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?
42 is not the meaning of life and 13 is not an unlucky number.
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.
Aotearoa has been super sizing its vehicle fleet for over a decade and given Jacinda Ardern claim that Climate Change as her generation’s nuclear-free moment, why is her government not smacking ute owners and other gas guzzlers much harder than the just the feebate? Large vehicles increase climate change and wild weather. Fringe Benefit tax is payable on them and usually not collected. Plus they are deadly dangerous to pedestrians and other vehicles.
For those that understand the cyclical, interconnected nature of reality and why growth is inherently limited in the physical world, kia kaha, we’re making headway.
With record floods in Marlborough, half of Westport evacuated, disastrous flooding in Germany and the North East and the threat of record bushfires in the North West of the United States Mother Nature is passing rather cruel judgment on Groundswell NZ’s recent protest.
The Groundswell farmers movement want the new freshwater policy scrapped, the “ute tax” removed, lots of imported labour for farm work, parts of the ETS dumped the new Significant Natural Area policy dumped, the draft policy on indigenous biodiversity scrapped and Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill stopped. How likely is this?
Farmers aren’t the problem here, they’re the mirror New Zealand is holding up to itself. We say we want change, despite the evidence.
UK billionaire Richard Branson has won the rich man’s pissing competition by being the first billionaire into space even though 12 months ago he was urgently seeking Government grants while at the same time paying no tax because of his tax residency status.
Lawyers for Climate Action are taking the Climate Change Commission to court over their lax budgets and dodgy accounting.
So I was just driving around thinking, “Ugh it’s hot. Ugh there’s a new fire starting near me at least every other day. Ugh, how is this my life, also this is just the beginning, I feel like I should be waking up from this nightmare at some point and yet I am not,” when the editor finally reached me.
Waikato Regional Council (WRC) has approved a transport plan which assigns just 3% of its 10-year budget to walking and cycling, and only 5% to public transport. This must inevitably increase overall transport emission pollution in the region. In my opinion the law requires the plan to reduce transport emissions to achieve consistency with central government transport policy. If emissions will rise under the plan this makes the plan unlawful and places WRC at significant risk of a successful legal challenge.
For the first time since the election Winston Peters has reemerged. But instead of talking about the country’s problems such as climate change, child poverty and recovering from the global pandemic he chose to concentrate on the “over” use of Te Reo, cycleways and gangs.
Beyond the cycle/car wars.
I am pleased the right have moved on from overtly racist attacks on minorities. But I am bemused by the current level of vitriol that has been thrown at a group who apart from wearing lycra is doing nothing wrong.
Labour and the Greens have announced the establishment of a Feebate scheme to incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles and disincentivise the purchase of gas guzzlers.
Last week’s announcement of major changes to the New Zealand Upgrade program in my view was welcome.
Greenpeace says there is still a cow-shaped hole in both the Climate Change Commission’s advice and the Government’s approach to climate action, following the release of the Commission’s finalised climate plan.
As they said they would, the Government has today released the full advice from the Climate Commission, taking into account all the submissions and all the big fat evidence.
This Sunday Aucklanders have an opportunity to protest the catastrophic failure of NZTA to generate a cycleway from the North Shore to the CBD, and to promote a practical proposal to “liberate a lane” on the Harbour Bridge which would do the job in the meantime.
Don’t knock local politics until you’ve had to stand up and defend a cycleway in public.
Research is now showing the advantages of regenerative agriculture. Are we wise enough to make best use of them?
New Zealand is about to enter a transition phase in energy that’s going to affect absolutely everyone.
This is tough information to take in. I feel better when I try to take action to support the Climate Justice Movement which has known for decades that capitalism must be transformed and replaced for decent survival. Individual-collective action is possible. Keep going. – @climateben
One of the many regretful aspects of the Trump presidency was the United States open hostility to doing anything about climate change. It looks like Joe Biden will do his best to make up for lost time.
As we lead up to Budget 2021, there’s much more shape to the whole direction of this government.
