event of a major oil spill. The documents outline how the stricken inter island ferry Aratere will be deployed in the cleanup effort, should a catastrophic event occur.

1979: the year that the climate changed for me

Written By: lprent
Date published: - 34 comments

On the site we now have a a simple little graphic that shows how much heat has accumulated on our planet. It is expressed as multiples of of the heat energy of Hiroshima sized A-bombs. I’ve picked 1979 as being the start year because that was the year that I became aware of the effects of changing climate. I was a 19 year old student in my second year of a BSc in Earth Sciences, and the topic under discussion was the WMO’s recent World Climate Conference.

NRT: Climate change: The enemy

Written By: notices and features
Date published: - 31 comments

The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.

Oil rigs – coming to a beach near you?

Written By: mickysavage
Date published: - 98 comments

The Government is in the process of handing out oil exploration permits which would if unchanged allow drilling 6 nautical miles out from the west coast beaches of Auckland.  And Auckland Council had the chance to submit on the proposal and did so, in a very gentle way, but forgot to ask the locals including the local board.  There has to be a better way.

Nats’ demolition derby

Written By: karol
Date published: - 107 comments

John Key’s government is going full tilt at dismantling everything of value in NZ, and selling as much as possible to the overseas investors.  It’s the government of Drill It, Mine it, Sell it.  Find out about the asset sales referendum & how to vote.

Groser says govt ministers in denial of reality

Written By: James Henderson
Date published: - 145 comments

3news has shaken out hidden science denialists in National. This follows the disgraceful booing of Russel Norman by National MPs who did not want to hear him ‘inappropriately’ quote a Filipino official attributing the typhoon to climate change at a time apparently meant for empty platitudes. Meanwhile, the Filipino official that Norman was quoting has written to thank him.

“Do we want to play Russian roulette with two bullets or one?”

Written By: James Henderson
Date published: - 68 comments

Lord Nicolas Stern, who wrote a ground-breaking report on the economic costs of climate change against the costs of stopping it (conclusion: stopping it is cheap compared to the cost of not), has changed his mind. Climate change is getting worse, faster, and heading to worse results than he thought. It’s no longer a matter of avoiding disaster, but how bad it gets.