The Climate Crisis Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. Here’s What Happens If You Try.
Peter Kalmus, out of his mind, stumbled back toward the car. It was all happening. All the stuff he’d been trying to get others to see, and failing to get others to see — it was all here. The day before, when his family started their Labor Day backpacking trip along the oak-lined dry creek bed in Romero Canyon, in the mountains east of Santa Barbara, the temperature had been 105 degrees. Now it was 110 degrees, and under his backpack, his “large mammalian self,” as Peter called his body, was more than just overheating. He was melting down. Everything felt wrong. His brain felt wrong and the planet felt wrong, and everything that lived on the planet felt wrong, off-kilter, in the wrong place.
Nearing the trailhead, Peter’s mind death-spiralled: What’s next summer going to bring? How hot will it be in 10 years?…..
……To cool down, Peter, a climate scientist who studied coral reefs, had stood in a stream for an hour, like a man might stand at a morgue waiting to identify a loved one’s body, irritated by his powerlessness, massively depressed. He found no thrill in the fact that he’d been right…..
At least she recognises the cliff we are all running towards full speed.
we patently still need people ringing the alarm bell even if they don’t know how to stop the stampede. Others know but the bell still needs to be rung.
We have lots of good people here who know all that Jennyhtgt says – no need to fill the posts repeating it. And often with that mocking, all-knowing jibe at the pollies. It is really irritating. It's better to have one rant every now and then than trailing disappointment and discontent with whoever in the government in each comment.
What we need is keeping on with the next steps being talked about at length, discussed etc as has been done with the electricity thing below. Otherwise we end up with a lot of whining, and whys, and appearing like wimps who don't know their A from their E. Citizens need to be thinking up policy, stuff that will work, and not be too expensive. And show how we can get it going, and keep on about that. And notice when someone goes OTT with plans, and notice when something good does get done. And what we think about it, is it the best thing to be done at present, or is there another way.
How we can get out of the hole we are in is paramount. And arguing for sensible things, rather than just rushing out to protest all the time. If we can;t get good stuff going and show that we are not goofs that pollies can ignore or throw nice-sounding policies that meet some kindness criteria but are not practical, we are in deep doo-doo next election.
We don't want Labour going off on a n'uclear' path and leavng their rear undefended so that our pockets get pinched by fast-fingered-financial-finaglers like the nerds in Treasury and the right-wing think tanks as before. Now we have the sharpies using their tech education to build armaments and space weapons and trying to sell us robotics because employers can't get the trained people they want to employ. Great government – look what a f..k up you made, stepping back and leaving it to business to do the thinking and organise the educated people they would want for future employees/
And look what has happened to us by leaving others to run the country while we thought we could just skive off and were relaxing thinking we had it made. That's 20th century stuff, now Labour needs people who can think about social welfare, and business at the same time.
This has turned out a rant. So I will add something else I think we need. That is all pollies will have to go through an educational program, which includes humanities and social anthropology as well as business direction, and the environment looking at dairying destruction for one and desertification and desecration of the fertile areas of the earth for minerals etc. And rehashing the idea that progress is good, and physical work and the simple life are for losers and peasants. And perhaps the government terms will be four years, and the pollies must step down and out into private life after three terms – 12 years. And we will learn how to live simply and save up for things, and how to get a house when you have saved a certain amount, just a small one but your own to get started with. Lovely first aims, of what young adults want, achievable and not never-never land. With some happiness in just being and living in a country with people who are interested in each other doing good things, and all enjoy life and work together to cope with climate change and some sort of hostilities, two inevitabilities.
How to look into the abyss, fall in, and not have an idea of how to get out? Jenny How to Get There will show us the way.
I don't know if we fall into this abyss that there is a way to get out.
But what I do know, is that BAU cannot continue in the present.
Building a bridge for bicycles costing hudreds aof millions of dollars so as not to impinge on cars having untrammelled use of an eight lane motorway in the heart of our biggest city, is BAU folly of the highest order.
Does the design for this modern folly incorporate a storm cellar, or escape tunnel inside its structure?
Hopefully by the time the agrarian sector is driving around in electric utes and tractors, Huntly will be de-commissioned. Currently Huntly provides the backup when there's no wind and / or low lake levels.
Current best looking replacement is pumped hydro storage at Lake Onslow in Otago. I say hopefully because it's a project with a few tricky aspects, top of the list being how the hell we integrate it within the current current market of four publicly listed gentailers. It's logical owner would be Contact since it would draw most of it's power from Roxburgh and Clyde at high flows, Clyde has provision for two extra turbines intended for this, but it's so big that Contact would then dominate the electricity market. It's also at the wrong end of the country, but if the bulk of generation to power the fleet comes from Manapouri (see Andre below) the transmission issues will be dealt with.
Cockies often have lots of roof space to put PV panels on. They also tend to get seriously bent over by local lines companies. They often have a large supply of what is currently a problematic waste to dispose of, that could get digested into a gas supply for powering a generator for backup.
I think there might solutions that lower costs and increase independence for cockies …
Kinda missing the point ,about nz importing coal from Indonesia!!
Typical rich.country behaviour, shut you own dirty mines/factories/ behaviours down and offshore what you can and sneak around in the shadows do dirty shit while acting high and mighty,.
This is my issue we are off shoring our emissions and patting ourselves on the back, in reality we are are likely increasing global emissions.
Its a global problem that needs global solutions, best ROI to rapidly drop emissions globally would be to focus on the devloping world stop the deforestation, build renewables etc. Lots of currently available tech would make huge difference if we deploy it globally.
On average 80% of electricity is generated from renewables. Some perspective in the arguments would be helpful. These sort of antics don’t help either.
Overheard a very irate ute owner jabbering on about Indonesian coal getting trucked to huntly at 20 loads a day yesterday, and I thought to much fb for that butter sounds like they are telling the truth.
with tiwai point smelter shutting down, there will be plenty of electricity generation up for use. and as most ev's should be charged at night(off peak) there shouldnt be much for ute owners to jabber about. hopefully petrol and diesel prices will go through the roof and the last few ute jabberers can have that to whinge about. OR, the ute owners could be pro-active(for a change) and convert there petrol utes to lpg (gee, that sounds familiar) and have clean burning energy..nah, much easier to play the victim….
A quick calculation sez Tiwai Point uses something like 5.4 billion kWhr per year. A light vehicle can go around 7 km on a kWhr. So Tiwai Point's electricity use could drive a light vehicle 38 billion km. There's around 3.6 million light vehicles in NZ, averaging around 12000 km/year, or around 43 billion vehicle kilometres annually.
So shutting Tiwai Point would almost cover swapping all light vehicles in New Zealand over to electric.
Yeah, to cover the buses, trucks, trains etc as well we'd need to get a move on with building some of the already consented wind and geothermal projects that have been shelved because of flat demand and the ever-present threat of Tiwai Point shutting and dumping all that excess power into the market.
Probably also need some hefty pumped storage,like the Onslow-Manorburn basin and/or around Lake Moawhango and the headwaters of the Ngaruroro.
Most geothermal power technologies really don't like being ramped up and down. So they're great for continuous baseload power.
Yes, wind has its intermittency problem. Hence the merit in adding substantial pumped hydro storage. Overall, wind in NZ seems to operate at around 35% capacity factor on an annual basis. That should increase as installed turbines get larger, maybe getting up to around 40% fleet average.
So to add another Manapouri's worth of generation to supply electric buses, trucks etc would require installing maybe 1800MW of wind plus pumped hydro storage, or 700ish MW of geothermal. Or do both to have enough generation capacity to completely electrify NZ land transport plus shut down Huntly and Stratford. I only got a short way down the list of consented projects and there was well over 2000 MW of wind consented, together with around 300MW of geothermal.
It's all solvable, with changes in behaviour, living within our means, utilising local and owner generation as well as national grid, electricitysector regulation. But we're not having that conversation nationally atm. Instead we're having the green tech BAU, reductionist paradigm one, where we continue to think that the world is an unlimited resource.
(and that's not even getting to the issues of how much GHGs we're emitting to go down this cul de sac).
If EVs become more prevalent, Savonius rotors make a pretty readily managed home charge option. Crunches are likely in things like battery supply and disposal however.
Biggest constraint will be transmission, most of the bulk generation is in the south, especially wind. There's also distributed generation, solar roofs with batteries. All this will need / result in a rather different electricity generation and distribution market to what we have now.
I built a semi passive house in early 90's (suspended wooden floor so not quite the full thing) and am surprised at the quiet uptake of passive principles in building design. Often not that overt but you can see designers taking opportunities that present themselves.
Lol, no way will NZ go down that path (quakes, tsunamis, economics, waste disposal, indigenous sovereignty, and a very strong anti-nuke culture in the general population).
But it would go some way to explaining why so many people aren’t talking about EVs and power generation, the hope that we will have some inexhaustable source of power in the future.
If you do a search for an electric version of whatever kind of land vehicle you're interested in, your chances of getting hits are now pretty good. Scandinavian companies seem to be leading the way, at least in wealthy western countries.
There's a variety of options for 'refueling', from quick-swap batteries, to running electricity in to longer-term job sites.
Truck ,tractors, earth movers and forestry machines will have to be hydrogen surely
Not necessarily
All the biggest earth movers on the planet are electrically powered and connected to the grid with high tension trailing power cables, which are moved every day.
Ironic really, because they are used to dig for low grade lignite. Which is used for burning in electric power stations, to power, wait for it, electric excavators, connected to the grid by high voltage trailing cables.
yeah, I didn't get what you meant by increased use. I thought you were saying that if Tiwai closed today the freed up power wouldn't be enough to replace all the gas and coal currently burned. Is that right?
Have you seen any my many comments about the numerous consented and shelved renewable energy projects? Shelved at least partly because of the ever-present threat of Tiwai Point closing and that power flooding the current market?
That’s a regulatory issue right? The market can’t do the thing that society needs right now. Although I assume you and I disagree on what projects should happen.
Your quick calculation misses transmission & distribution losses (~7%), and losses in charging the ev battery (12-15%). That's about 20% of the energy wasted.
Then there's the consideration of whether allowing business as usual mobility is the best use of Manapouri's generation, because we also have to shut down our coal & gas generation. A lot of our mobility energy consumption can be significantly reduced by providing comprehensive public transport.
Another issue not often discussed is whether there will be a good supply of reasonably priced EVs. Most other countries are not in the position of having low emission generation. If they are to reduce their fossil generation they won't have electricity for vehicle charging, so there will not be a large demand for EVs and so efficiencies of mass production will not be achieved. NZ will never have enough sales to influence that.
EVs are unfortunately not quite there yet in terms of battery technology. The reason is the charging system and the hardware that demands high waste, high environmental damage and exploitation of people. But hey, who cares, right? I mean its colonization in a different way all over again. Maybe we can sell the rubbish battery waste back to those who were exploited and give them "work" to diassemble the stuff that rich countries so eagerly buy. So lets celebrate this and encourage more of the exploitation, degradation of a continent and pat ourselves on the shoulder how good we are doing the "right" thing.
Ah yes, no thinking required, just a cocktail in hand musing over a 100K car.
Waste is still an issue. NZ has no means of dismantling, separating metals etc.
Lithium batteries are hazardous materials and regulated except in NZ. The lifetime of a battery is about 2 years and they will most likely go to landfills.
Perhaps before we sponsor those rather expensive cars for the few who can afford it, we should start "sponsoring" a disposal plant first. Because you cannot just ship the batteries like pebbles around the globe.
When it comes to a fast-moving technical topic, it's probably best to scan the first couple of pages of google results for credible up-to-date articles, rather than just clicking the first hit which might be two years out of date from a mass-market msm publisher that doesn't really understand the topic.
Here's just one of the many efforts starting up now that there are starting to be significant quantities of used ev batteries to be recycled:
When it comes to disposal, what do you think would stop the shipment of end-of-life ev batteries? They would be much higher value than recyclable plastic or paper, and those are routinely shipped all around the world. Sure, the batteries would need to be fully discharged first for safety, but that's a very easy operation.
And once more, it seems exporting a problem and not dealing with the full cycle of a product is the preferred solution. As I have mentioned, NZ has no means of recycling lithium batteries. To ship them, special permits are needed. Not from NZ but the country of destination. Never mind, its not worth getting all upset about it.
with tiwai point smelter shutting down, there will be plenty of electricity generation up for use……
Hi Woodie, Did you know that aluminium can be used as a fuel?
It has heaps of embedded electrical energy in it, and has been used for generations in fireworks and explosives.
Powered and fed into a furnace it burns hotter than coal
Better yet, when aluminium powder is burnt as a fuel it releases zero green house gas emissiions.
And it's infinitely recyclable, no need to import any more bauxite from Aussie.
We could use the existing Tiwai Smelter to re-refine it, and ship it all over the country, and then return it when it is spent, in a closed cycle.
