I like to believe I've read a lot these three and a half years (even by my own somewhat Rabelaisian standards). Specifically, on the Australian environment movement/climate change/climate policy etc. I've read a few excellent books, a few stinkers and lots in between (thankfully mostly at the 'excellent' end, and towering piles of journal articles... Continue Reading →
Guilty Pleasure: Jackson Lamb thrillers
Pointy end of the thesis is upon me. I am getting it done. I'd possibly be getting it done marginally quicker if it weren't for Mick Herron's "Jackson Lamb" thrillers. I stumbled on the first, Slow Horses in a charity shop in Glossop (as you do). The conceit looked amusing - what if MI5 had... Continue Reading →
Collegiality v bureaucracy v palm trees and Stamford Raffles. And Instagram.
It's been a while since I posted, because I have been a) thesising b) writing a book chapter (intimately related to a) above)) Still, this and a book I just read (see next post) deserve recording for posterity (or at least until the electricity systems collapse). My friend Mark Carrigan (top bloke, btw) has just... Continue Reading →
Tom Uren and the class war
So, to my shame I don't know enough about people like Tom Uren. That shall be rectified #afterthethesis. For now, this, from a speech he gave in 2007, which touches on his time as a POW working on the Burma railway. Talk about natural experiments... "There are many people and experiences that have nurtured my... Continue Reading →
Canute in reverse: Macron’s climate summit
Today thousands of the great and the good will gather in Paris for the latest in a long line of climate summits. Initiated in July by French President Emmanuel Macron, it falls on the two year anniversary of the Paris Agreement. With three goals - "Take tangible and collective action, innovate, support one another" -... Continue Reading →
Dodgy Academic Concepts #94: “Digital Haussmanisation” and the 21st century city
When I'm not Finishing My Damn Thesis (FMDT), I either watch Roger Federer doing his ballet/ice-skating combo, or else have interesting conversations with supervisors and friends. Via a post-supervision chat I found myself uttering the phrase "digital Haussmanisation." Let me "unpack" that, with complete sentence structure and so on. For hundreds of years (longer?) elites... Continue Reading →
Maps, territories, landscapes and moonscapes: three brilliant guides to the transformations
It's easy to get lost, to feel lost, especially when you're diving into new literature(s). Your supervisors can do just so much (mostly tell your thesis is not up to scratch (yet), or point you in the direction of some really good literature (institutional work, much?) But for the bigger/biggest picture? Well, who has the... Continue Reading →
Men critique things of me: of Winterson and Solnit in #Manchester #activism
aka some cishet white guy's uninvited commentary on two feminist literary icons. But it's his website and he can say what he likes. Nobody is forcing you to read it, 'kay? Rebecca Solnit will be known to the casual reader as the woman who wrote the (fantastic) 'Men Explain Things To Me’. Last night she... Continue Reading →
Lobbying, lies, prostitution, disruption #climate – extraordinary truth-telling
The problem with studying the rich (well, one of many) is that access is hard. So you end up relying on leaks and whisteblowers. Both can be deeply problematic. But every so often the curtain DOES get pulled back. With Australia and climate change two great examples are a) the leaking of the minutes of... Continue Reading →
Sociotechnical transitions for beginners; of speed, stability and mixing it up
What’s a sociotechnical transition? Why should you care? What does history teach us? Why might it be a false teacher? All good questions and they received good (though sometimes, by necessity provisional) answers yesterday as Dr Florian Kern of University of Sussex spoke on ‘Governing Low Carbon Transitions’ (see foot of this post for the... Continue Reading →