24 January 2013

Challenging New Zealand's '100 percent pure' reputation

TV3's Campbell Live has started a series of quick (what else but quick can you say about one fifth of a current affairs news show?) investigations into the state of New Zealand's environment. TV3 are calling it 'Challenging New Zealand's '100 percent pure' reputation' and the first segment, which went to air today, featured Massey freshwater ecologist Mike Joy Massey, Dr Jonathan Garden, Simon Kingham, Alan Palmer, James Renwick and Diane Brunton from Massey.

Each scientist was asked for a realistic alternative percentage of pure to the much-hyped "100% Pure"

I am refusing to go with percentages. So I will note the scores out of a total of ten. Just like school essays of yesteryear.

The lowest score was 1.5 out of 10 for biodiversity, awarded by Diane Brunton from Massey. Climate change was next lowest at 4.5 out of 10. Former NIWA climate scientist James Renwick, now at Victoria University of Wellington, gave NZ 4.5/10 for NZ's high agricultural emissions, high car ownership, and opting out of the Kyoto Protocol.

The gimmick was for the reporter to conclude the series of 60 second interviews bt averaging all the scores. The final average for NZ was 5.66/10.

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