Pollution Archive

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  An update on Russel’s dirty rivers tour

  
  
  
  Russel is rafting and kayaking down some of our most polluted lowland rivers this summer, as a fun and unusual way to draw attention to the water pollution problems in our own backyard. Click here for detailed reports and photos from each trip. Plus check out media coverage of Russel on the Manawatu, the Hutt, the Taumarere, [...] read more
  March 5, 2010 1:45 pm - 14 Comments
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  Good Farm Stories and the polluted Manawatu

  
  
  
  As Jeanette previewed yesterday, the Greens’ Good Farm Stories website has been launched today. You can find it here: www.goodfarmstories.org.nz. There’s a wealth of material, so grab a cup of tea and enjoy! read more
  November 26, 2009 12:43 pm - 7 Comments
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  PM limp on mining’s pollution

  
  
  
  Russel Norman just threw the Prime Minister some curve-balls in QuestionTime. It turns out that the Government “model modern miners” get fined for pollution regularly! The PM thinks that is proof the “system is working”. Sounds to me like it is proof that mining is not a good idea in our conservation lands, and certainly not “surgical”! read more
  October 13, 2009 3:33 pm - 6 Comments
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  Black Drain Revisited

  
  
  
  The pulp and paper mills of Kawerau are once again applying for a licence to pollute! After 53 years of maintaining a river in a state of semi blackness and invisible degradation they now want to apply for new consents for thirty five years of business as usual. Business as usual in this community means [...] read more
  April 30, 2009 12:11 pm - 16 Comments
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  Hats off to good farming at Landcorp

  
  
  
  Here’s some good news on dairy farming and a doff of the cap to the SOE Landcorp and its farm managers. We recently asked Landcorp how it was doing with compliance on effluent consents.  Their General Secretary informs us that they had one infringement notice in 2008 and two in 2007. Landcorp has 37 dairy farms, so its non-compliance [...] read more
  April 16, 2009 3:06 pm - 5 Comments
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  Car Free Day – more from China

  
  
  
  Beijing’s massive traffic restriction programme, launched just before the Olympics is coming to an end: The return to Beijing’s traffic- and smog-heavy status quo will mark the end of what may have been the world’s largest pollution control experiment: a restriction on cars, factories and construction that lasted for two months and resulted in the clearest [...] read more
  September 19, 2008 9:18 am - 10 Comments
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  Peak oil saves lives?

  
  
  
  Sadly, as we’ve been discussing in recent weeks, peak oil is threatening people’s lives in the context of international security, war and militarism in the Middle East and other fossil fuel extracting countries.  But it seems here in New Zealand there are less people dying as the cost of burning a limited resource rises: As of [...] read more
  September 9, 2008 9:13 am - 5 Comments
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  Dirty ol’ Arctic

  
  
  
  According to the American National Science Foundation coal burning, primarily in North America and Europe, has contaminated the Arctic and is potentially affecting human health and ecosystems in and around Earth’s polar regions. Detailed measurements from a Greenland ice core showed pollutants from burning coal–the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium and lead–were much higher than expected. Luckily [...] read more
  August 21, 2008 11:07 am - 1 Comment
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  Helpful advice for Chinese farmers

  
  
  
  An NZPA story that I can’t yet find online has the Minister for Climate Change, David Parker, talking about the benefits that the preferential trade agreement with China might have for climate change: However, Mr Parker said the FTA was a realistic platform for New Zealand to have an influence on China’s pollution. “It is, particularly in [...] read more
  April 8, 2008 2:19 pm - 3 Comments
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  The Mataura drain

  
  
  
  I saw this letter to the editor in the Southland Times recently and thought it was worth sharing: To save ourselves the worry and effort of cleaning up our Southland rivers, we just need to think about them in a new way. Let’s call them drains, not rivers – the Aparima drain, the Oreti drain, the [...] read more
  March 13, 2008 8:22 am - 3 Comments