Here’s the gist of a very long blog post. A senior academic (Professor Karin Bäckstrand) gave a very clear summation of the relative importance of the Paris Agreement, the distinctions between ecological democracy and environmental democracy and the (possible) path of transformation that Swedish society is undergoing. She did this in the context of an... Continue Reading →
On the Chaos of the Disciplines and the disciples Academic stars, they flash like a comet As the mangy dog returns to its vomit Deja vu - nihil novi sub sole We lie and die in a darkening hole.
Australian content alert: Yeah, this is a bit of geekery. There's a Sunday morning politics show called Insiders, which is a ritual thing I do with my mum and her next door neighbour. The format is solid (stolid?)- a host (usually Barrie Cassidy) and three hacks, sorry, journalists. There's a long interview with a pollie,... Continue Reading →
On 25 June 1969 Ralph Slayter, an Australian scientist, gave one of the first (but not the first - that's for another time) warnings of the dangers of the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Slayter was talking at the Australian National University, as part of a lecture series on 'Man and the New... Continue Reading →
The question was designed to be difficult, and the answers were in equal parts cautious and revealing. Rather than about recycling – the topic of a tightly run panel discussion put on at the King’s Head by Adelaide Sustainability Connect and the SA Young Professionals Group of Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) – the question was... Continue Reading →
This species. I mean, seriously. Anon, 1988. Greenhouse Switch. Australian Financial Review, 7 November, p.4 Australian governments should stop building coal-fired power stations as a start to combatting the greenhouse effect, conservation groups said yesterday. A group of 25 conservation, consumer and other community organisations said brown coal was the “dirtiest” of the fossil... Continue Reading →
So, there was this thing called the Australian Environment Council, made up of Federal and State ministers of the environment. It was set up in 1972 and had a long-ish run. And, as is the nature of these beasts, it produced Reports. And number 7, published in 1982, was on the public's willingness to pay... Continue Reading →
A couple of years ago the folks at the Conversation asked me to bash out a piece on what Australians knew about climate change in the late 60s, early 70s. I did an okay-ish job, but have since radically expanded my knowledge of that period. What we have below is not the first mention of... Continue Reading →
'The Australian Energy Market Operator has just released a report on the future of the Australian energy market. Giles Parkinson over at reneweconomy.com.au has probably already got a 4000 word forensic demolition of it posted [sort of]. It is clearly going to be used by various shades of fossil fuel friends to say "only coal... Continue Reading →
I'm going through my unread gmail messages, tracking down notes to myself about the four empirical chapters of The Thesis (which is all but done). And I'm stumbling on stuff that I always intended to blog/think more about. Here's one (should probably turn into a video!) "The first rule for understanding the human condition is... Continue Reading →
