In July last year I wrote about the gamble that the government had taken with its austerity programme: Here’s the big gamble – government’s contribution to GDP will be slashed, with the expectation that business will take up the slack. Osborne’s budget is a love song to big business, a bid to raise the British [...]
Archive | November, 2011
Britain’s carbon footprint inequalities
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has conducted a study of the social impacts of climate change in Britain. It includes analysis of where CO2 emissions comes from, and who is most vulnerable to climate change. Among their findings are the contrasting carbon footprints of Britain’s poorest and wealthiest households: Britain’s top earning 10% have double the [...]
A slow and patient anger
I was talking to a friend the other day, and he said that my blog made him angry at the world. Which got me thinking – do I want to sound angry? Is this an angry blog? Am I an angry person? On reflection, the answer is yes on all counts. That requires a few [...]
What we learned this week
5,000 people got a free lunch in London last week, all made out of food that was otherwise going to be thrown away. Tom Hunt is the chef responsible, and you can read his blog and browse his recipes here. The Rough Guide to Community Energy is a new book from Rough Guides. You can [...]
The Story of Broke
Why is there always money for the military, for banks and fossil fuels, but not for health or education? The Story of Stuff tackles taxation and perverse subsidies:
Alternatives to Economic Growth – day conference in Cambridge
This looks like a great post-growth conference coming up in February next year. Alternatives to Economic Growth is organised by the Cambridge Green Party, with the New Economics Foundation, Green Economics Institute and the Transition movement. It’s Saturday 18th of Feb, and there’s more information here. See you there? An underlying question to much of [...]
Who owes what to whom
There’s a rather nifty little interactive piece on the BBC’s business pages at the moment, showing European networks external debt. Click on each country and you can see how much they owe, and who they owe it to. Here’s Britain’s external debt: Now that you’ve seen Britain’s click across and view Greece. I was [...]
Stop Burning our Trees – corporate lobbying in disguise?
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the bus posters I’d seen for a campaign called Stop Burning Our Trees. Among the campaign actions is a petition to ban the burning of virgin wood for electricity generation, and the petition has been promoted through a series of stunts around London. Since the campaign culminates [...]
Five causes of inequality
Yesterday I listed ten reasons why you should care about inequality, and as I’ve written about before, it’s a growing problem in the UK. We are a highly unequal society, in which the poorest half of the population holds just 9% of the wealth. The richest 10% are 100 times richer than the poorest 10%. [...]
Ten reasons to care about inequality
The New Economics Foundation has released some good work on equality recently, including this briefing on ten reasons to care about inequality (pdf). This is important stuff, as despite the growing evidence that inequality is a factor in almost any social ill you care to mention, there is no political will to reduce it. We [...]
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