So many other reasons among the 8646 others. Here's another. The people who study, and who think about why social movements haven't done a better job on climate change are - how to put this - blind to the some of the reasons why social movements haven't done a better job on climate change. This... Continue Reading →
The epistemological blizzard has crossed the threshold, and it’s overturned the order of the soul
The title is a reference to this typically-cheerful Leonard Cohen number from 1992. Basically, humans have always (1) struggled to make sense of a cruel and complicated world. Religion did okay for us - especially when it was the (Greek) gods - a bunch of powerful petulant teenagers (at best), toying with the humans: a... Continue Reading →
We are terrible at meetings – all kinds
Over the last month I've collected yet more examples of just how terrible "we" are at meetings (online, in meatspace, hybrid, whatever). I did not need these, or go looking for them. But there they were.... By "we" I do not just mean social movement "activists" looking to create momentum behind a campaign - my... Continue Reading →
Of WASPs and WESPs: power, perception and our baked-in doom
tl;dr - our societal systems of perception, especially of what is "normal" or "reliable" are dominated by white supremacism and patriarchy. This will not end well. Short one, because I should be feeding moorhens and doing a dozen good projects but I'm not. WASP stands for "White Anglo Saxon Protestant" - the "normal" for US... Continue Reading →
Archival nugget about TUC versus the anti-nukers…
Last week was, well, interesting. At some point I will write about it. For now, this - I spent two days at the National Archives (one of my happy places) and hauled away a couple of thousand pictures of pages from various (60 or 70? distinct folders - some literally a page, others 3 inches... Continue Reading →
Fish, lakes, trawlers, men, guns, banks…
A few years ago I did a gushing review (this is unusual for me) of an academic book (see previous brackets, only more so). It was a book about "Energy Fables" and how power relations are buried in the assumptions of various "common sense" phrases like "low-hanging fruit" and the "energy trilemma." I don't think... Continue Reading →
Hold on, we’re in the… ceneocene
When everyone is trying to make periodisations (Anthropocene, Trumpocene, Capitlocene, Chthulocene, Whatsmycene) It is surely the Ceneocene? Sadly, it does seem someone has beaten me to the punch. But wait! There’s more! The Cenes I’ve detailed are but a few of the many Cenes that have percolated to the surface of the junction between science,... Continue Reading →
“Section 3.4” – TMI (?) about TNA
I am on a National Archives binge. Occasionally you come up against "retained under section 3.4" It's this. Never hurts to submit a FOI, I guess.
A quatrain about, um, technofixes and enforced conformity?? WTAF
The plays of Bill will get you used to rhyme Iamb addicted to this form of verse And for the better or the worse (the worse!) Am churning lines about all stately crime. Here it is - drumroll please - They offer motherhood and apple pie They dangle gleaming technofix advances You mustn't probe too... Continue Reading →
“Man explaining: The Journal of Patriarchy Studies”
Is there a journal about we men and the many manny ways we control bodies, discourses, ecosystems (with less and less success, as the decades role on and the Manthropocene collapses). There should be, anyway. Anyway, in response to a bsky post about shoddy journalists transferring their "knowledge" into the security state, I came up... Continue Reading →
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