“Luxon’s government quietly abandoned the target to lift total spending to 2 percent of GDP. It has also substantially cut public investment in research and development.”
Like Prof Boston, I’ve suggested research is “a long-term driver of good for the country” – an investment worth making.
1/2
Read this article, then come to the Reality of Everything Symposium.
anuncommonland.substack.com/p/the-govern...
Cartoon illustration featuring a man running towards a bicycle encased in a glass box. Over the box is a giant hammer and a sign that says, "In case of rising gas prices break glass."
You know what to do
Exactly. Floods, coastal inundation, droughts, all the things we are actively making worse by a complete lack of #climateaction
We all need backing against these "acts of god"
newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/27/n...
Neil Sedaka, the singer-songwriter behind dozens of hits of the ’60s and ’70s, dies at age 86
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Voyager 1 is currently more than 24 billion kilometres from Earth and getting 17km farther every second and hilariously it is not as out of touch with New Zealand as our Prime Minister
"God, what would you give for a proper vision this election, arrestingly offered?" Thanks again @davidslack.bsky.social
subslack.substack.com/p/just-fill-...
when people talk about AI used in moderation of social media posts, you must remember there is always the human-in-the-loop, often a woman, often in the Global South, always dehumanised and forgotten
1/n
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
The Sunday Poem, by Cliff Fell newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/22/t...
A beautiful poem...
So the album was This is not Your Dream, according to Discogs. There's a Reddit thread that has some links...
1News screenshot, Jack Tame introducing the news with a map showing “the scale of the areas under threat” from severe weather…which is most of the North Island.
Rodney Dow, Mayor of Ōtorohanga, discussing the impact of the flooding on his town. “The damage can be repaired, but the poor person that’s lost their life -“
The Mayor continues: “you know, there’s gonna be a family there bawling their eyes out.”
“…devastated. It’s - sorry.” He’s choked up, and lost for words.
TVNZ news tonight:
-Ōtorohanga under water, mayor near tears
-citizens discuss self-reliance as East Coast braces for risky weather on the 3rd anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle (in which 15 people died)
-Cook Strait ferry sailings cancelled due to rough swells
And that’s just the first 10 minutes
You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.
A kākāpō on a nest with two eggs. Credit: Andrew Digby
Three more #kakapo nests found on Pukenui/Anchor Island yesterday. Here's Konini with her two eggs. We have found nests for 26 out of the 36 adult females on the island, with more to come in the next few days. It's a big year! #conservation #kakapo2026 A
Quote from Tom Robinson, disaster expert at U. Canterbury: “Since European settlement, landslides have killed around 1800 people in New Zealand – more than all earthquakes combined. We tend to focus on big events, but it’s these smaller, deadly slips that take lives one or two at a time, often in places people think are safe.”
Excellent article from the reporting team at Stuff.
www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3609...
"As reported [by] the Italian Civil Protection Department, more than 500 mm of rainfall were recorded...
A particularly significant feature is the 72h accumulated rainfall, with values up to 2.5–3.5 times the Jan monthly Avg & equivalent to 40–45% of the mean annual precipitation total"
#Climate
“We use the word ‘regenerative’ because ‘less destructive’ doesn’t sell.”
substack.com/inbox/post/1...
Today I will be sharing a series of strange animal facts, in the hopes of confusing the demons or brightening your day. I will not be looking most of them up beyond the first line.
open.substack.com/pub/yeehawth...
More work by the New Zealand cartoonist Daniel Vernon, whose work I often repost.
"But everything suggests that, once more, what will not be addressed at their meeting is the biggest threat to humanity and the planet: neoliberal capitalism."
#NZPOL
"If we design cities that make parenting easier, we design cities that make living easier for everyone." A great article by my colleague Mirjam Schindler, and Dr Eva Neely.
newsroom.co.nz/2026/01/20/w...
"there are two paths for our future: either we will witness global societal collapse, or we will radically change the way we organise our societies." Global collapse here we come then..?
www.theguardian.com/global/2026/...
I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows. I'm sorry. I know that when we talk about "digital sovereignty," we're obliged to talk about how we can build more data-centres that we can fill up with money-losing chips from American silicon monopolists in the hopes of destroying as many jobs as possible while blowing through our clean energy goals and enshittifying as much of our potable water as possible.
Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...
When talking about climate, I’m now starting with:
“Everyone makes their own decisions about climate action, but I'm walking, cycling, taking the bus/train/metro, avoiding unnecessary air travel, & not overeating or wasting food."
I follow up with:
“What are your choices for reducing CO2 output?"
"In fact, extreme heat kills more Australians than all other natural hazards combined."
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Yeah, 1.5C is basically here. We'll just have to live with the consequences of 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 etc until we can't adapt any more.
But it's never too late for #climateaction
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
A cat sitting inside a case of a defibrillator
Literally a publication for eight-year olds 40 years ago
