R a n d o m g r a m from New Zealand

I will never be accused of being quiet on things I feel passionately about.... this should be no exception. Did you know that 1 out of every 3 sea turtles found dead on a New Zealand beach died from eating plastic?  It seems that the bags resemble one of their favourite foods, jellyfish, and they chomp away eventually suffocating on the plastic. Did you know there are over 100 million sea animals killed each year in the ocean from plastic? Did you know that there are over 100 million tons of plastic in the ocean? I'm not telling anyone how to live their life -- do what you want, however, I think it's important for people to know the true story about plastic. Note: Plastic straws and chewing gum are two other things you can give up to help save planet earth.

Great Magazine cover

As long as I'm on a semi-environmental jag let's talk about cows. Cows get a bad rap for methane gas emissions, and to be clear, they burp (it isn't farting) methane gas at significant rates. I wonder if anyone can guess what animal is actually the biggest methane gas emitter?  If you said termites, you'd be spot-on.  In fact, termites give off methane at a rate 23X greater than cows -- and that's without benefit of cheese or milk! I don't do a lot of dairy but I do eat cheese. The real tragedy here in New Zealand isn't the cows as much as it is the farmers and agri-planners. Run-off into the New Zealand rivers is killing large swaths of once pristine waterways. It's an issue in the news and there are dedicated people helping to solve the dramas.  Going to be tough sledding though because money trumps everything and dairy is the #1 industry here...

Auto Elevator

Space. New Zealand is a small nation with 90% of the population living within 10Km of the coast. In truth, nearly everyone here lives in a metro area with Auckland being the largest. Here in Wellington 18% of the people commute each day by foot (they walk) and some amount (No idea) ride a bicycle. I like all of that.  Similar to Portland and Seattle, Wellington is limited by the geography and topography of the region. As housing shortages increase, properties go up ^ instead of out < > and space becomes a challenge.  This is exacerbated here by a desire to keep green spaces, or even more detrimental, to designate areas as conservation zone where no building at all is allowed.  I happen to love that but it certainly poses challenges and problems with housing, transportation, etc.

Here at the Bolton Hotel they are stealing a page from Tokyo with parking. Rather than having a large parking garage they have auto elevators that take your car and load it into a moving carousel. Want your car? They bring it to you on an elevator that kind of works like an old soda machine.  Good solution? Probably so.... The Hotel itself was built in 1997 and is designed to sway significantly in heavy winds (common) or earthquakes (also common). You can hear it creak in the night as the wind hits it....

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

And finally, Jacinda Ardern is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Just this morning she became only the second head of state to give birth while in office (Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto the other in 1990).  She has handed off the reigns of government for 6 weeks to the Deputy while she takes her paid leave. It's a paid benefit available to all Kiwi's and can extend as long as 18 weeks. Jacinda is a pretty cool person -- smart, transparent, reasonable... pretty typical of NZ politics. She regularly appears on morning talk shows (in-person) and answers actual questions posed to her -- not the rehearsed kind of nonsense you see with Fox and Friends in the US. I do not miss American politics! Note: New Zealand was the first nation to give women the right to vote!

That's it for today - peace out.