Interesting climate stuff is always building up in the “share with all my lovely readers” folder.

Only some of it ever sees the light of day.

It turns out that going away on a mini road-trip without the laptop makes the backlog even worse.

Mahurangi meandering and winter camping on the Tawharanui Peninsula makes things better though too.

Here’s the wild beach by the campsite, not long before the storm hit:

That storm lasted twenty four freaking hours.

Yay for no-leak tents. Thanks Craig.

Here’s one of the Hereford zombie beasts on the council-run sustainable farm inside the open sanctuary at Tawharanui:

Twenty of these giants staring at you in silence has its unnerving side.

Luckily, they don’t seem to attack photographers.

It’s a pretty cool part of New Zealand and I’ll do a proper post about it soon.

But back to the backlog.

In no particular order…

One of the minuscule silver linings to the ongoing global Covid-shitshow:

“Amid the immense hardship of the Covid-19 pandemic, one unexpected bright spot has emerged: residents from Los Angeles to New Delhi are reporting unprecedented smog-free skies—the result of a drastic reduction in vehicle-based and industrial air pollution.

“No single activity contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than driving to and from work. Transportation is the number one source of emissions in the United States, and light-duty vehicles contribute the lion’s share of all carbon emissions. The most common mile traveled by households operating light-duty vehicles is the one to and from work.”

Going forward, the authors suggest:

“The vanishing of the daily commute has brought to light the burden of cars and trucks on health and the environment. As an intentional effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at low cost to society, policymakers and businesses should continue to encourage working from home for jobs that allow it, even after the coronavirus crisis has receded.”

While this seems like a good simple idea, a Covid-recovering country like New Zealand is already being faced with the unintended consequences of working from home when life gets back to normal: all the downtown businesses that rely on office workers start to die off (if they haven’t gone bung already).

As for Adani’s infamous future coal mine in Australia, Aspen—the fourth insurance company named in the recent leak, has said it will not renew its insurance policies for Adani’s mine.

It’ll be interesting to see how Marsh—Adani’s insurance broker—deals with the fact that all four insurance companies have now cut free and run for the hills.

Also, don’t forget that other battles are being waged about other new coal mines in Australia’s wilderness too.

It’s not just Adani.

Rio Tinto—in other news—isn’t really helping raise the image of mining companies in general in Australia:

“Rio Tinto has repeated its apology to traditional owners for the destruction of a rock shelter that had been occupied for more than 46,000 years, after its iron ore chief executive, Chris Salisbury, reportedly told a staff meeting that the apology was for any distress caused, not an admission the company had done wrong.”

It turns out that they weren’t apologising for blowing up the historical site, they were just apologising for any distress caused by blowing it up.

I’m glad this misunderstanding was quickly sorted out.