The Transition Network has released its movie into the wild, so that as many people can see it possible. If you’ve got 50 minutes to spare, it’s a great introduction to Transition Towns. It’s also a real celebration of what communities can do when they take responsibility for global issues and get down to action. [...]
Archive | 2009
Can Ethiopia break the climate deadlock?
I’ve resisted blogging every detail of the Copenhagen talks over the last week, as it would only be adding to the internet echo chamber of speculation over whether or not we’ll get anything resembling an actual climate deal. However, I’ll make an exception of this one – the latest plan to break through the deadlock [...]
Wealth distribution in Britain
After last week’s post on poverty in the UK, I thought I’d follow up with this graph showing the distribution of the country’s wealth. The data was released this week by the Office for National Statistics, in a report called Wealth in Great Britain (pdf). As the image shows, wealth is badly distributed. The least [...]
Valuing the work that matters most
Income is one of the key indicators of value in our modern society – we pay people well to do things that we value highly, and pay them little for work that we consider less important. Cleaners and shop assistants are paid low wages, because in theory, they contribute little to the economy. Bankers and [...]
What does a sustainable diet look like?
My wife Louise put the finishing touches to a radio documentary about sustainable meat eating last week, and it is now live on The Ecologists’ website. Click here to listen to it. I’ll let Lou tell you a little more about it: “The call to cut back on our meat and dairy consumption in the [...]
The growth report 2
I was going to post this on friday, but I forgot. Here it is now, the latest I’ve come across in the economic growth conversation. More, more, more: “The task today is to secure the recovery and promote long-term growth.” Alistair Darling, who mentioned growth 26 times in his pre-budget speech. “The good news is [...]
What we learned this week
The Office of National Statistics has released it’s first survey of wealth distribution in Britain. It should be a revealing read, and I will be browsing it on the train this week. You can read it here. Lots of campaigners asked politicians to get the train to Copenhagen. The train costs £480 and a plane [...]
Living with a changing climate
There’s a neat interactive feature in the Guardian today that’s well worth a browse. It tells the stories of a series of people whose lives are being affected by climate change, right around the world – a vineyard owner who has to plant higher up the hill each year to get a decent harvest; a [...]
Has economic growth lifted people out of poverty in the UK?
Whenever I talk about economic growth and why we might want to stop chasing it, the first reply is that to give up on growth is to give up on the poor. “We as a global society need more and more growth,” says Thomas L Friedman, “because without growth there is no human development and [...]
Apologies from the future
In a nice little advertising campaign from Greenpeace, a series of billboards have been put up around Copenhagen airport, hopefully where world leaders will walk past them as they fly in to the climate talks next week. The ads show the politicians aged by ten years, and you can see the rest of them here [...]
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