Dave Black

Aging #beekeeper living on a 17ha bush block, recently retired from the kiwifruit industry and hoping to spend my time more wisely. YouTube-free zone.
#Otanewainuku #NZ

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Last Notes

2026-10-07 01:17:11 UTC

A walk around the bush margins to check on the clematis. These are glorious this spring. The various pittosporums, coprosma and mingimingi are all humming. No honeybees on the clematis though.
Anyway, the puzzle is the two different type of clematis, different habit, different flowers, and in different groups. Nine plants of one type;four of the other. I always forget to go and look at the 'old man's beard' seeds to see if they're the same.
These can not all be C. paniculata, the larger, pink frilled variety must be something else surely? @nprofile…gydw you have a photo on Inaturalist eh?
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/396/973/770/339/599/original/35fc56d0c02b057f.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/396/974/485/546/082/original/2719b4e3633c2c34.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/396/975/387/097/144/original/b7e4be604db10932.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/117/396/975/857/844/279/original/fed4becca1a558ad.jpg

2026-10-05 21:24:54 UTC

This is worthwhile. I wonder if all debates are better in writing?
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-10-2026/should-the-government-be-spending-less-a-debate-between-a-neoliberal-and-a-progressive

2026-09-28 21:34:18 UTC

"Australian households have installed a record number of rooftop solar systems and home batteries so far this year, as they took energy security into their own hands in the face of surging prices driven by geopolitical shockwaves.
When tallying up all installations from January 2019, the CEC also found that Australians have installed 21,979 MW worth of rooftop solar – a figure which approaches the entire remaining coal-fired generation capacity currently operating in Australia today."
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-households-installed-record-amount-of-rooftop-solar-and-home-batteries-in-first-half-of-2026/

2026-09-27 04:02:04 UTC

"OpenAI, Anthropic and security researchers are investigating tens of thousands of incidents in which their frontier models took steps that outside evaluators would consider problematic, sources told Axios...
...In recent days, OpenAI and outside researchers have disclosed a litany of episodes involving model behavior from the company's systems that some experts consider troubling...
...These include OpenAI agents leaking 53 images from ChatGPT users online, the breach of an Australian government website, and attempts to hack other sites — including from the U.S. government — according to the company, sources and reports from Reuters and The New York Times."
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/26/openai-anthropic-thousands-ai-security-incidents

2026-09-23 22:27:31 UTC

Surprise! Experimental evidence indicates Google lies about AI Search, users don't love it.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.18352
Google’s AI Search reduces clicks to publisher websites and presents a user experience that is so bad it makes them seek out alternative search engines...

2026-09-05 02:43:16 UTC

"There is no safe age verification. There is no age verification that doesn’t put people at risk... each time we highlight a breach people play it down and insist that mandating age verification is perfectly safe and nothing to worry about. Yet here’s one of the largest identity verification companies in the country, with a pipeline so wide open that hackers had a real-time feed of every government ID it scanned, for over a year, without anyone at the company noticing."
Mike Masnick,
https://www.techdirt.com/2026/09/03/hackers-had-a-live-feed-of-every-id-this-verification-company-scanned-for-over-a-year/

2026-08-24 07:14:01 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 I thought you were using Sailfish and told myself I was crazy and thought best not to mention it!

2026-08-24 05:54:46 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 That's a pretty unusual combination, but I can see why. Phones are way too big now. You installed the LineageOS? How did you know that device would work on the NZ networks?

2026-08-24 00:47:32 UTC

Is anybody in the local timeline (only NZ) actually using open Android alternatives to Google, (/e/os, Lineage, Graphene, Calyx) as a daily driver? Can we have a thread on sources, hardware, network issues, reckons, etc.?
Ask your friends,'cos i don't have many!

2026-08-13 20:20:27 UTC

NZ's new flood maps are missing a hidden threat—the water quietly rising from below
https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nz-hidden-threat-quietly.html

2026-08-07 20:06:05 UTC

"Once touted as a possible “Norway of the Pacific,” New Zealand’s electric vehicle transition was stopped in its tracks by a change of government...Now it appears that they are on the rise, back from the dead, breaching like a whale."
https://cleantechnica.com/2026/08/06/new-zealand-electric-vehicle-market-rises-from-the-depths-charts/

2026-07-25 05:16:12 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 @nprofile…wj33 I use a lot of feeds but I'm pretty ignorant about how it works. Is this something OpenRSS can do?