(The energy embedded in aluminium comes from the electricity in the refining process).
Could metal particles be the clean fuel of the future?
…. hydrogen requires big, heavy fuel tanks and is explosive, and batteries are too bulky and don’t store enough energy for many applications,” says Bergthorson, a mechanical engineering professor and Associate Director of the Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design at McGill. “Using metal powders as recyclable fuels that store clean primary energy for later use is a very promising alternative solution.”
Novel concept
The Applied Energy paper, co-authored by Bergthorson with five other McGill researchers and a European Space Agency scientist in the Netherlands, lays out a novel concept for using tiny metal particles – similar in size to fine flour or icing sugar – to power external-combustion engines.
Could we see the rebirth of the external combustion engine, (commonly and collectively known as steam engines), being used to power ships and trains and industrual boilers?
Could steam engine locomotives powered by aluminium powder one day be seen again on the Main Trumk Line?
Let's bring back the Kingston Flyer from retirement as a test bed. (See if it still flies.)
Refining aluminium is a pretty carbon heavy process – it relies on sacrificial carbon anodes that are cured at high temperatures for up to a month. The electricity only shifts the direction of the reaction so that the carbon reduces the alumina – the carbon still burns.
The aluminium industry produces 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
(this figure is inclusive of non-renewable electricity generation from coal and gas).
When carbon (or consumable) anodes are used, the reaction frees up the oxygen present in the alumina, but it immediately reacts with the carbon from the anode to form CO2….
Conventional carbon anodes have a limited life-span as they as ‘consumed’ during the smelting process. The oxidation (or consumption) of the carbon anode creates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…..
The anode is used to carry the electrical energy to the cathode, which in this case is the molten aluminium bath. The anode which is connected to the electricity supply is driven into the molten aluminium which creates a high temperature arc which melts the aluminium, while eroding the anode, which has to be continually replaced.
Research is being carried out into non-eroding, or inert annodes, and/or low erosion anodes that don't bond with oxygen to form CO2. (or don't do so as much).
…..According to the IEA, 2008, “the ultimate technical feasibility of inert anodes is not yet proven, despite 25 years of research.” Additional fundamental R&D on materials is needed
However, all is not lost. coal produces 38% of green house gas emissions.
If all the coal burnt in the world was replaced with aluminium powder, and all that aluminium was reduced with renewable electricity. Even if aluminium production increased by a multiple of ten, we should still be better off.
So it’s a bit like the fabled electric utes. Introduce a car tax now, burn double to coal and the infrastructure will follow in 5 or so years time, maybe.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and quicker to convert the smelter into making aluminium fuel powder instead of ingots? All that needs to be done to create aluminium fuel power is to spray it when it is still molten.
The aluminium fuel could then be shipped around the country to replace coal in all our industrial processes, including the Huntly Power Station.
This was originally produced by mechanical means using a stamp mill to create flakes. Subsequently, a process of spraying molten aluminium to create a powder of droplets was developed by E. J. Hall in the 1920s.
Coal is a solid fuel – The combustion of coal in power plants and industrial processes is the number one source of the green house emissions responsible for global warming and climate change.
Aluminium powder like coal is a solid fuel – Aluminium powder burns hotter than coal, but unlike coal produces none of the emissions responsible for global warming and climate change.
What Are the Different Uses of Aluminum Powder?…
Rocket fuel is often made with aluminum, and many solid rocket fuels are based on chemical reactions involving this metal. In fact, this type of fuel was used to power the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle.
We do it in small as well as big parcels. My 13 solar panels will produce some 5000 kw/h annually. My Leaf will use 1600 kw/h to travel 12000 km in a year.
Note: 1 in 4 Australian homes has solar panels. NZ has 32000 homes (there are 1.9 million households in NZ) with solar power at the end of March- that's 1:60! Australia has 10.2 million households and therefore 2.5 million houses with solar panels. In 2018 it had 1.96 million so equipped.
That kind of commitment to solar energy would power a lot of EVs.
Spoke to a fellow takeaways customer last night who enquired after my Leaf. He works in a vineyard where he could see possible expansive use of electric vehicles and machinery. No interest at all from management when he raised the topic.
Yet, as he said, we have driven electric forklifts for years.
Your solar panels and 5000 kw\h annually , The low user household number is 8000kWhr – when they no longer qualify for low user daily charges
You will cetainly be taking a grid feed – during peak hours, the 'worst time'- to keep your lights on
Australia is quite unique in its solar power uptake because it has a lot of sun, well ahead of most of NZ- dont forget the shorter daylight hours in winter , and the low level of the sun in the sky
Yes Huntly has been running for some months as there is a shortage of gas capacity due to a Taranaki NG processing site having long scheduled maintenance.
The Huntly site which has a gas turbine alongside the last 2 thermal coal boilers operating has been very high output, 600MW plus – as it was originally designed for as a baseload station, not feeding in for morning and night as many other stations do. Any fossil fuel used has to pay carbon taxes on that. As well the power consumption at Auckland which is fed by medium distance lines needs a generator not far away to cover the voltage drop from long distance lines, theres a small GT at Otara plus one at Huntly ( quick start ups)
By then the biggest emitters of most of the GHGs, China, Russia, India etc will probably not even have started cutting back on emissions and coal fired power stations will be springing up everywhere. Global emissions will be accelerating and little ole NZ will be chock full of EVs and will have made absolutely no difference.
Driving a country into the ground because our leaders want to virtue signal when it will have absolutely no effect is criminal.. So when our economy and society is completely destroyed, China, India, and Russia will decide to follow our example?
Can you provide any actual evidence that our economy is being driven into the ground,? Or are you just a staunch blue team member who thinks bring their moron memes here is going get you somewhere?
If you think topping up their EVs will be front and centre of people's minds. You have just not been paying attention.
There are people alive now who will experience the biggest biosphere collapse since the Chixilube extinction event.
Scrambling for higher ground, trying to reserve a space in a storm cellar. Trying to survive frequent extreme weather events, crop failures, might be the sort of things exercising people's minds more than topping up their EV.
Vulva owners*, what say ye? I say fuck the neoliberal capture of social justice and the planet burning machine it rode in on. Also Fuck the parts of the left sanctioning this.
It is a powerful image and well done to Robert Kitchin for capturing it, particularly as Sio appears to have finished his address is leaving the stage. He's taken his glasses off, picked up his notes, it's done. This is a dangerous time for photographers because you tend to down tools as something finishes.
His assignment that day would have been quite dry, shooting people talking in press conferences. He would have done this hundreds of times and constantly wondered how to make interesting, meaningful images from such familiar and structured circumstances.
Then just as it's all over, Alan Wendt produces such a simple, human gesture which we all immediately and emotionally connect with. Very, very easy to miss, and it requires a lot of skill and experience to keep alert in those crucial moments.
High praise from me for that, but the rest of the article is utter rubbish. It's anonymous, sniffy, hurt, self-indulgent, lazy, and hypocritical. The last is what makes me quietly rage. The anonymous Stuff gallery reporters claim the Facebook pages of Ardern and Robertson "ripped off" the image and failed to attribute it properly.
Well, cry me a fucking river.
At least Ardern and Roberston's social media handlers made an attempt to credit the photographer, despite committing the terrible crime of misspelling his name. Stuff and New Zealand media have an appalling culture of not crediting photographers. They almost never attribute or caption work properly outside of their own navel-gazing organisations. I see it every single day. It happens to me more weeks than not and I don’t shit the bed over it. Stuff and others are lazy in the extreme, and for them to act all huffy in this instance is hypocrisy in the extreme.
The idea of being captured by the government gives us an allergic reaction. Holding the powerful to account is now, and will remain, a core job of journalists.
A robust statement of and for the impartiality and objectivity of NZ journalism in general and Stuff’s journalism in particular.
Powerful to account ? media babble is always about (ordinary) peoples stories, as that gets readers eyeballs which is the most important part of their business
'news' is a bad word these days , as they want to talk 'stories, engagement, perspectives, conversations' and other buzz words.
Hard news is dead! The most 'read stories' on NT Times is the recipes, which anyone can see well positioned on their digital front page.
Hint: there’s a hint in the headline as to what the article is about and it is not about recipes.
This is at the top of the piece with the complete documentary of over 38 min.
Seven children are among 17 civilians killed or injured in incidents connected to unexploded ordnance left behind on New Zealand’s firing ranges, Stuff Circuit's documentary Life + Limb reveals.
If journalism was in the pockets of government, this would never have been aired.
I assume you don’t read TS for its recipes either, but it is a good idea for improving its readership statistics
the line quoted -'Holding the powerful to account is now, and will remain, a core job of journalists'
It just isnt true , the readers of a major 'new's site like NY Times show that the recipes come first. NZ news sites are even fuller of flim flam lifestyle stories and shilling for the property industry
The newer online only places like Newsroom and Spinoff are even more directly as 'copywriters' for their business supporters. Like this sponsored piece written by the very capable Russell Brown- wheres the investigative pieces from him – no sponsors ?
I disagree with you. Stuff is not the NY Times, Newsroom, nor Spinoff although it does cross-post regularly from Newsroom.
On top of Stuff Circuit’s investigations, we’ve had NZ on Air funding for podcasts such as Once a Panther and Collapse, and for video projects including Munted and Night Shift. Production companies can also seek funding for projects that will air on Stuff, such as Kea Kids News, made by Luke Nola & Friends.
None of these are “flim flam lifestyle stories and shilling for the property industry” or recipes. Sure, those are present as well, they have to make a living too, don’t they. It is actually mentioned in the article I quoted. A news site such as Stuff will (have to) do all of the above, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They don’t cater just for intellectual snobs, Thorndon bubble, foodies, house porn addicts, or what have you.
I really don’t see how you came to this description of Newsroom as “even more directly as 'copywriters' for their business supporters”, but I guess I’ve been reading a completely different Newsroom. I can only assume that you’re referring to its partners at the bottom of the home page.
The independence of our journalism is supported by our partners in the corporate and tertiary education sectors, as well as by private donations from New Zealanders. To add your support to our independent voice, make a donation using the Press Patron platform link here.
You seem to be insinuating the exact thing that the Stuff article was countering. Just as well, I try to avoid falling in the binary trap and see things differently, so we have to agree to disagree here.
"The idea of being captured by the government gives us an allergic reaction"
Excellent – so if they can add to that an allergy to being captured by their own funders and owners, and even by the interests of the social class to which they themselves belong – then we're really getting somewhere.
Note: Stuff seems much improved since the sell-off and I'm generally OK with it. Some others, not so much.
Yes, I also like to think that Stuff has improved and that they’re not sitting on their laurels.
However, you make the same unsupported and unfounded (IMO) accusations. There seems much bias against NZ journalism and not without some reason, may I add, but some are definitely trying harder than others.
Our journalism will remain free from political or commercial influences, as our company charter enshrines. Stuff’s sources of revenue do not affect the impartiality or objectivity of our journalism, the investigations we undertake, or how we scrutinise the powerful.
“We will fiercely protect our editorial independence from commercial interests, including our own, and any political influence. Our journalists will:
[followed by 4 bullet points]
We run stories that are unfavourable to advertisers, and we freely criticise the government. It wouldn’t even enter a journalist’s head to pull their punches to protect a funder.
And here’s the most relevant bit to your accusation:
In truth, we’re not politically partisan. Media outlets overseas – notably in the UK – will endorse or align themselves with particular political parties. We don’t. New Zealand is too small for a mass-market product such as Stuff or any of our newspapers to support a political party and still attract a general audience.
On trans women’s physiological advantage when competing in women’s sports. Look at the charts in the Twitter thread. The argument is often made that tw train harder than women and that’s why they jump to top ranking when shifting to women’s categories. Does this seem likely with these figures?
Not that 'amateur' sports medicine researcher Emma Hilton again. The one that has a published research on trans women which didnt include any trans women athletes
[please provide evidence (a cut and paste with link, not just a link) to back up your claim here, so we can all know what you are talking about rather than just being left with the ad hom – weka]
It was the link you asked us to read last time , and it included the actual online paper published . I made those same comments based on actual words in the paper then, which you dismissed . Surely you read relevant parts of the paper ?
Hilton works as a research technician in another area completely from sports medicine and has had no previous research published in sports medicine so she an amateur in my opinion
Its all very well to show stuff from twitter, but as we all found out during covid self appointed experts were very common who had an academic background but no knowledge of infectious diseases and their epidemiology. A court would never allow expert witness testimony from someone who was a proven expert ON a topic
[post a cut and paste and link explaining your claim about Hilton and “published research on trans women which didnt include any trans women athletes” or you will get a short ban so you don’t derail the discussion. – weka]
I have no idea what they're referring to, I read and comment so much on TS and twitter, few people can keep all that in their head. I'm also not doing someone else's work for them.
FYI, TS is not a Court but a place for supported opinions and arguments and robust debate, and the odd joke.
