A Climate Economics Antinomy

Paul Ehrlich once famously remarked, Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. A point noted here often is that although environmentalists claim that their perspective is grounded in science, their desire for...

How Not to "Crush and Bury" Climate Sceptics

The Guardian has quoted Royal Society President, Paul Nurse's outburst: He urged researchers to forge relationships with politicians, lobbyists, religious figures and leaders of organisations in the hope that they might feel ashamed to misuse scientific evidence. But...

Science can’t tell us how to live the Good Life

According to new research from the University of Cambridge, the world’s growing and increasingly wealthy population must change its diet if environmental harm and catastrophic climate change are to be avoided. Lead researcher Bojana Bajzelj and her colleagues used...

Does the UK Need Another Climate 'Unit'?

Imagine that you are a journalist -- it's not hard to do -- in need of some information about climate change. Where would you turn to first? You might start with the UK's allegedly independent Committee on Climate Change, they are charged by the Climate Change Act...

How 'Stupid' Spreads

The last post here noted that there was more than coincidence to environmentalism's ascendency and the decline of the press. The broader point made here is that mediocrity seems to infect many public institutions, who in turn seem to resort to environmentalism. It's...

Environmentalism & Mediocrity

This blog has long argued that one of the forces driving environmentalism's ascendency is mediocrity, especially in the press. Green-inkers fancy themselves in some kind of war with sceptics or deniers of what they imagine to be the 'reality of climate change'. But in...

There is no ‘dash for gas’

Contrary to green-hued reports, the UK is not about to be turned into a giant shale-gas drilling pad. This week, the UK Government announced a new round of licensing for onshore oil and gas exploration. Companies will make bids for a licence to drill for oil or gas in...

Yet More Solar Lunacy

A popular notion that has driven a lot of thinking on 'green energy' is that the entire world's demand for energy is equivalent to (or can be met by) the amount of sunlight falling on a relatively small area of land. For instance, this image has done the rounds...

Don’t blame Russia for the anti-fracking panic

It isn’t Moscow's money that fuels fracking protests – it’s Europe’s own turn against development. According to the Financial Times, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen told an audience at Chatham House in London that the Russian government has been working...

Monbiotism. Again.

It's been nearly a year since this blog last took a look at Monbiot's thinking. He used to be a favourite, epitomising the green movement's excesses in each of his Guardian stories. But as useful as it is to see what goes on in the fantasy world that environmentalists...