Ha ha …less shit! same goes for bogus polls. On a positive note the PM has pushed the investigate button on the fuel cartel and hopefully after that the grocery cartel. Maybe Santa is coming after all, Wayne.
‘We are last generation that can stop climate change’ – UN summit
“We are clearly the last generation that can change the course of climate change, but we are also the first generation with its consequences,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the CEO of the World Bank. The bank announced on Monday that its record $100bn (£78bn) of climate funding from 2021-2025 would for the first time be split equally between projects to cut emissions and those protecting people from the floods, storms and droughts that global warming is making worse.
In recent years, just 5% of global funding has gone on protection, but 2018 has seen climate impacts hit hard, with heatwaves and wildfires in Europe and California and huge floods in India, Japan and east Africa. “We are already seeing the devastating impact of climate change,” Georgieva told the Guardian. “We strongly believe that action ought to go both on mitigation and on adaptation.”
It’s so simple. Livestock for meat and dairy products worldwide is responsible for almost 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second largest source of emissions after the fossil fuels industry.
There are straightforward actions you can do, starting today.
Drop meat and dairy.
Don’t believe me?
Then listen to George Monbiot.
He explains how the fate of the planet depends on the way we choose to eat.
Well Ed, I listened and didn’t hear a damned thing to back the claim that meat and dairy is responsible for ~ 15% of emissions.
How is the figure arrived at? Is it ~15% with all of the fossil inputs to agriculture added up and subtracted from the dairy/meat total? Because that’s the only way anyone can claim that meat/dairy is second to fossil in terms of emissions.
And my opinion of Monbiot as a wanker was just reinforced – the guy says he’s “almost vegan”…. it’s just venison he eats!
Anyway, look. Eat less meat or no meat. It’s not a bad thing to do. But don’t fucking kid yourself that being vegan will make a serious impact on AGW. It won’t.
Dropping fossil would curtail modern agricultural practices (no fossil inputs) that would in turn mean less “factory meat” getting produced/consumed.
But simply eating vegan does 5/8ths of fuck all in terms of fossil use, meaning 5/8ths of fuck all in terms of AGW.
It was posted by Robin Grieve, ACT Candidate for Whangarei.
He is the Chairman Pastural Farming Climate Research Inc.
He is a right wing politician, not a scientist.
It’s denialist nonsense.
“We know from taking samples of air trapped in polar ice that methane levels have grown by 150 percent since organised animal farming began in the early 1700s. By comparison, CO2 levels have grown by 35 percent. Methane levels have continued to rise over the decades, growing fastest through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, before slowing down in the 1990s, levelling off in the early 2000s, and increasing again from 2007.”
I reckon that physics doesn’t give a flying monkey’s fuck for where any CO2 comes from (eg – methane breakdown, bio-fuels, or fossil fuels).
If we want to arrest climate change, and maybe even see slight drops in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 occur, then we need to stop burning fossil. (ie, re- introducing to the earth’s systems CO2 that was removed from the earth’s systems hundreds of millions of years ago)
Agriculture can’t do what it currently does without fossil, so methane emissions would inevitably drop in concert with reductions in fossil use.
And like I say, if we want there to be any prospect that concentrations of CO2 will begin to come down, then we can’t swap out fossil fuel for bio fuel.
Sigh. OK, I’ll take the considerable time to respond to the denialist nonsense you’ve just sprayed around with just a half-dozen or so key presses that took just a few seconds.
Let’s follow some of the possible paths of that carbon atom from the air, absorbed into a plant.
It may stay as plant matter until it rots and is returned to the atmosphere as CO2, In which case, the only effect on global warming is a teeny-tiny reduction in atmospheric CO2 and consequent reduced warming for the brief time that carbon atom is part of a solid piece of plant, rather than floating in the atmosphere.
While it is plant matter, it may get eaten by a non-methanogenic animal, then emitted again as CO2. Again, negligible effect.
It may get eaten by a ruminant, and emitted as methane (as a substantial portion of the carbon atoms eaten by ruminants end up). In which case, that methane molecule adds to the current concentration of methane in the atmosphere. Yes, that methane molecule will eventually be broken back down to CO2 (on average around 10ish years), but while it is still methane it is massively more warming than CO2*. That extra heat the methane has trapped while it is still methane stays with us for a very long time. A while ago I ran the numbers, and an average cow in a paddock for a year emits so much methane it causes about the same warming as an average car driving around for a year (12000 km or so)
Methane concentrations have increased from around 775 parts per billion in pre-industrial times to around 1800 now, due entirely to human activities (not all of it is agricultural, industry and domestic use shares some of the blame). Because methane has a short lifetime, this increased methane concentration (and consequent warming) is entirely due to increased ongoing emissions, of which agriculture is a large part. So yes, even though the carbon atom in a molecule of methane belched by a cow originally came from atmospheric CO2, it still causes much more warming because it has been turned into methane by agricultural activity than if it had stayed as CO2. So it’s entirely proper to hold that agricultural activity accountable for the increased warming it causes.
*If you calculate how much warming you get over 20 years from a tonne of methane, it’s around 85 times more than a tonne of CO2. Over 100 years, it’s around the 25 figure used in the vid.
If you don’t trust Monbiot or me, then what about this study.
“Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.
The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades.
Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets.
The new research, published in the journal Nature, is the most thorough to date and combined data from every country to assess the impact of food production on the global environment. It then looked at what could be done to stop the looming food crisis.“
No-one can say meat and dairy is second to fossil in terms of emissions if the fossil inputs that are necessary for meat and dairy are left sitting in the meat/dairy total.
And if we all go vegan, we’re all going to suffer from malnutrition because of the effect that raised CO2 levels have on plant nutrition. (That article joe90 linked at 2.1.2 is well worth the read, and it’s worth noting that not one mention is made on the known effect that elevated CO2 levels have on plants and/or the obvious knock-on effect in relation to insect and bird and lizard numbers…)
You reckon a plant based diet is going to save us?
Looking at what insecticides, especially organophosphates, are doing, it’s gonna be goodbye food.
When asked to imagine what would happen if insects were to disappear completely, scientists find words like chaos, collapse, Armageddon. Wagner, the University of Connecticut entomologist, describes a flowerless world with silent forests, a world of dung and old leaves and rotting carcasses accumulating in cities and roadsides, a world of “collapse or decay and erosion and loss that would spread through ecosystems” — spiraling from predators to plants. E.O. Wilson has written of an insect-free world, a place where most plants and land animals become extinct; where fungi explodes, for a while, thriving on death and rot; and where “the human species survives, able to fall back on wind-pollinated grains and marine fishing” despite mass starvation and resource wars. “Clinging to survival in a devastated world, and trapped in an ecological dark age,” he adds, “the survivors would offer prayers for the return of weeds and bugs.”
heh – E.O Wilson apparently overlooked the fact that a plant based diet is increasingly a sugar based diet because of the effects of CO2 on growth…meaning those wind pollinated grains won’t have much sustenance, and that marine life will have cacked it along with terrestrial life because the phyto-plankton at the base of the marine food system also become junk under conditions of accelerated growth.
