It’s interesting that the US military tends to be a step ahead of the rest of the country in its risk assessments. The majority of the population may be unconvinced on climate change, but the military has a strategy and considers climate change an exacerbating factor in future conflicts. Likewise with peak oil. It may [...]
Archive | May, 2010
Let’s hear it for the alternative vote
This is what I was hoping to see – this afternoon Labour played their best card in staying in government, namely Gordon Brown’s resignation. Undeserved, no doubt, but the only way a Lib Dem / Labour coalition could have any credibility. Within hours the Conservatives had upped their offer, promising a referendum on the alternative [...]
Airspace
This little animation shows the pause in air traffic while volcanic ash disrupted flights over Europe, and what happens when the skies opened again. Equally intriguing, the video uses data from Flightradar24, which allows you to watch flights all over Europe if you are so inclined. In theory, I could identify all the planes that [...]
What we learned this week
The US has 5,113 nuclear warheads, it announced officially for the first time this week. What on earth do you need that many for? China has 200, the UK has 160, and even one is too many in my opinion. Obviously no oil spill is a good thing, but with the amount of attention the [...]
Anarchy and allotments! Cakes and ale!
“Long live beauty, truth and William Morris! Hail William Blake and Samuel Johnson! Bow down before William Cobbett, Robin Hood, and all defenders of liberty! Anarchy and allotments! Cakes and ale!” Tom Hodgkinson celebrates the new issue of the Idler, which was released yesterday. This one is subtitled ‘back to the land’ and you can [...]
The UK decides: none of the above
If anyone had any doubts about whether or not constitutional and electoral reform was necessary in the UK, I offer last night as evidence that it is. This morning we wake up with Gordon Brown as prime minister, despite David Cameron winning more votes and more seats. Both he and David Cameron claim to have [...]
Green Up Luton, month two
May rolls around and it’s time to write an update on the Green Up Luton challenge, a council-run competition that we’re taking part in. My first challenge for month two was a personal one – getting my wife Lou more involved. The obsession with saving energy was mostly mine at first, as I religiously took [...]
Let’s hang parliament
A couple of weeks ago I expressed my preference for a hung parliament. David Cameron says it would be “damaging”, Ken Clarke says it would be “catastrophic”, but then they would say that. I am not alone in hoping that the politicians will be forced to work together. As it turns out, 32% of the [...]
Securing the recovery: can we avoid a double-dip recession?
As anyone who has seen the election debates could tell you, one of Gordon Brown’s favourite phrases at the moment is ‘securing the recovery’. Britain’s GDP only grew by 0.2% last quarter, and we should avoid anything that might divert us from the economic straight and narrow. By this he means, of course, that we [...]
All Consuming, by Neal Lawson
“We bought the stuff. We wanted it. We defined ourselves by it. We allowed ourselves to drift into the comatose life of the turbo-consumer. We needed something to worship and something to believe in and had long since swapped God for Gucci. We had been living beyond our means, in debt beyond our ability to [...]
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