Guest Author • Dec 15, 2020 •
Jim Missen Jiangcungou is home to a 700,00 square metre landfill, with the ability to hold 49 million cubic metres of municipal waste. Of China’s 1.4 billion populace it serves a mere 8 million and has reached its capacity 25 years early. The landfill in question is located in Shaanxi province and its sole user is the city of … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 31, 2020 •
Janet Stephenson, University of Otago A proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half of that provided by hydro power. The … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 03, 2020 •
James Higham, University of Otago Unprecedented border closures and the domestic lockdown have paralysed New Zealand’s $40.9 billion a year tourism industry. In the process, the vulnerability of the sector to external shocks and the tenuous nature of tourism employment have been exposed. While New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic has been hailed as a global masterclass, and the … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 03, 2020 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or possibly reverse the effects of climate change (due … Read More
Robert McLachlan • Dec 18, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Which countries in the world have met or bettered their Paris Agreement targets? Robert McLachlan, Massey University The … Read More
Guest Author • Oct 23, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Everyone is going on about reducing our carbon footprint, zero emissions, planting sustainable crops for biodiesel etc. Is … Read More
Robert McLachlan • Oct 21, 2019 •
#NoFly: Walking the talk on climate change, by Shaun Hendy. BWB Texts, 2019. Reviewed by Robert McLachlan In June 2018, Swede Maja Rosén founded We stay on the ground with a pledge not to fly in 2019, and a goal of persuading 100,000 other Swedes to join her. In August, her compatriot Greta Thunberg began her school strike for … Read More
Robert McLachlan • Sep 05, 2019 •
Something’s happening here: Climate crisis: ‘We don’t fly to go on holiday now – and it doesn’t cost the earth’ (The Guardian, 10 August 2019) No-fly zone: Could you give up flying if it meant protecting the planet? (Adventure.com, 21 August 2019) Travel the world without destroying it (The Conversation, 22 August 2019) Harry and Meghan … Read More
Steve Trewick • Aug 26, 2019 •
Everyone knows about climate change and it’s a real drag. All of a sudden most of the things we liked doing are considered wrong. Some people even say we have to give up cars but that’s crazy talk isn’t it? With around 70 million new cars produced each year around the world and a total of about 1.4 … Read More
Robert McLachlan • May 02, 2019 •
We know what we have to do to beat climate change: electrify everything, and stop investing in things that burn fossil fuels. In New Zealand, that has been hard to do. Thirty years of climate policy have left us with only two main tools: the Emissions Trading Scheme, and an ‘aspirational’ target of 90% renewable electricity by 2025. The ETS … Read More