A carbon club?

Now that it is widely recognised that climate change does indeed pose an existential threat to civilisation, there is an accelerating search for new ideas about how best to respond. Not all of them are good. Many of these ideas are well-intentioned searches for ways to accelerate the agonisingly slow […]

Prosperity, Security, Stability

  These are anxious times. Much that we take for granted in the way the world is ordered is in flux. The brief moment when scholars talked confidently of the ‘End of History’ has passed. Change is no longer an option, to be welcomed or resisted, as a matter of […]

SMALL BITES NO.3

  On November 23rd, Financial Times Energy Editor, Andrew Ward, wrote, ‘energy consumers face paying £30bn above market prices for electricity for Hinkley over the 35-year life of the contract’. He was in error. The actual additional cost to consumers is £59bn. In his defence, Mr Ward can fairly claim […]

SMALL BITES NO.2

  Matt Ridley is almost always wrong about the environment. His regular column in the Times is a mishmash of misinformation and malice. He dislikes environmentalists and hates their influence on public policy. His criticism, in yesterday’s column, of Michael Gove’s proposed new ‘independent’ body to ensure a post-Brexit Government […]

ON THE BREAKING OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROMISES

  There are a great many champions of the environment in Britain. Between them, our environmental bodies have several times the membership of all the political parties in Britain combined. They probably know rather more about the will of the people than the political leaders who somehow managed not to […]

Socking The Puppet – The decline in the legitimacy of Britain’s political parties

                  The Government is increasingly seeking to constrain dissenting voices from civil society organisations by limiting their ability to inform the electorate, constraining their role in the planning system and closing off access to judicial review of government decisions. This is a […]

A WAR ON REASON

                Below is a paragraph everyone should read. It will seem quite familiar, if slightly out of true, as if from a half forgotten newspaper article. It is in fact from a 35 year old book. Even so, to grasp the full depth […]

The nuclear option: Where next for Hinkley Point?

This piece was first published by BusinessGreen                     BusinessGreen asks a range of experts their views on what should come next for the controversial and further delayed nuclear project Last week was quite a rollercoaster for those involved in low carbon […]

ET TU BRUTE

      Assassination is rare in Britain. But do not doubt that the political knife slipped into Boris Johnson’s back was anything other than a carefully crafted assassination. It began, supposedly, with a leak. Mr Gove’s wife, Daily Mail journalist, Sarah Vine, e-mailed her husband. The e-mail urged him […]

OF OIL AND STONES

  This blog first appeared in Business Green                                 Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister, is famous for having pointed out that the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones. […]