News and Updates

No wonder Druids are more confused than usual this time of year when sunset started getting later around December 15th, and the sunrise will only be earlier after January 1st – even though their blessed Solstice was on December 21st.  Actually, it was at...

A while back, The Economist recently had a brief piece (and nice graph) on grade inflation in the Ivy league, reporting that the median grade at Harvard is now A–, with A as the mode.  But hang on, the Economist said,...

Is it any real surprise that 11000 'delegates' in Peru failed to come to a decisive outcome over the last couple of weeks in COP20?  How was that supposed to happen?  The COPs, which started out as modest affairs, have grown...

This morning's Guardian has a gloomy update on COP20 from Lima which shows that all the usual fault lines are still in place – not enough cash and bad faith galore.  The piece ends: In addition to finance, one of the...

In fact, despite warnings of biblical proportion from an increasingly frit Met Office, there were no dead at all, and I did wonder whether that rather irked the media outfits that had spent £zillions sending news teams to north-west Scotland to cover what...

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP20, comes at yet another "crucial moment, and talks continue on a draft international climate agreement due to be fanfared in Paris in 2015.  Carbon Brief has a comment on proceedings so far, as governments back away from accountability...

I know that some prefer not to use the concept of natural capital; this can be for a variety of reasons, ranging from its association with the idea of money and monetary value, and worries that they will be labelled 'neo-liberal', across to...

The UN is meeting in Peru to sort out climate change before it's too late – although many (which includes me on my more gloomy days) think it was already too some time ago.  Still, you have to meet to show...

HEFCE has a draft business plan – 2015 to 2015.  Pretty disappointing stuff, but typical of HEFCE's new narrow view of the world.  It is obviously settling into its new role of  just handing out the cash.  ELSA, the English...

Whilst Edinburgh's credulous citizens gawp at their feckless Chinese imports, waiting for the next miracle of creation, Scotland's environmental elite wilfully neglects its indigenous fauna.  Read on for a sad story of neglect and decline.