Planetary Ecology

Featured image: Climate explained: how much of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels and could we replace it all with renewables?

Climate explained: how much of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels and could we replace it all with renewables?

Robert McLachlan • Sep 15, 2021

How are fossil fuels formed, why do they release carbon dioxide and how much of the world’s energy do they provide? And what are the renewable energy sources that could replace fossil fuels? Fossil fuels were formed over millions of years from the remains of plants and animals trapped in sediments and then transformed by heat and pressure. Most … Read More

Featured image: Lawyers challenge New Zealand’s proposed emissions budgets as inconsistent with the 1.5℃ goal

Lawyers challenge New Zealand’s proposed emissions budgets as inconsistent with the 1.5℃ goal

Robert McLachlan • Jul 07, 2021

New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission is facing its first legal hurdle, as a group of 300 climate-concerned lawyers seek judicial review of the processes it used to calculate carbon budgets in its recently released advice to government. Carbon budgets are a cornerstone of New Zealand’s climate change response under the Zero Carbon Act and lie at … Read More

Featured image: New plastic ban: Interview with Trisia Farrelly

New plastic ban: Interview with Trisia Farrelly

Robert McLachlan • Jul 01, 2021

On 27 June, the New Zealand Government announced the phase-out of some hard-to-recycle and some single-use plastics. Robert McLachlan talks to Massey University’s Trisia Farrelly, a tireless campaigner against plastic waste. Trisia: I’m an anthropologist at Massey University, I wear quite a few hats around New Zealand and internationally on plastic pollution, which I’ve been researching since … Read More

Featured image: So it begins: The Climate Change Commission’s advice to government and what happened next

So it begins: The Climate Change Commission’s advice to government and what happened next

Robert McLachlan • Jun 23, 2021

What’s that? You wanted action, not just words, on climate change? And you wanted it now, not next year or the year after? How about something big, really big, maybe also diving right into the heart of an emotional, touchstone issue – say, the private car?  Welcome to the EV subsidy. The New Zealand government has surprised and delighted electric vehicle … Read More

Featured image: Jacinda- you beauty!

Jacinda- you beauty!

Guest Author • May 17, 2021

Steve Trewick She’s a scarlet, long-legged stunner with dainty white feet, and the male of the species is almost as impressive. Yet this stunning creature has rarely been seen and was only this year formally recognised. Hemiandrus jacinda is a ground wētā named this year for New Zealand’s Prime Minister … Read More

Featured image: Why did New Zealand’s CO2 emissions blow out so spectacularly in 2019?

Why did New Zealand’s CO2 emissions blow out so spectacularly in 2019?

Robert McLachlan • Apr 18, 2021

Every year in April, the trees start changing colour, the clocks go back an hour, and the national greenhouse gas figures are released and promptly forgotten. They take fifteen months to prepare, so by the time they come out it’s very easy for commentators to point out that they are out of date. Even now that the national media are … Read More

Featured image: Recreation Transition: low-carbon recreation in the mountains

Recreation Transition: low-carbon recreation in the mountains

Guest Author • Apr 07, 2021

By Jamie Stewart, Federated Mountain Clubs Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC), founded in 1931, represents 96 clubs, 22,000 members and 300,000 people that regularly recreate in the New Zealand backcountry. This article first appeared in the June 2020 issue of Backcountry magazine and is reproduced with permission. (Read the original article). See also “EVs for mountain recreation” ( … Read More