Category: Climate business

Friday on my mind

Meridian got the resource consent for its 176 turbine, $1.5bn Project Hayes wind farm on the Lammermoor Range, 70 km north west of Dunedin in Central Otago, but only on a split decision. Next stage: almost certainly the Environment Court. [Herald , The Press , Southland Times] Meanwhile:

  • Brian Fallow follows up on fast following in the Herald, and gets it right.
  • Desmogblog highlights an excellent NASA animation illustrating the sheer extent of this summer’s Arctic ice melt.
  • Technology Review covers MIT’s Smart Cities group design for a folding, stackable, electric city car (and scooter).
  • The Guardian [UK]reports on a list of the top 50 things to do to save the planet, drawn up by the Environment Agency [full list(PDF)]. Toppermost of the poppermost? Dramatically improve the energy efficiency of electrical goods. In the charts at number 2 (with a bullet)? Religious leaders to make the environment a priority for their followers.
  • The Guardian [UK] also has an interesting feature on plans to collect solar energy in space (thus avoiding the losses caused by passage through the atmosphere) and then beam it down to earth via microwave or laser beams.

Formerly the weekend roundup

Saturday’s promised omnibus extension never arrived, in part because of the arrival of a big cat on my computer, so here’s a Tuesday update.

Continue reading “Formerly the weekend roundup”

Let’s not blow the chance to lead change

More feedback on the NZ Insitute’s “fast follower” proposal, this time from business commentator Rod Oram in yesterday’s Sunday Star Times. Rod’s take is very similar to mine, though from a different perspective, and so I’m very pleased to welcome Rod as our third guest blogger – and reproduce that SST column in full. It’s a very good read…

Continue reading “Let’s not blow the chance to lead change”

Weekend compendium

LovelockJames Lovelock is the man who invented earth system science – or to give it the name he got from William Golding (the Lord Of The Flies man), Gaia. Very influential, in other words, and one of the gloomiest prognosticators of mankind’s future in a world where Gaia bites back through climate change. Rolling Stone has an excellent long profile of Lovelock, which includes this gem about some temporary employment during the 1980s:

He supported himself in part as a consultant for MI5, England’s top counterintelligence agency, where he developed a method to monitor the movements of KGB spies in London by using an ECD [electron capture detector, a device invented by JL] to track their vehicles.

Elsewhere:

  • The UN Environment Programme’s fourth Global Environment Outlook Report (GEO-4) makes gloomy reading. The Press puts it on the front page with the headline Man’s ‘very survival at risk’. [Herald, BBC, Telegraph [UK], full report PDF]. Our ecological overdraft is going to make Gaia unhappy…
  • She’s not helping out with CO2 like she used to either. The amount of our CO2 emissions mopped up by natural emissions is declining – which threatens to speed up warming as carbon cycle feedbacks kick in, a new study [PDF] finds. [BBC, Herald, Times [UK], CSIRO, Rabett Run, Stoat]

[This post will be updated/extended when I stop feeling gloomy…]

It’s a moral issue too…

Climate change is without doubt a moral issue as well as a scientific, economic and political minefield. I don’t often argue the moral imperative, preferring to concentrate on more technical issues, so it was refreshing to read a compelling article by Klaus Bosselmann, Professor of Law and Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law at the University of Auckland, in the Herald today.

The international climate change regime is totally inadequate, delaying the tough decisions to some indefinite future. There is a huge gap between the jurisprudence of international environmental law and so-called “sovereign” states enviously pursuing their national interests. The gap can only be closed through a worldwide moral discourse with strong leadership. This is precisely where New Zealand as a small player can make a difference. International moral leadership will be rewarded, in political and economic terms. There may be a bill to be paid in the short term, but big dollars can be earned by moving fast towards carbon neutrality and letting the world know about it. In sum, sound morality makes sound politics.

If you read nothing else today, read this.