Words, ideas, videos
I have a long-standing fascination with how "nature" gets invoked, how the idea is mobilised to defend whatever people want to defend. First really really started thinking about this (I think) after reading the following quote by Julian Rathbone, from his novel "Zdt" Wrong. Nature in the Middle Ages was a hierarchy, a chain of... Continue Reading →
tl;dr We use "nature" to justify whatever we want to justify. A couple of days ago Kevin Anderson (the climate professor, not the South African tennis player) tweeted about a new paper which shows just how rubbish the Dasgupta review was. https://twitter.com/KevinClimate/status/1397891825260769282 [I could go on about how aggravating it is when people retweet bits... Continue Reading →
I photographed this yesterday morning, at Heathrow Airport. A friend of mine has written about elephants in the room and climate change and all that jazz. Ranciere, Badiou, that crowd. Me, I'm a Walt Benjamin man - “Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, is now one for... Continue Reading →
another in the fun series "Marc clears his gmail while hunting down thesis additions" On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense 1873 Essay Translated from: Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn I Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems,... Continue Reading →
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening The old saw goes 'give a man a fish and you have fed him for a... Continue Reading →
I like to believe I've read a lot these three and a half years (even by my own somewhat Rabelaisian standards). Specifically, on the Australian environment movement/climate change/climate policy etc. I've read a few excellent books, a few stinkers and lots in between (thankfully mostly at the 'excellent' end, and towering piles of journal articles... Continue Reading →
James Garner was a cool American actor. He had starred as ‘Maverick’ in a 1950s comedy-drama Western TV series. In the 1970s he was James Rockford, a private-eye (“two hundred dollars a day plus expenses”) in a genre-shifting TV show called ‘The Rockford Files’ (1). What the hell has this got to do with sustainability in... Continue Reading →
Manchester Tyndall Centre today hosted a provocative and highly interesting seminar. Professor Andy Stirling, who spent the 80s in the trenches for Greenpeace, had schlepped up to deliver a seminar on “Emancipating Transformations.” What they? Read on for an (almost) blow by blow account. [My multiple two centses are in square brackets like these.] Stirling... Continue Reading →
Okay, it was a snail. But it was interesting nonetheless, and surely racks me up some karma points (I am not yet sure if those are transferable with my good guy tokens)? Cycling along Higher Cambridge Street I almost squished a snail who'd started a long and perilous journey across the road, and wasn't looking... Continue Reading →
Wow. It's almost as if there is a long-running class war where the rich try to demoralise and demean the poor, kick them in the teeth and then blame them for not having a nice smile. I know, I know, crazy conspiracy theory... "Bringing a condition under human control often poses a challenge to old... Continue Reading →
Marc Hudson 