Two numbers from this weekends Guardian/Observer... The first is 25%. Damian Carrington whinges that George Osborne demands massive cuts to windfarm subsidies PM's 'greenest government ever' claim undermined by chancellor's move, which follows pressure from Tory MPs...
Letting the Precautionary Principle Genie out of the GM/Nuclear Bottle
Yesterday, I tried to explain why pro-GM environmentalists had misconceived the perspectives of their anti-GM colleagues as simply 'scientific illiteracy'. In particular, I was amazed that Keith Kloor had turned a central tenet of environmentalism -- the precautionary...
Inconvenient Environmentalists
The issue of genetically modified food crops has resurfaced. This issue has a long history, and my last attempt to compile an account of it was back in May 2009, here. One of the things I've written a bit about is the differences between two parts of the environmental...
Unsettling Science
I'm a big fan of scientific videos and visualisation generally. Here's a wonderful recent example. There is a hazard, here though, in taking such images at face value, as is described at length on this blog. What we see in the above video is not just the planet; we...
Rio + 20, Spiked
I have an article up on Spiked today, about the absurdity that is the looming Rio+20 conference. Forty years on, and those predictions of doom have not been borne out. The average life expectancy of a human has increased by 10 years, and the number of infants dying...
Mass Murdering Environmentalists on Billboards?
A lot of hand-wringing is going on about those billboards which depict individuals known for their psychopathic tendency and their comments on the environment. The use of the image of Ted Kaczynski (AKA the Unabomber) seems to have caused particular offence to those...
The Royal Society Takes Another Step Away from Science
Back in October 2010, I wrote an article for Spiked, It is no coincidence that, as it was preparing to moderate its statements on climate change, the Society has been seeking to intervene in the debate about population. In July this year, it announced that it would be...
Green is Going Mouldy
Green ain't what it used to be. Once upon a time, all you had to do as a politician was strap yourself into a sandwichboard and proclaim that the End is Nigh, and your minions would deliver you a standing ovation and the press would celebrate you as a planet-saving...
Three Polls, Two Flops and a Polar Flip
It's been a funny old day... As mentioned in the previous post, in answer to the launch of the UK’s National Oppostion to Windfarms (NOW), the UK's wind energy lobbying outfit, Renewable UK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association hastily arranged for a survey...
Windy Waffle
Today sees the launch of the UK's National Oppostion to Windfarms (NOW). The launch of a group of citizens, working autonomously and without support from political parties or big business is usually the sort of thing Guardian 'journalists' like to celebrate. But Leo...