June 2016

I made a contribution to NAEE's blog the other day exploring whether we need to learn to be more welcoming of nature’s migrants if we are to combat climate change.  This was a column I'd written a while back for the...

Early on last Thursday morning, RSPB Chief Executive, Mike Clarke, commented on the result of the EU referendum.  His remarks included what RSPB members might have expected, and wanted, to read: "As the new constitutional settlement is negotiated over the coming months (and years?),...

There is much angst (an inappropriate word, surely) among those who speak for wildlife, and the biosphere more generally in the UK, following the referendum, but there is also a growing sense of realism that there's a job to be...

There is something of an argument for giving wildlife the vote, given how much humans depend on it (well, the biosphere in general) for our continuing well-being and survival.  Putting this into operation is the difficult thing.  One badger, one vote,...

As I sit here on Saturday morning mulling over the popular vote last Thursday to quit the EU, there are already stories of wildlife flexing their muscles and flapping their wings in preparation to leave a country so out of touch...

When I switched on the TV this morning (about 0400), it was obvious that, despite the wildlife vote and tendentious videos about dirty beaches, we had voted to leave the EU.  Of course, whether we actually shall is quite another...

This was the title of a St. George's House seminar then Tuesday which I went to by kind invitation of the NUS.   A great setting, of course, and we met in a room (the Vicar's Hall) where it seems it was...

Two years ago, two pyramidal orchids popped up in the meadow which takes over my front lawn every summer.  Last year, there was no sign of them. This year they are back, and I did not notice their growing.  I had...

"What's happened to HEFCE’s Sustainable Development framework that they consulted on 18 months ago", I hear you ask.  Well, gathering dust, of course, electronically speaking. There are, however, rumours that HEFCE top brass may well be thinking about whether to start...

Last week, The Guardian carried an article by Peter Scott (no relation) with the title: This bad bill will put universities on the road to serfdom.   It begins: "The government’s argument that its new higher education bill will give legal backing to...