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Not with a bang but a whimper

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, May 27th, 2012 - 110 comments

burning-earth

Bad news from Bonn. Not that you’d know it from NZ media coverage of course.

Countdown: 36 days to go

Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 16th, 2012 - 11 comments

un sustainability rio

There are 72 days to the Olympics, which is what many people are counting down to – but the planet will be much more interested in the Rio+20 conference in 36 days.  This is the chance for world leaders to put global society on a sustainable path.

Just one teeny problem…

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, April 26th, 2012 - 72 comments

burning-earth-small

You’d think we’d draw some obvious conclusions from the Arctic melt. Apparently not though. We’re in a hole, but we’re going to keep digging…

A Butcher’s Shop, a Toy Shop, a Candy Store and a Childcare Centre

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, April 25th, 2012 - 14 comments

super-redundancy-man_joyce

Steven Joyce’s personal fiefdom of Economic Development, Science and Innovation, Building and Housing, and Labour is confirmed. Now for the redundancies…

Dumbing down search

Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, April 24th, 2012 - 18 comments

blindfolded-thumb

Do we really want search results tailored to our mood and intelligence? Are we going to take the most powerful aggregate of information ever assembled by humanity and bend it to our cognitive biases?

Losing the debate on global warming

Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, April 15th, 2012 - 155 comments

burning-earth-small

The facts don’t seem to matter when it comes to our understanding of climate change.  As the evidence grows stronger and stronger, so too, apparently, does public skepticism.

We pay for pollution

Written By: - Date published: 2:43 pm, April 12th, 2012 - 14 comments

cow

As National tell us they can’t afford the pittance required for parental leave, they also announce that they will continue to wear the multi-billion dollar cost of farmers’ emissions by deferring their entry into the ETS. That’s us, the tax-payers, subsidising Fonterra.

Earth Hour

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 pm, March 31st, 2012 - 31 comments

earth-hour

OK – so we’re a bit late with this – but it’s Earth Hour, 8:30 – 9:30pm NZ time.

Stormy weather

Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, March 25th, 2012 - 18 comments

Weather bomb

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 3rd, 2012 - 113 comments

flooded-house

Keep safe during the “weather bomb”. It will be good practice for the future.

Righties cutting themselves on Occam’s razor

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, March 1st, 2012 - 113 comments

hot earth

The Left has its fair share of conspiracy theorists – who think that, for reasons tenuously explained at best, various, often opposing, organisations are secretly carrying out massive cons and not being discovered. But we’ve got nothing on the Right. Belief that climate change is world’s most enormous conspiracy, engineered for no good reason, is an article of faith for these guys. If it weren’t so serious, it would be hilarious.

Behind the hockey stick

Written By: - Date published: 11:09 am, February 19th, 2012 - 136 comments

burning-earth

There have been several interesting pieces on the politics of climate change recently, including some reflections (and a new book) from Michael Mann (the scientist behind the “hockey stick”), and leaked documents from the denier industry.

A sustainable future

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, February 8th, 2012 - 19 comments

un sustainability rio

The UN High Level Panel on Global Sustainability has delivered a report about creating a future that’s sustainable economically, socially and environmentally. Our government and political parties should be looking at it and measuring themselves against it.

NRT: Climate change: Cross-purposes

Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, February 3rd, 2012 - 48 comments

no-right-turn-256

No Right Turn has a look at two of the incoming minister briefings impacting on climate change. They are incoherent and it is clear that neither ministry talks to the other. If it wasn’t affecting a important long term issue, it’d be as funny as a Yes Minister episode. But since it does, it just highlights the growing incoherence of this incompetent government and their increasing politicization of the civil service.

Funding the puppets of denial

Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, January 25th, 2012 - 12 comments

puppet

There have been some interesting investigations going on into the funding of denier lobby groups. The reluctance of them to disclose their sources of income is becoming an issue. What can be seen is that they have  very publicity shy funding sources. Most likely it is those who stand to lose money if effective measures are taken to reduce the impact of climate changes. So they want transparency in science and hypocrisy on their own funding of their own ‘independent’ mouthpieces.

Why bringing the bankers to heel is so important…

Written By: - Date published: 11:33 am, January 13th, 2012 - 88 comments

fed reserve

Ecological economist Brian Davey explains how while we need to fix the problems of peak oil and climate change, we’re not going to get anywhere until we deal with the psychopathic elite of bankers who have control of the world economy.

