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 →
You hear anyone saying “oh, I was wrong”? No, me neither. #climate #BorisJohnson #Israel
In the last couple of weeks we've seen big big protests in Israel about the direction of travel of the state. We've had another IPCC summary report (number 6 in the franchise - the body count ever higher, the deaths more elaborate) and just yesterday Boris Johnson in front of the Privileges Committee. What all... Continue Reading →
The Big What? Why? Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion kiss and make it up as they go along
Extinction Rebellion today announced that it was teaming up with Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace to try to make what has looked like it would be the Humiliatingly Small One into the Tolerably Medium-Sized One. This is the same Extinction Rebellion which denounced FoE and Greenpeace (aka "the FoGgers") as complicit, sclerotic and useless.... Continue Reading →
Abeyance – a crucial concept (video)
https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1637791469476954112 If you don't understand protest waves and movement cycles and ABEYANCE, you are a risk not just to yourself, but to those around you.
“Activist Credibility Tokens”
I made a video about what I call "Activist Credibility Tokens" - how people try to get them, how there's an "easy" way and how that sets up perverse incentives, unhelpful patterns. Tell me what you think... https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1637048946613706754
Two climate videos, one glaring silence (spoilers – it’s social movements)
Thanks to Twitter, I saw two videos yesterday - one which is very recent, about the so-called "activist industrial complex" and the other from three years ago by the Financial Times, presented by the actress Nicola Walker. Both, in their ways, are good to think with, but perhaps not for the reasons their creators think.... Continue Reading →
Dr Juggles and the Energy Quadrilemma
Using juggling as a metaphor for dealing not only with the energy "trilemma" - of security of supply, price and climate change, but the energy quadrilemma - all the other environmental problems too... Rough as a badger's... bottom, but you get the idea. You're allowed to a) laugh (at/with/whatever - we all need a laugh)... Continue Reading →
Manchester Labour’s utter naked contempt for democracy, part 94 (thousand).
So, Manchester City Council has 96 Councillors. 91 belong to Labour, and a more craven bunch of neoliberal stooges you are unlikely to find this side of the Conservative party. The City Council has an executive system, meaning 10 of the (Labour) councillors run the show, with a "cabinet" and a "leader." There are six... Continue Reading →
Looting the Ivory Tower: of #climate targets
I made another "Looting the Ivory Tower" video. I intend to make a bunch more. Suggestions welcome. https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1624331409799237632
Dancing around the issue – of metaphors of hope(lessness)
We think in metaphors (or I do and people around me seem to), but those metaphors can take us to bad places and (therefore) need to be interrogated, and challenged. So, as the old study showed, if you frame crime as evilness you get one lot of policy proposals being popular, if you frame it... Continue Reading →