Quickly, because looong day (but good one) and my guilty pleasure Michael Connelly awaits. THIS SORT OF THING PISSES ME OFF. It implies that "world leaders" are asleep, not aware what is going on. a) that is horseshit b) if it were true, what would it say about the efficacy of 30+ years of academic,... Continue Reading →
How long will this go on? Until it doesn’t. But “we” won’t stop it… (Cut and paste a Twitter DM)
I have smart friends. Some of them are on Twitter (for now) We DM. See below, of me and VSF (Very Smart Friend) Me: how are you doing? Shit is fucked up, isn't it, to use the academic language... 1:28 PM Very Smart Friend: How far can political reality stretch from physical reality? 1:40 PM... Continue Reading →
Shooting from the lip on hopium and “social tipping points”
So, a friend tagged me in a Twitter (RIP?) thread which mentioned a rare (1) new article by Benjamin Sovacool, who is my boss and also - sorry, I know this is excruciatingly sycophantic and would get me a Private Eye OBN - a thoughtful and kind person, whose work is really useful (full disclosure... Continue Reading →
Schoolboy Powerpoint Fail AND “the costs of doing social movement.”
Two things before I feed the swans and then work into the evening on industrial decarbonisation and multiple streams approach ONE - I did a mostly good talk about ID and MSA today. Halfway through I realised I was sharing the screen of my penultimate powerpoint presentation and that I really ought to have the... Continue Reading →
“Project(ing) Fear” or “then it fell apart, like it always does.”
Roger Hallam has gone off on one again. It is, as ever, anthropologically fascinating and politically terrifying. You can read the thread here. https://twitter.com/RogerHallamCS21/status/1585720401359175681 I won't fisk the lot of it (life is short, it's not long until the Abrupt End of Everything). As ever with Hallam, there are some robust and intelligent takes on... Continue Reading →
Gormless “individual action!” vs “system change!” #climate “activists” talking past each other, as usual. My declaration of irrelevance, sorry, independence
Uggh. a) I have COVID b) I have had enough of climate "activists" and their gormless miss-the-point-"debates" about individual versus "top-down" action. The love-and-light brigade tell us our individual footprints matter, that we need to "be the change we want to see". They ignore the corporates (indeed, blah blah BP invented carbon footprints blah blah)... Continue Reading →
SMOTE – (social movement organisation transcience and emptiness.) Why “we” refuse to see it, say it. #ClimateTwitter
All these people on Climate Twitter, spouting variations of information deficit, or hope deficit or anger deficit. All of them studiously avoiding the key (imo) question - what do social movement organisations need to do DIFFERENTLY, given that for the last 30 plus years, they have not managed to slow the acceleration of the destruction... Continue Reading →
Things we can’t see, don’t have the language for, that MATTER (the mechanics of social movement organisations etc etc)
We can't, usually, 'see' carbon dioxide. But we know it is there. Since the 1950s very very accurate measures of its concentration in the atmosphere have been kept (thanks to Uncle Sam and his military industrial complex). While dickheads - to use the technical academic term - like ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott scoff at "invisible... Continue Reading →
Hypocrites, Zealots and (in)activists – a cartoon (and inevitably unhelpful rant)
I asked my brilliant friend Marc Roberts if there were a cartoon in this blog post, and this is what he came up with. It is in the latest issue of Ethical Consumer Magazine, and it is genius, I am sure you agree. The problem is that the reality is EVEN WORSE THAN THIS, because... Continue Reading →
Martin Luther King – “Perhaps we shall not overcome after all.” (#satire)
"Our Dumb Century" by the folks at The Onion is a staggering satirical achievement. Lots more to say, but this fits my current mood (see the Cher, incentive structures and our inevitable doom post etc)