Watching David Cameron’s keynote conference speech over the weekend, I was struck by the language he used about the deficit. “I wish there was another way” he says of his budget cuts. “I wish there was an easier way. But I tell you: there is no other responsible way.” It’s similar to what chancellor George [...]
Archive | October, 2010
What we learned this week
Walmart has its eye on Africa. “Wal-Mart is one of the most gangsta companies in the history of the world,” says Joshua Brown approvingly. “They are as ruthless as their customers are fat.” Put Solar On It scored the big one this week as Barack Obama announced that the solar panels were going back on [...]
Conspiracy of Freedom
“We are consumers, no doubt. But does it have to shape our lives, fragment our communities and damage our world? What if we could resist the pressures of consumerism? What if we could live more simply, sustainably, generously?” Conspiracy of Freedom is a Christian response to consumerism from the Breathe Network, one of the other [...]
Local sustainable homes, by Chris Bird
This book couldn’t come at a better time for me really, as I’m in the middle of planning a home efficiency project of my own for Transition Luton. ‘Get Cosy’ will be hitting my street in a month’s time, in partnership with the local council and the Energy Saving Trust, encouraging local residents to install [...]
Sportswear brands still failing on labour rights
Yesterday I walked past the new 2012 store in St Pancras Station, gearing up to sell Olympic branded gear two years ahead of the actual London games. There’s a lot of money to be made in sportswear, and a pile of it is being made right now at the CommonWealth Games. Last year Nike had [...]
How much oil? Iraq revises its reserves
This week Iraq announced a revision to its stated oil reserves, revising them upwards by 24% to 143.1 billion barrels. This would make them the world’s third largest source of oil, overtaking their old rival Iran. On this basis, Iraq now claims it can push its production from the current levels of 2.4 million barrels [...]
Moveable Feasts, by Sarah Murray
Italy exports over 60% of Europe’s olive oil, but only grows half of it. How can Italy export more than it grows? Because it imports it from Spain and Morocco, puts it in a fancy bottle with a Tuscan landscape on the label and sells it on as Italian. It makes more money that way, [...]
Ecologically wasteful trade
In Catch 22, Joseph Heller’s fictionalised war drags on so long that the opposing air forces decide to just bomb themselves to save time. It’s a surreal thought, but the way we conduct some of our international trade is just as senseless. Reading Moveable Feasts, I was reminded of some examples of ecologically wasteful trade. [...]
Building better homes for World Habitat Day
Today is World Habitat Day, as designated by the United Nations. This century the number of people living in cities overtook the global rural population for the first time. Two billion people live in cities in the developing world, and that’s a figure that is rising by a million a week. Keeping up with housing [...]
What we learned this week
We often read that if everyone lived like we do in the UK, we’d need three more planets earths. Good news – we just found another planet earth, and it’s three times bigger than ours – result! Well, maybe. When you’ve read that, see if it follows Martin Robbins’ entertaining suggestion that science news articles [...]
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