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
Brendan Moyle • Feb 04, 2019 •
A recent article on car cleanliness described the bacteria that abound on car interior-surfaces. The results were shocking, with the headline announcing steering wheels had on average four times the amount of bacteria that public toilets did. It inspired some to clean their cars . Nonetheless I confess I felt no surprise reading this. This is one of my … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Jan 11, 2019 •
“Don’t eat beef.” Such a statement does not go down well in New Zealand, especially in Waikato, where the cow reigns supreme. I don’t say it as someone who wants to peddle a “Meat is Murder” message. I don’t believe that at all. I say it as someone who wants New Zealand to take Climate Change seriously. Quite simply, producing … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 18, 2018 •
Adrian R. Camilleri, University of Technology Sydney; Dalia Patino-Echeverri, Duke University, and Rick Larrick, Duke University What did you have for dinner last night? Might you have made a different choice if you had a simple way to compare the environmental impacts of different foods? Most people do not recognise the environmental impact of … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Oct 11, 2018 •
So, school holidays are coming to an end. My son is breathing a big sigh of dismay. And, like so many other commuters, so am I. I’ve enjoyed two weeks of being able to get to and from work (especially the ‘to’) without traffic hold ups and ‘having to go the long way around’. My 23 km commute from Cambridge … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 19, 2018 •
Jenny Fisher, University of Wollongong and Kathryn Emmerson, CSIRO This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Picture the causes of air pollution in a major city and you are likely to visualise pollutants spewing out of cars, trucks and buses. For some types of air pollutants, however, transportation is … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 01, 2017 •
By Robert McLachlan, Massey University. The election of the sixth Labour-led government heralds a new direction for climate change policy in New Zealand. As part of the new government’s 100-day priority plan, it pledged to set a target of carbon neutrality by 2050 and to establish the mechanisms to phase out fossil fuels. In doing so, New … Read More
Michael Reddell • Oct 01, 2017 •
I’ve written a few posts in recent months about the connections between our immigration policy – materially boosting our population growth rate – and New Zealand greenhouse gas emissions (for example here and here). New Zealand is unusual because, as the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) has highlighted: • we have a fairly high rate of trend population growth, … Read More
John Kerr • Sep 19, 2017 •
The global warming limit set at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit is still possible, say scientists, but we need to redouble our efforts if the Earth’s atmosphere is to limbo under the ambitious boundary. In an article published today in Nature Geoscience an international team of climate scientists reports a re-assessment of complex Earth System Models. Crunching the numbers in light of new … Read More
Guest Author • Aug 16, 2017 •
By Quentin Douglas Atkinson and Shaun Hendy A little over half the world’s population sees climate change as a serious problem (54% according to a 40-nation Pew Research survey). Coincidentally, roughly the same number identify as Christian or Muslim (55%). On the one hand, these statistics speak to the success of climate change communication. In just … Read More