I’m mainly blogging at the Guardian at the moment. Today I posted a piece on the fossil fuel disinvestment campaign, which has been rolling through US universities for a while. In essence, disinvestment is the opposite of investment, inviting people to think about how their money’s being used when they’re not using it themselves. There’s … Continue reading »
Tagged with climate …
How to be optimistic about climate change
Climate change is depressing. Really depressing. And yeah, I know the apocalypse is like sex because every generation thinks they’ve discovered it. But it does feel a bit end times. Properly end times. We maybe don’t admit this enough, but it really, really is. I think it is still possible to have hope though. Moreover, … Continue reading »
Talking about climate change
Future it be now, Vancouver. My column for the December edition of Popular Science UK magazine is online (you have to subscribe to read January’s one, on animal testing). The column first went live just before the Doha climate talks, and focuses on what I see as a lack of government support on communicating climate change. I remembered Mike Shanahan’s blogpost … Continue reading »
Should scientists be bolder in public?
I spoke at the London Climate Forum this weekend. This is a rough sketch of what I said. Jeremy Grantham is the investor behind the “Grantham Institute” centres for climate change research at Imperial and the LSE. He recently wrote a provocative opinion piece for Nature, arguing: Overstatement may generally be dangerous in science (it certainly is for … Continue reading »
A call for open journalism, and open campaigning, on climate change
A view from the Science Museum’s climate gallery. This was originally published on Greenpeace’s Energy Desk blog and written for a debate they ran at the Frontline Club last month. I might well have written something different today, as I read debate over climate and Sandy and keep track of the anti-gas protest in West … Continue reading »
Science and the greens
I’ve written a piece with Adam Corner about science and the green movement. It’s a complex issue with many components, characters, ideas and histories to weave through. Although I have a lot of sympathy when people, like Fred Pearce, worry the green movement is too often “turning up on the wrong side of the scientific … Continue reading »
Has climate science moved from prediction to explanatory mode?
I have a pair of Narwhal fingerpuppets. I win. After the idea that “academic freedom is bullshit”, another interesting line I heard at SciFoo which has stuck in my mind: ecologist Ken Caldiera remarking that climate science was increasingly moving from prediction to explanatory mode. Today’s editorial in the Independent – suggesting their was a … Continue reading »
Public engagement with (climate) security?
Last month, Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, gave a speech about “climate security” (full text on DECC site) Climate change is about increased risk: of extreme events, of natural disasters, of changes in weather patterns. As our understanding of the climate grows, so does our understanding of what those risks … Continue reading »
Science, history and the blue circles of London
I took the picture above on my walk home from work earlier this week. It’s the pillar in Seven Dials in central London, which has a had a low energy blue LED light wrapped around it, positioned to show where sea level may be in 1000 years time as part of a city-wide art project … Continue reading »
S#*@ scientists say
A lot of scientists and science writers I follow online seem to be sharing a table outlining terms which have, apparently, different meanings for scientists and the public, as if it was some sort of incredibly useful resource. Physics Today, October 2011, pp51. It popped up on one of the American Geophysical Union blogs as well as Southern Fried … Continue reading »
