ALAN SIMPSON
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Don’t blame them; the sherpas, the civil servants and Ministers. They did their best, struggling to get commitments (rather than conditional brackets) out of COP26 negotiations. Surviving on caffeine and little sleep, they genuinely tried to get something meaningful past fossil fuel lobbyists and national vetoes. In the end, everyone had something to grumble about.…
“Don’t choose extinction”. This was the simple advice offered by a dinosaur in the UN’s CGI video message to global leaders. The question is whether any have the sense to heed it. The chaotic upheavals surrounding Glasgow’s COP26 gathering suggest the message is not getting through fast enough. To be fair, there were hopeful signs.…
Sometimes there are events that make you rail in anger. Others make you weep. Reading the government’s plethora of ‘net zero’ policy papers ahead of November’s COP26 climate conference, I could barely hold back the tears. It wasn’t their lack of ambition but the absence of a route map (with sufficient resources and urgency) that…
In her book Men in Dark Times, the philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the notion of inner emigration. What was it that stood in the way of so many prominent/influential people challenging the rise of Hitlerism or organising escape routes from it? From the biographies she explored, Arendt concluded that many found the external realities of…
Are local authorities equipped to reach net zero? “Only rapid and drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in this decade can prevent climate breakdown” – Sir Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Advisor. This Inquiry could not be more timely or important. Before the last election, I set up scientific briefings for MPs calling for a step…
The ‘Sun Ship’ (Das Sonnenschiff) is a small community in the Vauban district of Freiburg. Built in 2004, it is one of the earliest examples of ‘energy-plus’ housing; developments that generate more electricity than the community itself consumes. Powered entirely by solar energy (and storage), and designed to high standards of natural heating and cooling,…
Transformation Moment
My pamphlet 'Transformation Moment' is intended to support the case for a radical shift in energy thinking; as much about democracy as technology, and about 'systems' rather than just supply.
Just go out and protest, Martin. Then you are likely to get arrested and thus elicit an immediate police response. In Boris’ Britain, to report a crime you have to become the crime.
I have still heard nothing from you on this crime report, despite waiting twice as long as you said it would be before I had an update.
Thank you for submitting your audition for the next series of #LineofDuty but we’re looking for a character with at least one redeeming moral principle and a performance that places even just a scintilla of doubt in the audience’s mind that he might not be totally bent
Brilliant analysis. And you can’t help but be impressed by the way Leo plays the Committee Room tables as he goes along. Multi-talented or what?
@crisortunity “I literally cannot find a single example of a sustainable aviation fuel target being met”
We can’t wait for the silver bullet of green fuel when it comes to air travel. Here’s our co-director @crisortunity explaining why:
JUST IN: 86 human rights organisations have called on the EU to ban NSO Group & take every action possible to stop the sale of the Israeli company’s Pegasus spyware.
This is why:
Seems to work really well in Denmark where
- energy has been nationalised since 1973
- it is run as a ‘not-for-profit’ service, not a market,
- it operates through a series of local/regional cooperatives, and
- all co-ops must supply combined heat and power services.
I wouldn’t describe it as an ideal time to say taxpayers should buy supply companies, & loads of expensive gas, probably face losses or higher bills, and also reduce innovation for warmer, greener homes. But what do I know I just do energy and climate stuff for a living. https://t.co/hcgZVgPVBO
He’s spot on in saying that anyone still clinging to ideas that growth obsessed economics will get us out of today’s (existential) climate crisis is definitely Christmas Past. Yesterday’s politics would sink us all. So would today’s. Labour has yet to grasp this.
one Starmer loyalist observes:
“Does John McDonnell think the ghost of Christmas future was good?” https://t.co/B3iuoyBzFj
Time for a different “coalition of the willing”: reclaiming yesterday’s wisdom & linking it with tomorrow’s technologies | Political Concern
Alan Simpson looks for a different “coalition of the willing”, reclaiming yesterday’s wisdom & linking it with tomorrow’s technologies
Yesterday’s wisdom: In the words of David Fleming, “Most of human history had been bred, fed and watered by another sort of economy . . .. The New...
politicalcleanup.wordpress.com
If being asked to wear a mask in some places during a global pandemic is really the greatest "oppression" you've ever faced in your life, you seriously do not know how charmed a life you've had.