Blog Action Day: The Environment

Its proving rather difficult to work out what to write about with regards to the environment today. I suppose I really ought to, seeing as I signed up for Blog Action Day months ago, and I voted for this very subject to be included. But the environment is a big thing, a powerful force in our lives, but to one extent a very fragile one. For decades, people have been calling on others to “do it for the planet”, but we still manage to make things worse to the extent that Climate Change now threatens humanities very existence.

Winning Kingsnorth, Winning the Struggle

The dust has now settled after the shock announcement that Kingsnorth is going nowhere for 3 years at least. Naturally I’m delighted, to the extent that I raided my alcohol supply for a swift one and bounced around the living room with my housemate. But politics is complicated and victories rarely more than partial. Also, sorry for lack of posts, life is just moving too quickly. Edit: And now we’re back in shock mode, as the Telegraph announces BAA’s decision to scrap the Third Runway at Heathrow. This post is probably only more timely because of it.

The Age of Entitlement

Casting my mind back to the events of Momentum in August, which you can read about here, I remembered my mental note to explore one area in particular. I wanted to return to Mike P’s three factors preventing today’s young adults getting the most from life: Consumerism, Individualism and Entitlement.  Today I shall point to just one in particular.

So, what exactly is Social Action?

Its not so much a crises, a moment of panic, indeed, anything dramatic at all. I’m just slightly dazed by the enormity of what I could choose to consider my “patch” in this new job. There’s an awful lot of it! As Social Action Parish Assistant, I could be said to cover campaigning, volunteering or indeed anything justice related, but none of these seems to fit. And there is only one of me, a lesson I may have to learn extra well this year.

Climate Migration: A film idea

As I was out cycling recently, I began to wonder about the kinds of Climate Change films being made, and it occurred to me that one area there has been almost work on so far is climate change migration, the idea of people moving away from the equators in search of a liveable environment could make a pretty epic film. The main twist I’d like to see in it: I think it should be about a family from Britain struggling to migrate into overpopulated Norway.

The “Climate Change Affects Us All” Myth

Like many myths, the myth that says that Climate Change will affect us all is based on some degree of truth. But it is also somewhat unhelpful if we are to understand the imperative to act. We in Britain are already likely to fare much better than those elsewhere in the world, for instance Tuvalu, where the danger of total landmass submersion is now so great, they’ve been forced to act much more decisively than anyone in Europe has managed thus far.

UK establishment unashamed to admit brutality?

I’ve been having a slow realisation over a period of some months that the UK government seems to be quite happy to receive small amounts of condemnation for policing tactics, if it makes the risk of injury and inconvenience in taking part more widely known about. It seems the police in particular are hoping that events like the G20 will just serve as a lesson, as people who feel outraged also consider their own interests in getting involved.

Climate Change and Academic Collaboration

It might seem perverse, given the extent to which Academic Collaboration has proven itself vital in the discovery and confirmation of climate change existence, current effects and likely future outcomes, but the imperative of Academic Collaboration is probably one of the biggest root causes of Climate Change within the Academic World.

Bringing things down to earth

The age of gratuitous art travel continues a pace, but there are some cracks becoming visible in the jubilation of the air industry. It seems that even if a third runway were built, there just might not be enough flights left to use it. But does this mean flying will return to its elite status, and what might become of the work force currently involved.

Aussie town leads war on bottles

It costs a thousand times more than a pint of water from a tap, and yet we’re obsessed with it. But an Australian town this week voted to ban bottled water from the shelves of local stores, and its hoped that this will begin a wider movement to end the sale of bottled water across those parts of the world where it has become most popular.