Thanks Ed. Husband a big meat eater and so me by default. Agreed today to cut it back to one red meat meal a week. Guess it’s a start. We walk and use public transport a lot too
Anyone seen any monarch butterflies lately? I have 2 large swan plants but not a sign of any eggs. I usually bring any eggs inside as soon as I see a butterfly around the plants, as the wasps will take the caterpillars almost as soon as they hatch. My daughter has got a small accidental swan plant forest but also no go for eggs, caterpillars or butterflies. Are they now extinct in Waiuku?
Where you have Asian Paper Wasps, you will have no Monarch caterpillars. Because they eat Milkweed (Swan Plant) monarchs used to be poisonous to our old predators. 2 new predators don’t give a toss about Milkweed poison, and gobble up everything in sight. At this time of the year it is the Paper Wasp. Later, as they grow bigger, the South African Praying Mantids will join in, and continue after the Paper Wasps stop collecting protein in late summer.
Sorry, but lean times for Monarch butterflies and many other insects here in NZ since these two monstrously mean and greedy predators became established.
Seen a couple of Monarchs but not many. We have swarm of them come through about January, so on that basis, would expect January 2019 to be when they start laying eggs.
Then the fun begins of squashing eggs to maintain a good caterpillar/plant ratio. Too many and it’s murder. Too few and not enough survive.
Lmao a ton of Milo Yiannopoulos docs dropped as part of his Australian lawsuit and honey, this grift is on its last legs pic.twitter.com/lBjYzNGCnE— K. Thor Jensen (@kthorjensen) December 2, 2018
They’re all loud mouthed nobodies sloganeering on the wingnut welfare circuit.
The limitless ocean of cash that flows through Wingnut Welfare’s rivers and tributaries is how the Right keeps their whole Pretty Hate Machine — publishing houses, magazines, websites, radio empires, teevee networks, op-ed forelock tuggers, think tanks, and a thousand free roaming pundits — propped up and purring in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are nothing but a mob lying, racist grifters and madmen.
And once you get your Wingnut Welfare card punch, baby, the world is your oyster!
I suspect that many of them are the same brush. Pseudonyms change, but the language style and logic doesn’t. We haven’t heard from Chuck lately, but a new arrival seems remarkably similar to me. Not the first time I have noticed such similar contributions under a different name.
Never trust a right-wing commentator!
Jack with the KSA setting their production limits.
Qatar announces it was withdrawing from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “OPEC” effective 1 January 2019.— Qatar Petroleum (@qatarpetroleum) December 3, 2018
Odd. I never thought of either the Hosk or Leighton as left-wing wankers. Wankers, yes, but not left-wing. I s’pose it’s a matter of where you sit when looking at them.
The Project have done a number of stories on conservation, climate change, plastic in the oceans etc etc. Awesome that they are helping to increase awareness and help drive much needed change.
If BM’s spinning out calling him names, cause that’s all BM can manage in defence of poison ivy and her lack of conservation, then he’s sure struck a nerve.
Good job Jesse, thanks for caring about the planet among other things.
Do his perspectives on the environment make him a ‘Left-wing wanker’ or does being a ‘Left-wing wanker’ mean he has the views he does about the environment?
And if he is a ‘Left-wing wanker’ does that make his views any less or more worthy than, say, yours?
Or are you pissed off that someone is prepared to address some bullshit? I’ve seen some saying that the people who worked in Barry’s office should have shut up and tolerated what they saw as bullying. The ruling classes don’t seem to like it when the empire strikes back.
That reads to me like a criticism of himself. If only he were that self aware. Du Fresne openly seeks to change things, and no topic does he cover even-handedly.
In the last sentence he betrays the most ultra conceit of ultra right wing thought:
The proper purpose of journalism (is) to give ordinary people the means to make their own decisions about what’s in their best interests.
I’m puzzled … should people make decisions that are not in their best interests, or have other people do it for them?
Or maybe you missed this:
One of the best definitions of journalism that I’ve read comes from The Elements of Journalism, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It defines the purpose of journalism as “to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies and their governments”.
Maybe that definition of ‘best interests’ works better for you?
That’s a better definition but not the one Du Fresne rests upon, nor one he himself subscribes to because right wing thought bases itself above all else upon personal responsibility and the rights of the individual over strength of community and the good of society.
I think if you leave people to it unfortunately they will make decisions in their own best interests rather than a common good. Hands off government the type which Du Fresne promotes (even though he as a journalist should not be promoting it) contributes to this.
Fair enough, left wingers tend to put the interests of the collective ahead of individuals. At the extremes the history of both viewpoints is terrible.
My take is that both viewpoints co-exist in a mutual balance; both speak to vital human realities that work best when they listen to each other.
Some years back a new cafe opened in Belmont on the Shore called ‘Little and Friday’. It became the place to go if you wanted to be seen by the right (pronounced raite) people at least for a while. Sure enough Maggie turned up one day only to find the cafe was full and there were no tables left. She had a hissy fit because no-one saw fit to get up and offer her their table so she flounced out to the tune… oh, they’re all left wing haters anyway.
Which addiction did you switch from @ Ed?
It’s obviously something less destructive than the last one and I ‘spose a couple of days ban given by the Voice of Reason is really going to teach ya a lesson, so na-na nana-na, and so there!.
There are learnings to be had going forward
perhaps I should have added a /sarc, but you know…..puzzling can be really cathartic.
Hopefully you’ll stick around on this venue, whereas sometimes I wish they’d do me a favour and ban me for life so that I can watch and not be tempted to comment
Pissed off at being bullied by other oil producing states? The Saudi’s have been on their case for ages, so I guess there’s a bit of payback. They can set their own price and undercut the others if they are out of OPEC.
Have to say, our risk managed sussoighty is now becoming ridiculous.
4am on a trip from Tearenga ta Orcas: many notifications of a slip in the Karangahake Gorge and a suggestion to take an alternative root …. oops route. A couple of substantial boulders blocking a lane as I passed.
12 hours later and a cast of tens of hiviz specimens later on the return journey, the very same boulders were sat where they fell causing some more major traffic problems.
Heavy earthmoving equipment on standby, though seemingly incapable of just shuvelling the shit away into a fast moving river, much as Mother Nature had/ and had done over decades.
I almost tried to leap for some anti-bacterial sanitising cream to wash off a bit of dust as we waited for the Green Go sign.
Christ! and people used to slag off Ministry of Works and Dev employees during the journey towards the neoliberal alternative over leaning on a shovel.
Please don’t fart people. There’s the potential for toxic and flammable gases that could cause serious injury to bits of the body we shouldn’t speak of
I would think that they would have to ensure the original site of those boulders was stable before shoving them into the river. The use of heavy machinery and the subsequent movement of boulders hitting the riverbed might result in further uncontrolled slips.
This is not really a good example of H&S rules applied unthinkingly, it is an example of what H&S rules are intended to achieve – a minimisation of harm.
“Poland generates 80% of its electricity from coal and the UN summit will take place in a coal mining town, Katowice. The Polish government has also allowed two coal companies to sponsor the summit.”
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Both the leader of the opposition Todd Muller and University of Auckland Professor Des Gorman have gone on the record as saying they suspect Covid-19 is spreading in the community in New Zealand once again. Let me explain why I don’t agree with them. As best I can tell there ...
By Geoffrey Miller A former MP and Associate Minister of Defence says that New Zealand’s Covid-19 border and quarantine issues illustrate why a new dedicated national security agency is needed. Heather Roy, a former deputy leader of the Act Party who held the associate defence portfolio from 2008-10, told the ...
