Kia ora koutou katoa and welcome to your newsletter.

With more than 800 cars for every 1000 people, it’s not surprising transport emissions make up the biggest share of an average household’s carbon footprint in New Zealand. Our dependency on cars isn’t helping as we consider a switch to low-carbon ways of travel — but as public health researcher Caroline Shaw writes, we can learn a lot from New Zealand’s successful campaign to encourage people to quit smoking.

Between the late 1970s, when more than one in three New Zealanders smoked (and did so everywhere), now fewer than one in eight smoke and public places are all smoke-free. The key lesson from tobacco control is that behaviour change is more likely when the interventions happen on multiple levels, from taxation and advertising bans to the creation of supportive environments and help for those wanting to change.

You’ll find many other stories in this newsletter, including a historian’s exploration of the ongoing impact of the Christchurch earthquake ten years on, a geologist’s account of what we’ve learned from Martian meteorites and a linguist’s tale of how the Perseverance rover’s new forever home on Mars was named after a small Balkan village. Have a look at our homepage, too, for even more articles.

Many thanks for your ongoing support — until next time, noho ora mai, mā te wā.