sustainability
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Richard Heinburg Life After Growth Tour
Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, September 26th, 2012 - 5 comments
Public Lecture on Sunday 30 September, 1pm-3pm, Auckland University Fisher & Paykel Auditorium, Owen G Glenn Building, University of Auckland Business School.
Sunday Reading
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, September 16th, 2012 - 8 comments
My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. This week: torture, charter schools, economics and development.
A Good Idea?
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, September 1st, 2012 - 156 comments
Planning permission has been sought to construct the world’s largest windfarm off the Scottish coast. Estimated to cost around 4.5 billion pounds and cover some 300 square km of ocean, if the project receives the green light, it will produce up to 40% of Scotland household power use. When compared to other forms of energy […]
Farrar & the mystery of induced traffic
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, August 7th, 2012 - 8 comments
David Farrar notes that 4 of the 10 worst congestion points in New Zealand are in Wellington. He concludes “Transmission Gully will help with some of that, but not all”. Quite the opposite, old boy. Transmission Gully will not create any new capacity at any of these congestion points. In fact, NZTA says it will create more traffic heading into 3 of them.
I am the Markets
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, June 23rd, 2012 - 12 comments
“Markets have become increasingly concerned that the austerity programmes in the eurozone are causing a vicious circle of recession”, and “Markets were confused by mixed messages from European capitals”. I have only one word of reply: Bollocks. Did anyone phone me to ask how I, The Markets, was feeling about these subjects? Did they hell!
Rio: any hope?
Written By: - Date published: 3:04 pm, June 20th, 2012 - 41 comments
A draft agreement has been negotiated for the Rio+20 summit that starts today, but anyone who cares about the future of our planet should be disappointed. The expert panel of nobel laureates, scientists and ministers’ call to ‘seize the moment’ has largely gone unheeded, as the agreement is full of empty promises and lacking in concrete commitments.
A sustainable future?
Written By: - Date published: 9:43 am, June 15th, 2012 - 51 comments
We are using more than the planet can provide, and are growing both in population and in resource use per capita. Rio+20 is meant to be the opportunity to ensure both that the developing world can access the clean water and other resources they’re currently missing out on, while also committing ourselves to living within the planet’s limits. Is there any hope it will succeed? And is there any hope that we, as the nation with the world’s greenest image, might live up to our hype?
Why are the fish dying, King Salmon?
Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, June 14th, 2012 - 21 comments
No-one seems to know why the fish keep dying at King Salmon’s Waihinau farm in Pelorus Sound – or if they do they aren’t telling us. Maybe it had something to do with stuffing tens of thousands of these fish into an environment that is nothing like they have evolved to deal with. It is interesting that this has not been offered up as a potential cause.
The end of growth
Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, June 14th, 2012 - 26 comments
Five to fifteen years of economic turmoil. Peak oil. Climate change. For “Western” / OECD countries it’s time to start creating a world based on a different kind of growth.
Reaching Tipping Point
Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, June 8th, 2012 - 24 comments
Two major new reports out yesterday (from the UN and in Nature) show the earth is headed for a tipping point: our consumption is unsustainable, and we’re degrading the environment. Soon it will be beyond the point of return.
Electric cars will save us all
Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, June 1st, 2012 - 53 comments
You know how, whenever someone points out that spending $12 billion on highways that make no economic sense makes even less sense when you consider that people are driving less because of the price of petrol and will only reduce their driving more in the face of even higher petrol prices, some idiot says ‘we’ll just invent alternatives, drive electric!’. Yeah, it ain’t happening.
Sunday reading
Written By: - Date published: 12:48 pm, May 27th, 2012 - 8 comments
A couple of good BBC articles: what have the Romans done for us? and can we have a society that doesn’t depend on us becoming ill with our fatness? And Kim Hill’s excellent interviewee Steve Keen.
Countdown: 36 days to go
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 16th, 2012 - 11 comments
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.
Green and you have kids? Really?
Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, May 10th, 2012 - 73 comments
Here’s a quick way to reduce your carbon footprint: don’t have kids and save 80 years worth of human greenhouse gas output per child… This is my Voluntary Human Extinction Movement post.
Does NZ have $400 million+ to burn?
Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, May 7th, 2012 - 36 comments
The Environmental Protection Agency, bastard child of Nick Smith chaired by National crony Kerry Prendergast, has given draft approval to Transmission Gully. This billion dollar project returns 60 cents of benefits for every dollar spent. Worse than a night on the pokies. And that’s NZTA’s estimate assuming traffic growth that isn’t happening, and not accounting for $5 a litre petrol.
Daughter, my generation is squandering your birthright
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, April 20th, 2012 - 46 comments
Will our children think of the welfare state, the tiger and the rhino as part of a mythologised Arcadia?