2026-07-20 04:07:03 UTC

I didn't know this, but Katydids (Caedicia simplex) happen to be bright pink when they are young, not green-leaf-colour. Here is one, hopping around my winter-bare wisteria branches. All 12mm of it. Never seen one before.
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/950/292/291/006/604/original/28edc141161e2b66.jpg
https://o.mastodon.nz/media_attachments/files/116/950/292/835/786/624/original/df8a9b8acf4441e2.jpg

2026-07-17 04:57:06 UTC

I know an old NZer who doesn't feel shut out or technostressed, but I'm slamming the door and sliding the locks to try and keep out the shit the tech industry wants me to buy, using every sense of the word 'buy'.

2026-07-10 00:10:00 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 Yes, very interestingly. I think schools and universities remain drivers of 'socialisation by place' too but that doesn't detract from what the article is saying. It's strangely comforting in a way.
One I'll keep to refer to.

2026-06-26 04:34:00 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 @nprofile…e8mx Money matters, true. I know why it was done, but I still doubt the wisdom of paying career politicians serious salaries for a start, and that money has to come from somewhere.
But there's a more subtle factor I think. Fifty or sixty years ago the relationship between politics and what we call now 'left' voters was different. You knew them, they knew you. You went to meetings, licked their envelopes, wrote campaign letters, used your car to ride-share to the booth, worked with them, lived with them. They were in the union, on the school board, used the same shops. They didn't need focus groups and ad campaigns. It wasn't just financial.
The atomisation of modern living broke all that (famously, "there's no such thing as society", in 1987). The social, volutary contribution that was able to defray much of the 'cost 'of politics is now all out-sourced to businesses that charge. We don't join in; we don't participate. (In fact, if I hear 'let's take the politics out of this' one more time...!).
Some argue that activist Parties like the Greens haven't lost, or were able to remake, that 'grassroots' relationship with their voters, an 'environmental camaraderie' rather than a 'working camaraderie'. I think I see that.
So that's the dynamic we live in. Old left parties shift right towards the money as their base collapsed, and new left and populist parties rooted in their communities move in. The old left are now distant professionals running a business, no different from the right, and have no reason to exist.
That is the lesson Chippie needs to take from Starmer. That, electoral reform, and to shove 'bipartisan' arrangements.

2026-06-25 21:10:46 UTC

Interesting review, but I don't think it actually answers the question posed...
https://theconversation.com/as-nzs-chris-hipkins-pursues-power-what-can-he-learn-from-keir-starmers-downfall-286017
#NZpol

2026-06-24 21:24:07 UTC

Chris Bishop's comments on an Auckland harbour crossing are instructive. Essentially, not yet a public discussion or consultation because they don't have all the answers, yet.
That's the game. They need a private chat to get all their ducks in a row so that what is cooked-up is a fait accomplis, not a consultation.
This is what we elect. For all their bluster people without the confidence, experience, or command of the topic to win an argument. Who won't expose their values to scrutiny and criticism. People with no vision of what a desirable outcome looks like and no ability to lead anyone towards it.
Except Chloe

2026-06-17 01:17:24 UTC

On safeguarding independent research in the age of big tech.
Amongst other things, shout-out from Timnit Gebru for Te Hiku Media.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/timnit-gebru/
@nprofile…0v7k #tehikumedia

2026-06-13 01:47:01 UTC

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@nprofile…tkzw Yup, I had some fancy bathroom scales. Ate batteries like they were smarties. Dusted of some vintage platform-spring assembly, gave it some love, silicone, and a respray. Presto!
Also have kitchen battery-gobblers, so time for some op-shopping I guess.

2026-06-06 00:04:29 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 So... Paraphrasing and thinking about what the Pope had to say (I can't believe I'm reading the Pope); AI may become human-like, but it can't be a human being because it doesn't do any 'being'.

2026-05-31 00:57:43 UTC

The Lucky Country.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2026/may/31/cheaper-energy-bills-battery-revolution-climate-crisis

2026-05-20 19:01:31 UTC

#NZpol
They're claiming AI can replace 8700 govt workers... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

2026-05-06 01:09:09 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 ...and a new word enters the English lexicon, 'Hormuzed'
As in "You've been hormuzed..." Blocked and rendered irrelevant/redundant, incapacitated etc.

