New Zealand Listener Issue 8, 2023

In 2010, a friend said to me: “I’m an environmentalist, should I stop eating fish?” I responded: “If you don’t eat fish, what are you going to eat?” He replied that as he wasn’t a vegetarian, he would eat more meat. This led me to start exploring the environmental cost of fishing, compared with other ways of producing food. All types of food production require resources such as fuel, energy, land, water, fertiliser, antibiotics and equipment. This produces environmental impacts such as greenhouse gases, water shortage, soil erosion, nutrient and acid pollution, antibiotic-resistant bacteria and loss of native biodiversity. The impact of different food production systems differs greatly, and has increasingly been the subject of scientific research. In his 2013 book The Perfect Protein, Andy Sharpless, CEO of the ocean conservation organisation…

WINNING CAPTION John Edgar, Christchurch FINALISTS Chris Hipkins: “Sausage rolls remind me of bread-and-butter issues.” – Hans Zindel, Palmerston North Jacinda Ardern: “A slogan? How about, ‘Gingers are Ninjas?’” – Paul Kelly, Palmerston North Ardern: “What are you keeping under your hat, Chris?” – Marie Curran, Dunedin The rain had yet to fall on Chris Hipkins’ parade. – Mavis Irik, Lower Hutt Ardern: “Don’t forget, rubbish day is Wednesday, and it’s the glass recycle bin this week.” – Robert Morey, Dunedin Caption Competition {listenercaption@aremedia.co.nz} TO ENTER Send your captions for the photo at right to listenercaption@aremedia.co.nz, with “Caption Competition No 499” in the subject line. Alternatively, entries can be posted to “Caption Competition No 499”, NZ Listener, PO Box 52122, Kingsland, Auckland 1352. Entries must be received by noon, Tuesday, February 21. THE PRIZE Fear: New Zealand’s hostile underworld of extremists,…

“Longline to extinction” (February 11), describing decades of work to record the decline of subantarctic albatrosses, struck me deeply. No doubt if more people saw these majestic creatures, they would achieve the profile of other charismatic endangered species. But, as we know, this would not necessarily ensure their survival. The phrase “shutters of conservation fatigue” resonated. In 2019, I completed a diploma in environmental studies as an adult student. After four years’ study, strangely, I was left with an even deeper and paralysing sense of helplessness. My attempts to discuss global warming or biodiversity loss since have led to the dreaded shutters of fatigue, followed by a quick change of subject. The image of a male albatross waiting patiently every year for his mate long ago drowned by a longline is poignant,…

The QI elves are a team of writers and comedians who find the answers to impossible questions, doing the research for the long-running QI TV series, podcasts and the spin-off books. For the next little while, we’ll be running some of their finest findings: the weird, wonderful, witty and wise, from their latest book, 222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions. How many breaths do we take a day? On average, we breathe just over 20,000 times a day – about 15 times a minute. Your lungs fill with air without you having to think about it, which is handy because you wouldn’t have time for much else if you had to remember to take 670 million breaths in a lifetime. Most of us are over-breathing. This is partly because we sit…

“Just remembered that the sheets and duvet cover are in the dryer and I’d almost rather book a hotel room for the night than deal with all that.”– seen on Twitter“I dropped the ball on Friday. I was too slow to be seen. The communications weren’t fast enough, including mine.”– Wayne Brown“We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules.”– Greta Thunberg“Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui. Be strong, be brave, be steadfast.”– King Charles III“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”– Marie Curie“It’s important for Pride to be political, and I wanted to make sure that Pride had a political voice publicly.”– former Auckland Pride executive director Max Tweedie“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’”–…

1. Which airline’s logo is an encircled stylised crane in flight heading left? ❑ Cathay Pacific❑ Lufthansa❑ Air Arabia❑ Japan Airlines 2. Melbourne-founded Little River Band – who performed Reminiscing and Help Is on Its Way – now has only one Australian member. ❑ True❑ False 3. The Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai eruption in January 2022 displaced sea floor equivalent to how many Olympic-sized swimming pools? ❑ 26,000❑ 500,000❑ 2.6 million❑ 5 million 4. Te Reo Tātaki o Aotearoa is the Maori-language name for which organisation: ❑ TVNZ❑ RNZ❑ NZ on Air/Broadcasting Commission❑ Ministry for Culture & Heritage 5. Who played Andy Dufresne in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption? ❑ Tim Robbins❑ Morgan Freeman❑ Donald Sutherland❑ Richard Gere 6. Which of these is not a well-known song by US singer Kenny Rogers? ❑ Islands in the Stream❑ The Gambler❑ Coward of the…