The Case for Restoring Regional Rail
How does regional rail fit into the biggest story on the planet?
pollution
Layers of Culpability
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.
The plastics problem
It’s easy to mock the government’s latest single-use plastics ban, but the comprehensive plan it arises from is impressive work from Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage, including the shift to systems thinking and the far reaching implications of the government adopting this approach.
Plastic Fantastic
Billions of disease laden pieces of plastic killing reefs. No effective solution offered.
Greens announce plan to turn trash into cash
The Green Party today announced a progressive plan to protect our oceans and the places we love with a ban on plastic bags, refunds on drink containers, a phase-out of plastic packaging, and a commitment to sending zero waste to landfill by 2050.
Protecting our biggest export income earner
Tourism Export Council: “The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) in its current form is nothing more than a PR-stunt from Government who continue to ignore scientists and expert opinion re the state of our freshwater. The NPS-FM does not address the serious problems facing our waterways and, in fact, will make them worse.”
Community groups abandon Smith’s water forum
Will Nick Smith get the message and set in place a realistic consultation process and safe standards, or will he persist with a plan so bad that no one wants to be associated with it?
Auckland’s shit beaches
Not meant as a general criticism. Auckland has lovely beaches. When they aren’t drowning in shit that is.
100% Pure takes another hit
Stuff this morning: “Lord of the Rings actor says NZ tourists shocked by polluted ‘sewer’ Middle-earth”
100% Pure
A selection of tweets from this morning. You may detect a theme.
“Flushing flows”
A new phrase is about to enter NZ’s clean green image lexicon.
Who needs water anyway
Or waterways are starting to stink as much as our murky tax havens.
Fouling our nest
New Zealand is a beautiful country, and tourism is our second biggest earner of foreign exchange. We’d be stupid to trash the place, right?
Diesel Bomb
Last Friday I wrote a post on Volkwagen gaming NOx emissions. This is a follow up.
NOx-ious shit all around.
Been trying to get my head around the implications of Volkswagen’s rigged diesel performance tests. Predictably, and unlike most stories covering this, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse for the financial woes the company might be facing.
It wasn’t a dirty pipe
It wasn’t a dirty pipe. That is the claim made by veterinarian and farm performance consultant Frank Rowson, as reported by Stuff yesterday. Rowson says “This disease originates in contaminated feed and animal manure”. Let the enquiries begin – we need to be honest about the problem and fix it.
Shitcast
Auckland City Council is developing a computational model of the predicted sewage-related pollution at its beaches. A forecast for sewage, a Shitcast if you will. I’m not protesting the idea of forecasting pollution. I’m protesting the sad fact that it is necessary in “100% Pure” NZ. I think John Key needs to find himself some different advisors to tell him it isn’t so.
NoRightTurn: Election choices
I/S looks at two dividing lines between left and right that may help your choice in a month’s time. The first is Afghanistan. Labour has promised to bring the SAS home within 90 days. National won’t commit to withdrawing. The second is water: National wants more subsidies to polluters; Labour and the Greens want businesses to pay for their use of public resources.
Remember
When the Nats say they must cut early childhood education funding – remember their new $500m subsidy to polluters.
When the Nats say they have to cut women’s refuge money – remember their new $500m subsidy to polluters.
When the Nats say they have to sell our assets to pay their debt – remember their new $500m subsidy to polluters.
Govt ignored advice to save lives with lower drink-drive limit
The government was told that lowering the drink-drive limit would save 33 lives and $238 million a year. They ignored it. Why? I reckon the only money they were worried about was donations from the booze barons. These idiots don’t bother with basic cost vs benefit analyses. It’s all about pay-offs for their mates. And donation kickbacks.