Driving to Distraction

UK politics is taking a very spooky turn. I came across this today in the course of some research... Lords Science Committee expand Behaviour Change Inquiry to consider interventions to reduce car usage in towns and cities The House of Lords Science and Technology...

The Life of Brian – Science Messiah or Very Naughty Boy?

Brain Cox is a great science communicator. That is to say, he makes very effective TV programmes, which do not condescend, and do much to encourage an interest in science. But there is surely science as process, and there’s ‘science’ as an institution. It’s not clear...

Cancun: scavenging around for scientific fact

Published on Spiked-Online at http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/9986/ Conventional climate wisdom has it that once ‘the science’ is put before politics, politicians will respond to the imperative to save us from Gaia’s revenge. So each year, representatives...

Cancun & the Met Office

I have a story on Spiked today, about the pre-Cancun messages from the Met Office. In retrospect, I wish I'd called it "Some of our Global Warming is Missing", but I expect it's been said before. Conventional climate wisdom has it that once ‘the science’ is put before...

Climate Science and the Climate Debate

I've been too busy for blogging recently. To break the silence, I thought I'd post this presentation I gave at a debate at York University this time last year. The discussion was about the view often expressed by environmentalists that there is no need for any further...

What the greens really got wrong

Published on Spiked-Online at http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/9868/ Environmentalists have long claimed that their desire to save the world has been thwarted by conspiracies of Big Oil and right-wing think-tanks. Channel 4’s What the Green Movement Got...

What the Greens Really Got Wrong

Read my article about Ch4's What the Green Movement Got Wrong at Spiked-Online. Environmentalists have long claimed that their desire to save the world has been thwarted by conspiracies of Big Oil and right-wing think-tanks. Channel 4’s What the Green Movement Got...

What? The Green Movement Got Something Wrong?!

Channel 4 will be showing “What the Green Movement Got Wrong” tonight. Tune in at 9pm... It’s too early to say much about the film -- I haven’t seen it yet -- but it appears to feature prominent environmentalist, Mark Lynas saying that environmentalists were wrong to...

A sideways step from climate panic to Malthus

Published on Spiked-Online at http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/debates/copenhagen_article/9825 It has been an annus horribilis for the environmental activists and politicians who insist that the world needs to act on climate change. There was ‘Climategate’, the...

What Next for the Royal Society?

In May this year, the UK’s science Academy, the Royal Society, announced that it was going to publish a “new guide to the science of climate change to help the public gain a better understanding of the issue.” This announcement appeared to follow in the wake of a...