John Kerr of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union is leading the charge to keep Dunedin’s Hillside Railway Workshops afloat after KiwiRail’s decision to outsource major rail manufacturing contracts overseas.  He talks about that decision, the fight to change it, and how an integrated view of sustainability sees workers and the environment as part of a grand alliance.
Click through to “Save Hillside Workshops” on facebook.
Shane’s number of the week: 50,000. Â That is an extra 50,000 people who died as temperatures stayed more than 6C above normal for many weeks last year in Eastern Europe and Russia. Â Shane describes several extreme weather events of the last year with impacts worse in poorer countries. Â While extreme weather is to be expected, the frequency and intensity trends are most worrying and as as predicted by climate change models. Â And it’s not just an increased reporting, while reported geophysical disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions have remained constant, flooding and storms have increase from 133 in the 1980s to to 350 now.
Sam’s joined up thinking: Sam had just been to Dr Dame Jane Goodall’s lecture.  He gives a run-down of her amazing and empowering talk.