Right-winger sometimes try to 'catch out' Noam Chomsky by saying 'well, you critique the mainstream media saying it helps manufacture consent, but you at the same time rely on journalistic accounts to put together your arguments. Are you a hypocrite or what?' (I paraphrase). Chomsky replies that there are many hard-working and diligent journalists who... Continue Reading →
from facebook - here, originally. "This bit of humor was written in April 1988 and appeared in the January 1989 issue of The Physics Teacher. William DeBuvitz was a physics professor at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey (USA). He retired in June of 2000." 'The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6 Around the park five times Two hours at microfiche tracking down crucial newspaper articles for the carbon tax 1994/1995 story. Dead useful, developed a couple of new tricks of how to get the info v. quickly Good meeting with a research librarian, who was super helpful, and put me onto an academic I... Continue Reading →
So, Monday night I got the parentals, both former hacks, to proof read an article about the interesting comments of a renewables engineer. They did this with aplomb, and I sent the thing off. Tuesday 4th Walked around the park again (5 laps, this time with three logs in the backpack) and then got on... Continue Reading →
A rather interesting event today, high above the mean streets of Adelaide. What place might “technology” (we will come back to the scare quotes) have in helping Adelaide (and South Australia more generally) cope with the slings and arrows of deindustrialisation and globalisation? The event was organised by the Dunstan Foundation (named for the last... Continue Reading →
So, went to an activist meeting that was dominated by a small core of people. Afterwards they were heard agreeing that it was an excellent meeting. And you have to wonder, what were their criteria. I think these. "I got to speak a lot/display my virtue and or intelligence/be the centre of attention" (see also... Continue Reading →
Friday/Saturday Right, so – flight. Not much to say I guess. It was 5 tonnes of carbon into t’atmosphere… Flew in an A380 the first leg, read a bunch of stuff from the Palgrave Handbook of International Political Economy and energy. Very very good stuff it was. Also read a lit review on transitions and... Continue Reading →
We were warned a very long time ago about climate change. I don't mean by the IPCC. I don't even mean by James Hansen (bless him). The warnings were there by the mid-1970s about what might be on the way. In 1973, in the very first issue of Habitat carried an article by W. Strauss... Continue Reading →
Note: I pitched this a couple of weeks to a news outlet, was told yes/no/maybe and then waited.. and waited. Further correspondence unanswered, so am posting it here, if only for posterity.... Let’s play a game of pretend. Let’s pretend that the deal wounded Prime Minister Theresa May has stitched with the Northern Ireland... Continue Reading →
Glued to the newsfeeds. Thinking in horror of the lives cut short, women throwing babies from the ninth floor. The courage of the firefighters, the desperation, the professionalism of the emergency staff, the NHS. Thinking of how burning down a city for fun and profit is nothing new. There's a book we should all read,... Continue Reading →
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