Environmental activism is most noted for 'direct action' -- behaviour that has two fundamental characteristics. 1. It is highly visible. 2. It is disruptive to the operations of some activity or other. Direct action is necessary, I have argued, because the...
Bees, Tin, Ozone… Anything Else?
A few weeks back, I took a look at the Friends of the Earth campaign that links Samsung to environmental destruction in Indonesia. FoE wanted to mobilise public opinion, using the standard method of generating consumer guilt with shocking images of poor people and...
Sir Paul Nurse & Nigel Lawson
As pointed out over at Bishop Hill, Nigel Lawson was the subject of some comments made by Royal Society president, Paul Nurse at his lecture at the University of Melbourne recently. I have written a lot about the Royal Society, its campaigns, and the angry and...
Ehrlich Joins the Headshrinkers
He is better known for his work on population, but neomalthusian, Paul Ehrlich is listed as an author on a new paper, the abstract of which reads as follows, Government policies are needed when people’s behaviors fail to deliver the public good. Those policies will be...
Climate Change Politics: Science's Pimp
Ed Davey made some revealing comments at his presentation at the Royal Society this week. James Delingpole has given Davey's words the treatment they probably deserve, pointing out that the Royal Society has 'jumped the shark'. Says Dellers, The Royal Society –...
From Bloomberg to Lomborg…
Bloomberg are reporting that Wind is now cheaper than fossil fuels in producing electricity in Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. What amazing news! So someone must have developed some amazing new technology!...
Blognitive Dissonance
Readers will no doubt remember climate change psychologist, Stephan Lewandowsky and his attempt to connect climate change denial and scepticism to conspiracy theories. Lewandowsky et al's paper, 'NASA faked the moon landing|Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An...
The New Tin Pot Dictators: Green NGOs
It should be clear to everyone by now that environmentalists have no sense of proportion. For instance, on the green view, the claim that 'climate change is happening' has been a matter of true or false, rather than a matter of degree. But is this misconception the...
Letter to the Climate Shrinks
BBC Radio 4 show, Thinking Allowed had a feature on the psychoanalysts perspective on climate change this week. Bishop Hill picked up the story. Thinking Allowed is one of my favourite programmes, so I was a tad disappointed to hear that thinking isn't allowed if it's...
Hate Ethopians, Love Polar Bears
The Telegraph's resident Gaia-botherer, Louise Gray has a short piece on neoMalthusian anti-baby campaigner, David Attenborough. The television presenter said that humans are threatening their own existence and that of other species by using up the world’s resources....