The question was designed to be difficult, and the answers were in equal parts cautious and revealing. Rather than about recycling – the topic of a tightly run panel discussion put on at the King’s Head by Adelaide Sustainability Connect and the SA Young Professionals Group of Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) – the question was... Continue Reading →
#climate justice or just us? Of learning, time machines and the “what should have been done”#AFoI2018
May as well put cards on the table. I think we’re fubarred. I think that we’ve now left it “too late” and a grim meathook future is all we have to look forward too. There is probably still time to learn a bunch of new skills, use our technology specifically to soften the coming climate blows. ... Continue Reading →
Excellent environmental event on plastics and recycling #Adelaide #hope
Messages of practical action and causes for (cautious) hope abounded tonight at the Adelaide Sustainability, where a meeting on plastics and what to do about and with them was held. Around fifty people (overwhelmingly female) got to eat scrumptious (potlatch) food, and then heard from four expert panellists, all before watching an interesting American documentary... Continue Reading →
Community Energy conference in Manchester: Onshore wind competitive, but held back by regulatory resistance
What will incumbents do? According to Max Wakefield, the lead campaigner for British climate charity 10:10, “they’re there to protect their market share.” Wakefield, who has been running 10:10’ s Blown Away campaign – which seeks to overcome government hostility to onshore wind – said that incumbents can be expected to fight dirty, to buy... Continue Reading →
Chairing academic sessions for fun and… diversity #IST2018 #manels #academia
So, the International Sustainability Transitions conference has come and gone. A fine event, with a huge number of scholars delivering papers, speed talks, with plenty of time for schmoozing and boozing. I wrote already about the problem of manels and 'What is to be Done', but that was before I had a) delivered my own... Continue Reading →
Of interesting questions and interesting times
How do you create collegiality? How do you ensure that the emotional tone of an ongoing event is 'right', and that people aren't intimidated from the outset? How do you get peer-to-peer learning and interacting going at a higher-than-normal level? How do you do those things and other important things? How do you make sure... Continue Reading →
Gig review: TV Smith in #Manchester 24 May
There are obvious signs that the species, far from being 'sapiens' (wise) is as dumb as a bag of hammers. Item the first: ignoring climate scientists and biologists for the last three decades (or more), and continuing to burn fossil fuels as if there were, um, no tomorrow. Item the second: building up nuclear weapons... Continue Reading →
Holy Moses or “There’s never an irony policeman when you need one”
We watched the documentary. Excellent if problematic, it was basically a morality play: a bunch of old white powerful men in a self-designed and policed echo chamber are eventually brought low by a scrappy band of diverse (gasp) women. And so immediately after the film there was to be a discussion. And a bunch of... Continue Reading →
Men critique things of me: of Winterson and Solnit in #Manchester #activism
aka some cishet white guy's uninvited commentary on two feminist literary icons. But it's his website and he can say what he likes. Nobody is forcing you to read it, 'kay? Rebecca Solnit will be known to the casual reader as the woman who wrote the (fantastic) 'Men Explain Things To Me’. Last night she... Continue Reading →
Sociotechnical transitions for beginners; of speed, stability and mixing it up
What’s a sociotechnical transition? Why should you care? What does history teach us? Why might it be a false teacher? All good questions and they received good (though sometimes, by necessity provisional) answers yesterday as Dr Florian Kern of University of Sussex spoke on ‘Governing Low Carbon Transitions’ (see foot of this post for the... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 