Just watched a good five plus minutes of the ABC news. After the COVID stuff there was coverage of heatwaves in South Australia and elsewhere. Temperatures of 45, 46 degrees. Warnings about swimming with friends etc. No context of how the Bureau of Meteorology has had to add two new colours to the weather maps.... Continue Reading →
Midnight Oil’s “Shakers and Movers” – a profound beautiful gem of a song
Next week Midnight Oil get a Human Rights award. David Ritter has written perceptively and with power and passion (plus some easter egg references for the nerds) about their influence. I want here just to talk about one song, an album track from the 1990 effort Blue Sky Mine. The song is "Shakers and Movers"... Continue Reading →
Debate speech: XR has done more harm than good
Here's the text I prepared and delivered for what was, in the end, a deeply unsatisfactory debate held recently. I am Dr Marc Hudson. Speaking as editor of Manchester Climate Monthly, I put the case “that Extinction Rebellion has done more harm than good to the movement towards climate action.” I will stick to XR... Continue Reading →
Of abuse, derailing, and a fundamental lack of intellectual courage and perhaps capacity…
Rule of thumb - If someone commenting on your blog post starts with an attack on you (as opposed to your arguments), then you’ve hit a nerve and - whether they know it or not, whether they can even admit it to themselves or anyone else when it is pointed out - they are trying... Continue Reading →
Guest post: In (partial) defence of Extinction Rebellion
A few days ago I published something under the title "XR- useful, useless or worse than useless?" Given that I wrote it, there were of course no tpyos, no sweeping generalisations and no inflammatory denunciations whatsoever.Someone I know slightly kindly wrote an email, and I encouraged them to turn it into a longer comment. Originally... Continue Reading →
The evergreen “JOBS!!!” tactic versus anything… green
Incumbent tactics in the nominal democracies (i.e., where the ones were fatal violence is rarely dished out to citizens who are 'in the way') are fascinating. (The shifts and continuities of tactics were the subject of my PhD). Anyone paying any attention for more than five minutes will know that one favoured tactic - deployed... Continue Reading →
Kwasi Kwarteng at #Smartenergysummit
I've had several pieces published on the excellent reneweconomy.com.au recently (see here, here and here).One I wrote which I think didn't make the cut (#themomenthaspassed) was about the performance and reception of Kwasi Kwarteng, UK minister for business, energy and clean growth at the recent Smart Energy Summit. It would be a tragedy if these... Continue Reading →
Australia as renewable energy superpower? Report on ANU Energy seminar 24 September 2020
This below, minus the hyperlinks, appeared on reneweconomy.com.au Engaging with climate and energy policy in Australia can be bad for your neck. Either your head is in your hands as the latest political idiocy unfolds, or you suffer whiplash as you encounter smart concerned people who are dealing with real world issues. It’s a long... Continue Reading →
Every day is Groundhog Day for Australian climate politics #Auspol
The wonderful news and analysis source Reneweconomy pubilshed this piece below on Wednesday 23rd September. The Czech writer Milan Kundera once observed that “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” The same goes for the struggle for adequate climate and energy policy in Australia. The first instinct is always... Continue Reading →
On #climate bullshit – interview with Dr Hayley Stevenson
A couple of weeks ago the academic journal Globalizations published a new article. "Reforming global climate governance in an age of bullshit" by Dr Hayley Stevenson. I'm the social media editor of another academic journal, Environmental Politics, and I tweeted it from @Env_Pol. It got a lot of Twitter love... I asked Dr Stevenson, who... Continue Reading →
