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 →
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 →
The poet Patrick Featherston – anyone know anything?
Hi everyone, I encountered this poem, from 1958, in "New Departures" (got it from British Library) The text is this - Nothing less than the solar core is good enough A living cell, a unique specimen described by its discoverers as 'eminently newsworthy,' turned out, upon severe microscopy, to be compact of mud, cities, carbon... Continue Reading →
Hello to new after-the-Conversation-article readers – barriers to skillsharing…
Today the Conversation posted another article of mine about Extinction Rebellion - you can read it here. I got a high profile follower out of it, and a lovely email from someone, and a media request. Anyway, if you've come here, you're probably interested in social movements, and so you're in the right place (or... 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 →
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 →
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 →
Checklist for before and after A Big Conference.
Recently I wrote an article (Hudson, 2022) [See link here - should get you through to it until November 2nd 2022]. Someone kindly got in touch and asked if there were an accompanying checklist. There wasn’t, but there is now. Or rather, there’s my version – take this below and make your own. On checklists... Continue Reading →
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