2026-05-05 01:28:48 UTC

https://theconversation.com/honeybees-may-be-helping-spread-tree-killing-myrtle-rust-new-research-281430?utm_medium=article_native_share&utm_source=theconversation.com

2026-04-08 23:46:24 UTC

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@nprofile…xpw3 Big fan of process knowledge. I knew it as 'organisational effectiveness' and took advantage of it all my working life.
'Process Knowledge' is a better name.

2025-12-27 06:36:56 UTC

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@nprofile…5nnv Scouts start searching in advance, but the timing of actual departure event has multiple dependencies, so the scouting is often incomplete. It's common to see the scouts dancing in the departed swarm's bivouac, the final destination still unresolved. Eventually they will reach a quorum for a new site and fly off again.
There may be several 'hops' to the route, maybe because the destination still has to be decided, because the light and weather intervene, and because the queen doesn't have the stamina for a long flight. I have known swarms to be out for two or three days.
If everything is perfect they leave knowing where they will go, and get there that afternoon. Things are perfect sometimes...

2025-12-27 02:25:28 UTC

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@nprofile…5nnv As a rule (of thumb) bees stop swarming when the solstice arrives (20/21st). Before that point, with days lengthening, they have a suitable time to mate their queen, build a new colony, and provision it before the winter dearth.
Once the days start shortening the odds, never in their favour, really turn against them.
Keep your fingers crossed.

2025-12-14 18:36:54 UTC

Britain's’s bees are losing the fight against Asian hornets.
https://archive.ph/BftIe

2025-12-07 19:40:41 UTC

Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/07/kremlin-hails-trump-national-security-strategy-as-aligned-with-russia-vision

2025-12-07 06:49:54 UTC

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@nprofile…98cu @nprofile…p7rx Given the unequal place we start from, does the question become, with IT, how do we talk to/work with the US (and others) without being overwhelmed by their execise of technological power?

2025-12-07 06:30:13 UTC

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@nprofile…98cu @nprofile…p7rx I will have to think about how to find the right words, it's not my field, but achieving scale has been about power, not Open Standards unfortunately.

2025-12-07 04:00:30 UTC

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@nprofile…98cu @nprofile…p7rx I'm sure we uses the same hymbook, but as an example of the 'scale' I'm thinking about exceeding the 5mil - I spent almost a day trying to glean the hornet secrets Chinese farmers know, so my scale relies on a successful Chinese internet too, not to mention all the other foreign countries that are my every day now.
Frankly, interoperability (wrong word?) within NZ is nowhere near enough.

2025-12-07 03:22:04 UTC

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@nprofile…98cu @nprofile…p7rx Agreed, so besides the donkeys we elect, one problem becomes scale; interoperability now requires scale, and, for example AWS. The other problem is (Cory Docrow will tell you) a legacy of data trapped by IP.

2025-12-07 02:58:44 UTC

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@nprofile…p7rx Particularly when you-know-who thinks we should cozy-up, buy their arms, use their technology, and give their multinationals a free pass to stiff our tax-payers. Do let him know what you think...😉

2025-12-06 23:43:22 UTC

Ladies and gentlemen, our ally the United States of America.
"There was a lot of discussion, much of it skeptical, about the US-Europe relationship, but no-one I talked to on the closing day had any idea of how wild the Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy would get...
This is, quite straightforwardly, a program for regime change in Europe, aimed at turning it into an illiberal polity. Accomplishing this transformation would involve undermining existing liberal governments in cahoots with Europe’s own far right, and turning Eastern Europe into an ideological wedge against its Western neighbors...
The Trump administration has declared, in its defining national security document, that the EU and [European liberal leaders] themselves are a security threat to the United States."
Henry Farrell
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/america-has-identified-its-final

2025-11-19 21:10:14 UTC

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@nprofile…p7rx Yes, that might be my solution too, but it shouldn't have to be so.

2025-11-19 20:56:04 UTC

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@nprofile…p7rx This looks very useful, I could be on this path before the 4G rollover.
My concern is that bank apps (and govt web sites) work for me, as they are offen the worst for forcing you down the conventional path.