Annual fishing report It's been about a year since we swapped out the Research News deckhand. It seems longer— particularly the past 4 months— and not because of this particular work. Over the course of the year somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,500 articles have been caught in our net, ...
This article on Feminist Current by Meghan Murphy looks at the Karen/Becky meme and argues it has officially gone too far The male centered progressive left has successfully made woman-hating trendy. Today, yet another “Karen” video went viral online. This time, it seems a woman flipped off a male driver, ...
Over the past few weeks, there's been a lot of attention on the question of why American police are so violent, and so often murder people. There are a pile of reasons for this, including the racist roots of their entire policing system, but part of the answer seems to ...
Last year, the government promised that it would strengthen whistleblower protections. Today, they finally released the bill. There's one major change: "[a] discloser is entitled to protection for a protected disclosure made to an appropriate authority at any time" - an "appropriate authority" being public sector heads, officers of Parliament, ...
Andrew Lorrey, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; Ben Noll, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, and Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Brewster Glacier in New Zealand’s Southern Alps lost 13 million cubic metres of ice between March 2016 and March 2019 – ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Hon Shane Jones, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises A new ‘super depot’ to be built for NZ Post in Wellington will create around 350 jobs during construction, Associate Minister for State Owned Enterprises Shane Jones says. Shane Jones today attended a ground-breaking and blessing ceremony for the parcel-processing depot ...
Our strong economic management prior to COVID-19 - with surpluses, low debt and near-record-low unemployment - put us in a good position to weather the impact of the virus and start to rebuild our economy much earlier than many other countries.Now we're putting our plan to recover and rebuild ...
Darroch Ball MP, New Zealand First Spokesperson for Law and Order Recently released Police fleeing driver statistics have shown yet another increase in incidents with another record-high in the latest quarter. “This new quarterly record-high is the latest in a string of record-high numbers since 2014. The data shows incidents ...
New Zealand First MP Fletcher Tabuteau is pleased to be confirmed today as the party’s candidate for the Rotorua electorate. Speaking at the Rotorua AGM for New Zealand First, Mr Tabuteau said this is an election that is incredibly important for the people of Rotorua. “The founding principles of New ...
The Human Rights Commission’s PRISM report on the issues impacting people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) provides an excellent programme of work for future governments to follow, say the Greens. ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the trans-Tasman bubble had not been jeopardised after aborder botch-upresulted in New Zealand having two active cases of COVID-19. On Friday, Mr Peters told RNZ's Morning Report he had heard from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison that borders for trans-Tasman travel would open by ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said today he was pleased the army was now running the quarantine and isolation process - up until now it has been the Ministry of Health. Peters told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking that the army knew how to introduce and follow protocols and instil discipline. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First MP and Minister for Defence and Veteran’s Affairs Ron Mark has confirmed his bid for the Wairarapa seat.“The Coalition Government has done a lot of good work throughout the Wairarapa, but many constituents have told ...
New Zealand First is pleased to release the names of its next tranche of candidates for the 2020 election. We’re proud to announce these hardworking New Zealanders that have put their hand up to fight for a commonsense and resilient future.Jamie Arbuckle – Kaikoura Mark Arneil – Christchurch Central Jackie ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence A massive joint effort between New Zealand Government agencies, employers, and the Vanuatu Government is underway to repatriate over 1000 Vanuatu nationals stranded in New Zealand, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Ron ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development Reprioritised funding of $40 million from the Provincial Growth Fund will support up to 1000 regional apprenticeships, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said today. The Regional Apprenticeship Initiative is part of the wider Apprenticeship Boost announced by Education Minister Chris Hipkins ...
The Green Party welcomes the ACC’s announcement to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but emphasises the need to go further, and faster to truly meet the climate change challenge. ...
Farmers are rejoicing after Labour agreed to an amendment pushed by New Zealand First in the firearms bill that will allow the use of restricted guns for pest control. Concessions on gun control mean farmers will be able to apply for a licence to use restricted firearms for pest control. ...
A new programme, which sets a firm course for the Building and Construction sector to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has been announced by the Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa. “A significant amount of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the building and construction sector. If we’re serious ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing more than $7.5 million in Northland ventures to combat the economic impact of the COVID-19 virus, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones have announced. The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment is going to the Northern Adventure Experience and ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Education Minister Chris Hipkins today announced significant funding for Auckland’s Northcote College as part of the first wave of a new nationwide school redevelopment programme to upgrade schools over the next 10 years. The $48.5 million project brings the total investment in Northcote College to ...
The Government has opened an urgent response fund to support schools and early learning services to get children and young people back on track after the Covid-19 lockdown. “While we are seeing improvements in attendance under Alert Level 1 Ministry of Education data shows that attendance rates in our schools ...
The law to boost the economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19 by speeding up resource consenting on selected projects has passed its second and third readings in the House today. “Accelerating nationwide projects and activities by government, iwi and the private sector will help deliver faster economic recovery and ...
Five port-related projects in Whanganui will receive a $26.75 million Provincial Growth Fund investment to support local economic recovery and create new opportunities for growth, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This is a significant investment that will support the redevelopment of the Whanganui Port, a project governed ...
Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery will receive an investment of up to $12 million administered by the Provincial Growth Fund to support its redevelopment, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. The project is included in a $3 billion infrastructure pipeline announced by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Shane Jones yesterday. ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing nearly $2.5 million into three Te Ara Mahi programmes to support Manawatū-Whanganui jobseekers and employees to quickly train and upskill, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “Up to 154 local people will be supported into employment within the first year by these ...
This morning I have formally tendered my resignation as Minister of Health, which was accepted by the Prime Minister. Serving as Minister of Health has been an absolute privilege – particularly through these extraordinary last few months. It’s no secret that Health is a challenging portfolio. I have given ...
Scholarships for 57 early-career agricultural emissions scientists from 20 developing countries is another example of New Zealand’s international leadership in primary sector sustainability, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. Mr O’Connor, announcing the scholarships today, says hundreds of applications were received for this fourth round of the CLIFF-GRADS programme (Climate, Food ...
A project to help rejuvenate the Horowhenua town of Foxton will receive a Provincial Growth Fund investment of $3.86 million, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This funding for the Foxton Regeneration project will be used to make the well-known holiday town even more attractive for visitors and ...
Moa bones and other sub-fossil remains of extinct species are set to have improved protection with proposals to prevent the trade in extinct species announced the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “We have lost too many of our native species, but these lost species, such as moa, remain an ...
The Government’s free and healthy school lunches programme moves south for the first time creating jobs for around 30 people in Otago and Southland. “Eighteen schools with 3000 students are joining the programme – 11 have already begun serving lunches, and seven are preparing to start during Term 3. This is ...
Thousands of Kiwi jobs and investment in New Zealand productions will be protected through a screen sector support package announced today by Associate Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Economic Development Phil Twyford and Minister for Broadcasting Kris Faafoi. The package also includes investment in broadcasting ...
The Government has established a new $10 million fund for the domestic events sector to help save jobs and protect incomes as it recovers from the impacts of COVID-19, Minister of Economic Development Phil Twyford announced today. This funding from Budget 2020 follows talks with the event sector designed to ...
The Government has taken another step in its commitment to making sure New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump with the introduction of legislation to improve competition in the retail fuel market, says Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods. “The fuel market study that this Government ordered ...
