climate change

Categories under climate change

Triangulating climate change

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 am, March 7th, 2023 - 78 comments

Yesterday morning there were suggestions that the Government would properly address climate change by placing greater emphasis on public transport and walking and cycling.  But by the afternoon the proposition had been watered down.

But How Do You Pay For It?

Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, March 5th, 2023 - 27 comments

To pay for recent flood damage Grant Robertson has to decide on what proportion of this will be paid by new debt, what proportion by reallocation of expenditure, and what proportion by special tax levies.  Is an Australian style levy under consideration?

How Activism Dies

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, March 4th, 2023 - 40 comments

If anything progressive is to come out of this current government other than disaster recovery, really focused protest must prevail. It isn’t.

School Strike 4 Climate nationwide this Friday

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, March 1st, 2023 - 32 comments

This climate crisis is a structural issue…. What it requires is a mass movement of citizens protesting for policy change and a dramatic redesign of our economy.

Climate striker Aurora Garner-Randolph

The New Climate Denial: adaptation over mitigation

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, February 28th, 2023 - 45 comments

What if unmitigated climate change is more than we can adapt to?

What To Do About Climate Change

Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, February 25th, 2023 - Comments Off on What To Do About Climate Change

West Auckland’s activism, through such examples as the Arc in the Park sanctuary to the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area through to the protection of the environment provided by the South Titirangi Neighbourhood Network, provides examples of the sort of activism that may be needed if Aotearoa New Zealand is to deal properly with climate change mitigation.

Climate change – do we mitigate or do we adapt?

Written By: - Date published: 1:32 pm, February 25th, 2023 - 21 comments

The political debate about climate change is coming to an end as the North Island is battered by the third huge climate change induced storm in a month.  The focus will not be on what to do?  Do we still mitigate the effects by reducing greenhouse gas emissions?  Or do we dig in and adapt?

This is really awkward

Written By: - Date published: 3:13 pm, February 21st, 2023 - 63 comments

National MP Maureen Pugh has questioned the existence of human induced climate change.

Windfall tax on bank super-profits needed to help fund repair

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, February 20th, 2023 - 69 comments

The repair bill for the recent cyclones will be similar to the direct cost to government of the Canterbury earthquakes, in the $13 billion region. Banks are currently making obscene profits. The time is right to impose a one-off banking windfall tax. If a conservative Margaret Thatcher can do it, it is pretty hard to argue why a Labour government can’t.

Why right wing media is bad for democracy and the planet

Written By: - Date published: 12:21 pm, February 19th, 2023 - 37 comments

Newstalk ZB hosts have rightfully been criticised for minimising the danger posed by Cyclone Gabrielle.  Which funnily is that they have been doing about climate change for the past few decades.

Prime Ministerial

Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, February 17th, 2023 - 31 comments

Chris Hipkins has so far not put a foot wrong.  Since he became PM he has quickly and competently reformed the Cabinet and jettisoned policies that were for one reason or another causing problems. And he has quickly asserted control over two massive storms, the first which pummeled the country’s major city and the second which has caused massive floods to much of the East Coast of the North Island.

Climate Minister James Shaw: If we do not act, it will get worse

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, February 15th, 2023 - 155 comments

“There will be a certain crowd who say … let’s give up on stopping climate change and its focus entirely on responding to the effects of climate change and I cannot state enough what a catastrophic mistake that would be, because every tenth of a degree of warming increases the frequency and the severity of these events.”

Is it too early to talk about climate change?

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, February 13th, 2023 - 50 comments

Two unprecedented summertime storms in Auckland suggest that the threats posed by climate change are not in our future but are here now.

Protecting poor people: the call for a rent freeze in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 10:47 am, February 3rd, 2023 - 187 comments

As property investors indicate an intention to raise rents, Renters United and 20+ community groups call for a rent freeze in Auckland.

Super City’s handling of the storm event

Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, January 29th, 2023 - 135 comments

As Auckland slowly recovers but ready itself for further storms there is some attention being given to review Council’s response to the super storm. The initial impression, and this is held widely is that the response was sub optimal.

Take Care Auckland and Northland

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 pm, January 27th, 2023 - 129 comments

Heavy rain has caused severe flooding in Auckland, leading to evacuations, power outages, and high risk warnings of sewerage on beaches.

People are being urged to stay home if safe, and stay off the roads. Please also check on neighbours and people who may be struggling especially disabled people, elderly, those on their own, and those with young children and pets.

German riot police defeated by some kind of mud wizard

Written By: - Date published: 6:09 am, January 16th, 2023 - 2 comments

Who said climate action can’t be funny?

The climate fight

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, January 15th, 2023 - 34 comments

What are we fighting exactly?

Dog whistling climate change

Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, January 12th, 2023 - 30 comments

National MP Stuart Smith has tweeted suggesting that students should not be taught about climate change but should instead be taught the skills to decide for themselves if it exists.

The weather sucks

Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, January 9th, 2023 - 48 comments

I’m back at work at my home office desk today and the weather sucked in Auckland and the north of the North Island over my break. Waiting for Luxon and minons blaming the government for not controlling La Niña – now in the third year of her current reign.It seems like all that National can do these days – blame the government for external events.

New Zealand is in a terrible state *

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, January 6th, 2023 - 116 comments

* or is it?

The Standard’s political awards for 2022

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, December 30th, 2022 - 39 comments

It is that time of year again where the events of the year are reviewed and what was notable, noteworthy and notorious.

Federated Farmers – climate change “probably” exists

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, December 23rd, 2022 - 49 comments

Federated Farmers leader Andrew Hoggard thinks that climate change is probably happening but we will have to wait 50 to 100 years to see the effects.

Richard Heinberg: The Final Doubling

Written By: - Date published: 7:37 am, December 16th, 2022 - 80 comments

Can humans decouple resource overuse from economic growth?

Sustainability Sunday

Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, December 4th, 2022 - 6 comments

So many good initiatives that demonstrate that sustainability and community resiliency are intertwined. The sheer numbers of people involved now is heartening at a time when we are inundated with what is going wrong.

We’ve never had so much choice in what we can do to effect good change. We know the problems, now is the time to put our attention to the solutions, what is already working. and then get on with it.

James Shaw, Climate Minister: before us lies a simple choice

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, November 17th, 2022 - 13 comments

New Zealand National Statement at COP27, and the call for all of us to act.

The power companies are rorting us

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 15th, 2022 - 25 comments

FIRST Union, NZCTU, and 350 Aotearoa have just released a joint report suggesting that the privatisation of our power companies by National were not only disastrous for the country’s finances but also disastrous for the planet.

The Year Skiing Died

Written By: - Date published: 4:47 pm, November 11th, 2022 - 13 comments

Climate change has ensured that this is the winter that broke skiing.

Kelvin Davis – if not now then when?

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, November 7th, 2022 - 32 comments

The text of an excellent speech given by Kelvin Davis to the Labour Party conference on climate change.

Democracy is on the Ballot – watershed US midterms this week.

Written By: - Date published: 1:46 am, November 7th, 2022 - 3 comments

At a campaign event last week President Biden said that in these mid-term elections “democracy is on the ballot”. This is absolutely true, and the outcome will be decided by those who show up to vote.

Holy Sh*t, Overshoot! Don’t Dither; Do

Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, November 1st, 2022 - 24 comments

July 28 was EARTH OVERSHOOT DAY. On July 29 we went into ecological deficit. Humans have used the entire annual budget of resources that can replenished by nature

There are of course many things we can do.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.