We’ve got an Auckland housing affordability and a housing supply crisis. We’ve got an economy overloaded with private debt. Headlines report an anxiety epidemic, a P epidemic and an obesity epidemic all at once. Scientists show we’re in the midst of various environmental crises.
In many ways these are all linked.
Alarmist New Zealand Herald headlines condemned a Housing New Zealand tenant for taking in boarders.
It was disappointing that there was little sign of leadership or intelligent engagement on the issue of drugs in society from the major parties. National’s obviously a non-starter for any constructive change from the status quo that gives knighthoods to liquor barons and safe National Party seats to tobacco lobbyists.
The Chair of Air New Zealand’s Sustainability Panel, British environmentalist Sir Jonathon Porritt, spoke to a group of decision makers in Nelson recently and warned about the unsustainable disjuncture between New Zealand’s branding and its reality
It’s short sighted to market our brand to overseas tourists on our natural beauty and heritage when biodiversity is declining, many of our animal ‘attractions’ are threatened with extinction, and rivers and bays are too polluted for swimming.
Congratulations and kia kaha to all those who stood against the signing of the Trans Pacific Agreement, in Auckland and elsewhere around the country, culminating in creative, positive and powerful protests on Thursday.
2016, modern life. It’s a ‘Tale of Two Cities’. It’s ‘the best of times, and the worst of times’, a time of plenty for some, in a post-Dickensian dystopia, a Mad Maxian eco-apocalypse.
Summer is usually the time for fun visits and evening fish and chips at the beach. But dolphin advocates are reminding New Zealanders to keep an eye out for dolphins both at sea and ‘in their fish and chips’ this summer. Māui and Hector’s dolphin survival requires watching the sea and our fish consumption.