2025-11-10 19:32:15 UTC

"...governments of every stripe have treated universities as businesses to be managed rather than institutions of learning and curiosity. Since the 1980s, with the introduction of tertiary fees and later the performance-based research fund, higher education has folded into the logic of the market. Students are rebranded as customers..."
We’ve forgotten what universities are for | The Spinoff
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-11-2025/weve-forgotten-what-universities-are-for?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Will%20Te%20P%C4%81ti%20M%C4%81ori%20s%20brutal%20MP%20purge%20succeed%20in%20ending%20its%20turmoil%3F&utm_campaign=The%20Bulletin%20-%20November%2011%2C%202025&vgo_ee=mWOS3LU8gf0woJKY3QKlp%2Be8jzHUPNGqUqUXdFrmwA81oJAx%3Asuwgmv29aiWOimMr7soMh5YD%2Bh8WtRDX

2025-11-04 19:36:19 UTC

More than $70tn of inherited wealth over next decade will widen inequality, economists warn | Inequality | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2025/nov/03/more-than-70tn-of-inherited-wealth-over-next-decade-will-widen-inequality-economists-warn

2025-10-29 23:31:37 UTC

Trouble afoot...
Two more predator queen hornets found in Auckland | RNZ News
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/577168/two-more-predator-queen-hornets-found-in-auckland

2025-10-29 19:38:39 UTC

Wink-wink
Revealed: Israel demanded Google and Amazon use secret ‘wink’ to sidestep legal orders | US news | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/29/google-amazon-israel-contract-secret-code

2025-10-19 00:16:14 UTC

From July, but I had missed this...
https://mastodon.nz/@ClareBear/115397137617488937
ClareBear - The General Practice Owners Association is calling foul at the huge difference between government funding for screen-based telehealth compared to face-to-face visits to community doctors.
According to Health New Zealand documents obtained by GenPro, telehealth providers will receive government funding of up to $95 per casual patient visit, compared to only $20.45 for general practice to see the same patient.
“General practice is amazed at the extravagant payments to a few telehealth providers during these cash-strapped times. And we’re stunned that the government won’t fund anywhere near these amounts to support general practices to see the same patients,” says Dr Angus Chambers, Chair of GenPro.
https://genpro.org.nz/resources/general-practice-amazed-at-governments-cash-splurge-on-telehealth
#nzpol #healthcare #telehealth

2025-10-13 19:38:28 UTC

How others see us...
Methane Madness Infects New Zealand Government - CleanTechnica
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/10/13/methane-madness-infects-new-zealand-government/

2025-10-05 02:01:35 UTC

Climate shifts alter nectar supply and quality in New Zealand native plants https://phys.org/news/2025-10-native-nectars-climate.html

2025-05-20 07:46:09 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n As usual these things usually end up being dictated by overseas markets, regardless of the facts. Glyposate has been on the radar for kiwifruit and honey for a while and it's already a complance issue without stupid suggestion to raise the limits. For instance, from four years ago...
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/434807/japan-warns-it-will-block-nz-honey-shipments-if-glyphosate-limits-breached

2025-05-12 22:23:41 UTC

#NZpol
Nesrine Malik right on point. I doubt Chippy takes advice from the Guardian though.
Welcome to the era of ‘hostage politics’, where Labour is apparently your only hope | Nesrine Malik | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/12/labour-reform-keir-starmer-hostage-politics

2025-04-21 02:30:58 UTC

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@nprofile…5wev @nprofile…vya4
I have several of these, I'm pretty sure, as Pittosporum tenuifolium, or Kohutu. I can't say bees pollinate them, because I haven't done the study, but I can tell you bees love visiting them, and mine get pollinated. They collect pollen but not nectar afak. There are male and female flowers, but they are not well studied. I've seem lots of bumblebees visit as well. The trees are highly scented from late evening on, suggesting, in NZ, moths might pollinate too.
https://mastodon.nz/system/media_attachments/files/114/373/561/774/567/396/original/aada7783564b6bc0.jpg

2025-04-15 02:48:33 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n Big bumbles now are queens looking for place to hibernate for the winter. With a little luck you'll be able to say "Hi" again in the spring when she starts to nest.

2025-04-12 01:46:49 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n 'Cognitive test.'
That's the one where you tap a hammer just below the knee-cap; the 'knee-jerk' isn't it?