Dr Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist and Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, and teaches in her field. She has a particular interest in the science of biological sex and writes and speaks about this, including in the WSJ and runs the Nettie Project supported by many scientists and academics across a range of disciplines (who obviously don't have your prejudice about cross disciplinary work).
You appear to be saying that no-one can have an informed opinion about sports medicine other than sports medicine researchers. Which is obviously a stupid position to take because it would invalidate your own (I'm assuming you're not a sports medicine researcher).
If Hilton is making bad arguments, then address them and demonstrate how they are bad. That you think her being a lowly research technician (afaik she's not) is sufficient to write off her work says something about your own views on hierarchy and power. As a non-academic, I'm much more interested in whether what she says makes sense.
Sorry for the delay but had other things to attend to
Emma Hiltons amateur status regarding sports medicine. her other contributions in publications are her specialist area of infections and such https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/emma.hilton.html
Males with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy provide a second avenue to examine training effects during testosterone suppression…
Males huh ?
It is acknowledged that the findings presented here are from healthy adults with regular or even low physical activity levels [91], and not highly trained athletes. Thus, further research is required in athletic transgender populations
The research conducted so far has studied untrained transgender women. Thus, while this research is important to understand the isolated effects of testosterone suppression, it is still uncertain how transgender women athletes [rest of quote missing]
In my view its junk science, while its not new researach undertaken and its merely a publications review, it has so many caveats that dont make it viable for drawing any conclusions about ‘transwomen athletes’
[formatting edited for clarity. Italicised emphaisis added by Ghost – weka]
Re Hilton's work, this from her twitter 2 years ago when challenged about her qualifications,
In response. Alice has the right Emma Hilton. I am currently being paid a basic wage by a colleague to bridge a funding gap after the MRC chucked back my last proposal, despite it garnering two 6s (internationally exceptional) and a 5 (internationally excellent). https://twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1204737787888574464
Science funding is pretty dire right now <grumble Brexit> My scientific record is easily returnable on Web of Science, where metrics such as my h-index will demonstrate the impact of my research. I have received international prizes for my work.
I am not ashamed that I am struggling to my next funding deadline. I hope normal service will be resumed early next year 🙂
I am amazingly grateful to my colleagues, who have supported me during the first funding gap I've experienced in 15 years. They are ace. They also know what sex is 😉
Sorry, I should have spelled this out. Until this current funding gap, I was employed as a senior research fellow. This is the position my current funding application will (fingers crossed) restore to me 🙂
I get annoyed with unqualified researchers putting oar in . You seem to think shes an expert on this area and thus worth quoting her 'twitter'
Shes not even a post doc in sports medicine, which the bottom rung of the research ladder. A persons qualifications and background are important in academic research – that why their publications and university position are at very top of the paper.
Hilton is a scientist with enough expertise to comment on research. I also consider her an expert commentator on gender critical social issues and how those relate to sport. As I said, I don’t believe the only people who should be read are those with direct research experience. Eg science journalists have relevant experience to bridge between researchers and the public.
And, you seem to have misrepresented Hilton’s expertise.
What's your point? The research is looking at what physiological advantage biological males have over females, that is conferred at puberty.
Key Points
Given that biological males experience a substantial performance advantage over females in most sports, there is currently a debate whether inclusion of transgender women in the female category of sports would compromise the objective of fair and safe competition.
Here, we report that current evidence shows the biological advantage, most notably in terms of muscle mass and strength, conferred by male puberty and thus enjoyed by most transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed as per current sporting guidelines for transgender athletes.
This evidence is relevant for policies regarding participation of transgender women in the female category of sport.
Seems pretty normal for researchers to suggest further research is needed. This is how science works, it builds on the work of previous research.
In my view its junk science, while its not new researach undertaken and its merely a publications review, it has so many caveats that dont make it viable for drawing any conclusions about ‘transwomen athletes’
And yet you don't explain how it is junk science or why it's not useful in the debate about whether TW should compete in all women's sports. All you've said is that it doesn't include TW, but studies on male physiology is relevant (most TW are born biologically male, most go through male puberty, and many have no or minimal medical transition), and research is still in the early stages.
Quoting results from one event at one (open entry) competition four years ago in the career of one trans athlete is called "cherry picking" and displays bias.
To show an opposite bias, one might point to the 2019 world champs where Hubbard pulled a similar weight to 2017 and came in sixth place. But that would be equally dishonest, because assuming one case to be typical of a population is stupid.
Remember this motorway that was cancelled by new government in 2018
The EWL was a $1.85 billion priority roading project of the last Government, connecting State Highway 20 at Onehunga and State Highway 1 at Mt Wellington
It was a massive vanity project , with incredible costs, of the last government, the cycling bridge – which I think is aspirational rather than practical- was about half that.
Its Open Mike isnt it , where the commenting is more free flowing
Its Open Mike isnt it , where the commenting is more free flowing
Sure it is, and when you post a flow of consciousness expect non-mind reading people to ask for clarification. I hope that’s ok with you
Essentially, what I believe you’re trying to convey here is that the walking & cycling bridge is a semi-massive vanity project or a massive semi-vanity project because, you know, it costs a lot of money.
No. I said the EW Motorway was an expensive project- twice that of the cycling bridge- that was cancelled.
Thats its relevance, is as the cost is what has 'aroused hearts and minds' over the cycling bridge.
No it didnt say 'the bridge' is a vanity project at all . Im still curious about the whole idea thus the aspirational tag.
Its easier if you leave the part about what I said to me.
The woman whom thousands of Canadians believe is their secret ruler isn’t afraid to tell her followers she’s calling for the executions of health care workers and politicians behind the vaccination rollout.
“At the firing squad, the military firing squad, you will receive not one, but two bullets on your forehead for each child that you have harmed as a result of injecting this experimental vaccine,” said Romana Didulo* to those involved in vaccination efforts in a recent video on Telegram. “So when you go home tonight, think about how many bullets.”
Tim Shadbolt facing off Deputy Mayor, in a physical challenge. Reminds me of Russia's President Putin wresting with a bear? Showing he was up to it, some years ago. Then married a young gymnast. What next for Shadbolt?
Hopefully retirement as new blood is needed for Invercargill. I am sick of hearing about the infighting that goes on in councils as it is unproductive for the region.
Tampons may need to be flushed down the toilet, and perhaps condoms too. They will both be carrying body fluids that if not disposed off quickly and correctly would be disease carriers. There isn't always a rubbish bin, and how often are they emptied?
Stop people from using wipes, ban them from supermarkets and pharmacies. People can cut up their old clothes and put them to some use instead of throwing them out when holey in one place. Use them instead of wipes, cut down waste, then thow them in a bin. Make the three-letter words fashionable language, like the four-letter ones!
Cotton tips are very useful and people will have to learn not to throw them down the toilet. Men as well as women need to learn. Many males regard all that hygiene business and carry-on about doing things right as just fussy stuff that women do.
Seems the only way to go but I think preaching about the three 'ps' and bad-mouthing for the others is the modern way. Thinking of efficiency first and foremost is the thing now. People have to be cut and moulded to fit the systems not the other way round. Makes sense – set a target, make people conform. Public service is going down the loo!
In 1979, just a couple of months into his stint with 20/20, ABC’s fledgling television news magazine, producer and documentarian Joseph Lovett was “beyond thrilled” to be assigned an interview with author James Baldwin, whose work he had discovered as a teen.
[…]
The finished piece is a superb, 60 Minutes-style profile that covers a lot of ground, and yet, 20/20 chose not to air it.
After the show ran Chase’s interview with Michael Jackson, producer Lovett inquired as to the delay and was told that no one would be interested in a “queer, Black has-been”:
I was stunned, I was absolutely stunned, because in my mind James Baldwin was no has-been. He was a classic American writer, translated into every language in the world, and would live on forever, and indeed he has. His courage and his eloquence continue to inspire us today.
Ministry of Transport spokesperson Ewan Delany said motorcycles were not considered at the start of the Clean Car Discount, because they were a small part of the emissions problem.
…
"While this vehicle segment was excluded from the initial Clean Car Standard and recently announced Clean Car Discount, it may be considered for inclusion as the scheme progresses, so that we can respond to the opportunity that new EV and low emission technologies in the motorcycle segment represent."
The scheme also excluded mopeds and motor tricycles, as well as all heavy vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes.
To me, this is odd not to say short-sighted and narrow-minded.
Why not encourage all alternatives for transport that are clean(er) while discouraging fuel cars? What is so different about a motorised 2-wheeler compared to 4-wheeler (AKA car)? Government wants to encourage cycling but not motorised 2-wheelers!? I suppose one would still require a special driver’s licence and all that.
I said it before, I reckon if e-bikes are subsidised quite a few people will make the switch. I see more and more of them around already. What’s not to like?
Possibly too much/hard for Government to handle all in one go …
This sounds like a good idea. I wonder if the countries and arms agents can give up their obssession with this horrible practice/drug. Can they go cold turkey?
World's Largest Arms Exporters:
Rank Supplier Arms Exp
(in billion TIV)
1 United States 9,372
2 Russia 3,203
3 France 1,995
4 Spain 1,232
5 Germany 1,201
6 South Korea 827
7 Italy 806
8 China 760
9 Netherlands 488
10 United Kingdom429
That is a good start to this comment. This sex thing has been around for ever, especially with winning sportsmen. It used to be talked about and then not forgotten but not become the issue it is now with the small cameras that everyone has now in their cellphones. It has now morphed into dirty, deceitful, disrespectful behaviour, and as someone has said, a matter to be bullied about and harassed and shamed. From foolish and unwise to a practice that is turning sexually naive students who are immature into porn actors and perverts with this photographic porn to blackmail and hurt others with.
What is needed in the short term I don't know. If parents concerned, and the school teachers and pupils had a formal meeting and discussed the problem and just put in words what is happening and how each speaker felt about it, and the long-term results of it, perhaps an agreement could be reached about setting a code of behaviour for individuals to keep to.
In the long term I am sure that we need some social anthopologists in the Education Department instead of thinking that all we need is to teach science, maths, and communication, and team thinking – to turn out the successful conformists of the future.
We need to teach philosophy, and how cultures build up, and what zeitgeist and leitmotif mean. We need to talk about individuals having a vision of what they want to be, and how to realise their strengths and weaknesses. And we need to teach the importance of delay of immediate gratification. That would cut out this idea of sex being a sort of drug that you have on a night out. You get blotto and anything can happen, wheee. And then when it happens everyone is shocked if someone cries rape when nobody seemed to be worrying about anything?
Where does the leadership for teaching personal standards and morality come from? Is there any talk at home/school about how to cope when temptation looms, when companions suggest a good time, no holds barred – are you up for it, to each other? Or is it boys will be boys and we don't impose rules on them, same with girls? How could a bright, intelligent girl get knifed 200 times by a man in a frenzy – of jealousy? What did she know about assessing someone's character and self-control? Who is teaching how to hold back on sex until it is something worthwhile with someone you both like and respect. That cuts right across this drift into decadence that we are in.
Think Grace Mullane and Tinder? What a dangerous past-time. No need to go puritan and extra-moralistic, just talk personal respect and standards, inner confidence, not being coerced by companions, and looking for real friends not just for the fun-loving, no-worries group.
Last night the largest solar storm in decades resulted in Aurorae being seen across Aotearoa, causing many to ask why?Why was the sky pink? What was all this stuff about the power grid? Have we, as so many have wondered since the election, reached the end of days?I had a ...
We have been on the road in England, squeezing down narrow lanes, flying up the M6, loving hedgerows and villages and cathedrals, liking the 21st century less.There have been moments when it’s felt like a movie trope. The pub in Exford, lovely seventeenth century bar, almost more dogs than people, ...
There’s a solar-storm on at the moment, and since the South Island is having a day and night with clear skies, that means Aurorae. I have just got back from a midnight visit to Tunnel Beach – southwards-looking over the Sea, and without the light pollution. Quite a few others ...
Michael Bassett writes – I’m not sure that it’s much comfort to anyone to know that the post-Covid surge in violent crimes, gang activity, ram raids, random shootings, thuggery and stabbings is occurring in other countries as well as New Zealand. These days, wagging school, out-of-control welfare and ...
Oliver Hartwich writes – Cast your mind back to mid-December. A new Prime Minister had just been sworn in, the new Government started its 100-day programme, and Christmas was only days away.Amid all the haste, a report landed that would have deserved our attention.I am talking about the ...
TL;DR: An unseasonally early icy blast at the same time as some long-overdue maintenance almost caused Aotearoa-NZ’s electricity system to black out this week. That’s because a quadropoly of gentailers1 have prioritised paying dividends from their rising profits and adding debt over investing in 1.5 GigaWatts of new wind farms ...
