October 2012

  • Consuming Stourhead

    I am blessed by living ~45 minutes from Stourhead and go there at irregular intervals throughout the year.  It is a place to go with friends and visitors, and, as well as the gardens and house, there are extensive  walks...

  • Herman Daly's two populations problem

    I subscribe (no cost: what a bargain) to the Daly Post which is endlessly guaranteed to provide different perspectives on matters sustainable.  The most recent was on population – or, rather, populations.  It begins ... The population problem should be...

  • Anything to Declare?

    Alan Reid did a wonderful job recently in a posting to the EE Mailbase: making links to all those EE declarations / resolutions / reports / charters / strategies /  from 1972 onwards.  Reading the early ones reminds us how little...

  • There's been an unexpected boom in the badger population, it seems ...

    This was the reason that the today's Today programme put forward for the government's decision to put off its useless slaughter of badgers till the new year.  But this idea is ridiculous.  There has been no boom; no massive increase...

  • A good word for Mr Gove

    Cynics might expect a post with this title to be blank, but not at all.  I met a man in a university coffee queue last week who was, whilst not overly-effusive, quietly grateful to Mr Gove and the DfE.  This...

  • ESD in HE – a supply or demand issue?

    How to "integrate ESD into disciplines" within HE seems a topical issue, at least amongst those who see "promoting ESD" as being important, as opposed, say, to changing curricula.  However, I think it's possibly (ie, probably) the wrong question.  I...

  • Whatever happened to the RCEs?

    I remember going to the launch of the East Midlands Region Centre of Expertise [RCE], way back in 2007 (where I remember giving one of the worst talks of my life).  Since then, a number of RCEs have been set...

  • Welcome to another NUS survey

    For the past couple of years, the (almost wholly) admirable NUS (supported by the HEA) has carried out research which showed that a majority of first year university students say that they want to learn about sustainability through their degree,...

  • What are we going to develop to replace Iowa?

    Learn from Nature has a link to an Bill Maher's US TV show where Bill McKibbon, and his host, set about a couple of climate change deniers.   BMcK had some great lines: his natural capital question about Iowa, for...

  • School food US style

    Softish liberals usually think that nutritional standards for school food are an obvious social good, whereas many traditional (large L) liberals would be likely to think that parents might take more responsibility for their children's welfare than many seem to...