New Zealand has joined a global initiative that aims to enable all countries to access a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters announced today. The COVAX Facility was recently launched by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The Alliance includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank ...
From today new legislation takes effect to both restore the right to legal representation at the start of a Care of Children (CoCA) dispute in the Family Court, and allow parties to those proceedings to access legal aid where eligible. During a visit to the Family Court in Auckland today, ...
Home-based early childhood education (ECE) subsidised by the government will transition to a fully qualified workforce by 2025 to ensure better and more consistent quality, Education Minister Chris Hipkins announced today. “Quality early learning helps provide children with a strong foundation for their future,” Chris Hipkins said. From 1 January ...
The new Criminal Cases Review Commission | Te Kāhui Tātari Ture (CCRC) has started work and can now independently investigate claimed miscarriages of justice. “Even though we have appeal rights and safeguards against unsafe convictions, from time to time our justice system does get things wrong. The design of the ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga maha, tēnā koutou Ki a koutou Te Āti Awa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, ngā mana whenua o te rohe nei, tēnā koutou Ko Te Whare Wānanga o Aotearoa ki ngā take o te Ao (NZIIA), Ko te Rōpū Tohu Tono ...
The Government’s increase to paid parental leave kicks in today with another 4 weeks taking New Zealand up to a full 6 months (26 weeks, up from 22 weeks) leave for new parents, and the maximum weekly payment will increase by $20pw, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. ...
A new package of infrastructure investments will help kick-start the post-COVID rebuild by creating more than 20,000 jobs and unlocking more than $5 billion of projects up and down New Zealand. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones today outlined how the $3 billion infrastructure fund in the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today expressed the New Zealand Government’s deep disappointment at the passage by China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee of a national security law for Hong Kong. “New Zealand has consistently emphasised its serious concern about the imposition of this legislation on Hong Kong without inclusive ...
More jobs and more family time with newborns are the centrepiece of a suite of Government initiatives coming into effect today. July 1 is a milestone day for the Government as a host of key policies take effect, demonstrating the critical areas where progress has been made. “The Coalition Government ...
Environment Minister David Parker has today “called in” Auckland’s application to the Waikato Regional Council to take an extra 200 million litres of water a day from the lower reaches of the Waikato River for Auckland drinking water and other municipal uses. The call-in means the application has been referred ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker announced today that New Zealand’s hosting of APEC in 2021 will go ahead using virtual digital platforms. Mr Peters said the global disruption caused by COVID-19, including resultant border restrictions, had been the major factor in the ...
The start of construction on a new link road between Matakana Road and State Highway 1 will create jobs and support the significant population growth expected in the Warkworth area, Transport Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced today. Transport Minister Phil Twyford said construction of the Matakana Link ...
The Government is prioritising its latest investment in PPE for frontline health workers, including staff at managed isolation and quarantine facilities, Health Minister David Clark says. “With no community transmission of COVID-19 our response now has a firm focus on keeping our border safe and secure. “We must ensure that ...
The Parihaka Papakāinga Trust in Taranaki will receive up to $14 million for a new visitor centre and other improvements at the historic settlement that will boost the local economy and provide much-needed jobs, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little have ...
Protections for workers who are employees of one employer but working under the direction of another business or organisation have come into force, closing a gap in legislation that made the personal grievance process inaccessible for some workers, says Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “This Government is working hard to ...
A range of improvements are already underway to address issues identified in the rapid review of the Managed Isolation and Quarantine system released today, Housing Minister Megan Woods said. The review was commissioned just over a week ago to identify and understand current and emerging risks to ensure the end-to-end ...
The important brown kiwi habitat around Whakatāne will receive added protection through an Iwi-led predator free project announced by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. “The Government is investing nearly $5 million into Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa’s environmental projects with $2.5 ...
An extra 4,000 tonnes of offcuts and scraps of untreated wood per year will soon be able to be recycled into useful products such as horticultural and garden mulch, playground safety surfacing and animal bedding as a result of a $660,000 investment from the Waste Minimisation Fund, Associate Environment Minister ...
The Governor-General has referred Scott Watson’s convictions for murder back to the Court of Appeal, Justice Minister Andrew Little announced today. Mr Watson was convicted in 1999 of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. His appeal to the Court of Appeal in 2000 was unsuccessful, as was his ...
A new five-year funding agreement for the Reserve Bank will mean it can boost its work to protect New Zealanders’ finances, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. “New Zealand has a strong and stable financial system. Financial stability is an area that we are not prepared to cut corners for, particularly ...
A law change has been introduced to make it easier for forgotten funds in institutional accounts to be returned more easily to their rightful owners. Revenue Minister Stuart Nash has introduced an amendment to the Unclaimed Money Act 1971. It will update the rules controlling forgotten sums of money held ...
The Government is delivering on election commitments and a key recommendation of He Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction with the establishment of a permanent independent Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission, Health Minister Dr David Clark says. Legislation enabling the establishment of the fully ...
A Bill to replace New Zealand’s Privacy Act passed its third reading in Parliament today, Justice Minister Andrew Little has announced. “The protections in the Privacy Bill are vitally important. The key purpose of the reforms is to promote and protect people’s privacy and give them confidence that their personal ...
Extra support is being provided to tourism businesses operating on public conservation land announced Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage today. The Government is providing $25m worth of support to tourism operators impacted by COVID-19, with a decision to waive most Department of Conservation tourism related concession ...
*Watch the full video in the player below*In the first 48 hours of life, blood from newborn New Zealand babies is taken and tested. Most parents will never hear back. For others, it’s life-changing, and life-saving. Frank Film investigates. Performed 48 hours after birth, it’s a medical procedure ...
Latest from the Beehive Shane Jones, the Minister of Munificence, in a joint statement with fellow Northlander and Deputy PM Winston Peters, wrapped up a week of handout investment announcements with news of more millions for the people of his patch in the Far North. This time it was a ...
By Rebecca Kuku in Port Moresby A passionate plea by men, women and children has echoed around the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby – that it is time to turn the corner on addressing gender-based violence in the country. Gatherings, a peaceful march and a vigil were staged ...
Former Race Relations Commissioner Gregory Fortuin has called out National MP Hamish Walker for his racist comments towards people of colour. This follows Walker's press release objecting to people from Pakistan, India and Korea potentially being quarantined ...
Khruangbin have established their live reputation with spacious instrumentals, but the band’s third album, Mordechai, features prominent vocals and disco-funk jams. Andrew Drever interviews the Texas-based trio upon its release.While the Covid-19 pandemic continues to rage in the US, the situation has actually been a blessing in disguise for Khruangbin ...
The State Services Minister says the government will do everything it can to track down who is responsible for a massive privacy breach relating to New Zealand's active Covid cases, and is not ruling out pursuing criminal charges. ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
With the collapse of Bauer NZ resulting in Australian magazines flooding our shelves, Wendyl Nissen looks back at her battle to get homegrown content given the star billing it deserved.Thanks to some hard-fought battles 30 years ago, New Zealand women have been enjoying their own version of Woman’s Day and ...
Extending the franchise to prisoners is the latest in a series of contentious electoral reforms enacted by this government, but history suggests the ‘convention’ for consensual election reform is more imagined than real.The Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Act, passed last week and corrected this week, extends the franchise ...
