This is a picture of the Greeks protesting against austerity. And here is a picture of New Zealanders protesting against prosperity (AKA mining in conservation land) There are a number of obvious similarities. Both protest groups are dominated by the left. Both protest groups are protesting the direct result of a decade of left-wing government [...]

I’m betting that the left (when they find the article) will have something derisive to say about Muriel Newman’s point that children are not protected from overt educationallly-driven political indoctrination in New Zealand. She cites Al Gore’s strangely acclaimed powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth as an example. Personally, I think Gore’s movie is nowhere near [...]

For a perfect example of why film directors and movie stars should never make public statements, one need look no further than James Cameron, who seems to have confused Brazil with his mythical creation, Pandora. Director James Cameron says a real-life Avatar battle is playing out in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, where indigenous groups are trying [...]

Apparently, a Green”peace” activist put this up on the Greenpeace site: “The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism… “If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, [...]

Freakonomics cites a recent paper on road fatalities: According to a recent paper by Lee S. Friedman, Donald Hedeker, and Elihu D. Richter, the lifting of the federal 55 mph speed limit in 1995 was responsible for 12,545 deaths between 1995 and 2005. That’s about 45 percent more American fatalities than we have suffered in 9/11, Iraq [...]

Earth Hour is now over for another year. During this hour I made absolutely no changes to my lifestyle. I did not turn off all my lights and sit in the dark to express my dubious solidarity with a bunch of  bicycle-weilding arborphiles. Nor did I increase my consumption of electricity merely out of spite. [...]

Often government announcements are a puzzling series of contradictions but the announcements made on the subject of mining in conservation land are not amongst these. The editor of the Saturday Herald appear to think that the dismissal of news coverage of the Forest and Bird leak and the search for the source of the leak [...]

It is good to see that NIWA is now going to publish all it’s data and calculations on the web to allow proper scrutiny. Good on them for taking the initiative and not waiting until they were forced into it (a much less attractive look). I am vastly amused that James Renwick, the principal climate [...]

It was interesting to see two articles on alternative energy sources today, outside of a “series” on such things. One on the approval of the new tidal power generators at Kaipara Harbour and one, a bit more “blue sky” on the realistic possibility of the first practicable fusion generators. Both of these may be realised [...]

Yesterday’s Weekend Herald contained a couple of articles on Bisphenol-A, otherwise known as BPA. BPA is used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics – the commonest plastic used to make drink bottles and linings of cans. There have been studies in rats and mice that show that BPA causes altered sexual development, aggression and obesity. [...]