Reading a borrowed copy of Oliver Burkeman's "Four Thousand Weeks" (self-help/philosophy with added Heidegger and also good stuff), I am thinking of Samuel Johnson's wonderful essay "What Have Ye Done?" If you haven't read it already, you're in for a treat. If you have read it, read it again - there's some serious wisdom in... Continue Reading →
Hand (wringing) jobs to relieve stress/anxiety
I am to be an expert interviewee (I know, I know, I laughed too) in a project about climate change and "getting to net zero" barriers opportunities, blah blah. And reading over the project info they sent, and the sets of things I am supposed to pick as barriers, it occurs to me that this... Continue Reading →
What responsibilities in times of abeyance? Je ne sais “re-Greta” rien.
When will the next Greta Thunberg hit the stage? I know I am a stuck record, but (I think) this is important. a)"We" are leaving/have left a period where climate change was relatively high up the political agenda b) We are leaving/have left a period where small (but non-trivial) numbers of people were willing to... Continue Reading →
Read between the lines – dead repertoire, dead “movement”, dead species to follow… #abeyance
Read this and weep. Since long before that delayed "last chance to save the world" climate conference in Glasgow finally happened (see here and here and here) I predicted that in the aftermath, climate change was gonna be far down almost everyone's list. You don't need to be freaking Nostradamus, you just need to know... Continue Reading →
Nature and what she does for “us”…
I have a long-standing fascination with how "nature" gets invoked, how the idea is mobilised to defend whatever people want to defend. First really really started thinking about this (I think) after reading the following quote by Julian Rathbone, from his novel "Zdt" Wrong. Nature in the Middle Ages was a hierarchy, a chain of... Continue Reading →
Book review: Pastoral by Nevil Shute
Affecting war-time novel by a master of straightforward story-telling. Last night Dr Wifey and I watched Sicario again. It is a brutal, cynical, violent tale, directed by Dennis Villeneuve, with great everything (performances, sound, cinematography). There's not a lot of hugging and learning. I knew this at the outset, but still found myself looking for... Continue Reading →
Reflections on “Industrial decarbonisation where does it come from, where might it go?”
Last week I gave a seminar as part of the Sussex Energy Group’s seminar series. This was, for me, a Big Deal, because the Sussex Energy Group is a very cool collection of scholars, mostly from the Science Policy Research Unit but also from University of Sussex (the clue is in the name) more broadly.... Continue Reading →
Of goldfish bowls, being kind, and being appreciated…
Times are tough. Today I did something I'm proud of, something that helped other people in a couple of ways. This is a blog about that. As part of The Job, (a very good job, one I am grateful to have), I am doing a bit of seminar-conducting. One problem with seminars is that either... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 