Latest articles on climate action
1.5° locked-and-loaded and looking down the barrel at >2°
Long past time for precautionary principle
Dr James Hansen’s lecture is slated to start at 6.30 pm. Or, if Thursday’s event’s Facebook page is to be believed, 6 pm. In 1988 when Dr Hansen warned congress that anthropogenic greenhouse gases were going to seriously raise average global temperatures, the...
Sea-level rise powered by Google
A trillion Google searches gobbles a prodigious amount of energy. But before eschewing online searches, climbing into the car and driving to the library, a little perspective: At 0.2 grams per search, one trillion searches per year has a similar…
Sea-level rise means dredging up the future
Writers urging climate action invariably claim that, although the situation is dire, by acting now, warming’s worst consequences can be avoided. But it is probable that it is already too late to prevent total ice-sheet loss and sea-level rise of about…
World’s first city to rebuild beyond sea-level rise
On 29 October 1954, Wellington agreed to build the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Government’s decision had been contingent on Auckland City Council voting to effectively bury its aspirations for underground rail, on the previous day. Not only did…
Dr James Hansen unleashed on Auckland
Schoolchildren will assume that the crowds he addressed filled stadiums. In decades hence, when told Dr James Hansen lectured in Aotearoa in 2011, they will assume it was to Rugby World Cup-sized audiences. Thermal inertia in Earth systems allows the…
Think Mahurangi action act global
Every catchment issue is set to become more acute, despite the best intentions of the Mahurangi Action Plan. Stormier weather will wash ever more soil into the harbour, and higher tides will more vigorously churn and muddy its soft shoreline. Thanks, in…
Loss of holiday highway won’t be lamented
Labour’s Transport spokesperson Shane Jones is welcoming reports that the so-called ‘holiday highway’ from Pūhoi to Wellsford may be delayed, with completion of the $1.3 billion highway possibly pushed back to 2024. “There is no way Labour…
Make existing highway safer, concentrate on Christchurch
Christine Rose is emphatic that Christchurch comes first. Reacting to strong indications by the government this morning that the planned Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway will have to wait for Christchurch to be rebuilt, the Labour Party candidate for Rodney…
Better place for cathedral closer to Alpine Fault
The Alpine Fault doesn’t move 30 millimetres every year. It does on average, but the fault hasn’t ruptured since 1717. If goes anytime soon, nine metres of pent up horizontal movement could be released in an earthquake of a magnitude of more…
Science ‘globalisation’ is the future
The greenhouse gas consortium is the centrepiece of a major New Zealand commitment to take its global citizenship obligations seriously with respect to those issues associated with climate change. It of course has multiple dimensions. As a…
Will to ensure Wilma not wasted
There were just nine apiece in Sullivans, Mita and the Pukapuka. Nine, where of a Mahurangi Regatta morning there would normally have been 90 or more vessels in each of the harbour’s weather‑favoured bays. Wilma maintained her tropical…
Time to submit to better transport
It can be done online, up until midnight Friday 28 January. Feedback is sought by the New Zealand Transport Agency regarding the indicative route of the Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway. Submissions that a motorway should not be built…
New Year’s resolution breeding obvious
By next New Year’s Day, the population will have just reached seven billion, yet propaganda abounds claiming that it’s not the approaching-seven-billion souls currently inhabiting Planet Earth, but the unsustainable lifestyles of a small proportion of the world’s...
Rodney seat shapes up as green transport battleground
Possibly not panning out exactly as the National Party planned. By freeing up the Rodney seat, Lockwood Smith stated he was facilitating more firepower to be directed to the defence of the planned Pūhoi–Wellsford motorway—his position as…
Billion-dollar motorway flyover
Takes just 3.43 minutes to ‘fly’ the preferred route. The New Zealand Transport Agency’s simulated flyover of the preferred route deserves high praise for vividly and dramatically illustrating the magnitude of what is involved in building a motorway…