Another failed letter (my one success this year was in May. See here). The excellent letter from Patricia Finney ('It's simple physics and chemistry - climate change will kill us all', FT 17 December) will hopefully give readers o the FT in high places pause for thought. There are two points I wish to clarify.... Continue Reading →
“Little” lives – Johnson, Eliot, Chomsky vs that Nietzsche guy. #SocialMovements #SlaveMorality
So, have been thinking (for once) about failure, the meaning of it all etc There's that great essay by Samuel Johnson "What Have Ye Done?" which ends (spoilers, obvs) From this mistaken notion of human greatness it proceeds, that many who pretend to have made great advances in wisdom so loudly declare that they despise... Continue Reading →
What are the complementary assets of a successful* social movement organisation?
A page on this site, about "complementary assets" has had a lot of hits in the last 24 hours. Don't know why, but it's enough of a pretext to write something. I'll say what CA are, what a social movement organisation "is", why we should care about it, what the CAs of one would be... Continue Reading →
What’s BUGging me today? #MovementPathologies
tl;dr The 'Bottom-Up' Grift (BUG) is the spinning of a line - for profit and/attention - that the true path to utopia is via 'bottom up' activity. This post defines the BUG, explains how to spot it, where it comes from, what to do about it. The Grift Making a career out of saying "we... Continue Reading →
What went wrong? Why we didn’t act on climate when we still could have done owt meaningful?
Just tweeted the following microrant - It is extraordinary. Unlike ppl who organised in far harder conditions, where dissent (or just BEING) could easily get you killed, #climate activists in the "West", with freedom of speech, assembly, information, "the science" etc etc have been not just outspent, but outplayed 1/2outthought, outfought, outACTED. Emissions keep climbing.... Continue Reading →
Carbon Capture and Storage – what I think I think (today)
tl;dr - my views on Carbon Capture and Storage have evolved and will probably continue to do so. I have written something for the Conversation which many will see as another tired greenie attack on the suite of technologies that fly under that banner of "CCS". My actual views, I like to believe, are a... Continue Reading →
Of “It’s a Sin,” climate doom and demented/disinhibited masturbatory rituals
We watched "It's a Sin" the other day, all five episodes. It's the best stuff I have seen of Russell T. Davies, with many of the really cringe-inducing elements of his oeuvre gone. It's fabulously acted too - a worthy UK equivalent to the movie "Long-time Companion." It covers the period 1981 to 1991, from... Continue Reading →
Hudson’s law of nugatory plenaries
Plenary, n. meeting or session attended by all participants at a conference or assembly. ("working parties would report back to the plenary with recommendations") Nugatory adj. of no value or importance. Let's say, for the sake of a making a seemingly robust argument (i.e. one with numbers and percentages) that the likelihood of you getting... Continue Reading →
Sit back and relax – greedy technokiddies will save us all
Getting quite sick of going to events about The Future where three unexamined myths get tossed around. In no particular order these absurd myths are a) "There's a new generation of eco-aware kids rising up who will fix things." This one gets reheated periodically. Um, all those kids who grew up worried about the ozone... Continue Reading →
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