Tag: Hot Topic

On the road, again

goingwestlogo-08.jpg It’s going to be a busy weekend for your blogger. On Friday afternoon I’m off to deepest Titirangi to prepare for a Saturday morning panel on coverage of the climate issue at the Going West Books & Writer’s Festival. Warming Up – A Hot Topic will be chaired by Francesca Price, presenter of Wasted and editor of Good magazine, and my co-panellist will be Nikki Harré from Auckland University, who edited the recent book Carbon Neutral by 2020. Full details of the weekend, which looks very interesting, here. Sadly, I have to return to Waipara, because on Sunday I’m off to Wellington…

On Monday and Tuesday next week, I’ll be chairing the Climate Change Law Summit at Te Papa. Two full days of presentations by some of NZ’s top people in their fields – including Julia Hoare, Karen Price, Vernon Rive, Rachel Devine, Prof Martin Manning and Guy Salmon. There’s a full agenda at the link above. Should be a fascinating couple of days. If anyone is interested in attending, I might be able to wangle a guest pass – which if you check the fees, is a pretty generous offer. Please email me ASAP (gareth at the hot topic domain), and I’ll see what can be done.

I will be posting on the Arctic soon, I promise.

The trumpet shall sound

NZGeo08.jpg A cracking issue (#93) of New Zealand Geographic has just hit the streets – a climate change special, complete with free map of both poles. Dave Hansford looks at impacts on NZ flora and fauna, Alan Knowles examines the energy alternatives being developed here, plus there’s a range of features from around the world – including an excellent article on climate change and winemaking. I’ve got a piece in there on the long-range forecast for NZ, but the knees are not mine. I’m biased by taking the NZGeo shilling, but even so the magazine is clearly an essential part of the intellectual landscape of this country and deserves support. Well worth $14.95 of anyone’s money.

Keep searchin’ (we’ll follow the sun)

hot-topic-cover.jpg I’m still tweaking away at the new look Hot Topic: here’s today’s innovation – a Google custom search (under “recent posts” in the first sidebar), set up to look through the climate blogs in my blogroll. Want to know who’s been saying what about the Arctic? Here’s a nifty way to search through the non-crank climate blogosphere. Tip: when you get to the search results, at the top of the page (under the search box) there’s a link that says “recent4”. Clicking that will put the most recent results at the top (approximately). Please suggest sites for inclusion, and I’ll update accordingly.

Still to do: a shopping cart for the book (paperback and pdf), custom background (I’d prefer clouds to sea), comment editing restored, captions for the pix of NZ, and a few other bits and bobs. Please give me feedback!

Move on up

hot-topic-cover.jpg Sometime in the next day or so, Hot Topic will be moving to a new server and getting a spiffy new look. I’ll do my best to ensure that there’s little or no break in service, but given that my techno-competence is strictly limited there may be a hiatus – with luck only brief. There’s also the risk that some comments may get lost, especially any made after I’ve exported the blog to the new WordPress install. Tweaking the look will then take some time… so please bear with me in this, my hour of panic.

You’re the (NZ) first, the last, my everything

NZETS.jpg So what’s happening to the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation? It seems to be stuck in the parliamentary back rooms, presumably because the government is struggling to put together enough votes to get the bill (or a version of it) passed before the election. No Right Turn has been keeping tabs on progress, and is of the opinion that time is rapidly running out.

My own totally unwarranted speculation is that the government has calculated it needs NZ First to get the bill through, and that certain well-publicised problems faced by that party’s leader are holding things up. Labour could probably do a deal with the Greens and Maori Party, but that would mean a tougher scheme and lead to loud squeals from the big emitters. It would give National another stick to beat them with… So Winston it is. Or perhaps isn’t. Whatever, negotiations probably involve a lot of pompous blustering…

I usually try to steer clear of party politics on Hot Topic, and I went to some lengths to make the book as non-partisan as possible. I don’t care who my readers vote for, but I do care that our political parties have sound climate-related policy. I would hope to encourage people to take that into account when voting. When we have an election date, I plan to put together a handy guide…

Anyway, please use this post for all pre-election political commentary.