Words, ideas, videos
Here comes another international climate conference. We are very good at them now. Thirty years of practice will do that. I've made reasoned and reasonable arguments (i.e. ranted) at length about their worse-than-uselessness for social movements, and am relieved to be part of a group that is refusing the invitation to lobotomise itself. What has... Continue Reading →
It's time for me, at age [redacted] to come out. I've been living a lie for too long, denying who I AM, to others, to myself. There's been a period of shame, embarrassment stretching back (checks notes)... hours. At about 1030 today, in the central library special collections reading room, I realised that I am... Continue Reading →
I find the whole Malthusian Moment (roughly 1969-1973) fascinating. I guess because I grew up in its aftermath, where it was still resonating, there were aftershocks. (This is partly because I mostly grew up in Australia, which was then even more of a backwater than it is now. I'd see movies from the era (The... Continue Reading →
A while back (as in, I wrote this blog post hot, but didn't post it straight away because I don't want to commit "career" suicide) I attended back-to-back zoom meetings. The first promised to be on a crucial question about how we respond to escalating social, political and environmental crises. All the right theorists got... Continue Reading →
Scholars of socio-technical transitions and transformations were stunned today as entrepreneur and self-appointed “Techno-king” Elon Musk took sides in a long-running academic debate. Speaking from an undisclosed location (rumoured to be somewhere on Earth, but unconfirmed at present), Musk tweeted The tweet has caused equal parts consternation and delight in the sustainability transitions research network,... Continue Reading →
We need to put front and centre the fact that we've blown our (carbon) budget. “We're massively off target we're massively behind.” We know that those who run official events are not going to say it front and centre (at absolute best they might mutter it under their breath while making sure that their microphone... Continue Reading →
Marc Hudson reflects on two academic events, and wonders if the right questions are being asked, or if "we" are pootling along happily in our comfort zones, slouching towards tenure (well, he's not) and apocalypse (well, all of us are). Over the last 24 hours I've "been" to three online seminars. The one in the... Continue Reading →
Two University of Melbourne academics have delivered a gloomy outlook for economic and social transformation under the banner of a “green new deal” in Australia. Speaking at a seminar titled "The Green New Deal - Opportunities and Obstacles: Comparing Proposals in Europe, the US and Australia" Peter Christoff and Robyn Eckersley argued that undue political... Continue Reading →
With the planet on fire, it seems odd to be having to write about the decline of the climate "movement" - but given what is going on in the UK and Australia, the countries I know best - it seems reasonable to do so. The point has been made to me well, that the existing academic work... Continue Reading →
"The struggle of man (sic) against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." Milan Kundera On 26th August 2006 the first "Camp for Climate Action" began, in the shadow of Drax power station in Yorkshire, then the biggest single point source of carbon dioxide in Europe. The camp (and the shorter name, "Climate Camp",... Continue Reading →
