Who Are the 'Reality Checkers' Kidding?

Polly Curtis is the Guardian's 'reality checker'. Today's she's been live-blogging the debate about the margins of the 'Big Six' energy retailers, discussed here yesterday. Reality check: Are energy price hikes inevitable? Temperatures are about to plummet and energy...

The Big Lie About the ‘Big 6’

In spite of their having campaigned tirelessly over the last few decades for more expensive and less efficient forms of energy production -- 'sustainable energy' -- many of a greenish hue are getting heated up about about UK energy market regulator OFGEM's latest...

The Poverty of 'Development Goals'

Roger Pielke asks an intriguing question on his blog: Why is Energy Access Not a MDG? The UN Millennium Development Goals (pictured above) focus attention on helping improve the lives of poor people around the world. In the words of the UN: [The eight goals] form a...

The Poverty of Opinion Polls

The Guardian has an article about a poll of Europeans [PDF], which, according to them, shows that 'Europeans fear climate change more than financial turmoil'. I have little time for opinion polls. There is only one real test of opinion, and that is an individual...

The Poverty of Diagrams

Pop wisdom has it that 'a picture paints a thousand words'. Here's a picture that tries to paint so many words, but says more about its painters than the subjects they intended to portray. The diagram is from The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, and aims...

Economy of Thought

I didn't get to study economics at University. I sat in on a few lectures, and was glad that I didn't. But it would be nice to understand why and how economists arrive at their often counter intuitive conclusions. Science and philosophy often surprise us with what...

Time to put this morality tale on ice

<em>Published on Spiked-Online at http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/11117/</em> ‘Ice is the white flag being waved by our planet, under fire from the atmospheric attack being mounted by humanity. From the frosted plains of the Arctic ice pack to...

Environment, 'Justice', 'Fairness'

Apologies for this very long post -- things which I felt needed to be said kept occurring to me... Mike Childs is Head of Climate at the Friends of the Earth, and Chair of FoE Europe. He writes in a blog post at the FoE site today that, One of the reasons I joined...

The Guardian — Keeping up Appearances

Pure poetry: Ice is the white flag being waved by our planet, under fire from the atmospheric attack being mounted by humanity. From the frosted plains of the Arctic ice pack to the cool blue caverns of the mountain glaciers, the dripping away of frozen water is the...

Huhne Does He Think He is?

What the Minister for Energy and Climate Change thinks about the public: Who does he think he is? The environmental movement and the UK government previous and present have emphasised that price is fundamental to 'sending signals', both to the market to encourage...