Since publication of Newsroom’s extensive investigation into serious issues at Oranga Tamariki, our inbox has been flooded with stories from more current and former employees. In less than 48 hours after Newsroom’s in-depth inquiry into the children's ministry was published we received a high volume of correspondence from current and former ...
“She’d come into town on the bus. The photographer, so her mother had told her, was famous”: a short story by Wellington writer Elspeth Sandys. It was to be a present for her father who was dying. A photograph of her in her first ball gown. When she reached for ...
Those who can’t afford to travel will “attend” the terror sentencing via video link, the Immigration Minister says. David Williams reports The Immigration Minister is demanding officials give urgent help to overseas victims of the Christchurch terror attack and their families. Yesterday, High Court Justice Cameron Mander announced the terrorist, ...
Controversy over Wellington's Shelly Bay has ensnared iwi, the council and politicians for years. Investigative journalist Nicky Hager uses official documents to lay out the roles of money, power and wheels-within-wheels on this most contentious of developments. Any time I am asked whether we have corruption in New Zealand, I ...
Is the answer to saving New Zealand's professional sports teams creating super-franchises? The Extra Time podcast asks sports leaders. Professional sport is slowly emerging from the grip of the pandemic but its financial future is far from certain. Covid-19 highlighted a weakness in the structure of professional sport in New ...
Before Covid-19, it’d take a long flight and half a grand to see Hamilton in the flesh. Now, the biggest musical of the past two decades is available to watch on Disney+. Sam Brooks takes stock of this extraordinary move. Right now, Broadway is a sleeping dragon. New York theatres ...
Sacked cabinet minister Clare Curran speaks for the first time about the brutal end to her political career – and what she calls the toxicity and bullying that marked her years in parliament. By Donna Chisholm.Of all the humiliations – often self-inflicted – that Clare Curran endured during her 12-year ...
On 03 July Children’s Commissioner was given additional responsibility by the Minister of Justice which extended its role as the independent monitor of the conditions and treatment of children and young people in secure detention centres. The Children’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW The term “heatwave” is no stranger to Australians. Defined as when conditions are excessively hot for at least three days in a row, these extreme temperature events have always punctuated our climate. With many of us ...
Pacific Media Watch A senior Indonesian government official and a New Zealand journalism professor have clashed over differing perspectives on access for journalists and media to the West Papua region. Speaking on a webinar organised by the Jubi newspaper in Jayapura, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ director of the European affairs ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney To beat the coronavirus pandemic, countries need to collaborate. We need the best possible science to develop vaccines and drugs, and to test, track and contain the virus. If we’ve learned anything ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Let’s turn back the hands of time. Before extinction knocked dinosaurs off their pillar, before the “Great Dying” extinction wiped out 95% of all organisms – we had the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Williams, Researcher at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine (VELiM), University of Sydney Last week, outgoing chief medical officer Brendan Murphy announced all returned travellers would be tested for COVID-19 before and after quarantine. Some were surprised ...
A new package to help foreign nationals stuck in New Zealand due to Covid-19 is inadequate and needs to be supplemented with the emergency benefit, say Community Law Centres O Aotearoa (CLCA) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The assistance ...
With Shortland Street’s 7,000th episode screening tonight, Tara Ward salutes the soap for keeping calm and carrying on through level three lockdown. It’s been one heck of a week on Shortland Street. Leanne lost her winning $8 million Lotto ticket, Louis slipped over in a pile of vomit, and Desi tried ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate, University of Melbourne In recent days, the prime ministers of the UK and Australia each declared they are working toward providing safe haven visas for Hong Kong residents. In the US, lawmakers passed a bill ...
How two multi-millionaires, two pandemic futurists, Air NZ’s former boss, a dairy executive on a break, a retired anaesthetist (and a few others) nearly saved NZ. ...
A commitment from Labour to protect productive farmland from blanket afforestation if re-elected is a step in the right direction, Federated Farmers Meat & Wool Chairperson William Beetham says. "We’re really pleased there is now ...
Tomorrow, 4 July, will see protests in at least nine centres around New Zealand against Israeli plans to steal more Palestinian land (Details are at the end of this media release) “Virtually the entire international community is standing together ...
Pacific Media Watch Australia’s ABC has revealed the Australian Federal Police (AFP) recommendation regarding the Afghan Files investigative journalism report is for the Commonwealth DPP to consider charging journalist Dan Oakes for his role in the leak. The revelation has prompted a renewed call by the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom ...
While we’re growing in confidence that we are in the enviable position of basically eliminating Covid-19, our trading nation at the bottom of the world is also in the unenviable position of locking off our economy to the world. “No is not an answer ...
Netflix’s new adaptations of The Baby-Sitters Club makes long-time fan Tara Ward fall in love with the series all over again. When I was 12 years old, my class had to write a letter to a famous person. Some of my classmates wrote to an All Black, Tom Cruise or ...
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the scale and value of the Government’s $230m screen industry recovery package. Union spokesperson Jordan Williams says: “The official justification for this ‘recovery package’ is the impact of COVID-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Former Ambassador and Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland Chinese activity in Papua New Guinea was not the only factor behind Australia’s Pacific “Step-Up”. As a former high commissioner to PNG, I know it ...
Pacific Media Centre Newsdesk A Papuan church leader and advocate for social justice has penned an open letter to the Indonesian government calling for justice and an end to racism to enable a genuine self-determination process for the Melanesian region. “The problem of Papua has become increasingly complex and severe ...
Latest from the Beehive – Nine press releases (when we checked this morning) had flowed from the Beehive since we last reported. Eight of them brayed about the money Ministers have been spending and (as they prefer to put it) investing. The sole exception came from Environment Minister David ...
CEAC pre-election review of National Party ‘climate change policy’, is lacking in substance without any clear policy, that will leave voters with no idea of what National Party plans for saving our climate, and glancing at their ‘Transport plans’, ...
Film crews can get exemptions to enter New Zealand, so why not the families and supporters of terror victims, David Williams asks. OPINION: If the public needs a sign last year’s terrorist attack has slipped off the Government’s radar, this is it. A sentencing date has been set for the ...
A new poem by Michaela Keeble.Only the ocean only the oceanturns me overlike this only the oceanturns meon like this only the oceangives warning: what will changeand when so it doesn’t comeacrosslike violence white capsdrift inon the rising tide i feel likeopening my legs i don’t wantto do anything elsetoday i don’t wantto goto work i want to lie downwith ...
As the Covid-19 pandemic rages round the world, New Zealanders are re-discovering food production is the fundamental engine of the economy. And farming is not a sunset industry. Instead of being rubbished by lobby groups for so-called “dirty dairying”, the country’s core export industry has the chance to transform itself ...
The world-famous best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, $34)This is the one that kicks off with the essay about the Tongan ...
The New Zealand Down syndrome community is urging the Government to ignore the recommendations in the recent Health and Disability Sector Review. “New Zealand has made terrific progress to enhance the quality of life for people with Down syndrome and other disabilities ...
The Covid Plan B group says New Zealand can minimise the economic consequences of Covid-19 if it opens its borders following the rest of the world. The group, which has critiqued the Government's lockdown response since March, has today added its ...
Auckland will soon be receiving an additional 75 million litres of water per day from the Waikato River as an interim measure to help ease the worst water shortage in 25 years. A Ngāti Whātua historian says this sharing of resources between Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato goes back a very ...
