Last week I put up a leaflet from November 2000, with activists from Rising Tide trying to explain what was at stake around COP6, in the Netherlands. Well, I've just stumbled on a copy of an Earth First! Action Update from 2002. Here below are the first two pages. Btw, gee, it turns out the... Continue Reading →
Activist pamphlet warning about climate change, November 2000
So, as per yesterday's blog post about how those pretending to be the adults in the room are unable to admit that the dirty hippies were right, here's an A5 leaflet from Rising Tide, the activist group that was trying to get a movement going about climate change... They were at Den Hague, site of... 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 →
Book review: “Weather War” by Leonard Leokum and Paul Posnick
On a bit of a weather/climate-disaster novels kick at the moment ("The Sixth Winter" by Orgill and Gribbin). The Weather War is one I bought a while back and it just sat on the shelf. In short - it's fun, but nothing you need to struggle to find and read, 'less you're as strange as... Continue Reading →
Climate Change and Business Parks – a 1991 article
There are people still around in Manchester who have been campaigning - with decency and diligence - for decades. Some of them were involved in the Manchester Wildlife Group, which had a wonderful newsletter called the Magpie. The editor, Ian Brown, very kindly gave me all his copies, which I've turned into pdfs and uploaded... Continue Reading →
“Nuclear electricity” – 1978 booklet by Australian Mining Industry Council
So, the Australian government has torn up a contract it made with the French for some submarines and is now going to buy some nuclear ones. Smarter people than me (Laura Tingle, Guy Rundle etc etc) have written about the geopolitics of all this. One point, made by various commentators, is that building/operating nuclear subs... Continue Reading →
Gestural politics, security and movements. So much for the climate emergency
The short version: I went to a small-ish rally on the steps of parliament house, then navigated intimidatory security to watch… school boys and school girls ignoring the climate emergency. The longer version: Around sixty people, many aged sixty or more, gathered on the steps of the State Parliament of South Australia at 1.30 today.... Continue Reading →
Hibernation review
I wanted to like this. I wanted to be able to say “new play”…”climate change”…”thought-provoking” … “go see.” But although “Hibernation” – set in a future where to buy us more time to sort out the climate crisis, almost all the humans on earth are put into a year-long coma - is well-staged and very... Continue Reading →
Thelma and Louise and Australian COVID & Climate Responses, via Donald Horne
Just under thirty years ago, about 100m from where I am right now, I saw the wonderful Thelma and Louise. There's a short clip that stayed with me that I think we need to remember. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2b001c5a-43ea-41f8-9271-219994adf091 Well, I was watching Insiders (Sunday morning current affairs, mix of interviews, humour, panellists, on the national broadcaster ABC)... Continue Reading →
GroundCop Day, over and over again. COP6, COP26, whatever.
The year is 2048. COP46, delayed twice already because of the ongoing Covid-43 pandemic, is due to take place in the Dutch archipelago. Activists are encouraging everyone to join in a canoe flotilla to shout at the plutocrats and securocrats as they meet to discuss who is going to get what compensation (nobody and nothing)... Continue Reading →