There’s a technique I am beginning to see more and more (1). The inevitably laughable COP26 looms, and yet another “we’re screwed” climate report [e.g. IPCC WG1 6AR] is out. In response, fossil fuel companies are either heading for the exits as best they can OR they are claiming that they are part of the... Continue Reading →
So much podcasting and jaw-flapping, so little “this is how we bell the cat”-ting
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. I get that it is easier and safer to keep saying the cat should wear a bell. I get that it is easier to celebrate occasions on which the cat didn't get to kill quite so many mice. BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL... Why are people spending time on creating podcasts, or holding zoom calls... Continue Reading →
Intelligence Deficit or Empathy Deficit? Of “Covidiots” and the Voight-Kampff test
Hands up if you've ever changed your mind on a topic after someone called you stupid? [crickets] Yeah, me neither. I am not "stupid" (blah blah scholarships, degrees etc etc etc blah blah) but omfg have I done more (far more) than my share of stupid things. And the root cause of most of those... Continue Reading →
Getting beyond handwavium, or “A systematic review of energy systems: The role of policymaking in sustainable transitions”
Even back before I was trying to be an academic (watch this space) I was reading academic articles for fun. That's not a boast (well, okay, maybe a little bit, but also just a statement of fact). I learned the hard way that much academic output is dross - concept mongering or torturing of so-called... Continue Reading →
Demography, death, decarbonisation. All this and not much more at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas (see also, technopolitical salvationism and China Crisis)
I've spent bits of the last two days sat in neo-Gothic wood-panelled halls listening to sages on the stage. Some of the sages have been great. Others, well, that's why I took a book, innit? This is not, after all, my first go at this rodeo. It's the "Adelaide Festival of Ideas" again, that under-funded... Continue Reading →
If I had kids, I’d be in a blind blind panic right now: On a public meeting of the “Australian Verdant Political Organisation” #Machiavelli #Smugosphere #Eargout #Egofodder
There are many topics on which I am a dreadful bore. On a subset of those I am a dreadful SMUG bore. On a subset of those I am a dreadful smug bore who will one day be thumped by a breeder. That subset is actually one item - the "I had a vasectomy in... Continue Reading →
Converging what where? – Of helixes, quasi-industrial policy and incantations
There’s a story, surely apocryphal, of Shakespeare being locked in attic room and only given food in exchange for pages of an overdue play script. That tactic - “sliding pizza under the door in exchange for good ideas” is something that gets talked about in “strategic niche management.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrEYl9Kl4ZU Its cousin, pump-priming and state-agency-as-facilitator/networker was... Continue Reading →
Feeling grimy at your complicity? Wash away the sins of ecocide, racialised patriarchal oppression with Ideology Soap
Would that it were so easy to be ideologically pure.
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 →
Excuses, excuses (or “archive hunting for fun and zero profit”)
I am trying to be less chaotic. Or rather, I am bringing all the random memory sticks (there are lots) together in one place and will then do some light/heavy raiding. Yesterday I put up something from 2009. Today it's something from 2012. On 4th November 2012 I was clearly at some dreadful climate event... Continue Reading →
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