George Driver

Auckland

South Island Correspondent at North and South Magazine

Freelance journalist based in Central Otago.

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Articles

Superwalker stepping out for nature

1 month ago | wildernessmag.co.nz | George Driver

A once paralysed Walk1200km participant shares how she walked nearly 6000km!Five years ago Jo Booker was paralysed and in intensive care after contracting a rare illness. Now she’s finished her first year of the Walk1200km challenge, averaging more than 100km a week while raising money to protect native species. In late 2019, Booker, who lives in Arrowtown, got a bout of flu that progressed to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the nervous system.
October 2024

Oct 15, 2024 | northandsouth.co.nz | Clare Thomson |Henry Whyte |John Sinclair |George Driver

Smoke & Mirrors: What’s gone wrong with the ETS? The emissions trading scheme is meant to be the country’s main tool for reducing our emissions, but critics say it’s doing little more than carpeting the country in permanent pine forest. Meanwhile, the price of carbon credits has gone from boom to bust. What’s gone wrong? By George Driver
Smoke & Mirrors: What’s gone wrong with the ETS?

Oct 15, 2024 | northandsouth.co.nz | Clare Thomson |George Driver

At 9am on September 4, an online auction began. On offer was a product that should lure the most powerful companies in the country. It was selling neither super yachts or Monets, but the right to put 7.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air. This should be a scarce commodity in hot demand. Every time someone in New Zealand burns fossil fuels, at some point in the supply chain a company has bought a carbon credit to account for it — a permit that allows the owner to emit a tonne of CO2.
Our Tech Tipping Problem

May 5, 2024 | northandsouth.co.nz | George Driver

“He said we don’t want these any more, come and take them,” Zwimpfer says. “That was a turning point for me. For the first time we started thinking about who’s responsible for this e-waste. That led to the realisation that we should actually be doing something about this.”The issue wasn’t unique to the trust. Zwimpfer began investigating how a nationwide scheme for e-waste could work by making producers responsible for the waste they ultimately created.
Lost Property

Jan 22, 2024 | northandsouth.co.nz | George Driver

Bunker, 77, was unaware that he had a right to the SILNA block at the Neck until 2013, when he got a call from Ngāi Tahu genealogy expert Terry Ryan, who was working to identify descendants. As part of Ngāi Tahu’s $170 million treaty settlement in 1998, the four unallocated SILNA blocks were to be finally transferred to the rightful descendants. The Māori Land Court was tasked with tracking down all of the successors as a first step and the Crown would hold the land until then.
Lost Property

Jan 18, 2024 | northandsouth.co.nz | George Driver

The model of co-housing that interests many in New Zealand today got its start in Denmark in 1972, with a community called Saettedamen 30 miles north of Copenhagen. Denmark now has hundreds of bofoellesskaber, or “living communities”, comprising about 50,000 Danes in all. The idea evolved out of a desire for affordable housing and a greater sense of community than single-family homes provide. Early co-housing residents also wanted to live in a way that would protect the environment.
Fight or flight: An old suburb and the sea

Dec 17, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | George Driver

When Eleanor Doig’s labradors dig holes in the backyard of her Musselburgh cottage, it’s not long before they hit water. Eight years ago, that backyard was entirely submerged. On June 3, 2015, it started raining and didn’t stop for 24 hours. In total, 175mm of rain fell. The streets became streams. Water, mixed with sewage, intruded into around 1200 homes and businesses, causing an estimated $138 million in damage. Aerial photos show what looks like a brick-and-tile, working-class Venice.
Burps & Bluster

Oct 15, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |George Driver

Essentially, CO2 emissions last for a millennia or more and this means that ongoing CO2 emissions keep accumulating in the atmosphere indefinitely, heating the world more and more. Methane, however, lasts in the atmosphere for about a decade on average and is almost entirely gone from the atmosphere within about 50 years, although a small amount of warming persists for more than a century. This short lifespan means methane emissions don’t accumulate indefinitely like CO2.
September 2023

Aug 20, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | Philippa Johnston |Matthew Jansen |George Driver |Greg Partington

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A burning question

Aug 20, 2023 | northandsouth.co.nz | George Driver

Taylor says the company began with a “small investment group” who were invited by Buller mayor Garry Howard to investigate building a waste-to-energy plant in Westport. The town was going through a rough patch. About 150 jobs had been axed at Stockton coal mine and the local Holcim cement plant had earlier announced it was closing, impacting another 100 jobs. Someone had the idea of building a waste-to-energy plant in the old Holcim site to help revive the local economy.