Athletes from the Papua New Guinea’s national team joined the peaceful “cry for justice” march in the nation’s capital of Port Moresby. Video: EMTV NewsBy EMTV News Many wore black yesterday in rallies against gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea in a day chosen to remember the young mother ...
The government will remain "cautious" when it comes to the border as despite calls for a pragmatic strategy for reopening, new Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. ...
A new report measuring New Zealanders’ financial wellbeing highlights how key sectors of our population are feeling stressed over money, and how Covid-19 has made that worse.Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can help. After all, it’s what puts food on the table, a roof over our heads, and ...
The Tahr Foundation is asking the Conservation Authority to represent all New Zealanders and their recreational pursuits in National Parks, including the tens of thousands of hunters who flock to them every year. The Foundation’s plea is in response to ...
Councils can now borrow money equivalent to 300% of annual revenue, and the Public Service Association says this will allow them to maintain operational expenditure, invest in important community services and proceed with long-overdue infrastructure ...
Dunedin's mayor says conversations about managed isolation and quarantine can be held in a mature fashion without "getting into an unhelpful conversation about where our citizens might be returning from". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, PhD candidate in Astrophysics, Swinburne University of Technology What does the Sun’s core look like? Sophie, aged 8, Perth What does the Sun’s core look like? This is a fantastic question Sophie, and one we will need ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Spencer Zifcak, Allan Myers Chair of Law/Professor of Law, Australian Catholic University After a lengthy delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, the legal case that constitutes the most significant threat to freedom of expression in this country will soon play out in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Williamson, Professor of Microbiology, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity A cornerstone of containing the COVID-19 pandemic is widespread testing to identify cases and prevent new outbreaks emerging. This strategy is known as “test, trace and isolate”. The standard ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Research Fellow (Food Policy and Law), George Institute for Global Health As you read this, health officials are busy finalising the government’s review of the health star rating system on packaged foods. One of the issues the review is looking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Briggs, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney As the global renewables transition accelerates, the future for coal regions has become a big worry. This raises an important question: can renewables create the right jobs in the right ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joel Barnes, Research Associate, Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney The government’s recently proposed restructure of university fees would see students pay 113% more for many humanities subjects. The package is not a case of “humanities vs STEM (science, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Guest, Professor of Economics and National Senior Teaching Fellow, Griffith University The Australian government is planning to spend A$190 billion to support the economy in response to COVID-19, according to the latest Parliamentary Budget Office estimate. The total impact of COVID-19 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW For all the things we don’t know about COVID-19 one thing is certain: our economic recovery will depend on boosting productivity. Everyone from the Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe to Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosslyn Almond, Literature Lecturer, Australian Catholic University The Baby-Sitters Club, the popular series by Ann M. Martin, defined my childhood. I collected the books until I was 11. I played it in the school yard (I was Dawn because I had long ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury, University of Canterbury The family of pioneering New Zealand suffragist Kate Sheppard kept an important secret – one that possibly explains a lot about her life, her beliefs and her motivation. The ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. Clark out and Bridges back in, Chinese embassy warns NZ politicians to not speak out on Hong Kong, and terrible new revelations about Oranga Tamariki culture.It has been a day of reshuffling at parliament, with both major parties making significant moves. We’ll start with ...
InterCity is the first company to get government money to help land and maritime transport firms hit by the drop in tourist numbers due to Covid-19. ...
The country’s second-largest early learning business has backed down on an illegal staff contract following a public backlash, Laura Walters reports Evolve Education has decided to do away with a proposed contract that would have cut its teachers’ hours in half. Evolve Education, a publicly listed company which owns 128 ...
The Greens’ tax and welfare package released last weekend is a bold statement designed more to keep the Greens’ party vote above 5 percent, than to ever be implemented. But will it backfire on them? asks Peter Dunne. Without the luxury or likelihood of an electorate seat the Greens ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias.NON-FICTION 1 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55) Gutsful. 2 The Book of Overthinking by Gwendoline Smith (Allen & Unwin, $24.99) 3 Know Your Place by Golriz Ghahraman ...
Daily Review 03/12/2018 
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The Greens’ tax and welfare package released last weekend is a bold statement designed more to keep the Greens’ party vote above 5 percent, than to ever be implemented. But will it backfire on them? asks Peter Dunne. Without the luxury or likelihood of an electorate seat the Greens ...1 day ago
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Ha ha …less shit! same goes for bogus polls. On a positive note the PM has pushed the investigate button on the fuel cartel and hopefully after that the grocery cartel. Maybe Santa is coming after all, Wayne.
‘We are last generation that can stop climate change’ – UN summit
“We are clearly the last generation that can change the course of climate change, but we are also the first generation with its consequences,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the CEO of the World Bank. The bank announced on Monday that its record $100bn (£78bn) of climate funding from 2021-2025 would for the first time be split equally between projects to cut emissions and those protecting people from the floods, storms and droughts that global warming is making worse.
In recent years, just 5% of global funding has gone on protection, but 2018 has seen climate impacts hit hard, with heatwaves and wildfires in Europe and California and huge floods in India, Japan and east Africa. “We are already seeing the devastating impact of climate change,” Georgieva told the Guardian. “We strongly believe that action ought to go both on mitigation and on adaptation.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/03/we-are-last-generation-that-can-stop-climate-change-un-summit
Act now.
Like these heroes from Australia.
It’s so simple. Livestock for meat and dairy products worldwide is responsible for almost 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second largest source of emissions after the fossil fuels industry.
There are straightforward actions you can do, starting today.
Drop meat and dairy.
Don’t believe me?
Then listen to George Monbiot.
He explains how the fate of the planet depends on the way we choose to eat.
Well Ed, I listened and didn’t hear a damned thing to back the claim that meat and dairy is responsible for ~ 15% of emissions.
How is the figure arrived at? Is it ~15% with all of the fossil inputs to agriculture added up and subtracted from the dairy/meat total? Because that’s the only way anyone can claim that meat/dairy is second to fossil in terms of emissions.
And my opinion of Monbiot as a wanker was just reinforced – the guy says he’s “almost vegan”…. it’s just venison he eats!
Anyway, look. Eat less meat or no meat. It’s not a bad thing to do. But don’t fucking kid yourself that being vegan will make a serious impact on AGW. It won’t.
Dropping fossil would curtail modern agricultural practices (no fossil inputs) that would in turn mean less “factory meat” getting produced/consumed.
But simply eating vegan does 5/8ths of fuck all in terms of fossil use, meaning 5/8ths of fuck all in terms of AGW.
Have you seen this Bill, what do you reckon?
It was posted by Robin Grieve, ACT Candidate for Whangarei.
He is the Chairman Pastural Farming Climate Research Inc.
He is a right wing politician, not a scientist.
It’s denialist nonsense.
Why is it denialist nonsense?
From a layman’s point of view, it’s rather convincing.
https://www.niwa.co.nz/publications/wa/water-atmosphere-1-july-2010/qa
http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-130-111523
“We know from taking samples of air trapped in polar ice that methane levels have grown by 150 percent since organised animal farming began in the early 1700s. By comparison, CO2 levels have grown by 35 percent. Methane levels have continued to rise over the decades, growing fastest through the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, before slowing down in the 1990s, levelling off in the early 2000s, and increasing again from 2007.”
https://www.niwa.co.nz/publications/wa/water-atmosphere-1-july-2010/qa
http://beef2live.com/story-world-cattle-inventory-1960-2014-130-111523
What do I reckon?
