Dedicated to democracy, enjoying and restoring the Mahurangi, meaningful climate action, and curiosity—
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2013–2014 committee Mahurangi Action
On 3 November 2013, the following were elected as the committee of Mahurangi Action Incorporated for 2013–2014: Cimino Cole (as secretary) editor incumbent Jim Dollimore biologist incumbent Hugh Gladwell lawyer incumbent Michael Gordon (as treasurer)...
Concurrent elections closest to voter-turnout silver bullet
Another local body election, and another uninformed swipe at STV. While it is probable that the at-large, single-transferable-vote, district health board elections are the single biggest reason only a third of Aucklanders returned their ballots…
Humbled by 2010–2013 Rodney Local Board
Before the meeting began, one of the local board members offered up a prayer: that the meeting might close by 5 pm. Service as a local body representative is famously thankless work. The work has been doubly thankless for the inaugural…
Coast clear for Labour as the climate action party
Aotearoa’s major political parties share a broadly similar stance on anthropogenic global warming. In contrast, climate action in Australia and the United States is a deeply partisan business. The ‘invisible substance’ reference of Liberal Party leader and prime...
Fossil fuel fuse and the mother of all unintended consequences
It happened somewhere between the mastery of fire a million and a half years ago, and today’s rampant exploitation of fossil fuel reserves. Practiced judiciously, and to jumpstart sustainable energy technologies, and by a sustainable population, the burning of a...
Not just century, warming moral issue of millennium
More mud, fewer oysters, and galloping foreshore erosion. This is the forlorn future faced by the Mahurangi Harbour. Just how muddy, how few oysters or fish, and how quickly higher and higher tides carve into soft unprotected shorelines depends…
Can’t afford to solve one problem at a time
When the Alpine Fault goes, it will probably take Wellington with it. Wellington, now Aotearoa’s second largest city, is staring down the barrel of the Alpine Fault, which is primed and due to jump eight metres horizontally and four vertically. In both 1220 and 1450…
4 or 40 years late climate thrust to front page
George Monbiot declared 28 August 2012 as the day world went mad. Writing on the following day, the Guardian’s respected environmental journalist asked readers to remember that date. It was the day that scientists announced the record Arctic ice melt, unnoticed…