We Need to Talk About Green NGOs…

NGOs are weird. And green NGOs are even weirder. Even at face value they are weird, precisely because we are supposed to take them and the issues they seemingly speak for at face value, as plainly as we would take the Campaign for the Abolition of Stubbed Toes (CAST)...

2071 and Counting

I have a review of Chris Rapley's "play", 2071, over at Breitbart London. The latest development in the green colonisation of the cultural sphere is the planet-saving stage play. This year, the Royal Court Theatre commissioned Duncan Macmillian and Chris Rapley to...

Lewandowsky's Logic

It's Lewandowsky time, again. 'Are you a poor logician? Logically, you might never know', he observes with Richard Pancost over at the Conversation Nonversation. More about that logic shortly... At the Nonversation, of course, comments from Lewandowsky's critics have...

Why Environmental Correspondents Trip Over Themselves

One of the things I've tried to point out here is the emptiness of the categories and concepts that dominate reporting on the climate debate. In particular, the notion of 'consensus' has become so entirely divorced from its substance that those who invoke it often...

The Daddy State

Here's my talk from the recent Battle of Ideas festival session -- Kindergarten culture: why does government treat us like children? -- which some readers may find interesting. Some context: it begins with a reference to the proposal to ban smoking in public parks in...

The Green Blob in Academe

Catherine Mitchell is Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Exeter. She is also one of the academics behind a joint venture between Exeter University and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, called IGov: 'Innovation, Governance and...

Nuclear power? Yes please. But not this…

This was originally written for Spiked, who haven't yet decided whether or not to publish it. Plans to bring UK nuclear energy out of its torpor were given mild relief last week, as the EU Commission approved the deal between the Government and EDF – the developer of...

Battle of Ideas 2014

The Institute of Ideas' tenth Battle of Ideas festival is taking place next month at the Barbican Centre in London. If you're not familiar with the event, the Battle is a weekend of many debates and discussions on many different matters, led by speakers from around...

Stern's Turn

Way, way back in the 2000s, when everyone believed in Hockey Sticks, the UK's Labour government commissioned somebody nobody had ever heard of to write a report on the economics of climate change, so that it could make an argument for domestic and international...

Monbiot Re-Writes History

Environmentalists don't understand politics. Especially democratic politics. And Environmentalists aren't much good at history either. And it should be noted, that although environmentalists like to claim that their perspectives are grounded in science, they are...