January 2012

  • At last: a good news story ...

    The Telegraph reports today that carbon emissions look set to delay (and probably avert) the next ice age which is just the sort of new year message we all need.  A considerable bonus will be that it will also mean...

  • Ask not what your university can do for you

    Arjen Wals' blog today has an existential cry about appropriate university courses if you're of a sustainability mindset: Today I received an interesting new years message from Rolf Jucker from the CoDes project: Dear All I hope you have had a...

  • Nothing said is to be construed as implying ...

    I have been re-reading (after quite a gap) a still rather stimulating HMI curriculum working paper on environmental education from June 1979 – about which much more later.  The following text is by way of preface to the document: This publication...

  • Recent Defra research

    I'm grateful to the NUS's Jamie Agombar for pointing me towards recent Defra-sponsored research on behaviour.  One of these studies focused on moments of change. This research project explored whether ‘moments of change’ – times in a person’s life where existing...

  • Knitting yarns

    The city of Bath, it seems, has a new phenomenon: knitting snoods for chickens. I am told that, such is the concern for those birds newly-freed from the thankfully now-outlawed battery cages, and adopted by caring folk with back yards,...

  • In praise of blogs

    Happy New Year. This week's Economist carries a blog [ A less dismal debate ] on the positive influence of blogs.  Amongst the things it says are: ... whatever you think about the impact of blogging on political, scientific or...