Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

Dr Nicola Gaston is Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at The University of Auckland and principal investigator in the MacDiarmid Institute. She is the author of the BWB text Why Science is Sexist.

Climate change commissioner Dr Rod Carr (Getty Images)

25th March, 2021

Beware the handbrakes on climate change action

Calls for transparency in modelling by the Climate Change Commission are well and good, but they must not be a mechanism to slow down the urgent work.

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

Jacinda Ardern on a visit to the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter in 2018. (Photo by Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

9th December, 2019

Not-so-modest proposals for Tiwai

A truly ambitious solution would keep jobs in Southland as well as delivering on the promise of the Zero Carbon Act.

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

High school students remind negotiators at COP 24 that there are only 12 years left to limit the devastating impacts of climate change. (Photo credit: Kiara Worth/IISD/ENB)

29th December, 2018

2018 was the year I realised that scientists are optimists

But what I’m grappling with, writes Nicola Gaston, is how optimistic we can afford to be about human behaviour

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei says we need drug law reform immediately. Photo: Adrian Malloch

25th July, 2017

Growing up on the DPB: on Metiria Turei, fraud and fear

Following the Green co-leader’s admission about misleading Winz, Nicola Gaston recalls her own upbringing on a benefit, and confesses to a fraud of her own.

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

Do low-value, for-profit tertiary providers really deserve ‘consistent treatment’ from the government?

15th June, 2017

Do low-value, for-profit tertiary providers really deserve ‘consistent treatment’ from the government?

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

image: exdez/getty

9th February, 2017

The impersonal is political, too: a report from the frontline of the culture wars

Do we have our priorities right when it comes to the emphasis on economic 'usefulness' of education? Nicola Gaston asks if NZ is in danger of plunging into a culture war of its own.

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

A climate change protest outside Trump Tower in New York in 2016 (Photo: Getty Images)

31st January, 2017

Why scientists need to go to the barricades against Trump – and for the humanities

Nicola Gaston on the anti-science agenda of the Trump presidency, and why scientists should embrace the arts.

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer

Helen Clark: running to be UN boss as an accomplished human who is a woman

Helen Clark: running to be UN boss as an accomplished human who is a woman

Believe it or not, it is possible that Helen Clark is both the best option for the job of Secretary General, and that she is an important candidate because she is female

By Nicola Gaston

Contributing writer