Lord give me strength. Talktalk is one of these useless companies that sells TV broadband, mobile and phone. I am sure they massively underpay their sales drones. And probably overpay their advertising agency. And their directors, of course. I simply phoned up to ask them to tell them to stop wasting their money and my... Continue Reading →
DILC and the Problem Lady; Phase 3, the State
The Dialectic Issue LifeCycle Model (DILC) is a very cool heuristic for thinking about how some societal problems become issues, what industry does when the problems climb the political agenda and how the issues are (or aren’t) ‘resolved’. Here’s a video starring its progenitors. The DILC has five phases, and looks at three categories of actors in... Continue Reading →
Recycling Rules: Carnival of Coal is a blast from the PR past…
My smart, funny and generous friend Professor Chris Wright has co-authored a piece about the Australian coal industry and some of its PR moves over the last 20 years or so. It's at the Conversation. Please share/retweet/comment and generally feed my ego.. Btw, Chris has a co-authored book coming out in September; Climate Change, Capitalism... Continue Reading →
People’s Park and the warnings we had; 15th May 1969
Born on April 20, during its first three weeks People's Park was used by both university students and local residents, and local Telegraph Avenue merchants voiced their appreciation for the community's efforts to improve the neighborhood.[7][11] Objections to the expropriation of university property tended to be mild, even among school administrators. However, Governor Ronald Reagan... Continue Reading →
With the benefit of hindsight – final paragraphs of 9 year old books about #Australia and #climate
You've slaved over the book (either as the writer or the reader!). There have been bits where you've wanted to scream (as either the writer or the reader...), bits where you've gotten bored and skimmed over what should have been taken slowly (either as...) or gone slow when you should have gone quick (...). There's... Continue Reading →
Of eagles and geese – capitalising Aesop’s fables for capital accumulation
The word 'natural' is one of the busiest and slipperiest in the English language. One of its many shades of meaning is that something 'natural' is 'right' and 'normal.' Naturally (!), powerful actors hoping to become still more powerful will try to convince those who might constrain them that they are 'natural', and should be allowed... Continue Reading →
Of Garnaut, geosequestration and the (non)belling of the neoliberal cat
Professor Ross Garnaut is a highly intelligent, tenacious and formidably well-informed public intellectual, and I’m not just saying that because I want to interview him for my PhD research. Because look, in my very next sentence I say ‘I think he is wrong about the future of energy.’ He was speaking tonight in Adelaide, giving... Continue Reading →
Images of our green future; from politics to platitudes in 29 short years.
What hopes do ‘we’ have for the future? What choices do we think we will have to make, or perhaps seek to avoid? What do our old hopes tell us about our new fears? All good questions, which I can’t really answer particularly well, until I’ve had a longer think/looting of other people’s thoughts. But while... Continue Reading →
Of oil companies and #climate – let’s party like it’s 1997…
Some not-yet-jaded climate activists are getting quite excited that six European Oil companies recently wrote a letter to the United Nations requesting a carbon price and emissions trading scheme. Ever-so-kindly,they even offered to help design it… This is part of the general flurry of activity in the lead up to the Paris climate change talks... Continue Reading →
For Millicent?
“Why so sad?” she said, as I walked towards her in a cloud of gloom. Millicent (not real name) is a young woman who works somewhere I go a lot. I don’t know what kind of contract she is on. It’s probably not zero hours (yet). She probably has shit terms and conditions that leave... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 