So Scott Morrison, Australian prime minister, has given a blink-and-you'd-miss-it retraction of yesterday's debacle, when he repeatedly refused to apologise for the consequences of the vaccine stroll-out. Today he came out with I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to achieve the marks that we had hoped for at the beginning of this year. Of course... 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 →
“Assume the position”! Of Gramsci, “transitions” and how someday our modern prince may come (but too late)
tl:dr - Two academics have written a good "here's how Tony Gramsci can fill in some of the major gaps in the MLP and maybe make it useful" article. On the downside, it's probably only particularly accessible to folks who know their Gramscia and their sustainability transitions stuff. The article is called "Regime resistance and... Continue Reading →
The Lucifer Ploy: Manchester City Council and loyalty tests #TomEllis
Dr Wifey and I have vegged out through 5 (count 'em, five) seasons of the ludicrous, luscious, delirious and devilish show Lucifer. It's about (spoilers) Lucifer getting sick of Hell and deciding to own a nightclub on Earth. He teams up with an LAPD detective to solve murders, which always miraculously help him/them cope with... Continue Reading →
Metaphors we think with – of orchards, pies, eating and energy
Somewhere along the line I learnt that metaphors are very powerful things, in shaping/directing/preventing thought. So a for instance – if you frame a crime as a virus or crime as beast, it leads people to support different sets of responses. Autocrats and demagogues know this, instinctively, of course, and those of us who think... Continue Reading →
Whatever happened to responsibility? SAS, Covid, Robodebt; The game is rigged, y’all….
So naive, I know. There was never a golden age. But omfg it is blatant af at the moment. Nineteen Australian SAS soldiers are under investigation for murder and torture of Afghanis. You're seriously trying to tell me that nobody in the chain of command knew, and found ways not to know, to look the... 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 →
Losing friends and failing to influence people #392: “Activism as a Ponzi scheme”
Here’s another post destined to lose me friends/supporters/followers/ears. Perhaps. (IDGAF) It came to me recently, at a [description removed on advice of career coach]. Most of the “activism” I see is a Ponzi Scheme. In case you don’t know it, a Ponzi scheme is named after an Italian conman, Ponzi. He advertised a glorious future... 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 →
Black Lives Matter to Fossil Fuel incumbents and #climate denialists – as a cloak and stabvest
People of Colour are gonna be shocked - SHOCKED - to learn that rich white people are sock-puppeting them in an effort to stay rich. Because, you know, it's so unusual for powerful interests to totally disregard the actual long-term health of everyone else, and to claim to be benevolent while continuing to despoil and... Continue Reading →
