Steve recommends a couple good series to hunker down with as Winter kicks-in. First up is the series Mind Menders with Sonia Grey which investigates psychedelic therapy for mental health treatments and tracks the recent LSD trial at the University of Auckland. Then, Steve talks Murderbot and why you should watch it on cold and rainy nights.
Earlier this week, 26 climate scientists wrote a joint letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, accusing the government of ignoring scientific evidence of methane emissions and urging him to work towards reducing emissions.
The letter also criticised the government’s method of reducing emissions to the level of “no additional warming”, a concept approved by the Federated Farmers and Beef + Lamb, to keep New Zealand’s contribution to global heating at the levels they were in 2017.
However, Chris Luxon reportedly dismissed the open letter, referring to the climate scientists as “worthies” and insisting that the government was managing methane emissions better than "every other country on the planet,” despite the fact that New Zealand has one of the highest per-capita methane emissions rates in the world.
Oto spoke to Amanda Larsson, Senior Campaign manager for Greenpeace Aotearoa about the open letter sent to Christopher Luxon by 26 climate scientists, Luxon’s reaction to it and the concept of “no additional warming.”
Last week the government announced a series of changes to 16 national direction instruments under the Resource Management Act that would change the way councils implement local plans and rules.
Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, described the changes as removing ‘unnecessary regulations’ for primary industries and investment, with the main changes being: removing freshwater management regulations for councils, removing regulations for the construction of mines and quarries and removing restrictions on non-intensive grazing of beef, cattle and deer in wetlands.
In that same week, Associate Education Minister, David Seymour made a series of changes to the pay parity scheme impacting primary school teachers, where education centres would not need to factor additional and higher qualifications when working out teacher’s starting salaries.
And, just recently, Workplace Relations and Safety minister Brooke van Velden recently announced that she’d be making a series of changes to WorkSafe in order to shift regulators priorities from enforcement to advice.
For our weekly catchup with the Green Party, Oto spoke to MP Ricardo Menendez March to get the party’s take on all of these issues.
Tom of Tarndanya-based noise country band Twine calls in from Pōneke to select tracks for What's Cooking and chat about Junk Vol. II happening this weekend across both Whammys and Public Bar. Tom's track selections include:
The Drones - Jezebel
Allegra Krieger - A Place for It to Land
Pavement - Father to a Sister of Thought
Michael Hurley - I Stole the Right to Live
Twine - New Cleaner
95bFM 