Shapes of things (2012 and all that)

Written By: - Date published: 10:36 am, December 31st, 2011 - 29 comments

Hot Topic

Gareth at Hot Topic makes some predictions about 2012. Looks about right. It is going to be interesting to see what happens on the ENSO this year. Do our farmers head into drought or get another good year of relief from the extremes?

ImperatorFish: A Plea To Jim Hopkins

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, December 21st, 2011 - 14 comments

imperator fish logo

Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here

Did you realise Jim Hopkins abolished Climate Change last Friday? It was awfully good of him and his craaaaaaaazy red-rimmed glasses.

Nelson floods

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, December 19th, 2011 - 41 comments

flooded-house-thumb

It’s Nelson / Tasman’s turn to get hammered by nature. Commiserations to all those affected. As a country (and a world) we should brace for more extreme weather ahead.

Priorities

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, December 19th, 2011 - 24 comments

chimp as the thinker

Trillions have been plowed into bailing out banks, investors, and whole countries during the economic crisis. The cost easily exceeds total investment in tackling climate change. Is it, as George Monbiot argues, that elites just look out for themselves, or are humans just incapable of perceiving the danger of large, slowly-building problems?

What we need more of is science

Written By: - Date published: 6:42 pm, December 15th, 2011 - 22 comments

what_we_need_more_of_is_science

There was a very good science piece on Nine-to-Noon this morning, covering some of Kathryn Ryan’s trip to Antarctica. It got me thinking: we need a lot more science in our media – we’d get a better country out of it.

O Canada!

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 pm, December 13th, 2011 - 89 comments

canada fkag

Canada is to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, making it one of 2 nations in the world to be formally outside it. What will National do when the inevitably large fines roll in for us under their eviscerated ETS?

Disgraced again on climate change

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, December 9th, 2011 - 89 comments

smoke stacks

To add insult to the injury of another wasted year on climate change, the government has taken the opportunity of the Durban conference not to make progress, but to disgrace us yet again.

100% Stupid

Written By: - Date published: 7:28 am, December 8th, 2011 - 51 comments

dim-bulb-thumb

Is the John Key Party actively trying to trash New Zealand’s fragile “100% Pure” brand?

“Conservation” Minister

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, December 3rd, 2011 - 103 comments

mountaintop removal mining

Quite apart from the broken promise, isn’t it the job of a “Conservation” Minister to, you know, conserve?  Instead of leading the mining charge?

If we stick with the status quo

Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, November 24th, 2011 - 14 comments

screwed

Another of those pictures that is worth a thousand words.

Integrity or hocus pocus

Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, November 20th, 2011 - 59 comments

shushing key

I have no sympathy for politicians complaining about their ‘private’ political conversations being made public. What politicians say on politics is inherently of public interest. Don’t say different things in private then in public, and you won’t get caught out. It’s a matter of integrity. We can now reveal what John Key really thinks about climate change.

Nats and climate change deniers

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, November 19th, 2011 - 44 comments

burning-earth

The teapot tape fiasco has forced the Nats to pretend that they are interested in policy.  It’s screamingly hypocritical of them, since they couldn’t even be bothered returning answers to Radio NZ’s policy survey. But let’s not waste this new opportunity.  Let’s start with asking them why they’re endorsing a party of loony climate change deniers.

Two headlines to ponder

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, November 10th, 2011 - 60 comments

car-off-cliff-thelma-lohise

IEA: World is hurtling toward irreversible climate change

Government shifts to ETS go-slow

Discuss…

The new hole in National’s budget

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, November 10th, 2011 - 99 comments

National budget hole

National would get the books back into the black with a $1.5b surplus 2014/15. It’s on their ads, it’s in the PREFU. So, it’s gotta be true, eh? Well, we already know they’ve cooked the books by claiming both that they would have the revenue from asset sales and the dividends from those sold assets. Now, their ETS changes have opened a second great big hole in their budget.

Climate change predictions

Written By: - Date published: 8:13 am, November 5th, 2011 - 124 comments

burning-earth

Predictions on global greenhouse gas emissions have turned out to be wrong.  The real emissions are higher than the worst case projections.  Models of warming, however, have been confirmed as accurate.  Here in NZ a joint VUW / Otago study makes damning criticisms of the Nats’ record on climate change.

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