I reckon that physics doesn’t give a flying monkey’s fuck for where any CO2 comes from (eg – methane breakdown, bio-fuels, or fossil fuels).
If we want to arrest climate change, and maybe even see slight drops in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 occur, then we need to stop burning fossil. (ie, re- introducing to the earth’s systems CO2 that was removed from the earth’s systems hundreds of millions of years ago)
Agriculture can’t do what it currently does without fossil, so methane emissions would inevitably drop in concert with reductions in fossil use.
And like I say, if we want there to be any prospect that concentrations of CO2 will begin to come down, then we can’t swap out fossil fuel for bio fuel.
Sigh. OK, I’ll take the considerable time to respond to the denialist nonsense you’ve just sprayed around with just a half-dozen or so key presses that took just a few seconds.
Let’s follow some of the possible paths of that carbon atom from the air, absorbed into a plant.
It may stay as plant matter until it rots and is returned to the atmosphere as CO2, In which case, the only effect on global warming is a teeny-tiny reduction in atmospheric CO2 and consequent reduced warming for the brief time that carbon atom is part of a solid piece of plant, rather than floating in the atmosphere.
While it is plant matter, it may get eaten by a non-methanogenic animal, then emitted again as CO2. Again, negligible effect.
It may get eaten by a ruminant, and emitted as methane (as a substantial portion of the carbon atoms eaten by ruminants end up). In which case, that methane molecule adds to the current concentration of methane in the atmosphere. Yes, that methane molecule will eventually be broken back down to CO2 (on average around 10ish years), but while it is still methane it is massively more warming than CO2*. That extra heat the methane has trapped while it is still methane stays with us for a very long time. A while ago I ran the numbers, and an average cow in a paddock for a year emits so much methane it causes about the same warming as an average car driving around for a year (12000 km or so)
Methane concentrations have increased from around 775 parts per billion in pre-industrial times to around 1800 now, due entirely to human activities (not all of it is agricultural, industry and domestic use shares some of the blame). Because methane has a short lifetime, this increased methane concentration (and consequent warming) is entirely due to increased ongoing emissions, of which agriculture is a large part. So yes, even though the carbon atom in a molecule of methane belched by a cow originally came from atmospheric CO2, it still causes much more warming because it has been turned into methane by agricultural activity than if it had stayed as CO2. So it’s entirely proper to hold that agricultural activity accountable for the increased warming it causes.
*If you calculate how much warming you get over 20 years from a tonne of methane, it’s around 85 times more than a tonne of CO2. Over 100 years, it’s around the 25 figure used in the vid.
If you don’t trust Monbiot or me, then what about this study.
“Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.
The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades.
Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets.
The new research, published in the journal Nature, is the most thorough to date and combined data from every country to assess the impact of food production on the global environment. It then looked at what could be done to stop the looming food crisis.“
Whole article here.
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown
Yeah Ed, you’re missing the point.
No-one can say meat and dairy is second to fossil in terms of emissions if the fossil inputs that are necessary for meat and dairy are left sitting in the meat/dairy total.
And if we all go vegan, we’re all going to suffer from malnutrition because of the effect that raised CO2 levels have on plant nutrition. (That article joe90 linked at 2.1.2 is well worth the read, and it’s worth noting that not one mention is made on the known effect that elevated CO2 levels have on plants and/or the obvious knock-on effect in relation to insect and bird and lizard numbers…)
You reckon a plant based diet is going to save us?
Looking at what insecticides, especially organophosphates, are doing, it’s gonna be goodbye food.
When asked to imagine what would happen if insects were to disappear completely, scientists find words like chaos, collapse, Armageddon. Wagner, the University of Connecticut entomologist, describes a flowerless world with silent forests, a world of dung and old leaves and rotting carcasses accumulating in cities and roadsides, a world of “collapse or decay and erosion and loss that would spread through ecosystems” — spiraling from predators to plants. E.O. Wilson has written of an insect-free world, a place where most plants and land animals become extinct; where fungi explodes, for a while, thriving on death and rot; and where “the human species survives, able to fall back on wind-pollinated grains and marine fishing” despite mass starvation and resource wars. “Clinging to survival in a devastated world, and trapped in an ecological dark age,” he adds, “the survivors would offer prayers for the return of weeds and bugs.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html
if you want to hold onto your free views
http://archive.li/e3bx6
heh – E.O Wilson apparently overlooked the fact that a plant based diet is increasingly a sugar based diet because of the effects of CO2 on growth…meaning those wind pollinated grains won’t have much sustenance, and that marine life will have cacked it along with terrestrial life because the phyto-plankton at the base of the marine food system also become junk under conditions of accelerated growth.
Ed does the world bank ‘funding’ come with interest repayments?
Are the WB seeking profits ?
Thanks Ed. Husband a big meat eater and so me by default. Agreed today to cut it back to one red meat meal a week. Guess it’s a start. We walk and use public transport a lot too
Yes that’s a great start. And a massive cut back.
Every little bit helps.
Good luck.
Your reminders have been part of us making the decision
Anyone seen any monarch butterflies lately? I have 2 large swan plants but not a sign of any eggs. I usually bring any eggs inside as soon as I see a butterfly around the plants, as the wasps will take the caterpillars almost as soon as they hatch. My daughter has got a small accidental swan plant forest but also no go for eggs, caterpillars or butterflies. Are they now extinct in Waiuku?
Oh no! That’s awful.
We had them here in Wgtn a couple of months ago. Haven’t seen any lately.
There are lots of them here up in Whangarei
Where you have Asian Paper Wasps, you will have no Monarch caterpillars. Because they eat Milkweed (Swan Plant) monarchs used to be poisonous to our old predators. 2 new predators don’t give a toss about Milkweed poison, and gobble up everything in sight. At this time of the year it is the Paper Wasp. Later, as they grow bigger, the South African Praying Mantids will join in, and continue after the Paper Wasps stop collecting protein in late summer.
Sorry, but lean times for Monarch butterflies and many other insects here in NZ since these two monstrously mean and greedy predators became established.
Seen a couple of Monarchs but not many. We have swarm of them come through about January, so on that basis, would expect January 2019 to be when they start laying eggs.
Then the fun begins of squashing eggs to maintain a good caterpillar/plant ratio. Too many and it’s murder. Too few and not enough survive.
Dude’s had his fifteen, and he’s done.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/12/newly-released-documents-show-milo-yiannopoulos-serious-financial-debts/
Milo was always a loud mouth slogan.
It was inevitable really
They’re all loud mouthed nobodies sloganeering on the wingnut welfare circuit.
The limitless ocean of cash that flows through Wingnut Welfare’s rivers and tributaries is how the Right keeps their whole Pretty Hate Machine — publishing houses, magazines, websites, radio empires, teevee networks, op-ed forelock tuggers, think tanks, and a thousand free roaming pundits — propped up and purring in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are nothing but a mob lying, racist grifters and madmen.
And once you get your Wingnut Welfare card punch, baby, the world is your oyster!
