I’ve been on jury duty the last couple of weeks: The jury’s job is to deliver a verdict, not to deliver justice. I hadn’t thought of this before, but we only get to say yes or no, guilty or innocent. We don’t get to show mercy, or explain ourselves. Fortunately the judge gets to do [...]
Archive | May, 2009
Climate change affects 325 million people a year
That’s the conclusion of the first global report into the social effects of climate change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis (pdf). It was published yesterday by Kofi Annan’s thinktank, the Global Humanitarian Forum. According to their findings, 325 million people are affected by climate change, and 300,000 die every year, from weather-related disasters, [...]
Water: Life in every drop, by Julian Caldecott
‘Water: Life in every drop’ is something of a hymn to the wonders of water – what it is, how it moves, the way that we experience it. It’s also a grand tour of the role of water in our world. Chapters are themed around a water source, from oceans to swamps, rivers to lakes. [...]
Exorcising Westfield
We were lucky enough to have the Reverend Billy drop by the Transition conference last weekend. He interrupted his schedule of Tesco exorcisms and ‘fabulous worships’ to encourage us all with a shout of ‘earthalujah’. I think most of the audience was a little bemused. If you are familiar with the good reverend, you may [...]
Shell on trial
An important trial is due to begin this week in New York. The defendant is the Shell oil company, facing charges that it was complicit in the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Sar0-Wiwa was tried on trumped up charges in 1995, and hanged for murder alongside eight fellow activists. It is alledged, among other [...]
Chris Martenson’s Crash Course
“The next twenty years will not be like the last twenty years” says Chris Martenson, as a one-line summary of his three hour ‘Crash Course’ in economics. Here’s the short introductory lecture, which I heard by video-link at the Transition Conference this weekend. Chris is a great communicator, and explains some complicated inter-connections between the [...]
Eye over fishing
A couple of weeks ago I described how to destroy the EU’s fish stocks in two easy steps. Today I was pleased to see that someone has graphically illustrated how to save them. Visit eyeoverfishing.org for some dynamic visual explanations of how our fishing industry currently operates, and how it could be improved.
Too many gadgets
Our love of gadgets is canceling out the savings from more efficient household appliances, the International Energy Agency warned this week. Some individual appliances such as fridges and dishwashers may be increasingly efficient in their energy use, but others are moving in the opposite direction. Flat-screen TVs, for example, use three times as much power [...]
Transition Network Conference, the debrief
So, back from a very long weekend at the Transition Network conference, at the Battersea Arts Centre in London. It’s been a fascinating three days. I’ve not been to a conference quite like it before, with such a focus on conversation and on learning from each other, rather than from experts. Entirely fitting for a [...]
Transition Network Conference
I’m at the Transition Network Conference this weekend, which so far has been great – ingenious, inspiring, and quite unlike any conference I’ve been to before. I will tell you more about it in the next couple of days…
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