In May this year, the UK’s science Academy, the Royal Society, announced that it was going to publish a “new guide to the science of climate change to help the public gain a better understanding of the issue.” This announcement appeared to follow in the wake of a...
Pastiche Politics: Redux
The previous post on this blog looked at the bizarre relationship between former Labour government minister (now Labour Party leader) Ed Miliband, and the 10:10 founder and Age of Stupid director, Franny Armstrong. One of the most curious things that this uneasy...
8 Executions and a Funeral
Ed Miliband -- the previous government’s Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change -- has been elected leader of the Labour Party. Hmm. This is unusual. Not only is Miliband relatively young for someone hoping to convince the voting public...
Going Green, or Growing Mould?
During my very busy spring and summer, one of the things I didn’t have time to do was look more closely at the UK’s General Election results. This post comes a bit late, but it’s worth saying, nonetheless. The election was perhaps the dullest and least inspiring in...
The Environmentalist’s Paradox that Wasn’t a Paradox
Leo Hickman, Guardian’s ‘ethical’ agony aunt, usually occupies himself with the kind of pointless, trivial, and often completely bizarre ethical questions that only trouble the most moneyed and morally-disoriented environmentalist: Which is the most eco-friendly...
Lomborg's Technology-Led Policy
Roger Pielke Jr has a post about Bjorn Lomborg's apparent turnaround on the climate issue. Specifically, his proposal for a low (starting and rising) carbon tax to fund innovation comes directly from the work of Isabel Galiana and Chris Green (in the video above) of...
What Happens When the Think-Tank is Empty of Thought?
As has been said before on this blog, environmentalism is not as much an concrete idea in itself as it is a constellation of phenomena. Its parts move independently to intersect with many other issues. One such convergence of issues is epitomised by the New Economics...
Statistical Insignificance
Statistical Insignificance 25 months ago, Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), warned that there are only 100 months to save the planet. Writing in the Guardian today, he reminds us that there are only 75 months of his deadline...
The Grief Lectures 2010 – Part Three
In the previous two posts, I looked at the first lectures by Royal Society president, Martin Rees. This post relates to his third of four lectures, ‘What We’ll Never Know’. Lighter on the doom, it is a less dark story than the previous lectures. Indeed, Rees makes...
The Grief Lectures 2010 – Part Two
In the previous post, I looked at the first of Martin Rees Reith Lectures. The President of the Royal Society believed that there is ‘a 50 percent chance of a setback to civilisation as bad as a nuclear war, or some consequence of 21st century technology equally...