"Whenever I thought about writing, I would think of climbing a huge mountain or drowning in a sea of literature. Pat says we should think about the literature review as more of a creative challenge. A much more useful analogy for the literature review is trying to get an octopus into a jar. When you think... Continue Reading →
Book Review: “The politics of global atmospheric change” (1995)
Book Review: Rowlands, I. (1995) The politics of global atmospheric change Manchester: Manchester University Press This is one for the geeks only. If you’re interested in the vicious fights in the 1980s an early 1990s about whether and how “we” would do something about ozone depletion and carbon dioxide build-up, then grab with both ands;... Continue Reading →
Reading on the Stepper: Coal, mentors, denial etc
Meditation and the Art of Writing. Yep. Should do that. I need my jedi mind tricks The Great Climate Change Denial Industry by Robert M Thorson Those Koch boys getting their money's worth; Leiserowitz proved this with an interesting turnaround regarding the public's first thoughts about climate change after being prompted. In 2007, only 7... Continue Reading →
Australian #climate wrecking is a bi-partisan, long-term thing. Or “Abbott is not unique”
Here's what the excellent books by Guy Pearse and Clive Hamilton about the Australian government's climate policy under John Howard miss(1); during the premiership of Paul Keating, much loved for his views on Aboriginal reconciliation, Labor was also a "blocker" on climate change, both domestically and internationally. The reason is pretty simple. It's four letters.... Continue Reading →
Stepping up 14 December 2014: innovation, coal, the AGGG
Gonna see if insta-commenting helps me retain factoids post-reading-on-the-stepper... Finished off "Emerging challenges for science, technology and innovation policy research: a reflexive overview" (Research Policy 38,: 571-582. Brain stretching stuff – this, among others, was gold - "For example, Weick (1995) recounts a story told by the Hungarian Nobel Laureate, Albert Szent-Gyorti, about a small... Continue Reading →
Why advertisers make us look at animals
We miss animals. We don't hang around with them so much any more (1). George Monbiot has written with his customary brilliant synthesis of fact and theory about the costs of this. So, on the stepper at the gym this morning, halfway through an excellent article called “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence and the Study of... Continue Reading →
Book Review: Bert Bolin’s “A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change”
Bolin, B. (2007) A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 277 pages Climate scientists, despite what you read thanks to the well-funded denialist lobby, are cautious souls. Probably none has been more reluctant to succumb to the apocalyptic language... Continue Reading →
Cracking over the papers: on academia and the fear of missing out.
Human, all too human: I fell into the simple trap of attending things that Looked Interesting because they were on campus, I was on campus, they were free, I was free. And so I have sat through hours of stuff where academics dressed up pretty straight-forward/simple ideas and observations in all the rhetoric and citations... Continue Reading →
Sidney St Cafe – v. cool. #Manchester
So, we went here for Friday lunch. Super-friendly, super cheap and cheerful. Definitely worth supporting this place, trying out everything on the menu. They also have a library of zines and books (including lots of those cool Women's Press books with the zebra spines). There's a call-out for zines about LGBT/feminist themes, and I think... Continue Reading →
Another word is possible
Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was happening. Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew only that it was... Continue Reading →
