new-zealand

"Boston is among an increasing number of municipalities, universities, and private foundations that have announced plans to divest from fossil fuels. In late October, ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26, Auckland, New Zealand; Copenhagen, Denmark; Glasgow, Scotland; Paris; Rio de Janeiro; and Seattle announced commitments to divest from fossil fuel companies and increase investments to make cities more sustainable. Also last month, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott signed a bill that requires the city’s three pension funds to divest from the fossil fuel industry. Those are in addition to divestment commitments made last year by Berlin; Bristol, England; Cape Town, South Africa; Durban, South Africa; London; Los Angeles; Milan; New Orleans; New York City; Oslo; Norway; Pittsburgh; and Vancouver, Canada. “Cities are at the forefront of tackling the climate emergency and there is real momentum to move investments away from fossil fuels and toward climate solutions,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is chair-elect of C40 Cities, a network of mayors working to confront climate change, said in a statement. “I will continue to encourage more cities to join the movement, and urge national governments and private finance institutions to mobilize more finance to invest directly in cities to support a green and fair recovery.”"

"Whitewater swells, bridges of old, deep clear nights, open shores: Summer nights in Auckland."

"If you think you’re beleaguered by political correctness in America, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not living in New Zealand."

"I believe we were all glad to leave New Zealand. It is not a pleasant place. Amongst the natives there is absent that charming simplicity which is found at Tahiti; and the greater part of the English are the very refuse of society. Neither is the country itself attractive."

"Before the Polynesians first set foot here in the thirteenth century, at least eleven species of moa lived here. Moa were enormous ratites, sometimes weighng up to 440 pounds and growing 9 feet tall. Furthermore, the island was inhabited by dozens of other unique bird species, including an eagle with a wingspan of almost 9 feet that hunted moas. Within a few centuries, the moas, and consequently also the eagle, all went extinct."

"In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed."

"After its great bust in the 1880s, New Zealand ceased to see itself as an embryonic replica of Britain, an 'Infant Hercules', and accepted a more modest role as an exemplary paradise, 'the world's social laboratory', a title also claimed by South Australia."

"The history of this country still shows itself in the power imbalances between ourselves and the Crown, which is contrary to Te Tiriti o Waitangi."

"By the time of the First World War, the descendants of the British who had settled in Australia, Canada or New Zealand were held to be tougher and more brutal than their cousins in Britain, thanks to their geography. When the ‘less civilised’ and therefore the less adept at war won victories, these had to be written off as mistakes. When a Maori force defeated a British one in the wars in New Zealand in the mid-nineteenth century, The Times of London was quick with an explanation: ‘just as at chess a bad and reckless player is sometimes more formidable than a master of the game’."

"New Zealand was colonised initially by those Australians who had the initiative to escape."

"To illustrate how dramatically populations can displace each other over time, the historian E.M. Kulischer once reminded his readers that in A.D. 900 Berlin had no Germans, Moscow had no Russians, Budapest had no Hungarians, Madrid was a Moorish settlement, and Constantinople had hardly any Turks. He added that the Normans had not yet settled in Great Britain and before the sixteenth century there were no Europeans living in North or South America, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa."

"I think every person, when he or she is young, dreams of finding some enchanted place, of beautiful mountains and breathtaking coastline and clear lakes and amazing wildlife, and most people give up on it because they never get to New Zealand."