Environment

You wait centuries for an apocalyptic horseman to arrive and then two of them appear at once.  I refer, of course, to two of humanity’s oldest foes; famine and pestilence – both of which are in the news this month. Famine comes in the form of the unfolding calamity across …

Rising food prices were a major contributor to the recession in 2010-11. Climate variation across Eurasia had resulted in a poor grain harvest that produced shortages around the planet.  As Troy Sternberg noted: “In 2010, the world wheat harvest was affected by changing weather patterns that led to shortages. Production …

This morning I awoke to the news that we now have something called a Climate Emergency (note the capital letters).  This is clearly something different to the (lower case) climate emergency that scientists and campaigners have been warning about since I was a child; and it seems to be something …

Remind me again why you go to work in the morning?  Is it because you are so committed to the mission of your corporate employer that you would willingly work for nothing if they asked you to?  Does your job provide you with so high a degree of life-meaning and …

The immediate urgency of Brexit has helped the UK avoid much of the “green new dealism” that is currently exercising our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic.  Along with school students around the world, ours are taking time out from classes to protest the imminent arrival of an …

There is broad agreement that 2018 was the worst year yet for the environment.  According to the New York Times “The Story of 2018 Was Climate Change;” while the Washington Post informed us that: “Extreme weather in 2018 was a raging, howling signal of climate change.”  Meanwhile on this side …

In the years before the Welsh Government was granted law making powers, Wales became known as the land of the strategy document.  Perhaps because of the lyrical nature of the Welsh language, the nineteenth century resurrection of druid poetry, or all of the time spent singing in chapel choirs and …

One of the sad truths about aging is that you never notice it happening.  Sure, you can look at old photographs and trawl through distant memories and know, cognitively, that you are no longer the person that you once were.  You can notice lines and blemishes on your skin that …

In the early weeks of the Second World War the British government produced a poster that was supposed to raise the morale of the public.  The poster proclaimed that “Your sacrifice will bring us victory” (my emphasis).  Unconsciously, the authorities had given away the class-based nature of what they believed …

If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.  That, at least, is the approach I’m taking to the flurry of crowd-funder videos currently doing the rounds on social media, promoting technologies that suck carbon out of the atmosphere.  As with a raft of other faux-green technologies …