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2017/05/wingnut-welfare-its-simple-little-system.html
Way to splash every outspoken right commentator with the same brush
I suspect that many of them are the same brush. Pseudonyms change, but the language style and logic doesn’t. We haven’t heard from Chuck lately, but a new arrival seems remarkably similar to me. Not the first time I have noticed such similar contributions under a different name.
Never trust a right-wing commentator!
I think you mean anyone who disagrees with you
And how many thousands of times have we read that pathetic cop-out?
Right commentary, glitzy, sleazy and dishonest with a promise of violence; the recipe for the wingnut gravy train.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtdcJsGU4AU5uqB.jpg
Jack with the KSA setting their production limits.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/qatar-withdraw-opec-january-2019-181203061900372.html
Newshub Exclusive: National MP Maggie Barry hit with fresh bullying allegations
1 hour ago
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/exclusive-terrifying-national-mp-maggie-barry-hit-with-fresh-bullying-allegations.html
Jesse Mulligan: Maggie Barry’s secretly recorded comments about me sign of a bigger issue.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2018/12/jesse-mulligan-maggie-barry-s-secretly-recorded-comments-about-me-sign-of-a-bigger-issue.html
Who on earth is Jesse Mulligan?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Mulligan
He’s a Left-wing wanker.
…with multiple platforms. But hey, you’ve got Leighton and the Hoskey….
No one but the converted takes any notice of the guy.
He’s a cock smoker of the highest order.
Who? Leighton or the Hosk?
The left-wing wanker.
Odd. I never thought of either the Hosk or Leighton as left-wing wankers. Wankers, yes, but not left-wing. I s’pose it’s a matter of where you sit when looking at them.
You use both ‘wings’ don’t you BMmer.
Coq Seemore BMmer?
That was awesome, good on Jesse for responding.
The Project have done a number of stories on conservation, climate change, plastic in the oceans etc etc. Awesome that they are helping to increase awareness and help drive much needed change.
If BM’s spinning out calling him names, cause that’s all BM can manage in defence of poison ivy and her lack of conservation, then he’s sure struck a nerve.
Good job Jesse, thanks for caring about the planet among other things.
That from BM is some of the worst forumming I’ve ever seen.
Ikr, he’s super meow’s over it.
Is maggie wanting to be leader?
Is this putting a bit of a spanner in the works?
The plot thickens…..
Time for me to hit the hay, nitey nite MB 🙂
Ah to smoke a nice cock, particularly with a fine cognac on the side. Happy Days BuMmer.
Do his perspectives on the environment make him a ‘Left-wing wanker’ or does being a ‘Left-wing wanker’ mean he has the views he does about the environment?
And if he is a ‘Left-wing wanker’ does that make his views any less or more worthy than, say, yours?
Or are you pissed off that someone is prepared to address some bullshit? I’ve seen some saying that the people who worked in Barry’s office should have shut up and tolerated what they saw as bullying. The ruling classes don’t seem to like it when the empire strikes back.
I have no time or interest in what left-wing media people have to say.
https://karldufresne.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-purpose-of-journalism.html?fbclid=IwAR2DLLIc-17zgGGXX2MVJn_ZdTd9LfVZAd9F8KLW2KtKpXisCIBtwgcFdGY
I would have thought that left wing MSM folk would have had a sort of curiosity value, like any other rare species.
Pointless and irritating because you can’t trust a word they write/say.
Far better to just ignore and treat as garbage.
Not the leftie ones: reuse and recycle 😉
That reads to me like a criticism of himself. If only he were that self aware. Du Fresne openly seeks to change things, and no topic does he cover even-handedly.
In the last sentence he betrays the most ultra conceit of ultra right wing thought:
I’m puzzled … should people make decisions that are not in their best interests, or have other people do it for them?
Or maybe you missed this:
One of the best definitions of journalism that I’ve read comes from The Elements of Journalism, by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It defines the purpose of journalism as “to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies and their governments”.
Maybe that definition of ‘best interests’ works better for you?
That’s a better definition but not the one Du Fresne rests upon, nor one he himself subscribes to because right wing thought bases itself above all else upon personal responsibility and the rights of the individual over strength of community and the good of society.
I think if you leave people to it unfortunately they will make decisions in their own best interests rather than a common good. Hands off government the type which Du Fresne promotes (even though he as a journalist should not be promoting it) contributes to this.
Fair enough, left wingers tend to put the interests of the collective ahead of individuals. At the extremes the history of both viewpoints is terrible.
My take is that both viewpoints co-exist in a mutual balance; both speak to vital human realities that work best when they listen to each other.
Whoever he is he gave a rather good précis of Maggie Barry’s useless tenure as Minister of Conservation.
He’s on the wireless wally.
Heard an amusing story about sweet Maggie today:
Some years back a new cafe opened in Belmont on the Shore called ‘Little and Friday’. It became the place to go if you wanted to be seen by the right (pronounced raite) people at least for a while. Sure enough Maggie turned up one day only to find the cafe was full and there were no tables left. She had a hissy fit because no-one saw fit to get up and offer her their table so she flounced out to the tune… oh, they’re all left wing haters anyway.
Which addiction did you switch from @ Ed?
It’s obviously something less destructive than the last one and I ‘spose a couple of days ban given by the Voice of Reason is really going to teach ya a lesson, so na-na nana-na, and so there!.
There are learnings to be had going forward
Bit puzzled by what you mean here?
[See mod note here: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-03-12-2018/#comment-1557978. TRP]
perhaps I should have added a /sarc, but you know…..puzzling can be really cathartic.
Hopefully you’ll stick around on this venue, whereas sometimes I wish they’d do me a favour and ban me for life so that I can watch and not be tempted to comment
Yup, Mongolian rock is a thing.
Can anyone please tell me why Qatar just pulled out of OPEC?
Pissed off at being bullied by other oil producing states? The Saudi’s have been on their case for ages, so I guess there’s a bit of payback. They can set their own price and undercut the others if they are out of OPEC.
Have to say, our risk managed sussoighty is now becoming ridiculous.
4am on a trip from Tearenga ta Orcas: many notifications of a slip in the Karangahake Gorge and a suggestion to take an alternative root …. oops route. A couple of substantial boulders blocking a lane as I passed.
12 hours later and a cast of tens of hiviz specimens later on the return journey, the very same boulders were sat where they fell causing some more major traffic problems.
Heavy earthmoving equipment on standby, though seemingly incapable of just shuvelling the shit away into a fast moving river, much as Mother Nature had/ and had done over decades.
I almost tried to leap for some anti-bacterial sanitising cream to wash off a bit of dust as we waited for the Green Go sign.
Christ! and people used to slag off Ministry of Works and Dev employees during the journey towards the neoliberal alternative over leaning on a shovel.
Please don’t fart people. There’s the potential for toxic and flammable gases that could cause serious injury to bits of the body we shouldn’t speak of
I would think that they would have to ensure the original site of those boulders was stable before shoving them into the river. The use of heavy machinery and the subsequent movement of boulders hitting the riverbed might result in further uncontrolled slips.
This is not really a good example of H&S rules applied unthinkingly, it is an example of what H&S rules are intended to achieve – a minimisation of harm.
“Poland generates 80% of its electricity from coal and the UN summit will take place in a coal mining town, Katowice. The Polish government has also allowed two coal companies to sponsor the summit.”
WTF?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/03/we-are-last-generation-that-can-stop-climate-change-un-summit