Tagged: Environment

Driven to help the planet and humanity thrive - Mātau Taiao

Rosemary Rangitauira • Nov 30, 2021 •

• Aotearoa,
• environment and ecology,
• Māori researchers,
• mātauranga māori

Mihi mai ki a Dr Te Kīpa Kēpa Morgan, a professional engineer, who’s inspiring a different value system that he says can help humanity thrive and safeguard the sustainability of our planet. Kēpa affiliates to Ngāti Pikiao (Te Arawa), Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Tahu. For more than a decade, Kēpa’s main research area has been in developing and advancing a … Read More

7 ways to get proactive about climate change instead of feeling helpless: Lessons from a leadership expert - News

Guest Author • Nov 15, 2021 •

• climate change,
• Environment,
• human behaviour

Thomas S. Bateman, University of Virginia   Humans do not capitalize nearly enough on our most significant evolutionary advantage: a unique ability to take forward-looking actions that influence the future for the better. Exhibit A: Climate change is here, and things are changing quickly for the worse. However, even as dangerous and costly weather events grow more … Read More

Climate-induced changes in strategies - Unsorted

Robert Hickson • Oct 29, 2021 •

• climate change,
• energy,
• Environment,
• future,
• Sustainability

This post is a collection of recent articles linked by the themes climate change and looking ahead. We are good at characterising the issues, but weaker at evoking what we gain from change.   IEA’s big shift In May I noted the significance of the International Energy Agency’s announcement that further … Read More

Pinpointing the role of climate change in every storm is impossible – and a luxury most countries can’t afford - The Changing Climate

Guest Author • Sep 23, 2021 •

• climate change,
• Environment,
• event attribution,
• hurricanes

Friederike Otto, University of Oxford and Luke Harrington, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   Tropical Storm Ida recently left a path of devastation across the US, capping a summer beset by wildfires, heatwaves and floods which broke records around the world. The inevitable question after each of these extreme weather events is the same: to what extent … Read More

Don’t plan on orderly transitions - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Sep 21, 2021 •

• behaviour,
• change,
• climate change,
• disruption,
• Environment,
• foresight,
• future,
• futures methodology,
• Society,
• strategy,
• transition

The nature, scale, and pace of change is central to futures work. But usually more attention is given to identifying what’s happening rather than what needs to happen.   Are we living in fast times? Many futures studies focus on how fast the world is changing now. Partly that seems to be a marketing strategy – who’s going … Read More

Understanding life in our waterways through metagenomics - Genomics Aotearoa

Genomics Aotearoa • Sep 03, 2021 •

• bioinformatics,
• Environment,
• genomics,
• water

By Michael Hoggard and Carmen Astudillo Garcia, University of Auckland The rapid development and extraordinary cost reductions of next-generation sequencing technologies has greatly increased data on the functioning of complex microbial communities. Although relatively new, metagenomics has already dramatically influenced our understanding of the microbial tree of life and the known virosphere via the genomic traces of organisms and viruses … Read More

Why Indigenous knowledge should be an essential part of how we govern the world’s oceans - The Changing Climate

Guest Author • Jun 10, 2021 •

• Environment,
• indigenous,
• kaitiakitanga,
• mātauranga māori,
• New Zealand stories

Meg Parsons, University of Auckland and Lara Taylor, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research   Our moana (ocean) is in a state of unprecedented ecological crisis. Multiple, cumulative impacts include pollution, sedimentation, overfishing, drilling and climate change. All affect the health of both marine life and coastal communities. To reverse the decline and avoid reaching tipping points, we must adopt more … Read More

The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using and wasting less energy - The Changing Climate

Guest Author • Jun 01, 2021 •

• decarbonising,
• Environment,
• green growth,
• New Zealand stories

Michael (Mike) Joy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington   As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron. Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental problem we face in trying to replace fossil … Read More

Treated like dirt: urban soil is often overlooked as a resource - Guest Work

Guest Author • Apr 27, 2021 •

• Biodiversity,
• Environment,
• soil,
• urban ecology

Roisin O’Riordan, Lancaster University When you think about soil, you probably think of rolling fields of countryside. But what about urban soil? With city dwellers expected to account for 68% of the world’s population by 2050, this oft forgotten resource is increasingly important. City-based agriculture is on the rise. But urban soil is more often associated with contamination … Read More

Demand for rare-earth metals is skyrocketing, so we’re creating a safer, cleaner way to recover them from old phones and laptops - Guest Work

Guest Author • Apr 20, 2021 •

• Environment,
• green technologies,
• rare Earth metals,
• recycling

Cristina Pozo-Gonzalo, Deakin University Rare-earth metals are critical to the high-tech society we live in as an essential component of mobile phones, computers and many other everyday devices. But increasing demand and limited global supply means we must urgently find a way to recover these metals efficiently from discarded products. Rare-earth metals are currently mined or recovered via traditional e-waste … Read More