What a great event. What an unexpected delight. At the sharp end of a PhD you find yourself going to very few ‘recreational’ seminars. And so often they’re the standard mix of chest-beating, data dumps from those too close to their “facts”, or conceptual hair-splitting from those too far from them. And those are the... Continue Reading →
Technology as fetish? South Australia and the Social Economy.
A rather interesting event today, high above the mean streets of Adelaide. What place might “technology” (we will come back to the scare quotes) have in helping Adelaide (and South Australia more generally) cope with the slings and arrows of deindustrialisation and globalisation? The event was organised by the Dunstan Foundation (named for the last... Continue Reading →
That word “laboratory.” I do not think it means what you think it means…
Then again. So, one of the pleasures of being a PhD student is that you get - occasionally - to sit around and talk about stuff you've read (it's less pleasurable when it's something you've written [i.e. supervisions]. But I digress). As part of the cities/urban sustainability reading group, we were getting our thinking gear... Continue Reading →
Babies, bathwater, innovation and Gramsci…
The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (a mouthful, I know) runs internal seminars where academics get to test out new ideas/reboot old ones and generally reflect on the direction(lessness) of travel for innovation policy, science and technology policy and much else. It can be dreadful, but when it works – and it did yesterday –... Continue Reading →
Event Report; ‘Connecting national energy transitions with changes in urban energy systems’
Professor Aleh Cherp, Central European University (Hungary) and University of Lund (Sweden) yesterday gave a seminar titled 'Connecting national energy transitions with changes in urban energy systems', at the University of Manchester. This below is mostly rough notes, and I may have mangled, so please don’t take as gospel. Mostly it’s an aide-memoire and ‘things... Continue Reading →
Seven blog posts about one event? Really? #tediousselfpromotion
The only way I know what I think is to read what I wrote. Sort of. And then that writing serves as an aide-memoire (and, yes, a calling card on occasion). Here's a list of the ones I did after today's Festival of Ideas event. Athenian Democracy? A few funny things will need to happen... Continue Reading →
‘Roads to ruin, pathways to prosperity’ for South Australia #AdlFoI
[Sixth of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Finally today, John Spoehr looked at South Australia’s future ‘Roads to ruin, pathways to prosperity’. Again, he bigged up Labor’s response to the GFC, compared the Abbott government’s 2014 budget as a throwback to Fightback (!),... Continue Reading →
Solar Citizens launch at Adelaide Festival of Ideas #AdlFoI
[Fourth of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] Next up was the launch of Solar Citizens. It covered the ‘solar rooftop revolution’ (1.5million Australian houses with solar panels, from a basically standing start 8 years ago), the start of solar citizens and its plans for... Continue Reading →
Sustainable jobs in sustainable communities #AdlFoI
[Second of a series of blog posts about sessions at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas on Saturday 22nd October] “Sustainable” is one of those motherhood-and-applie pie words (fnords,if you will) that don’t offer clarity. However John Spoehr, Heather Smith (a friend) and Sean Williams overcame this as far as could be expected in a short session.... Continue Reading →
Directions on misdirections at the Festival of Ideas
Phillip Adams and Barry Jones are two of the grand old men of Australian culture (and I know some people will have sniggered at that phrase; to one I say ‘see you in the divorce court, love’). For over fifty years they have fought the good fight – against the death penalty, against censorship, for... Continue Reading →
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