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‘Essentially a technical problem’ – City ’s technocrats rejected rail
Since 1999, New Zealand’s tourism board has marketed the country as ‘100% Pure New Zealand’. The campaign draws on the country’s scenic beauty, displayed to the world in the Lord of the Rings movies, and a reputation for environmental activism dating back to 1970s campaigns…
Draft unitary plan draws focussed feedback
September’s scheduled notification of the Auckland Unitary Plan is now in doubt. Despite that, it is possible that any further informal discussion of the draft plan will only be between Auckland Council and selected groups, and Mahurangi Action is not in that...
50 reasons to celebrate anniversary weekend 2016
First reason: It will be the 50th summer of Auckland’s coastal regional parks. The coastal parks commenced with the purchase of Wenderholm Regional Park on 31 March 1965, and its opening the following December. It was an immediate…
New unitary authority not going to plan
Len’s in danger of loosing it. As was all too apparent halfway through the term of Aotearoa’s first mayoral office to enjoy significant executive powers, Mayor Brown has bet the farm on a project for which he has little to show, come local body election year. Had...
Looking back over 50 years of regional park history
In the early 1960s, Mr F W O Jones, Auckland’s regional planning officer, was concerned at the rapid growth of urban development along Auckland’s coastline, which was preventing all but a favoured few from having access to good beaches. He recommended that large...
World’s worst-polluting pair of superpowers work on climate
Amidst a rash of high-profile setbacks, he’s just played a blinder. What little remained of President Barack Obama’s gun control legislation has been unceremoniously buried by the gun manufacturers, in cold-blooded disregard for the funerals for…
Sole shot at salvation calls for youth to withhold labour
The Green Party doesn’t understand anthropogenic global warming: “…we can expect droughts to be more extreme and strike more often if we don’t take global action.” Never mind if—droughts will be more extreme and will strike more often, they…
Clean green dirty secrets of a future environmentalist
Ozzie Zehner’s magnum opus is mostly other than about the dirtiness of clean energy. Green Illusions: The dirty secrets of clean energy and future of environmentalism is more about the last few words of its subtitle—what the author terms: Future environmentalism....