Covid-19, Climate, Civilization

Civilisation is the thin film of order we build around the chaos of events. Courtesy of a coronavirus we are now getting a chilling reminder of just how thin that film is. It would have been inconceivable a few weeks ago that a microscopic assemblage of lipids, proteins and ribonucleic […]

What motivates people to act on climate change? – LBC

People really are beginning to get the message that this is serious, and for real, and it will need them to think about how to change. What individuals do will help, but it’s not where the solution lies. Individuals have got to do their bit, and actually, by and large, […]

To tackle climate change we need to focus on opportunity not blame – LBC

Attenborough is right about how important China is, but he doesn’t seem to be very conscious of what China is already doing to tackle climate change. China is the world leader in the production of solar panels. It is the world leader on the production of electric vehicles. It is […]

REMARKS BY TOM BURKE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE WORLD NUCLEAR INDUSTRY REPORT 2019 – CHATHAM HOUSE

At a time when truth is under systematic political attack and digital technologies are collapsing the public attention span, the publication of long data series such as the Nuclear Industry Status Report becomes increasingly important. The real world is not a headline; it does not have a half-life of 24 […]

More power in Britain came from renewables than fossil fuels in 2019 – Sky News

Here are some excerpts of the interview I did for Sky News about the announcement from the National Grid that more power came from renewable sources than from fossil fuels for the first time in Britain in 2019. I think that it is a very important milestone. It means that […]

THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE

Today marks the start of a momentous decade. Over its course we will decide together the future of our civilisation for better or for worse. I cannot think of a better way to face this prospect than to read this article: https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662?. As I read it I found myself weeping. […]

Will the climate summit fall far short of what is required? – Al Jazeera

I think that what they have got to do at this round of the Summit is to agree the last bits of the rule book by which they are going to implement the agreement, and they are hung up on a couple of fairly technical points to do with the […]

The UK must steer the Paris Agreement out of its ‘perilous decade’ – Climate Home News

Demands for action are outstripping political will. The diplomatic task of bringing the expectations gap falls to the hosts of next year’s climate talks. By Tom Burke This is the year the global conversation on the climate changed. It is no longer a marginal issue but has joined the political […]

UK political parties ramp up focus on climate change and single-use plastics in their manifestos – Bio Market Insights

by Liz Gyekye “Climate change is now acting as a locomotive pulling a train load of other environmental issues further up the political agenda particularly among highly connected millennials.” All the UK’s main political parties have focused on the issues of tackling climate change and single-use plastics in their manifestos. […]

Greta Thunberg is not being overly pessimistic about the urgency of climate change – Sky News

Here are some excerpts of the interview with Sky News about whether Greta Thurnberg’s speech about climate change was overly pessimistic: The reality is that climate change is nastier, and is happening faster than we thought it would, the dangers that everybody on the planet are facing are worse than […]