Imagine it's 2019. Imagine that "climate activists" get the perfect conditions handed to them on a plate. What would happen? Sometimes Mother Nature gives climate change activists a boost. She tried in the summer of 1988. She tried again in August 2005, when Hurricane Katrina bulls-eyed New Orleans. She tried again in the long... Continue Reading →
Mythical Mail Weight and Localness
For the benefit of those lucky enough not to know (living outside the UK), the Daily Mail is a particularly horrific tabloid newspaper. One of its many vile repertoires is to police the bodies of celebrities (mostly, but not entirely) the female ones. If a celebrity under the gaze of the Mail gains a couple... Continue Reading →
“Confer”ence – the clue is in the name; excellent #transitions event in Lausanne
A brilliant event - the "2nd PhDs in Transitions Conference: Theory and Practice" - took place in Switzerland, last week. Organised by four enterprising PhD students, it was a 48 hour space for students at different stages of the process (from touching naive enthusiasm all the way through to night-sweat panic) to exchange ideas and... Continue Reading →
The tyranny of small decisions…
A transformational change in Australia’s assessment of cumulative impacts is required, including the comprehensive assessment of the direct and indirect impacts of coal mining, if the Reef is not to suffer from the “tyranny of small decisions.” As described by Odum (1982), this phenomenon involves a big decision arising post hoc from an accretion of... Continue Reading →
On anxiety, social class and who feels comfortable at “top-down” meetings
On anxiety, social class and who feels comfortable at "top-down" meetings Published on 15 Dec 2013 Some not quite fully thought through speculations. As well as social class, of course, there's gender, ethnicity, age, ideology to put into the mix. But as an initial stab at answering the question "why are people content to continue... Continue Reading →
“Entrench warfare” or “why I don’t bother with one-off trainings” #smugosphere #inertia
A few years ago I organised a one-off training session on research for activists. It went well and had ... no discernible impact on how anyone did anything. So it goes. I reflected on this - and other training I have been part of as a punter. And I came to the conclusion that unless... Continue Reading →
Whirlwind – “This is an Uprising” – #afterthethesis
So, public policy theories talk about tipping points/sudden eruptions. I'm thinking of Baumgartner and Jones 'Punctuated Equilibrium Theory' (the clue is in the name) and also Multiple Streams Approach and 'policy windows'. And then there's Bill Moyer and the "Movement Action Plan" (abused and mis-used by some so-called activists, but that's not his fault.) Then,... Continue Reading →
Activists, Bernardi, Refugees + much else – January in #Climate History
The All Our Yesterdays project is doing (at least) a blog post a day to show that the climate policy battles of today are repeats/mash-ups of the last thirty years. We have always been ignoring the scientists, blowing hot and cold on carbon pricing, blowing hot and cold on support for renewables, pretending mother nature... Continue Reading →
Sokal so good; on targets, reports, fantasies…
The "keeping anthropogenic global warming (global average) to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-Industrial levels" at COP21 was never a serious proposal, surely? I mean, you'd have to be totally fricking scientifically illiterate to... oh, wait. But look, even if the policy-makers put it in there to keep the AOSIS (fn1) crowd from vetoing... Continue Reading →
Bloody compassion and the bloody smugosphere
We talk about “carbon capital”, “fossil fuel historical bloc”, ‘technological lock-in’. Yep, them corporations and states sure are sclerotic, ain't they? But, aside from talking about foundations and how NGOs take their money and sell a fake rebellion, we don’t talk about social movement hegemonies and blocks or ‘social lock-in’. This bores me. Descriptions of how... Continue Reading →
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