December 2023
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DfE says that Biology is Real
Glory Be. The DfE has published guidance for schools on sex and gender which says that schools must tell students that biological sex is a fact, whereas gender identity is merely a set of contested beliefs linked to the equally...
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COP28 refractions
Thank goodness that's all over for another year. How effective the meeting will prove to have been we shall see in time, but on balance I remain positive. As good as might realistically have been hoped for, given all the...
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CHMM Blues
The Government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps a year from 2028 as gas heating is phased out. That is, it plans that the public will pay for and install these in their homes. This is not going well despite...
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The Friendship of Models
In a recent Times article, Juliet Samuel argues that a "new modelling army is leading us astray", and that, "be it policy for lockdown, net zero or immigration, it must be ministers and not scientists or analysts who lead the...
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Unabated word of the week
Unabated – as in: "The UK position is clear – there must be a phase out of unabated fossil fuel [extraction and use] to meet our climate goal." This is clear if a bit arcane as unabated fossil fuel use...
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Heresy Apostasy at COP28
This is part of what the PM said in his speech at COP28. "First, the world needs to do more to tackle climate change. We’ve made real progress – including at the Glasgow summit but the climate science and mounting...
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To EV or not to EV?
That is the question, if anyone actually cares. There must be a scratching of collective heads across Whitehall as to why an ignorant UK public still refuses to buy EVs. Most current sales are for company car fleets rather than...
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Writing Net Zero History
The idea of net zero was brought into mainstream thinking following the Paris Agreement in 2015, but the idea was developed in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report in 2013 which stated that limiting global temperature change means limiting the cumulative...
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Activism in Schools
Last evening, I took part in an event organised by the Ministry of Eco Ed on activism in schools / education. It set out to explore these 'key questions': What do we mean by activism? What examples have you seen...
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CO2 + t = nz
The blurb for the on-line workshop on Net Zero that I'll be contributing to next week says: "Climate change education plays a critical role in driving action and solutions needed to achieve net zero emissions globally. In this workshop, join...