Hi,Before we crack into today’s Webworm, I wanted to acknowledge the fact that Israel is pushing into Rafah. Over 100,000 Palestinians are now attempting to flee the one place that was deemed “safe”.Trouble is, the place they’re fleeing to is already destroyed. Total annihilation is the end goal here.“Israel is ...
‘It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. I am quite sure that it is figures which show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.’ GoetheI was struck at a recent conference on equity for the elderly, how many presenters implicitly relied upon Statistics New Zealand. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveReporting on defence spending late last year, RNZ said the coalition government will have to make some tough calls this term to help the force address staff shortages and ageing infrastructure. “These are huge, huge amounts of government spending. It’s a significant proportion of the government’s ...
Peter Dunne writes – I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure. According to the legislation, the role of the Controller ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought NZ to the brink of economic and cultural chaos Chris Trotter writes – TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition ...
And why did the Crown not challenge the Tribunal’s jurisdiction? Gary Judd writes – Retired District Court Judge, David Harvey, has posted on his A Halflings View Substack an excellent summary of Justice Isacs’ judgment declining to uphold the witness summons issued by the Waitangi Tribunal ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and ...
Macklemore isn’t someone I’d usually think about. Sure I liked his big hit from a few years back, everybody did it was catchy and cool with some memorable lines. But if I was going to think of artists who might speak out on political matters or world events, he wouldn’t ...
Another week goes by in the Luxon government’s efforts to roll back the past 70 years of social progress. The school lunches programme is to be downgraded by $107 million, and women need bother their heads no longer about pay equity, let alone expect ACC to provide adequate sexual violence ...
Brrr, the first cold snap of the year. Hope you’re rugged up nice and warm. Here are some stories that caught our eye this week… This Week on Greater Auckland On Monday, we had a post from a new contributor, Connor Sharp, who dug into the public feedback ...
Almost all of the Wellington City Council’s recommended zoning changes to allow many more apartments and townhouses in its inner-suburbs have been approved.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guest on geopolitics, ...
Open access notablesA Global Increase in Nearshore Tropical Cyclone Intensification, Balaguru et al., Earth's Future:Tropical Cyclones (TCs) inflict substantial coastal damages, making it pertinent to understand changing storm characteristics in the important nearshore region. Past work examined several aspects of TCs relevant for impacts in coastal regions. However, ...
Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result? As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few ...
Thus far May has followed on from a quiet April in the blogging department, but in fairness, it has been another case of doing what I am supposed to be doing, namely writing original fiction. Plus reading. So don’t worry – I have been productive. But in order to reassure ...
Buzz from the Beehive A new government agency will open for business on July 1 – the Social Investment Agency. As a new standalone central agency effective from 1 July, it will lead the development of social investment across Government, helping ministers understand who they need to invest in, what ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The ...
Alwyn Poole writes – After being elected to Parliament in 2008 the maiden speech of Hipkins was substantially around education policy. He was Labour’s spokesperson for education 2011 – 2017. He was Minister for Education from 2017 until February 2023. This is approximately 88% of the time Labour ...
Eric Crampton writes – A fashion industry group is lobbying for protections. They make the usual arguments and a newer one. None of it makes sense. An industry group says it pumped $7.8 billion into the economy last year – that’s 1.9 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. ...
In December 2006, Fiji's military leader Voreqe Bainimarama overthrew the elected government in a coup. He ruled Fiji for the next 16 years, first as dictator, then as "elected" Prime Minister. But now, he's finally been sent to jail where he belongs. Sadly, this isn't for his real crime of ...
Don't like National's corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" law? Aotearoa's environmental NGO's - Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, WWF, Coromandel Watchdog, Coal Action Network Aotearoa, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, and others - have announced a joint march against it in Auckland in June: When: 13:00, 8 June, 2024 Where: Aotea Square, Auckland You ...
Seymour describes sushi as too woke for school meals. There are no fish sushi meals recommended by the School Lunches programme. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: The Government will swap out hot meals for packaged sandwiches to save $107 million on school lunches for poor kids. MSD has pulled ...
I don't mind stealin' bread from the mouths of decadenceBut I can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled, yeahBut it's on the table, the fire's cookin'And they're farmin' babies, while slaves are workin'The blood is on the table and the mouths are chokin'But I'm goin' hungry, yeahSome ...
The Ardern Government’s chickens came home to roost yesterday with the news that the country is short of natural gas. In 2018, Labour banned offshore petroleum exploration, and industry executives say that the attendant loss of confidence by the industry impacted overall investment in onshore gas fields. Energy Resources Minister ...
Hi,If you’ve been digging through the newly launched Webworm store (orders are being dispatched worldwide as I type!) you’ll have noticed the best model we had was Calvin.This is Calvin.Calvin.Calvin is 7, and is the son of my producer over on Flightless Bird, Rob — aka “Wobby Wob”. Rob also ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Climate change is everywhere. And when something's everywhere it can feel like it's nowhere. So how do we get our heads ...
Its a law like gravity: whenever a right-wing government is elected, they start attacking democracy. And now, after talking to their Republican and Tory and Fidesz chums at the International Democracy Union forum in Wellington, National is doing it here, announcing plans to remove election-day enrolment. Or, to put it ...
Yesterday Winston Peters focussed his attention on the important matter at hand. Tweeting. Like the former, and quite possibly next, orange POTUS, from whom he takes much of his political strategy, Winston is an avid X’er.His message didn’t resemble an historic address this time. In fact it was more reminiscent ...
Buzz from the Beehive A significant decline in natural gas production has given Resources Minister Shane Jones an opportunity to reiterate his enthusiasm for the mining and burning of coal. For good measure, he has praised an announcement from Genesis Energy that it will resume importing coal. He and Energy ...
“Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to look at who is funding them. The political parties are legally obliged to make ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Here is my subjective ranking on a “most-left” to “most-right” scale of most of our major NZ Universities, with some anecdotal (and at times amusing) evidence to back up the claim.Extreme Left Auckland University of TechnologyEvidenceThe ...
Eric Crampton writes – I hadn’t thought about this one until a helpful email showed up in my inbox.It’s pretty obvious that income tax thresholds should automatically index with inflation – whether to anchor the thresholds in percentiles of the income distribution, or to anchor against a real ...
Jacqui Van Der Kaay writes – Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National ...
Gary Judd writes – The Dean of the law school at the Auckland University of Technology is someone called Khylee Quince. I have been sent her social media posting in which she has, over the LawNews headline “Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Maori studies for ...
Cleo Paskal writes – WASHINGTON, D.C.: ‘Many of us have received phone calls from [the opposing camp] telling them if they join the camp they will be given projects for their wards and $300,000 [around US$35,000] each’, says former Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani. The elections in Solomon Islands aren’t ...
With hindsight, it was inevitable that (a) Hamas would agree to the ceasefire deal brokered by Egypt and Qatar and that ( b) Israel would then immediately launch attacks on Rafah, regardless. We might have hoped the concessions made by Hamas would cause Israel to desist from slaughtering thousands more ...
Placards and mourners outside the Kilbirnie Mosque following the Christchurch terror attack: MSD has terminated the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which has been used by 415 families since the attacks. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The Government’s pledge to only cut ‘back office’ staff rather than ‘frontline’ services is on increasingly shaky ground, with ...
There’s been a few smaller public transport announcements over the last week or so that I thought I’d cover in a single post. Fareshare I’ve long called for Auckland Transport to offer a way to enable employer-subsidised public transport options. The need for this took on even more importance ...
Parliament’s speaker had no option but to refer Green MP Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee for her behaviour in the House last Wednesday evening. The incident, in which she crossed the floor to wave a book and yell at National Minister Matt Doocey, reflects poorly on Genter and ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Who likes being sneered at? Nobody. Worse yet, when the sneerer has their facts all wrong, and might well be an idiot.The sneer in question is The adults are in charge now, and it is a sneer offered in retort to criticism of this new Government, no matter how well ...
When in government, Labour pushed to extend the Parliamentary term to four years, to reduce accountability and our ability to vote out a bad government. And now, they're trying to do it through the member's ballot, with a Four-Year Parliamentary Term Legislation Bill. The bill at least requires a referendum ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill (Hūhana Lyndon) The bill would prevent the government from stealing Māori land in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It ...
Simeon Brown, alongside Wayne Brown, is favouring a political figleaf now in exchange for loading up tens of millions in extra interest costs on Auckland ratepayers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is pushing back hard at suggestions from Local Government Minister Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown ...
Buzz from the Beehive One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates. Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years. In the best interests of ...
Chris Trotter writes – Had Zheng He’s fleet sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks of the Ming Dynasty, among the largest and most sophisticated sailing vessels ever constructed, would have failed ...
David Farrar writes – Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles. This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more ...
The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied…Gary Judd KC writes – I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation ...
The future of Te Huia, the train between Hamilton and Auckland, has been getting a lot of attention recently as current funding for it is only in place till the end of June. The government initially agreed to a five year trial, through to April 2026, but that was subject ...
TL;DR: Hamas has just agreed to Israel’s ceasefire plan. Nelson hospital’s rebuild has been cut back to save money. The OECD suggests New Zealand break up network monopolies, including in electricity. PM Christopher Luxon’s news conference on a prison expansion announcement last night was his messiest yet.Here’s my top six ...
A homicide in Ponsonby, a manhunt with a killer on the run. The nation’s leader stands before a press conference reassuring a frightened nation that he’ll sort it out, he’ll keep them safe, he’ll build some new prison spaces.Sorry what? There’s a scary dude on the run with a gun ...
Hi,I know it’s been awhile since there’s been any Webworm merch — and today that all changes!Over the last four months, I’ve been working with New Zealand artist Jess Johnson to create a series of t-shirts, caps and stickers that are infused with Webworm DNA — and as of right ...
The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
New Zealand voted in favour of a resolution broadening Palestine’s participation at the United Nations General Assembly overnight, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The resolution enhances the rights of Palestine to participate in the work of the UN General Assembly while stopping short of admitting Palestine as a full ...
Introduction Good morning. It’s a great privilege to be here at the 2024 Infrastructure Symposium. I was extremely happy when the Prime Minister asked me to be his Minister for Infrastructure. It is one of the great barriers holding the New Zealand economy back from achieving its potential. Building high ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced the upcoming Budget will include new funding of $571 million for Defence Force pay and projects. “Our servicemen and women do New Zealand proud throughout the world and this funding will help ensure we retain their services and expertise as we navigate an increasingly ...
New Zealand’s ability to cope with climate change will be strengthened as part of the Government’s focus to build resilience as we rebuild the economy, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “An enduring and long-term approach is needed to provide New Zealanders and the economy with certainty as the climate ...
Jobseeker beneficiaries who have work obligations must now meet with MSD within two weeks of their benefit starting to determine their next step towards finding a job, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “A key part of the coalition Government’s plan to have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker ...
A new standalone Social Investment Agency will power-up the social investment approach, driving positive change for our most vulnerable New Zealanders, Social Investment Minister Nicola Willis says. “Despite the Government currently investing more than $70 billion every year into social services, we are not seeing the outcomes we want for ...
Check against delivery Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you to outline the Coalition Government’s approach to our first Budget. Thank you Mark Skelly, President of the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, together with your Board and team, for hosting me. I’d like to acknowledge His Worship ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
PNG Post-Courier New Zealand High Commissioner Peter Zwart and PNG Defence Minister Dr Billy Joseph welcomed a C-130 Hercules to Port Moresby this week to support Papua New Guinea’s response to the March 24 earthquake and recent severe flooding. “Papua New Guinea has requested New Zealand’s assistance to transport emergency ...
Grub Street King Luxon rode through the streets Of King’s Landing, and was troubled By the sight of hungry urchins in the mud. “Who would be the best of my Lords To deal with this negative optic?” He pondered. The answer came to him instantly. “Seymour!” he said to himself. ...
“The Bill does not provide environmental protection, good quality decision making, certainty, public participation or speed. It should be withdrawn.” ...
RNZ News Television New Zealand has breached its collective agreement with the E tū union when deciding on discontinuing programmes, the Employment Relations Authority has ruled. It was announced in March that 68 staff members who work for news programmes Midday and Tonight, consumer justice programme Fair Go, current affairs ...
Asia Pacific Report Barangay New Zealand’s Rene Molina has interviewed the country’s first Filipino Green MP Francisco Hernandez who was sworn into Parliament yesterday as the party’s latest member. This is the first interview with Hernandez who replaces former Green Party co-leader James Shaw after his retirement from politics to ...
An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report says Pillar Two could raise the industry to state of the art capability - or "crush" it "under the weight of the globe's biggest player". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marlene Longbottom, Associate Professor, Indigenous Education & Research Centre, James Cook University ShutterstockThis article contains information on deaths in custody and the violence experienced by First Nations people in encounters with the Australian carceral system. It also contains references to ...
“Instead of following along countries that are investing in death and better ways of killing people faster, we need to invest in life and in making Aotearoa a fair, just and equitable place where everyone has what they need for a dignified life.” ...
MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI, TPM MP FOR TAI TOKERAU This Government will not waver in its mission to exterminate Māori. CHRISTOPHER LUXON Oh well look you know I don’t think that hard-working Kiwis want to hear language like that. It’s just really unhelpful rhetoric. My Government is genuinely committed to advancing outcomes ...
The body positivity movement started with women confronting the unrealistic expectations and unrepresentative portrayals of them in media and advertising. Men weren’t part of it … their bodies hadn’t been sexualised to the same extremes and they didn’t really need it. But now that’s changed. And in a warped sort ...
The New Zealand comedy legend takes us through her life in television, including the time she hugged Elton John and the unshakeable legacy of a girl named Lyn. In 1981, Ginette McDonald stood on the stage of Auckland’s St James Theatre and directly addressed Queen Elizabeth II. It was a ...
An essay by Lily Duval from the just-released anthology Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent.I was 22 when my friend Alice gave birth in the living room of our pokey Addington flat. She laboured in the blow-up pool for hours. Garish fish swam along the inflated ...
Ella Borrie on the best books about motherhood she’s come across so far. Over the past few years I’ve been drawn to books about motherhood. I’m fascinated by the joys and horrors of becoming a parent. The question of children also feels more pressing than it used to. It’s like ...
Out of gift ideas for mum? You can’t go wrong with a bottle of toilet cleaner and a new squeegee. Emily Writes is the writer and editor of Emily Writes Weekly. This week marks five years since I published a post on The Spinoff about Mother’s Day marketing titled ‘A ...
My husband is posted overseas for 12 months and I’m armed with an expensive, newfangled vibrator. Will I miss him? The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.A few days after my husband leaves, a new sex toy arrives at the front door. Nestled ...
Jaimie Baird’s new book Here Today Gone Tomorrow is a record of four decades of graffiti and street art in Wellington, told through more than 1,200 photographs. He spoke with Joel MacManus about what inspired the book. How did you first get interested in photographing street art? I remember ...
Editor Madeleine Chapman looks back at a busy week where food of all political leanings dominated. Sometimes you’re just going about your week thinking you’ve got a good handle on what might be coming as far as news topics and then someone (usually a politician) says something so ridiculous that ...
In a week of cold rain and frost, the climate in courtroom four upstairs at the Invercargill courthouse was simmering with restrained indignation. At times it felt like the famous Mexican standoff scene from Reservoir Dogs, or, as someone watching the proceedings described it, there was so much throwing of ...
A banner notification alerts me to the fact that I’ve received an Instagram message from @felicity.loves. She always comments on my posts. I shouldn’t have opened the message, but clicked on the notification before rationalising this. OMG! Are you in Wellys? X I debate not replying, but Instagram will inform ...
In Melbourne’s hardscrabble western suburbs where AFL – Aussie rules football – is a state religion, Callum Donaldson has been quietly grafting away, four months into an odyssey that he hopes will take him to another promised land: the NRL. It was a solid 2023 for the softly spoken 20-year-old ...
Pacific Media Watch Television New Zealand Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver has been made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to investigative journalism and Pacific communities in a ceremony at Government House, reports 1News. She has been the Pacific correspondent for 1News since 2002, breaking many ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Tuesday’s budget will respond to the deepening public agitation over Australia’s housing shortages by pouring new money into crisis accommodation for women and children, social housing and infrastructure. A specially-convened national cabinet late Friday ticked ...
By Kaneta Naimatu in Suva Journalists in the Pacific region play an important role as the “eyes and ears on the ground” when it comes to reporting the climate crisis, says the European Union’s Pacific Ambassador Barbara Plinkert. Speaking at The University of the South Pacific (USP) on World Press ...
Aldora Itunu is back in the Black Ferns squad after a three-year absence. The last of her 24 internationals was an underwhelming loss to France (7-29) in Castres to conclude the disastrous 2021 Northern Tour. The powerhouse prop won a Rugby World Cup in 2017 and thought she was done. ...
The fight to control major transport policy and projects in Auckland has burst into the open again, with councillors rejecting Mayor Wayne Brown’s latest attempt to steer things more under his influence. Councillors from the left and right broke ranks on the mayor’s bid to control Auckland Transport more directly ...
Exhausted by the general election campaign, horrified by the twilight zone of coalition negotiations, distracted by the silly season and waiting for the honeymoon to begin, Raw Politics has been in hibernation since October. From today, we’re back. Our weekly political video show and podcast returns for ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk Authorities in the small town of Boulouparis have commemorated Armistice Day on May 8 with a new memorial honouring New Zealand soldiers who were stationed in New Caledonia during World War II. The ceremony took place in the township on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior lecturer, international migration and refugee law, University of Technology Sydney The High Court unanimously ruled today that the Australian government can keep asylum seekers in immigration detention indefinitely in cases where they do not “voluntarily” cooperate with their own ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Munro, Lecturer, Creative Industries and Digital Media, University of South Australia Twenty-four hours after the release of Macklemore’s pro-Palestine protest song Hind’s Hall on social media on May 7, the video had already notched up over 24 million views. In ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
Failing to anticipate the complexity of the consenting system is being cited as the the current builder's shortcomings, an Infrastructure Commission review says. ...
350 Aotearoa is calling the Environment Select Committee’s decision to allow oral submissions from just 40% of individual, unique submitters who asked to speak to the committee ‘a disgraceful blight to democracy’. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Helal, Assistant Dean (Sustainability), The University of Melbourne Dubai skylineAleksandarPasaric/Pexels Since ancient times, people have built structures that reach for the skies – from the steep spires of medieval towers to the grand domes of ancient cathedrals and mosques. Today ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Musole, PhD Law Student, University of New England Girts Ragelis/ShutterstockRecent trends show Australians are increasingly buying wearables such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. These electronics track our body movements or vital signs to provide data throughout the day, with ...
Papua New Guinea experienced a significant earthquake on 24 March in East Sepik and there has also been recent flooding there and in surrounding provinces. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yousuf Mohammed, Dermatology researcher, The University of Queensland Maridav/Shutterstock You wake up, stagger to the bathroom and gaze into the mirror. No, you’re not imagining it. You’ve developed face wrinkles overnight. They’re sleep wrinkles. Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your ...
The Environment Select Committee has just announced that 60 percent of individuals who asked to speak at the hearings will not be heard. This equates to almost 700 people who made individual submissions and more than 1000 more who made a form submission. ...
The Royal New Zealand Ballet is performing Swan Lake around the country. What kind of dream does the ballet sell?Before going to see the Royal New Zealand Ballet perform Swan Lake, I had about as much familiarity with the plot of this ballet as could be expected from having ...
A new poem by Auckland poet Eamonn Tee. High Tide at Local Maxima It is only going to get worse. The streams will be narrow and fickle. The week will bend and buckle like a pot-bellied waist. You will make it to the weekend with one ...
The New Zealand entrepreneur behind beauty business Ethique is gearing up to launch a new eco-venture. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Our thirst for a tasty bevvy is insatiable, but it comes with a hefty plastic price for the planet: 580 billion ...
The only published and available 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 James by Percival Everett (Mantle, $38) A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from ...
By Kamna Kumar in Suva Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna stressed the importance of media freedom and its link to the climate and environmental crisis at the 2024 World Press Freedom Day event organised by the University of the South Pacific’s journalism programme. Under the theme “A Planet for ...
Tara Ward previews a new local TV series offering alternative visions of motherhood. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. A woman is clambering up the side of her two-story house, clinging desperately to a drainpipe. Nearby, her child is perched on the ...
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is supportive of the cross-party approach to climate adaptation announced by the Minister of Climate Change today. ...
The Sustainable Business Council (SBC) and Climate Leaders Coalition (CLC) welcome today’s announcement from Government around a bipartisan inquiry into an enduring climate adaptation framework for New Zealand. ...
The Free Speech Union welcomes the decision by the Department of Internal Affairs, and Minister Brooke Van Velden, to abandon proposals to further regulate online speech. ...
Its new building in Wellington will not be nearly big enough for all its records, and it has also run out of money to build its new storage facility in Levin. ...
BusinessNZ is congratulating the Minister of Climate Change for his work in achieving cross-party consensus for a way forward on climate adaptation. ...
Recent research reveals the repeal of smokefree measures is not only bad for our health, but also the economy. The Government has repealed various smokefree measures to ensure it keeps collecting $1.2 billion a year in tobacco taxes, in order to pay for tax cuts already being delivered to ...
The club’s surprisingly good season is built on the desire to prove a random A-League YouTuber wrong… and a few other factors.“There’s no way that Wellington Phoenix play finals this year. I can’t see it happening at all.” Those are the words of Lachlan Raeside, an Australian football content ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By César Albarrán-Torres, Senior Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, Swinburne University of Technology Apple TV+ As one of billions of bilingual individuals in the world, it disappoints me when a film or TV show with characters of a non-English-speaking background is ...
The under-utilised course is a waste of space, and with a little political will, it could be turned into something better. For the duration of her stay in Wellington, my long-suffering cousin listened to me rant about golf courses. They’re bad for the environment: water intensive and pesticide heavy. They ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, Podcast at MissPerceived, The University of Melbourne Shutterstock A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows US fertility rates dropped 2% in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Corderoy, Medical doctor and PhD candidate studying involuntary psychiatric treatment, School of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney shop_py/Shutterstock Picture two people, both suffering from a serious mental illness requiring hospital admission. One was born in Australia, the other in Asia. Hopefully, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Treby, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, RMIT University P.j.Hickox, Shutterstock Peatlands store more carbon per square metre than any other ecosystem on Earth. These waterlogged, mossy bogs beat even dense rainforests for their ability to act as carbon reservoirs. Under the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Goss, Adjunct Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra Government spending on health has been growing so rapidly that a decade ago the then health minister Peter Dutton called it “unmanageable” and “unsustainable”. Health spending grew in real terms by ...
New Zealand's largest electricity distributor is warning the country to hurry up with controls around charging electric vehicles or face unnecessary bills running into the billions. ...
New Zealanders have been asked to conserve energy this morning to combat a possible electricity shortfall, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A call to conserve power New Zealand is facing a possible electricity shortfall, with people up ...
Writer Rebecca K Reilly breaks down the national book awards. What are the Ockhams?The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are our annual national awards for books published for adults, and have existed in this form since 2016. There are four categories: Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction and Illustrated Non-fiction. There ...
'
Is it time to look into the abyss yet?
How to look into the abyss, fall in, and not have an idea of how to get out? Jenny How to Get There will show us the way.
At least she recognises the cliff we are all running towards full speed.
we patently still need people ringing the alarm bell even if they don’t know how to stop the stampede. Others know but the bell still needs to be rung.
We have lots of good people here who know all that Jennyhtgt says – no need to fill the posts repeating it. And often with that mocking, all-knowing jibe at the pollies. It is really irritating. It's better to have one rant every now and then than trailing disappointment and discontent with whoever in the government in each comment.
What we need is keeping on with the next steps being talked about at length, discussed etc as has been done with the electricity thing below. Otherwise we end up with a lot of whining, and whys, and appearing like wimps who don't know their A from their E. Citizens need to be thinking up policy, stuff that will work, and not be too expensive. And show how we can get it going, and keep on about that. And notice when someone goes OTT with plans, and notice when something good does get done. And what we think about it, is it the best thing to be done at present, or is there another way.
How we can get out of the hole we are in is paramount. And arguing for sensible things, rather than just rushing out to protest all the time. If we can;t get good stuff going and show that we are not goofs that pollies can ignore or throw nice-sounding policies that meet some kindness criteria but are not practical, we are in deep doo-doo next election.
We don't want Labour going off on a n'uclear' path and leavng their rear undefended so that our pockets get pinched by fast-fingered-financial-finaglers like the nerds in Treasury and the right-wing think tanks as before. Now we have the sharpies using their tech education to build armaments and space weapons and trying to sell us robotics because employers can't get the trained people they want to employ. Great government – look what a f..k up you made, stepping back and leaving it to business to do the thinking and organise the educated people they would want for future employees/
And look what has happened to us by leaving others to run the country while we thought we could just skive off and were relaxing thinking we had it made. That's 20th century stuff, now Labour needs people who can think about social welfare, and business at the same time.
This has turned out a rant. So I will add something else I think we need. That is all pollies will have to go through an educational program, which includes humanities and social anthropology as well as business direction, and the environment looking at dairying destruction for one and desertification and desecration of the fertile areas of the earth for minerals etc. And rehashing the idea that progress is good, and physical work and the simple life are for losers and peasants. And perhaps the government terms will be four years, and the pollies must step down and out into private life after three terms – 12 years. And we will learn how to live simply and save up for things, and how to get a house when you have saved a certain amount, just a small one but your own to get started with. Lovely first aims, of what young adults want, achievable and not never-never land. With some happiness in just being and living in a country with people who are interested in each other doing good things, and all enjoy life and work together to cope with climate change and some sort of hostilities, two inevitabilities.