A three-legged stool
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 10th, 2012 - 4 comments
Ruth Richardson has forced every subsequent policy to be sized up for ‘fiscal responsibility’. I’d like them to be sized up for ‘social responsibility’ and ‘environmental responsibility’ as well.
Brownlee’s head in the sand, looking for cheap oil
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, April 4th, 2012 - 64 comments
Rookie Green MP Julie Anne Genter, a transport planning expert before entering Parliament, gave Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee, whose qualification for the job is that he used to teach kids to make wooden toy cars, a sharp lesson in transport policy in the House yesterday. It’s rare for a newbie to show up an old tusker like that. With petrol prices at record levels, I hope someone in the government’s listening.
King salmon, stealing our future
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, March 19th, 2012 - 26 comments
Imagine taking your children down to the park to find an overseas had set up a dairy farm in one corner. The shit builds up and flows onto the playground. You complain, but are told the farm is under no obligation to treat or retain their waste and the council has no powers to do anything about it. That’s what’s happening with aquaculture thanks to the EPA.
Billions down the drain on roads to nowhere
Written By: - Date published: 12:13 pm, February 15th, 2012 - 42 comments
Gerry Brownlee has weakly attempted to fob off the decline in benefit:cost ratio of highway projects under National. ‘Sure’ he says ‘we’ve been funding projects that barely break even while high BCR spending like early childhood education gets cut, but things will turn around’. Um, no. Look at the projects National has on the horizon, […]
Political orthodoxy and economic reality
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, February 13th, 2012 - 68 comments
Capitalism is good. Globalisation is good. It’s political orthodoxy. But is it matched by economic reality? Perhaps not. Recent pieces by Bernard Hickey and Gordon Campbell give us plenty to think about…
A sustainable future
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, February 8th, 2012 - 19 comments
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.
Paradigm shift
Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, November 30th, 2011 - 79 comments
In the Budget, we were told to expect 4.2% growth in 2012, which would make getting back into surplus and creating jobs possible. The Pre-election Update reduced it to 3%. Now, the OECD says ‘2.5%, providing Europe doesn’t go to crap .. oh, and Europe’s going to crap’. We’ve got to accept that economic growth won’t fall on us like manna from heaven anymore and work out how to build an actual brighter future.
Slave fishing – NZ’s shame
Written By: - Date published: 6:48 am, October 25th, 2011 - 13 comments
You won’t find much praise for Talley’s on this site. But, fair dues, they harvest their fish with Kiwi crews and have this to say on slave fishing: “If it is uneconomic to harvest a New Zealand resource under New Zealand labour conditions and costs then it is not a resource. Blood diamonds and Asian textile sweatshops use the same justification”
Nats’ Rena spin all at sea
Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, October 19th, 2011 - 40 comments
The Nats are clearly at panic stations. They’re trying to minimise the Rena disaster by comparing the number of dead animals to those killed by other means. As one emailer put it: “it’s like saying the Christchurch earthquake was no big deal because more people die of cancer”. Meanwhile, Key visits oiled birds and says they’re the price of economic ‘progress’.
Scumbags of the South Seas
Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, October 18th, 2011 - 26 comments
“We need more cheap foreign fishermen” says the slave fishing lobby group. They say that it’s just like Fisher & Paykel moving their production offshore for cheaper labour. Well, tell you want, slave-fishers, how about you fuck off to China and we’ll stay here and fish our fish ourselves without breaking labour and environment laws? NoRightTurn takes up the story.
Anti-deepsea drilling petition
Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, October 18th, 2011 - 41 comments
Fools rush in
Written By: - Date published: 1:55 pm, October 14th, 2011 - 55 comments
Labour has announced it will put a moratorium on deepsea oil drilling until it’s proven safe. Good. Basic precautionary principle. Clearly necessary given the piss-poor handling of a relatively small spill. Besides, there’s no rush to dig this stuff up. It’s not going anywhere and we can only extract it once. Will only become more valuable over time.
NoRightTurn: Nats veto last ocean
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 12th, 2011 - 12 comments
Remember when New Zealand used to lead the world on the environment? Yeah, well not under the Key Government. Now, New Zealand is preparing to veto making the Ross Sea a marine protected area. Why are we alone in blocking this last pristine sea from protection? For the sake of a $18m fishery, probably fished by slave ships.
Ecocide Mock Trial
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, September 29th, 2011 - 5 comments
The crime of ecocide will be tested, as if it is already law, by barristers before a judge and jury, at the UK Supreme Court in London.
Moving planet
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, September 23rd, 2011 - 7 comments
Moving Planet is a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis. It is being held on 24th September 2011 – a day to move beyond fossil fuels. Check out an event near you…
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