Sat on an exercise bike before work this morning. In past had read Financial Timeses and Morning Stars, but that gets in the way of really going for it. So I was listening to a podcast (I like to keep up with new trends). I won't mention the name, but it's a well-respected one, with... Continue Reading →
All the pearl-wringing and hand-clutching about “Labour” abandoning the 28bn. What. Did. You. Expect?
There's acres of coverage about the Labour scrapping of its only quarter-way decent policy (the "Green Prosperity Plan.") The right-wingers are rolling out the "flipflop"/"stand for nothing line" (echoed by sentient lefties too). There's good "what might it mean medium-term?" (nothing good) stuff from the likes of Monbiot and Andy Beckett. And then there's rather a lot... Continue Reading →
The coming months on #climate in the UK
Written at speed, apols for typos etc. Musings on what we may see and "what is to be done" (bracing for impact, mostly?) The situation is one of clusterfuckery, escalating to collective suicide. Keir Starmer, to absolutely nobody's surprise, is ditching the promise to spend £28bn per year on green investment. This promise, made by his... Continue Reading →
Unsayable truths and playing the game
So, Storm Isa is upon us. And BBC Radio 4's 1pm news has some climate adaptation professor on. The announcer asks what needs doing and while the guy alludes to the government not having done stuff in the past, what he doesn't do is come out and say any variation on this: "Look, it's kinda wasting your... Continue Reading →
Letter in Private Eye about CCS…
They edited it down very lightly, just missing the final line "I would get out more, but the weather is so unpredictable at the moment, for reasons that elude me."
Oh god, what a waste of time and energy
I am not going to say what it was, but this is the message I left in the chat. "This is all framed so individually and individualistically. In the absence of effective and resilient social movement organisations, there will be this endless boom-and-bust, guilt-spasms followed by burn out. But we are all so thoroughly neoliberalised... Continue Reading →
Of cyborgs, brake pedals and the much-missed Machiavelli the allotment cat #climate #LearnedHelplessness
I have, shall we say "expansive" tastes in reading matter. That's not a euphemism for pr0n habits (yawnsville). It means I will read almost anything. And one of the books I read, maybe forty-ish years ago, was Cyborg by Martin Caidin. It was the source novel for the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man. It follows... Continue Reading →
Of David Roberts @drvolts, collective cognition and botshit
So David Roberts, who writes so well on climate and economics and so forth has a thread that has gone viral, even by his standards. Inspired by (or despaired by, perhaps) the weeks long Confected Moral Outrage over Harvard University and its now-ex-President, Roberts bemoans how the "left" keeps falling into the same very old trap-... Continue Reading →
Time for a “Dying in the Greenhouse” book?
In late 1989 there was a book published in Australia called "Living in the Greenhouse." Six months later, in June 1990, there was a book published in England called.... wait for it... wait for it... "Living in the Greenhouse." Here we are, having not done anything other than (checks notes)... make the problem much much worse.... Continue Reading →
COP28, Climate and what The Wire has to teach us
At time of writing there are breathless/shell-shocked accounts on the BBC World Service from Dubai, where the 28th "Conference of the Parties" to the UN Climate Convention is entering overtime (they almost always do). It turns out that - despite literally decades of denial and predatory delay - people are still surprised that the oil... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 