I don't know if we fall into this abyss that there is a way to get out.
But what I do know, is that BAU cannot continue in the present.
Building a bridge for bicycles costing hudreds aof millions of dollars so as not to impinge on cars having untrammelled use of an eight lane motorway in the heart of our biggest city, is BAU folly of the highest order.
Does the design for this modern folly incorporate a storm cellar, or escape tunnel inside its structure?
The answer is blowing in the wind
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/444472/new-zealand-s-use-of-coal-for-electricity-generation-surges
It's good to know that when us cockies buy all these ev Utes well have clean green power for them 😏
See a coal mine. Shut it down.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842807177/pandemic-shutdown-is-speeding-up-the-collapse-of-coal#:~:text=Since%20the%20coronavirus%20hit%20the%20U.S.%2C%20coal%20mines,a%20coal%20analyst%20at%20the%20firm%20Wood%20Mackenzie.
Hopefully by the time the agrarian sector is driving around in electric utes and tractors, Huntly will be de-commissioned. Currently Huntly provides the backup when there's no wind and / or low lake levels.
Current best looking replacement is pumped hydro storage at Lake Onslow in Otago. I say hopefully because it's a project with a few tricky aspects, top of the list being how the hell we integrate it within the current current market of four publicly listed gentailers. It's logical owner would be Contact since it would draw most of it's power from Roxburgh and Clyde at high flows, Clyde has provision for two extra turbines intended for this, but it's so big that Contact would then dominate the electricity market. It's also at the wrong end of the country, but if the bulk of generation to power the fleet comes from Manapouri (see Andre below) the transmission issues will be dealt with.
Huntly provided that backup in the first three months of this year – we burned more coal for electricity in the past ten years due to low lake levels! https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/climate-change-new-zealand-burns-most-coal-for-electricity-in-nearly-a-decade/MH6J3LMMFMMHRY2TH44G2PJSRU/
Maybe we should nationalise Contact, thus taking it out of the market.
Just before Onslow appeared in the media Contact's share price took a bit of a spike. May have been related… maybe not
Cockies often have lots of roof space to put PV panels on. They also tend to get seriously bent over by local lines companies. They often have a large supply of what is currently a problematic waste to dispose of, that could get digested into a gas supply for powering a generator for backup.
I think there might solutions that lower costs and increase independence for cockies …
Kinda missing the point ,about nz importing coal from Indonesia!!
Typical rich.country behaviour, shut you own dirty mines/factories/ behaviours down and offshore what you can and sneak around in the shadows do dirty shit while acting high and mighty,.
We're starting to be like Europe.
This is my issue we are off shoring our emissions and patting ourselves on the back, in reality we are are likely increasing global emissions.
Its a global problem that needs global solutions, best ROI to rapidly drop emissions globally would be to focus on the devloping world stop the deforestation, build renewables etc. Lots of currently available tech would make huge difference if we deploy it globally.
On average 80% of electricity is generated from renewables. Some perspective in the arguments would be helpful. These sort of antics don’t help either.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/121980237/meridian-involved-in-undesirable-trading-situation-says-electricity-authority-in-preliminary-decision
Overheard a very irate ute owner jabbering on about Indonesian coal getting trucked to huntly at 20 loads a day yesterday, and I thought to much fb for that butter sounds like they are telling the truth.
How will we power 2 million evs in 10 years? .
How will we power 2 million evs in 10 years? .
Who cares?
Time to stop playing games.
As someone who will put their body in front of the diggers if they try to dam another South Island river, I care, a great deal.
"How will we power 2 million evs in 10 years? ."
I think we can safely say we wont be.
Yep
I concur with that.
Even with the rebate, most of us still won't be able to afford them.
The infrastructure for them is not there.
Even if it was there, it would struggle to cope with 2 million of them.
Only vastly expanded public transport network could be converted to electricity at a speed and a cost that will make a difference.
Four for the price of one.
with tiwai point smelter shutting down, there will be plenty of electricity generation up for use. and as most ev's should be charged at night(off peak) there shouldnt be much for ute owners to jabber about. hopefully petrol and diesel prices will go through the roof and the last few ute jabberers can have that to whinge about. OR, the ute owners could be pro-active(for a change) and convert there petrol utes to lpg (gee, that sounds familiar) and have clean burning energy..nah, much easier to play the victim….
Do you have the numbers on what Tiwai uses compared to EV use? Is that more of a guess or hopeful thinking?
A quick calculation sez Tiwai Point uses something like 5.4 billion kWhr per year. A light vehicle can go around 7 km on a kWhr. So Tiwai Point's electricity use could drive a light vehicle 38 billion km. There's around 3.6 million light vehicles in NZ, averaging around 12000 km/year, or around 43 billion vehicle kilometres annually.
So shutting Tiwai Point would almost cover swapping all light vehicles in New Zealand over to electric.
(repeated from this 2019 comment: https://thestandard.org.nz/100-carbon-free-power-generation/#comment-1631961)
Ta! So interim partial supply but not enough for trucks, buses, trains, industry and increasing population.
Yeah, to cover the buses, trucks, trains etc as well we'd need to get a move on with building some of the already consented wind and geothermal projects that have been shelved because of flat demand and the ever-present threat of Tiwai Point shutting and dumping all that excess power into the market.
Probably also need some hefty pumped storage,like the Onslow-Manorburn basin and/or around Lake Moawhango and the headwaters of the Ngaruroro.
Wind ?
During last week at the morning peak the wind output was around 15% of its capacity in NI ( which is 700MW)., its currently at 23% – which is typical.
geothermal is more like 80% of capacity which is typical as they have to allow for reserve generation which can be accesed quickly
Most geothermal power technologies really don't like being ramped up and down. So they're great for continuous baseload power.
Yes, wind has its intermittency problem. Hence the merit in adding substantial pumped hydro storage. Overall, wind in NZ seems to operate at around 35% capacity factor on an annual basis. That should increase as installed turbines get larger, maybe getting up to around 40% fleet average.
So to add another Manapouri's worth of generation to supply electric buses, trucks etc would require installing maybe 1800MW of wind plus pumped hydro storage, or 700ish MW of geothermal. Or do both to have enough generation capacity to completely electrify NZ land transport plus shut down Huntly and Stratford. I only got a short way down the list of consented projects and there was well over 2000 MW of wind consented, together with around 300MW of geothermal.
what happens when that's not enough?
What about solar panels on homeowners roofs?
I know quite a few EV owners who use their own solar to charge their EVs
It's all solvable, with changes in behaviour, living within our means, utilising local and owner generation as well as national grid, electricitysector regulation. But we're not having that conversation nationally atm. Instead we're having the green tech BAU, reductionist paradigm one, where we continue to think that the world is an unlimited resource.
(and that's not even getting to the issues of how much GHGs we're emitting to go down this cul de sac).
If EVs become more prevalent, Savonius rotors make a pretty readily managed home charge option. Crunches are likely in things like battery supply and disposal however.
Biggest constraint will be transmission, most of the bulk generation is in the south, especially wind. There's also distributed generation, solar roofs with batteries. All this will need / result in a rather different electricity generation and distribution market to what we have now.
As well as reducing demand via such tech as passive solar building. We're still a long way from this conversation though.
I built a semi passive house in early 90's (suspended wooden floor so not quite the full thing) and am surprised at the quiet uptake of passive principles in building design. Often not that overt but you can see designers taking opportunities that present themselves.
Nukes.
(Ad, you can roast me now for giving RedLogix an entry to burbling on about them again)
Lol, no way will NZ go down that path (quakes, tsunamis, economics, waste disposal, indigenous sovereignty, and a very strong anti-nuke culture in the general population).
But it would go some way to explaining why so many people aren’t talking about EVs and power generation, the hope that we will have some inexhaustable source of power in the future.
Truck ,tractors, earth movers and forestry machines will have to be hydrogen surely
If you do a search for an electric version of whatever kind of land vehicle you're interested in, your chances of getting hits are now pretty good. Scandinavian companies seem to be leading the way, at least in wealthy western countries.
There's a variety of options for 'refueling', from quick-swap batteries, to running electricity in to longer-term job sites.
Heh, the Google algorithms are getting smarter, not better
Where will the hydrogen come from?
When a Mummy hydrogen and a Daddy hydrogen really love each other…
Sorry weka, it's one of my favourite lines, I couldn't resist.
Lol.
Oh. 🙂
Not necessarily
All the biggest earth movers on the planet are electrically powered and connected to the grid with high tension trailing power cables, which are moved every day.
Ironic really, because they are used to dig for low grade lignite. Which is used for burning in electric power stations, to power, wait for it, electric excavators, connected to the grid by high voltage trailing cables.
You'd power the freight and public transit first. Individual vehicles cannot be the priority in a carbon-focused future.
Here’s hoping we get smart enough to do that
Takes leadership.
That would be nice too.
If Tiwai point was not operating today,there would still be a shortfall of 300mw,without increased use from EV.
how come?
That is the amount of FF generation that needs to be replaced ie the EV will be running on FF electricity.
https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data
yeah, I didn't get what you meant by increased use. I thought you were saying that if Tiwai closed today the freed up power wouldn't be enough to replace all the gas and coal currently burned. Is that right?
yep
did you see this? https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19-06-2021/#comment-1798935
If we want off FF, Tiwai closing will almost get us there. That's before the EV fleet upgrade.
Yes.
Have you seen any my many comments about the numerous consented and shelved renewable energy projects? Shelved at least partly because of the ever-present threat of Tiwai Point closing and that power flooding the current market?
That’s a regulatory issue right? The market can’t do the thing that society needs right now. Although I assume you and I disagree on what projects should happen.
If we want off FF, Tiwai closing will almost get us there.
That was weekend daytime ,night time demand has now increased by the size of manapouri (5.8 gw vs 4.9) very difficult to ban night time.
Your quick calculation misses transmission & distribution losses (~7%), and losses in charging the ev battery (12-15%). That's about 20% of the energy wasted.
Then there's the consideration of whether allowing business as usual mobility is the best use of Manapouri's generation, because we also have to shut down our coal & gas generation. A lot of our mobility energy consumption can be significantly reduced by providing comprehensive public transport.
Another issue not often discussed is whether there will be a good supply of reasonably priced EVs. Most other countries are not in the position of having low emission generation. If they are to reduce their fossil generation they won't have electricity for vehicle charging, so there will not be a large demand for EVs and so efficiencies of mass production will not be achieved. NZ will never have enough sales to influence that.
Yep. So many holes in the half arsed plan
EVs are unfortunately not quite there yet in terms of battery technology. The reason is the charging system and the hardware that demands high waste, high environmental damage and exploitation of people. But hey, who cares, right? I mean its colonization in a different way all over again. Maybe we can sell the rubbish battery waste back to those who were exploited and give them "work" to diassemble the stuff that rich countries so eagerly buy. So lets celebrate this and encourage more of the exploitation, degradation of a continent and pat ourselves on the shoulder how good we are doing the "right" thing.
Ah yes, no thinking required, just a cocktail in hand musing over a 100K car.
colonisation without the bothersome people dying/getting disabled/being poor or child labour in our backyard, but somewhere out of sight.
Lots going on in the battery world.
Bloomberg; The next generation of batteries.
QuantumScape says its technology is ready to move from the lab to VW’s dealerships. But this secretive startup is very familiar with failure.
https://archive.is/1MG9A (Bloomberg)
Solid state batteries are safer and use fewer raw materials. Are they the answer to technology’s power problem and a threat to Tesla’s dominance?
https://archive.is/n4H3n (FT)
Not to mention stuff like LFP (lithium ferro phosphate or LiFePO4). No cobalt or nickel. Already good enough for Tesla's lowest-spec made in China models and good enough for BYD electric trucks and electric buses.
Waste is still an issue. NZ has no means of dismantling, separating metals etc.
Lithium batteries are hazardous materials and regulated except in NZ. The lifetime of a battery is about 2 years and they will most likely go to landfills.
Perhaps before we sponsor those rather expensive cars for the few who can afford it, we should start "sponsoring" a disposal plant first. Because you cannot just ship the batteries like pebbles around the globe.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/111367821/what-happens-to-all-those-ev-batteries
When it comes to a fast-moving technical topic, it's probably best to scan the first couple of pages of google results for credible up-to-date articles, rather than just clicking the first hit which might be two years out of date from a mass-market msm publisher that doesn't really understand the topic.
Here's just one of the many efforts starting up now that there are starting to be significant quantities of used ev batteries to be recycled:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/06/14/redwood-materials-spending-hundreds-of-millions-to-speed-recycling-for-ev-batteries/?sh=58762e77b643
Or somewhat of a more technical overview of different recycling and materials recovery techniques:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/millions-electric-cars-are-coming-what-happens-all-dead-batteries:
When it comes to disposal, what do you think would stop the shipment of end-of-life ev batteries? They would be much higher value than recyclable plastic or paper, and those are routinely shipped all around the world. Sure, the batteries would need to be fully discharged first for safety, but that's a very easy operation.