2025-04-11 01:36:27 UTC

#USpol
Reading the news.
Canada owns $350 billion in U.S. treasury bonds; Japan, one trillion; the EU, $1.5.
Canada threatened to sell, and the EU. These loans, and others, ($8.5T) bankroll the US. No wonder the President backed down.
In December 2024, China held $759 billion in US Treasury stock. So, between the authoritarian and the wannabe, who has more to loose, and who has more power over their economy?
A proper economist might make it more complicated, but you know where my bet goes.

2025-04-03 19:53:34 UTC

#USpol
The best summary of the position so far, from Mike Masnick at Techdirt.
Trump Declares A Trade War On Uninhabited Islands, US Military, And Economic Logic
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/04/03/trump-declares-a-trade-war-on-uninhabited-islands-us-military-and-economic-logic/

2025-03-28 03:21:07 UTC

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@nprofile…s06p
Simon Jenkins for the Guardian treads a similar path in this "More to the point, the US may review its role in the world, a role that has meant a quarter of a century of moral belligerence, with appalling cost and slaughter. It should revert to being what it is, another nation among nations." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/27/donald-trump-moving-fast-breaking-things-better-us

2025-03-22 04:53:48 UTC

This is quite something, and it made me think. It's debatable, depending on what we call human, whether we have been around for 600,000 years isn't it? The prospect of us being here to see the comet return seems unlikely
@nprofile…3ymh @nprofile…jc9n
"The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft got a spectacular view of Comet ATLAS (C/2024 G3) as it passed close to the Sun.
This comet won't be seen again for another 600,000 years."
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter #space #science #art

2025-03-19 20:40:20 UTC

Nothing better than a sense of proportion.
"The EU’s 450 million citizens should not have to depend on 340 million Americans to defend ourselves against 140 million Russians, who cannot defeat 38 million Ukrainians." EU defence commissioner, Andrius Kubilius.

2025-03-19 08:20:57 UTC

The tendency of some flowers to be 'honest' and reward pollinators with nectar is partly genetic, study suggests https://phys.org/news/2025-03-tendency-honest-reward-pollinators-nectar.html

2025-03-04 03:41:34 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n Thanks Bob. Next time eh!

2025-03-01 23:55:49 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n Thanks, yes, I think syntax is my problem, whole word matches, any word, or partial matches for instance. I also use Tusky, but generally I can copy Mastodon instructions pretty well, if I know what they are!

2025-03-01 21:57:29 UTC

Is there a way to filter out posts with Facebook, Insta, or YouTube links? I wish people didn't post them, but here we are. I'm here partly to get away from these shitty companies.

2025-01-25 07:10:02 UTC

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@nprofile…jc9n Just maybe, we could apportion blame where it lies, and our governors would have enough self-respect to say "No, fuck off, we don't want that tosser here." [US Ambassador]. Let's call it an 'independent foreign policy'. Or we could just suffer the insult...

2024-12-10 00:57:15 UTC

‘A Valuable And Generous Ally’: How Exxon and Atlas Network Worked to Block Global Climate Action - DeSmog
https://www.desmog.com/2024/12/09/a-valuable-and-generous-ally-how-exxon-and-atlas-network-worked-to-block-global-climate-action/

2024-11-11 01:50:07 UTC

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@npub16uk…pv7k From what little I know, it's not like I have an opt-out with either system. I won't use it, but the practice does; they will be entering data about me. There are no practices who don't.
These predatory sw houses know the value of health data and buy their way into local practices to get it. IMHO

2024-11-11 01:36:47 UTC

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@npub16uk…pv7k After several years our provider dumped MMH and unilaterally decided everyone would have to adopt Tend Health instead. It's as bad if not worse. What happened to the MMH data? Who knows, or cares. Needless to say we, I don't use Tend. It's not like you can see a GP anyway...

2024-09-09 08:55:47 UTC

TL/DR. Safety assessment fails b/c honey bees are significantly different from all the other bees, as we have said for years and years.
Replacement crop treatment not safe for important pollinator, experts say https://phys.org/news/2024-09-crop-treatment-safe-important-pollinator.html

2024-09-09 08:42:14 UTC

From Bernard Hicky's 'When the Facts Change' podcast. Rewiring Aotearoa’s paper on The Electrification Opportunity, which estimates cheaper power costs worth $10.7 billion per year by 2040, without LPG imports.
The Electrification Opportunity Report | Rewiring Aotearoa
https://www.rewiring.nz/tomorrow