The Environmentalist’s Paradox that Wasn’t a Paradox

Leo Hickman, Guardian’s ‘ethical’ agony aunt, usually occupies himself with the kind of pointless, trivial, and often completely bizarre ethical questions that only trouble the most moneyed and morally-disoriented environmentalist: Which is the most eco-friendly...

Lomborg's Technology-Led Policy

Roger Pielke Jr has a post about Bjorn Lomborg's apparent turnaround on the climate issue. Specifically, his proposal for a low (starting and rising) carbon tax to fund innovation comes directly from the work of Isabel Galiana and Chris Green (in the video above) of...

What Happens When the Think-Tank is Empty of Thought?

As has been said before on this blog, environmentalism is not as much an concrete idea in itself as it is a constellation of phenomena. Its parts move independently to intersect with many other issues. One such convergence of issues is epitomised by the New Economics...

Statistical Insignificance

Statistical Insignificance 25 months ago, Andrew Simms, Policy Director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), warned that there are only 100 months to save the planet. Writing in the Guardian today, he reminds us that there are only 75 months of his deadline...

The Grief Lectures 2010 – Part Three

In the previous two posts, I looked at the first lectures by Royal Society president, Martin Rees. This post relates to his third of four lectures, ‘What We’ll Never Know’. Lighter on the doom, it is a less dark story than the previous lectures. Indeed, Rees makes...

The Grief Lectures 2010 – Part Two

In the previous post, I looked at the first of Martin Rees Reith Lectures. The President of the Royal Society believed that there is ‘a 50 percent chance of a setback to civilisation as bad as a nuclear war, or some consequence of 21st century technology equally...

The Grief Lectures 2010 – Part One

While we were busy, the Royal Society’s diktats on climate change got the world’s oldest scientific academy into the news, again. Back when we started this blog in 2007, we found the language used by those in and around the RS to be perhaps the most peculiar...

Inner Spin, Outer Chaos

Rotation has long been a problem for humans seeking to understand the world. Who or what is rotating? Any sufficiently drunk person or dizzy child sees everything else revolving, yet they both remain static in relation to the world they fall to. A more sober...

Back Soon…

Final exams and babies have preoccupied us editors over the last few months. And a lot has happened in the climate world. We've not gone away. We will be back in a week or so. Please stay tuned.

Against Humanity

Juliette Jowit reports in the Guardian that a "British campaigner urges UN to accept 'ecocide' as international crime". "Ecocide" is defined as "The extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other...