And once more, it seems exporting a problem and not dealing with the full cycle of a product is the preferred solution. As I have mentioned, NZ has no means of recycling lithium batteries. To ship them, special permits are needed. Not from NZ but the country of destination. Never mind, its not worth getting all upset about it.
[typo fixed in e-mail address]
Hi Woodie, Did you know that aluminium can be used as a fuel?
It has heaps of embedded electrical energy in it, and has been used for generations in fireworks and explosives.
Powered and fed into a furnace it burns hotter than coal
Better yet, when aluminium powder is burnt as a fuel it releases zero green house gas emissiions.
And it's infinitely recyclable, no need to import any more bauxite from Aussie.
We could use the existing Tiwai Smelter to re-refine it, and ship it all over the country, and then return it when it is spent, in a closed cycle.
(The energy embedded in aluminium comes from the electricity in the refining process).
Could we see the rebirth of the external combustion engine, (commonly and collectively known as steam engines), being used to power ships and trains and industrual boilers?
Could steam engine locomotives powered by aluminium powder one day be seen again on the Main Trumk Line?
Let's bring back the Kingston Flyer from retirement as a test bed. (See if it still flies.)
Steam Punk was begun in New Zealand.
Rather than a retro movement harking back to a long dead era, Steam Punks, might just possibly be, ahead of their time.
https://boingboing.net/2015/01/12/a-visit-to-steampunk-hq-new-z.html
Refining aluminium is a pretty carbon heavy process – it relies on sacrificial carbon anodes that are cured at high temperatures for up to a month. The electricity only shifts the direction of the reaction so that the carbon reduces the alumina – the carbon still burns.
You are right of course
The aluminium industry produces 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
(this figure is inclusive of non-renewable electricity generation from coal and gas).
The anode is used to carry the electrical energy to the cathode, which in this case is the molten aluminium bath. The anode which is connected to the electricity supply is driven into the molten aluminium which creates a high temperature arc which melts the aluminium, while eroding the anode, which has to be continually replaced.
Research is being carried out into non-eroding, or inert annodes, and/or low erosion anodes that don't bond with oxygen to form CO2. (or don't do so as much).
However, all is not lost. coal produces 38% of green house gas emissions.
If all the coal burnt in the world was replaced with aluminium powder, and all that aluminium was reduced with renewable electricity. Even if aluminium production increased by a multiple of ten, we should still be better off.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/26/climate-change-coal-still-king-global-carbon-emissions-soar/3276401002/
Of course you don’t just switch off the smelter and hey presto electricity for cars. Five to eight years of investment needed first.
https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.rnz.co.nz/article/7e5f0aae-6e75-4eb9-b627-f3690467b0ae
So it’s a bit like the fabled electric utes. Introduce a car tax now, burn double to coal and the infrastructure will follow in 5 or so years time, maybe.
Wouldn't it be cheaper and quicker to convert the smelter into making aluminium fuel powder instead of ingots? All that needs to be done to create aluminium fuel power is to spray it when it is still molten.
The aluminium fuel could then be shipped around the country to replace coal in all our industrial processes, including the Huntly Power Station.
Coal is a solid fuel – The combustion of coal in power plants and industrial processes is the number one source of the green house emissions responsible for global warming and climate change.
Aluminium powder like coal is a solid fuel – Aluminium powder burns hotter than coal, but unlike coal produces none of the emissions responsible for global warming and climate change.
We do it in small as well as big parcels. My 13 solar panels will produce some 5000 kw/h annually. My Leaf will use 1600 kw/h to travel 12000 km in a year.
Note: 1 in 4 Australian homes has solar panels. NZ has 32000 homes (there are 1.9 million households in NZ) with solar power at the end of March- that's 1:60! Australia has 10.2 million households and therefore 2.5 million houses with solar panels. In 2018 it had 1.96 million so equipped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_New_Zealand
That kind of commitment to solar energy would power a lot of EVs.
Spoke to a fellow takeaways customer last night who enquired after my Leaf. He works in a vineyard where he could see possible expansive use of electric vehicles and machinery. No interest at all from management when he raised the topic.
Yet, as he said, we have driven electric forklifts for years.
Your solar panels and 5000 kw\h annually , The low user household number is 8000kWhr – when they no longer qualify for low user daily charges
You will cetainly be taking a grid feed – during peak hours, the 'worst time'- to keep your lights on
Australia is quite unique in its solar power uptake because it has a lot of sun, well ahead of most of NZ- dont forget the shorter daylight hours in winter , and the low level of the sun in the sky
My point really is that homes and businesses supplied by solar power can help with the greater demand imposed by EVs.
Produce 5 Mw and use 1.6 Mw in the EV.
Yes Huntly has been running for some months as there is a shortage of gas capacity due to a Taranaki NG processing site having long scheduled maintenance.
The Huntly site which has a gas turbine alongside the last 2 thermal coal boilers operating has been very high output, 600MW plus – as it was originally designed for as a baseload station, not feeding in for morning and night as many other stations do. Any fossil fuel used has to pay carbon taxes on that. As well the power consumption at Auckland which is fed by medium distance lines needs a generator not far away to cover the voltage drop from long distance lines, theres a small GT at Otara plus one at Huntly ( quick start ups)
By then the biggest emitters of most of the GHGs, China, Russia, India etc will probably not even have started cutting back on emissions and coal fired power stations will be springing up everywhere. Global emissions will be accelerating and little ole NZ will be chock full of EVs and will have made absolutely no difference.
Sorry to disappoint you you ya old curmudgeon, but just because other countries possible arnt acting is not a reason to not do the right thing,
Driving a country into the ground because our leaders want to virtue signal when it will have absolutely no effect is criminal.. So when our economy and society is completely destroyed, China, India, and Russia will decide to follow our example?
Can you provide any actual evidence that our economy is being driven into the ground,? Or are you just a staunch blue team member who thinks bring their moron memes here is going get you somewhere?
Grumpy, you sound like part of the choir, a year ago, screeching on behalf of 'the economy'.
The peril it faced with the lockdowns.
Turn the record over.
Hi Waghorn,
If you think topping up their EVs will be front and centre of people's minds. You have just not been paying attention.
There are people alive now who will experience the biggest biosphere collapse since the Chixilube extinction event.
Scrambling for higher ground, trying to reserve a space in a storm cellar. Trying to survive frequent extreme weather events, crop failures, might be the sort of things exercising people's minds more than topping up their EV.
Huh?
I thought we were trying to avoid a disaster!?
In any case, nobody can do anything about a big brick from space hitting Earth.
Bruce Willis can
I think Jenny is thinking more Mel Gibson.
lol
Well, that was an interesting and wide-ranging thread.
The "importing coal" reminds me of demands for migrant labour. Smacks of the same thing – outsourcing our unacceptable demands.
Vulva owners*, what say ye? I say fuck the neoliberal capture of social justice and the planet burning machine it rode in on. Also Fuck the parts of the left sanctioning this.
https://twitter.com/croneinamillion/status/1406024421467463685
*the class of humans formerly known as women.
A good little media roundup, which gives a glimpse of the frustrations and annoyances of the Stuff gallery reporters.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/125489106/points-of-order-there-are-wellqualified-and-incisive-political-commentators-and-there-is-peter-dunne
It is a powerful image and well done to Robert Kitchin for capturing it, particularly as Sio appears to have finished his address is leaving the stage. He's taken his glasses off, picked up his notes, it's done. This is a dangerous time for photographers because you tend to down tools as something finishes.
His assignment that day would have been quite dry, shooting people talking in press conferences. He would have done this hundreds of times and constantly wondered how to make interesting, meaningful images from such familiar and structured circumstances.
Then just as it's all over, Alan Wendt produces such a simple, human gesture which we all immediately and emotionally connect with. Very, very easy to miss, and it requires a lot of skill and experience to keep alert in those crucial moments.
High praise from me for that, but the rest of the article is utter rubbish. It's anonymous, sniffy, hurt, self-indulgent, lazy, and hypocritical. The last is what makes me quietly rage. The anonymous Stuff gallery reporters claim the Facebook pages of Ardern and Robertson "ripped off" the image and failed to attribute it properly.
Well, cry me a fucking river.
At least Ardern and Roberston's social media handlers made an attempt to credit the photographer, despite committing the terrible crime of misspelling his name. Stuff and New Zealand media have an appalling culture of not crediting photographers. They almost never attribute or caption work properly outside of their own navel-gazing organisations. I see it every single day. It happens to me more weeks than not and I don’t shit the bed over it. Stuff and others are lazy in the extreme, and for them to act all huffy in this instance is hypocrisy in the extreme.
Accuracy? Stuff are woefully off target here.
A robust statement of and for the impartiality and objectivity of NZ journalism in general and Stuff’s journalism in particular.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/about-stuff/125478666/the-backstory-why-government-money-doesnt-corrupt-our-journalism
Powerful to account ? media babble is always about (ordinary) peoples stories, as that gets readers eyeballs which is the most important part of their business
'news' is a bad word these days , as they want to talk 'stories, engagement, perspectives, conversations' and other buzz words.
Hard news is dead! The most 'read stories' on NT Times is the recipes, which anyone can see well positioned on their digital front page.
sigh
Hint: there’s a hint in the headline as to what the article is about and it is not about recipes.
This is at the top of the piece with the complete documentary of over 38 min.
If journalism was in the pockets of government, this would never have been aired.
I assume you don’t read TS for its recipes either, but it is a good idea for improving its readership statistics
the line quoted -'Holding the powerful to account is now, and will remain, a core job of journalists'
It just isnt true , the readers of a major 'new's site like NY Times show that the recipes come first. NZ news sites are even fuller of flim flam lifestyle stories and shilling for the property industry
The newer online only places like Newsroom and Spinoff are even more directly as 'copywriters' for their business supporters. Like this sponsored piece written by the very capable Russell Brown- wheres the investigative pieces from him – no sponsors ?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/partner/nz-post/14-06-2021/more-faster-how-nz-post-is-learning-growing-and-evolving/
I disagree with you. Stuff is not the NY Times, Newsroom, nor Spinoff although it does cross-post regularly from Newsroom.
None of these are “flim flam lifestyle stories and shilling for the property industry” or recipes. Sure, those are present as well, they have to make a living too, don’t they. It is actually mentioned in the article I quoted. A news site such as Stuff will (have to) do all of the above, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They don’t cater just for intellectual snobs, Thorndon bubble, foodies, house porn addicts, or what have you.
I really don’t see how you came to this description of Newsroom as “even more directly as 'copywriters' for their business supporters”, but I guess I’ve been reading a completely different Newsroom. I can only assume that you’re referring to its partners at the bottom of the home page.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/about
You seem to be insinuating the exact thing that the Stuff article was countering. Just as well, I try to avoid falling in the binary trap and see things differently, so we have to agree to disagree here.
You got this wrong, sorry to say. Out of some 60 minutes news, 26 are advertisements, 24 are sport, 5 are for local stories and 5 are for flim flam.
Its only 5 minutes flim flam, LOL.
"The idea of being captured by the government gives us an allergic reaction"
Excellent – so if they can add to that an allergy to being captured by their own funders and owners, and even by the interests of the social class to which they themselves belong – then we're really getting somewhere.
Note: Stuff seems much improved since the sell-off and I'm generally OK with it. Some others, not so much.
Yes, I also like to think that Stuff has improved and that they’re not sitting on their laurels.
However, you make the same unsupported and unfounded (IMO) accusations. There seems much bias against NZ journalism and not without some reason, may I add, but some are definitely trying harder than others.
And here’s the most relevant bit to your accusation:
On trans women’s physiological advantage when competing in women’s sports. Look at the charts in the Twitter thread. The argument is often made that tw train harder than women and that’s why they jump to top ranking when shifting to women’s categories. Does this seem likely with these figures?
https://twitter.com/wackypidgeon/status/1399432743314853889
Not that 'amateur' sports medicine researcher Emma Hilton again. The one that has a published research on trans women which didnt include any trans women athletes
[please provide evidence (a cut and paste with link, not just a link) to back up your claim here, so we can all know what you are talking about rather than just being left with the ad hom – weka]
mod note for you.
It was the link you asked us to read last time , and it included the actual online paper published . I made those same comments based on actual words in the paper then, which you dismissed . Surely you read relevant parts of the paper ?
