January 2019

  • 78% and rising

    I see that 78% of graduates from UK universities now get Firsts or 2.i degrees.   But are we supposed to celebrate this mark of undoubted excellence or fret over obvious grade inflation?  This is a glass half-full or half-empty...

  • Canis Lupus Bildung

    Whilst visiting Mrs M's Earthly Paradise earlier this month, we went to the Schloss Adler (not that one), had a 1970s lunch and saw some grey wolves.  These fine, though pitiable, creatures were fenced in around the castle and were...

  • Have you installed a dim meter?

    The UK government has a policy that electricity suppliers should persuade households to install smart(ish) meters to monitor their electricity supply.  It also has a policy that householders should switch suppliers to get better deals. Up to now, some 2.8...

  • Local climate debate

    My local independent free newspaper – the MIN – is actually quite good.  It carries lots of stories (most of them positive) about local activities and paints a fine picture of town and village life.  It's view on Wiltshire Council...

  • Listening to an environmental economics guru

    This is what I did just before Christmas at the last I-SEE seminar of 2018 in Bath when Anil Markandya (Director of the Basque Centre for Climate Change in the Basque Country) talked about the relationship between the costs of climate mitigation...

  • What discount rate should we use with climate change?

    How's this for a succinct summary of the dilemma of our time: "Climate change is many problems in one. Developing and deploying zero-carbon technologies is a formidable challenge. So is the politics of co-ordinating disparate groups to achieve the necessary...

  • Bloody January again

    Thanks to the latest NAEE news round-up for alerting me to George Ellis (1753–1815).  He was a specialist on medieval literature, but (in 1778) wrote The Twelve Months under the pseudonym Sir Gregory Gander.  Here they are broken into seasons: Snowy, Flowy,...

  • Heroin, methadone and plastic bags

    It’s now clear that the English plastic bag tax has been a failure with many shoppers turning supposed bags for life into single-use items. The data, which come from the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international campaign group, are stark. Households...

  • Did Greta fly to Poland?

    This is the text of the punchy telling off that 15 year-old Greta Thunberg addressed to COP24 just before Christmas.  How the delegates loved it and a career beckons – the new Al Gore maybe. If this sounds just too...

  • Ministers taken to task over SDG inaction

    The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee had an enquiry recently about Goal 2.  They took evidence from Kath Delmany, Chief Executive, Sustain, on behalf of End Hunger UK Lindsay Boswell, Chief Executive, FareShare Anna Taylor, Executive Director, The Food...