Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

With typical hype and fanfare, Apple’s latest iPhone 3G is hitting stores on Friday. It promises to be faster, better and cheaper, but what have we heard about it being greener than its predecessor? Crickets.

An Aucklander by the name of Jonny Gladwell is aiming to be the world’s first iPhone 3G customer by lining up to snare his at 12.01 tomorrow night, however, another group is doing the same in New York in an attempt to use the attention this misguided fad of lining up for consumer products brings by doing it to promote organic produce.

A worthy cause no doubt, but that is as far as the “green” coverage is going. Well, that’s not entirely true. There is a rumour that the iPhone will be partly packaged in potato starch trays instead of plastic. Aside from that rather dull, and un-revolutionary (Motorola already uses them) potato titbit there’s no info yet on how green the actual phone will be. Read more »

Even though it’s not actually part of my job at Greenpeace, as a keen cyclist and climate change activist, I try to keep an eye on what’s going on with transport in NZ.

As you all probably know, if you’ve ever tried to take a bus or train in NZ, the transport sector in NZ is in a sorry state. Public transport is appalling, we have extremely high rates of car ownership, and greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector are skyrocketing.

However, the good news is there are lots of great campaigns being run by volunteers around NZ to try and get more sustainable transport. I mainly know about Auckland based groups although I’m sure there are lots of others going on. Read more »

Today we cast off the mooring lines and set sail for Gisborne. As we left port, the non sea-faring section of the Auckland Greenpeace office lined the wharf to wave us off. The 13-month old son of the ship’s bosun was even dressed for the occasion with a little t-shirt bearing the words “good bye”. There were hugs and farewell words whispered. As we cast off, everyone cheered and laughed. Spirits were high. I can’t say mine stayed that way for long. In fact I have little to report of the transit so far. I began to feel queasy while we were still in the Hauraki Gulf (fortunately I had already had my safety briefing, so I knew, among other things, that if I was pregnant I should not be on the ship, and that in the event of an emergency I was to save myself before even thinking of others). Through necessity I took to my bunk for a few hours and have only just surfaced. Read more »