Published in ENDS Report (Issue 402, p54), in July 2008 New Labour’s core proposition to voters has been: “Elect us and we will make the economy work well to provide the financial resources to improve public services and reduce poverty.” The founding premise of this proposition has now collapsed. The […]
Tom Burke’s Political Commentary: Argument is one thing, government is another
British Treasury’s irresponsible position on carbon credits
Comment, published in The House Magazine, in May 2008. We are nearly out of time to avoid dangerous climate change and protect the prosperity and security of every single person in Britain. Doing so means making the global energy system carbon neutral within forty years. This requires transformational change in […]
Tom Burke’s Political Commentary: Wake up – high food and oil prices are here to stay
Dealing with our discontents – the financial crisis and the environment
Published by the Green Alliance, in April 2008. For two decades the dominant force shaping the prosperity and security of everyone on the planet has been globalisation. The arrival together of very cheap communications and the end of the Cold War was a fortuitous conjuncture of technological and political breakthroughs. […]
Economics freezes nuclear frisson
‘View from the top’, published in Research Europe, April 2008. During last month’s state visit to Britain by French President Nicolas Sarkozy an entente formidable was proudly declared. One of the strongest ligatures in this new entente is to be close cooperation to make Europe the leader in a global drive […]
Crunch time for carbon
Winning the climate war: the role of regulation
Tom Burke’s Political Commentary: Infrastructure wars – the real battle begins
Published in the ENDS Report (Issue 398, p55), in March 2008. When the railways were built in the nineteenth century their developers faced the problem of acquiring the land where they could go. The solution was robust. Over 250 private bills were driven though Parliament usurping existing property rights for […]
Mining in the twenty first century
Published in Rio Tinto’s Review magazine, in February 2008. Mining coastal dunes for mineral sands is one of the most environmentally controversial of all forms of mining as the public furores over Saint Lucia and Madagascar make clear. Yet, as can clearly be seen at Richard’s Bay, the environmental footprint of […]