Hilton works as a research technician in another area completely from sports medicine and has had no previous research published in sports medicine so she an amateur in my opinion
Its all very well to show stuff from twitter, but as we all found out during covid self appointed experts were very common who had an academic background but no knowledge of infectious diseases and their epidemiology. A court would never allow expert witness testimony from someone who was a proven expert ON a topic
[post a cut and paste and link explaining your claim about Hilton and “published research on trans women which didnt include any trans women athletes” or you will get a short ban so you don’t derail the discussion. – weka]
2nd mod note and warning. What I am asking for is not difficult.
FYI, TS is not a Court but a place for supported opinions and arguments and robust debate, and the odd joke.
There are very few mind readers among the TS readership and there are very few who remember the previous exchange on this exact issue.
I have no idea what they're referring to, I read and comment so much on TS and twitter, few people can keep all that in their head. I'm also not doing someone else's work for them.
Wrong end of the stick stuff.
It happens.
sorry, who has the wrong end of the stick?
Not you.
It was barely two weeks ago.
Two weeks is a long time in politics.
In any case, they could have linked to that instead of turning it into a tortuous teeth-pulling post.
Dr Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist and Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, and teaches in her field. She has a particular interest in the science of biological sex and writes and speaks about this, including in the WSJ and runs the Nettie Project supported by many scientists and academics across a range of disciplines (who obviously don't have your prejudice about cross disciplinary work).
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/emma-hilton-2bb86830
You appear to be saying that no-one can have an informed opinion about sports medicine other than sports medicine researchers. Which is obviously a stupid position to take because it would invalidate your own (I'm assuming you're not a sports medicine researcher).
If Hilton is making bad arguments, then address them and demonstrate how they are bad. That you think her being a lowly research technician (afaik she's not) is sufficient to write off her work says something about your own views on hierarchy and power. As a non-academic, I'm much more interested in whether what she says makes sense.
Sorry for the delay but had other things to attend to
Emma Hiltons amateur status regarding sports medicine. her other contributions in publications are her specialist area of infections and such
https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/emma.hilton.html
Division of Infection, Immunity & Respiratory Medicine
And from the article in 'Sports Medicine' direct quotes
Males huh ?
In my view its junk science, while its not new researach undertaken and its merely a publications review, it has so many caveats that dont make it viable for drawing any conclusions about ‘transwomen athletes’
[formatting edited for clarity. Italicised emphaisis added by Ghost – weka]
Re Hilton's work, this from her twitter 2 years ago when challenged about her qualifications,
See also https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19-06-2021/#comment-1798912
Edited.
that's why those of us that run online spaces based in debate culture get seriously annoyed with lazy ad homs.
I get annoyed with unqualified researchers putting oar in . You seem to think shes an expert on this area and thus worth quoting her 'twitter'
Shes not even a post doc in sports medicine, which the bottom rung of the research ladder. A persons qualifications and background are important in academic research – that why their publications and university position are at very top of the paper.
Too bad if that raised as a problem
Your annoyance is noted.
Hilton is a scientist with enough expertise to comment on research. I also consider her an expert commentator on gender critical social issues and how those relate to sport. As I said, I don’t believe the only people who should be read are those with direct research experience. Eg science journalists have relevant experience to bridge between researchers and the public.
And, you seem to have misrepresented Hilton’s expertise.
"Males huh ?"
What's your point? The research is looking at what physiological advantage biological males have over females, that is conferred at puberty.
Seems pretty normal for researchers to suggest further research is needed. This is how science works, it builds on the work of previous research.
And yet you don't explain how it is junk science or why it's not useful in the debate about whether TW should compete in all women's sports. All you've said is that it doesn't include TW, but studies on male physiology is relevant (most TW are born biologically male, most go through male puberty, and many have no or minimal medical transition), and research is still in the early stages.
Are her facts not acceptable to you?
Quoting results from one event at one (open entry) competition four years ago in the career of one trans athlete is called "cherry picking" and displays bias.
To show an opposite bias, one might point to the 2019 world champs where Hubbard pulled a similar weight to 2017 and came in sixth place. But that would be equally dishonest, because assuming one case to be typical of a population is stupid.
Interviews with Michael Wood and Julie Anne Genter on that Bridge.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/cycling-bridge-opponents-would-be-angry-if-lane-on-existing-bridge-was-used-instead-green-mp-julie-anne-genter.html
After reading this and Sam Stubb’s opinion piece yesterday, I’m almost inclined to write a full post on it but “who cares?”.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300333655/i-should-be-a-fan-of-aucklands-proposed-cycle-and-pedestrian-bridge–but-im-not
Remember this motorway that was cancelled by new government in 2018
The EWL was a $1.85 billion priority roading project of the last Government, connecting State Highway 20 at Onehunga and State Highway 1 at Mt Wellington
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/98489560/defunct-eastwest-link-cost-taxpayers-50-million
What is your point?
What does it have to do with my comment?
What is the relevance to the latest plan to build a new walking & cycling bridge?
It was a massive vanity project , with incredible costs, of the last government, the cycling bridge – which I think is aspirational rather than practical- was about half that.
Its Open Mike isnt it , where the commenting is more free flowing
sigh
Sure it is, and when you post a flow of consciousness expect non-mind reading people to ask for clarification. I hope that’s ok with you
Essentially, what I believe you’re trying to convey here is that the walking & cycling bridge is a semi-massive vanity project or a massive semi-vanity project because, you know, it costs a lot of money.
No. I said the EW Motorway was an expensive project- twice that of the cycling bridge- that was cancelled.
Thats its relevance, is as the cost is what has 'aroused hearts and minds' over the cycling bridge.
No it didnt say 'the bridge' is a vanity project at all . Im still curious about the whole idea thus the aspirational tag.
Its easier if you leave the part about what I said to me.
Thank you for your clear and concise clarification.
I still have no idea why you brought up the cancelled EW M-way, but I can live with this for another day.
I have no idea what you mean by “aspirational” but my will to ask and find out has disappeared.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Billy's heir.
The woman whom thousands of Canadians believe is their secret ruler isn’t afraid to tell her followers she’s calling for the executions of health care workers and politicians behind the vaccination rollout.
“At the firing squad, the military firing squad, you will receive not one, but two bullets on your forehead for each child that you have harmed as a result of injecting this experimental vaccine,” said Romana Didulo* to those involved in vaccination efforts in a recent video on Telegram. “So when you go home tonight, think about how many bullets.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqvkw/qanons-are-harassing-people-at-the-whim-of-a-woman-they-say-is-canadas-queen-romana-didulo
I Am Our Donald*
Tim Shadbolt facing off Deputy Mayor, in a physical challenge. Reminds me of Russia's President Putin wresting with a bear? Showing he was up to it, some years ago. Then married a young gymnast. What next for Shadbolt?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/125485790/sir-tim-shadbolts-deputy-accepts-challenge-to-fitness-duel-at-athletics-track
What next for Shadbolt?
Hopefully retirement as new blood is needed for Invercargill. I am sick of hearing about the infighting that goes on in councils as it is unproductive for the region.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/125486915/kiwisavers-stand-to-lose-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-in-government-contributions
Before end of June!
There is money for free to go into your Kiwisaver account if you can at least temporarily, boost your savings.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018800400/used-condoms-tampons-being-flushed-onto-wellington-beaches
Tampons may need to be flushed down the toilet, and perhaps condoms too. They will both be carrying body fluids that if not disposed off quickly and correctly would be disease carriers. There isn't always a rubbish bin, and how often are they emptied?
Stop people from using wipes, ban them from supermarkets and pharmacies. People can cut up their old clothes and put them to some use instead of throwing them out when holey in one place. Use them instead of wipes, cut down waste, then thow them in a bin. Make the three-letter words fashionable language, like the four-letter ones!
Cotton tips are very useful and people will have to learn not to throw them down the toilet. Men as well as women need to learn. Many males regard all that hygiene business and carry-on about doing things right as just fussy stuff that women do.
Could be worse it could be alligators.
Its time councils just accepted that people are going to flush more shit than just shit down the pipes, and engineered for the problem ,
Seems the only way to go but I think preaching about the three 'ps' and bad-mouthing for the others is the modern way. Thinking of efficiency first and foremost is the thing now. People have to be cut and moulded to fit the systems not the other way round. Makes sense – set a target, make people conform. Public service is going down the loo!
They're a sensitive mob.
In 1979, just a couple of months into his stint with 20/20, ABC’s fledgling television news magazine, producer and documentarian Joseph Lovett was “beyond thrilled” to be assigned an interview with author James Baldwin, whose work he had discovered as a teen.
[…]
The finished piece is a superb, 60 Minutes-style profile that covers a lot of ground, and yet, 20/20 chose not to air it.
After the show ran Chase’s interview with Michael Jackson, producer Lovett inquired as to the delay and was told that no one would be interested in a “queer, Black has-been”:
https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/watch-a-never-aired-tv-profile-of-james-baldwin-1979.html
Big:
https://twitter.com/jacktame/status/1406140675913965572
We need more leaders articulating this sort of vision to get us through the next 20 years.
https://twitter.com/SachaDylan/status/1406153082979766273
Here’s more: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300333582/rogernomics-not-on-the-watch-of-ganesh-nana-new-head-of-the-productivity-commission
(link was in tweet)
So it was. I’m not on Twitter but I do read Stuff 😉
You might enjoy the twitrs
Yes, but life is (about) making choices.
Just written a wee Post for tomorrow 🙂
From incognito link – lovely line from Mr Ganesh Nana.
But Nana concedes the painful economic reforms of the 1980s did not deliver what was promised.
On Rogernomics, “we got sold a lemon”, he says.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/ev-rebates-might-eventually-include-motorbikes-and-mopeds-just-not-for-now.html
To me, this is odd not to say short-sighted and narrow-minded.
Why not encourage all alternatives for transport that are clean(er) while discouraging fuel cars? What is so different about a motorised 2-wheeler compared to 4-wheeler (AKA car)? Government wants to encourage cycling but not motorised 2-wheelers!? I suppose one would still require a special driver’s licence and all that.
I said it before, I reckon if e-bikes are subsidised quite a few people will make the switch. I see more and more of them around already. What’s not to like?
Possibly too much/hard for Government to handle all in one go …
Motorcycles and mopeds have generally spectacular fuel efficiency
edit
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/445111/myanmar-coup-un-calls-for-arms-embargo-against-military Another 36 countries abstained, including Russia and China – Myanmar military's two biggest arms suppliers.
This sounds like a good idea. I wonder if the countries and arms agents can give up their obssession with this horrible practice/drug. Can they go cold turkey?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry
2020 (Figures are SIPRI Trend Indicator Values (TIVs) – and
SIPRI is Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)
World's Largest Arms Exporters:
Rank Supplier Arms Exp
(in billion TIV)
1 United States 9,372
2 Russia 3,203
3 France 1,995
4 Spain 1,232
5 Germany 1,201
6 South Korea 827
7 Italy 806
8 China 760
9 Netherlands 488
10 United Kingdom429
"Much better sex ed would a be a good start."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/445096/images-of-sexual-assaults-shared-among-dunedin-teens
That is a good start to this comment. This sex thing has been around for ever, especially with winning sportsmen. It used to be talked about and then not forgotten but not become the issue it is now with the small cameras that everyone has now in their cellphones. It has now morphed into dirty, deceitful, disrespectful behaviour, and as someone has said, a matter to be bullied about and harassed and shamed. From foolish and unwise to a practice that is turning sexually naive students who are immature into porn actors and perverts with this photographic porn to blackmail and hurt others with.
What is needed in the short term I don't know. If parents concerned, and the school teachers and pupils had a formal meeting and discussed the problem and just put in words what is happening and how each speaker felt about it, and the long-term results of it, perhaps an agreement could be reached about setting a code of behaviour for individuals to keep to.
In the long term I am sure that we need some social anthopologists in the Education Department instead of thinking that all we need is to teach science, maths, and communication, and team thinking – to turn out the successful conformists of the future.
We need to teach philosophy, and how cultures build up, and what zeitgeist and leitmotif mean. We need to talk about individuals having a vision of what they want to be, and how to realise their strengths and weaknesses. And we need to teach the importance of delay of immediate gratification. That would cut out this idea of sex being a sort of drug that you have on a night out. You get blotto and anything can happen, wheee. And then when it happens everyone is shocked if someone cries rape when nobody seemed to be worrying about anything?
Where does the leadership for teaching personal standards and morality come from? Is there any talk at home/school about how to cope when temptation looms, when companions suggest a good time, no holds barred – are you up for it, to each other? Or is it boys will be boys and we don't impose rules on them, same with girls? How could a bright, intelligent girl get knifed 200 times by a man in a frenzy – of jealousy? What did she know about assessing someone's character and self-control? Who is teaching how to hold back on sex until it is something worthwhile with someone you both like and respect. That cuts right across this drift into decadence that we are in.
Think Grace Mullane and Tinder? What a dangerous past-time. No need to go puritan and extra-moralistic, just talk personal respect and standards, inner confidence, not being coerced by companions, and looking for real friends not just for the fun-loving, no-worries group.