I made another "Looting the Ivory Tower" video. I intend to make a bunch more. Suggestions welcome. https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1624331409799237632
Dancing around the issue – of metaphors of hope(lessness)
We think in metaphors (or I do and people around me seem to), but those metaphors can take us to bad places and (therefore) need to be interrogated, and challenged. So, as the old study showed, if you frame crime as evilness you get one lot of policy proposals being popular, if you frame it... Continue Reading →
Is #climate really a “comms issue”? Really? Srsly?
There's another new report out, this time based on a survey of 2000 adults (1) that tacitly pins the blame for climate inertia on various forms of 'denial' and delayism. You can read about it on the excellent edie.net website here. I could be wrong, but these sorts surveys and reports seem to get done... Continue Reading →
Looting the Ivory Tower: “Towards more impactful energy research”
So, I am going to make short (under 2min 20sec) films about academic articles I have read. This will be under the heading "Looting the Ivory Toewer." It will help me solidify the concepts and empirics, and also improve my video/presentation skills. May help other folks, dunno. This first one is a bit rough, but... Continue Reading →
Research tips: “The Miss Triggs Problem”
So, I've been doing research - badly and then less badly until occasionally I have done it well-ish - for a while now. I am going to share - intermittently - some thoughts and maunderings about this. First up, the "Miss Triggs problem." There's the amazing cartoon from Punch which I don't think a woman... Continue Reading →
Rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, or clearing the decks for action? Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle and its energy/environment policy implications
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reshuffled his cabinet and split the business energy and industrial strategy department in two. What does all this mean? Is it window dressing and intra-government manoeuvring or a necessary reset? Marc Hudson investigates. BEIS is dead! Long live the EsNZ! In an announcement on Tuesday, Rishi Sunak, currently the... Continue Reading →
Of XR’s “The Big One” – likely numbers and likely consequences
In April the next (and final?) XR event will take place, in London. In January the organisation click-baited a "We Quit" statement (see here for more.) They are claiming they will get 100 thousand people to turn up and... (mill around? sell newspapers to each other? something else?) So, two things. First the numbers. There's... Continue Reading →
Lobbying for Net Zero “policy co-ordination”
I spent the last fifteen months looking at industrial decarbonisation in the UK. A lot of that time was spent interviewing people (civil servants, ex-civil servants, policymakers, trade association types, practitioners). It was a lot of fun (ymmv). One thing that was obvious before, and more obvious during, was that there is the "fun" (ymmv)... Continue Reading →
Book Review: Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
And none shall be saved, not even those whose job it is to do the saving... Wish I'd read this one as a teenager, alongside "The Catcher in the Rye". Oh well. It's a hell of an achievement - a novella (75 pages or so) following the misadventures and mental decline (from a low baseline)... Continue Reading →
Of Theseus, Vygotsky and the lack of dry docks for planks to be replaced
So the old puzzle goes - of Theseus's ship - if you replace the mast twice, the sails thrice and every plank of the hull over time, is it STILL, after all that the "original" Theseus' ship? (and, if it isn't anymore, when did it stop being so?) Then there's Lev Vygotsky, the Russian educational... Continue Reading →
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