February 2014

  • Well done Jamie Agombar – Inspiring Leader

    I'm writing this on the last train from London (last night).  Just been to the Guardian University Awards evening (celebrating excellence, creativity and innovation). Jamie Agombar, the NUS's ethical and environmental manager (and all round sustainability champion), was nominated in...

  • A cool look at global warming

    Reserve your seats now.  The Lord Lawson of Blaby is coming to Bath to bad mouth the idea of climate change.  Here is his "cool" Abstract: The long-known scientific fact that there is a greenhouse effect and that carbon dioxide...

  • English Heritage unearths neolithic health and safety manual

    When English Heritage was drawing up plans for its new Stonehenge visitor centre, authenticity was a key value.  It was fortunate, then, that an exhaustive search of the archives from its digs at Durrington Walls revealed Neolithic stone carvings which...

  • Update from chesil beach

    From The Guardian, March 1st 2008 James Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics.  Britain...

  • Pity the children of Wales

    I have written before about the poor quality of both the Welsh education system and its leadership, and about the potential for corruption when a minister of education moonlights as the school exams regulator.  See for example, this (UK PISA...

  • For the rain it (still) raineth every day

    I am told that Shakespeare used this in two plays.  In a late Twelfth Night song, as shown here: When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was...

  • Some sustainability principles to your planning and projects – and life

    The following ten principles are taken from SustNav – which promotes them as a guide to navigating lasting solutions, and as a basis of its assessments, training and guidance (and as a means of steering its projects and campaigns). Develop sustainability...

  • For want of a dissemination strategy

    I understand that QAAHEA’s guidance to universities on ESD is nearly complete, and that it will soon shift into the QAA & HEA bureaucracies for approval and eventual publication.  It seems that there is also talk of a launch, although...

  • Simple thinking about complex questions

    I had an email the other day which assumed that just because I favour alternative technologies – I engaged in some mild-mannered activism in relation to Wiltshire Council's policies on (that is to say, against) wind farms – I must,...

  • What a difference a year makes

    It's the time of year that Hefce gets to hear about money (and other things) from government.  The grant letter arrived on Monday, and was not good news.  Here it is: Dear Tim, HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING 2014-15 We are writing with...