Environment

Categories under Environment

Conservation (318)
disaster (489)
farming (207)
food (134)
Mining (241)
nature (10)
science (1,557)
- climate change (1,397)
  - COP26 (1)
  - ETS (120)
  - polycrisis (1)
- global warming (397)
sustainability (575)
transport (404)
- public transport (154)
water (202)

Towards Banana Republic Status

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:25 am, April 17th, 2024 - 27 comments

There is a bill before Parliament right now that has the potential of blowing a rather big hole in our reputation as an open and transparent democracy.

A sustainable environment should be a human right

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:18 am, April 10th, 2024 - 47 comments

James Shaw’s attempt to create a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is expected to be voted down soon by Parliament. But the New Zealand Supreme Court as well as the European Court of Human Rights have shown a willingness to recognise a right to a sustainable environment that some politicians refuse to.

What if climate collapse comes much sooner than we expected?

Written By: weka - Date published: 6:07 am, April 8th, 2024 - 91 comments

“It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey. “In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and that would be deadly for the population.”

Why the Climate Strike matters (in case we are still thinking the crisis isn’t urgent)

Written By: weka - Date published: 9:54 am, April 5th, 2024 - 7 comments

All those climate scientists talking about temperature recently? This is what it means for us, right here, right now, and for the rest of our lives

Strike!

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 9:12 am, April 5th, 2024 - 30 comments

Please choose life today and support the strike in any way you can: attend in person, share information on social media, talk to people you know today about why it matters.

Forest and Bird: on the Fast Track Approvals Bill and how to make a submission

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 12:00 pm, April 4th, 2024 - 2 comments

“this is going to take all of us using our voice for nature, in all the places we are, to make it clear that we’re not against regulation, we actually quite like it, but we want regulation that is isn’t unbridled and puts power in the hands of Ministers in a way that New Zealand has never seen before.” – Nicola Toki CE of Forest and Bird

Greenpeace: Luxon bulldozes on in war on nature with 90-day ‘hit list’

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 3:17 pm, April 2nd, 2024 - 5 comments

Greenpeace is calling the Government’s new policy priority list “the next onslaught in the war on nature” following Christopher Luxon’s announcement this morning.

A year on From Gabrielle: are we any further on?

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 10:13 am, April 1st, 2024 - 26 comments

Veteran climate activist Cindy Baxter writes about the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on her home town and the challenges of resiliency planning going forward.

CANA: Shane Jones, Chris Bishop, and Simeon Brown want the power to authorise mines and motorways on behalf of their mates with the click of a pen. Here’s how to fight back.

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 6:05 am, March 27th, 2024 - 29 comments

In reality, the Government knows that New Zealanders will be even more outraged if they see the list of environment- and climate-wrecking projects that these Ministers and their donor & industry mates have cooked up.

F*ck

Written By: weka - Date published: 6:10 am, March 22nd, 2024 - 89 comments

We can see NACTF’s current fuckery as being part of the same dynamic. The job cuts, mining and oil drilling, attacks on disabled people and beneficiaries, the threat to news media, stealing from the poor to give to the rich, the war on nature, all of these are contained within the climate/ecology crises, and arise out of the same condition

Amateur hour

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:24 am, March 16th, 2024 - 11 comments

Government members of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee have managed to vote to support a Labour amendment that would make electric vehicles more attractive but submit a report to Parliament that suggested that the amendment had been lost.

Catherine, Princess of Wales

Written By: weka - Date published: 9:56 am, March 13th, 2024 - 18 comments

meanwhile…

Get ready for your water to be privatised

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 10:39 am, February 17th, 2024 - 124 comments

The National Government’s repeal of the Three Waters Legislation and its pursuit of “new forms of infrastructure funding and financing” suggests that privatisation of water is on the drawing board.

A sad lament from the serial left

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 10:39 pm, February 13th, 2024 - 103 comments

Attacking leftists attempts to expose the Atlas Network of right-wing think tanks, Chris Trotter offers this gem “Morally speaking, is taking money from oil companies really all that distinguishable from giving money to oil companies every time we fill up our petrol tank?”

Simeon Brown works to make transport system less sustainable

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:10 pm, February 10th, 2024 - 6 comments

This week we have seen National confirm it will cancel the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax and this will cause the cancellation or suspension of many projects designed to address congestion. And it has been confirmed that axing the clean car discount has seen sales of electric vehicles plummet. And that electric vehicles will shortly pay more to use the road than petrol vehicles.

ACT’s performative FedFoke virtual signalling

Written By: weka - Date published: 4:00 pm, February 1st, 2024 - 11 comments

Take your dirty boots off at the door ya numpties.

Are Road User Charges for every vehicle actually fair?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:01 am, January 22nd, 2024 - 99 comments

New Zealand is one of the most car-reliant and petroleum-reliant countries on earth. So how we are taxed to travel on land has huge equity implications.

Why does National hate EVs?

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 2:17 pm, January 17th, 2024 - 71 comments

At a time when we need cool heads and leaders who understand the enormity of the problem that is climate change and the consequences of getting our response right we are getting this retrograde culture war from people who should know better.

What If Trump Wins Again?

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:25 am, January 14th, 2024 - 65 comments

New Zealand has gained prosperity over 40 years within a free flow of trade under peacetime supported by minor attacks to shipping and planes, low international trade costs such as tariffs, and confidence that international trade disputes will be settled by law rather than by might is at risk: all of that required a United States President prepared to support that.

Our Resistance

Written By: advantage - Date published: 8:55 am, January 11th, 2024 - 7 comments

There are still groups of people in New Zealand who can and do organise to resist the damage of the right.

Wanaka Has No Crime

Written By: advantage - Date published: 5:06 pm, December 28th, 2023 - 47 comments

The purpose of everyone in New Zealand is to keep Wanaka pure.

National wants to hide huge potential rates rises caused by canning of Three Waters

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:23 am, December 24th, 2023 - 20 comments

Someone should tell the Taxpayer’s Union. Some Local Councils are planning to put rates up by double digit figures. And the Government is planning on exempting them from discussing this with ratepayers.

Peak NZ Liberal

Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:13 am, December 23rd, 2023 - 69 comments

As National dismantles with speed some of the institutional reforms made by the last Labour Government the concern is that we may have witnessed the peak in progressive influence.

National’s complete indifference to climate change

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 9:05 pm, December 18th, 2023 - 18 comments

This is the only possible explanation. As well as celebrating all things car National has a pathological hatred of cycleways and walkways and public transport.

The week of going backward

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:06 am, December 15th, 2023 - 30 comments

National has this week chosen to smash through under urgency legislation that will increase unemployment and interest rates, reduce workers wages and increase the country’s emissions of greenhouse gasses.

Shame Jones

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 11:33 am, December 13th, 2023 - 24 comments

In one speech Shane Jones has talked about the “hysteria surrounding climate change”, promised to disregard targets agreed to under the Paris Agreement, ordered the halting of work at the Ministry for the Environment, promised the lifting the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration at pace, and said that Mining on Department of Conservation (DoC) and Stewardship land is also in the pipeline.