9th January 2019 With democracy becoming an endangered species, is sustainability in peril? Even with David Attenborough speaking on behalf of The People at the Climate talks in Poland, you wouldn’t have guessed from the media coverage that arresting the ever-growing emissions of climate-damaging gasses was the most important challenge …
What are we voting for?
18th April 2017 “Referendums represent a radical reduction of democracy to its most skeletal form: majority rule. Too often, they are called in order to circumvent some obstacle thrown up by political or legal institutions … Whatever the intent, such referendums are an end run around the structures and safeguards …
Doubting Democracy
During the 1980s, as Co-secretary of the European Greens I helped to support dissident groups in communist East European countries. Somewhat recklessly in retrospect, we did things like smuggle scientific papers and parts of photocopiers through to our clandestinely organising colleagues and made sure their governments knew we knew when …
A transformative lighting project
he 2016 St Andrews Prize for the Environment was won by a technologically and socially innovative approach to lighting for off-grid communities that could transform the lives of millions. According to Wikipedia, ‘living off the grid’ is a lifestyle choice for rich country drop-outs. However, according to the International Energy …
Sustainable Development Goals
he Sustainable Development Goals offer a ‘pick and mix’ approach to implementing sustainable development. The 169 sub-goals clustered under 17 headline ones seemed destined to confuse and, more seriously, distract from the main task. The bias towards business-as-usual economics means that the most important things, like ending poverty, avoiding dangerous …
TERRORISM: Is it time to ask whether strategies to counter terrorism are the right ones? And what does sustainability have to do with it?
ne of the cartoonists killed in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices was Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, whom I knew many years ago. His death and that of his colleagues was shocking – because I knew him and for its cold-bloodedness, of course, but also for what it …
Down on Trill Farm
or the past few months I have taken a rest from ‘transmitting’, giving myself more time to catch up on reading, visiting friends and reflecting – a habit I like to talk about a lot but do less of than I should! One outcome of all this will appear on …
St Andrews Prize for the Environment
ne of the most interesting things I get to do is be a Trustee of the St Andrews Prize for the Environment. At the end of April, the prize, a joint venture between the eponymous university and Aberdeen based oil company ConocoPhillips, celebrated its 15th anniversary by selecting Blue Ventures …
Life is a bowl of Cherries
r is it? On 1st May, Forum for the Future helped launch a new book by famous systems thinker Fritjof Capra. Co-authored with Pier Luigi Luisi, an Italian professor of chemistry, The Systems View of Life is what the authors call a unifying vision for living sustainably on earth. I …
Scotland: better together than alone?
he wrong question is being asked. I blame that David Cameron. Less than two years ago Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, was trying to get extensive devolution – known as DevoMax – as an option for this year’s vote on Scottish Independence, due …