January 2024

You'll likely have read that Tata Steel is closing two blast furnaces in Port Talbot before it has built the taxpayer subsidised electric arc furnaces to replace them in 2027.  By the end of the year there will be no...

2023 was a very good year for identifying plants in the wild although I did not spend enough time doing it.  I'm determined that 2024 will be better.  This is a good January resolution. Common centaury is my plant of...

I learned French at school, but not very well.  I now wish I'd tried much harder.  The school had two French teachers and one German teacher and so it all depended which form (determined by the 11+ results) you fetched...

When I used to travel to the USA regularly, I was often accused of cynicism by academic colleagues.  In response, I usually said that I was merely being sceptical, pointing out that this was an Enlightenment virtue much needed if...

Did you see the news of the UK's becoming the first G20 economy to halve its greenhouse gas emissions with the average household using less energy than in the mid-1990s – even when you factor in imports?  The UK's output...

As I noted before Christmas, a recent workshop on activism which I listened to was disappointing.  It might have begun by exploring what activism entails (what it is and isn’t) as a prelude to the discussion, but it didn't, and...

In our house, Mrs Thatcher gets a reasonably balanced obituary.  One persistent negative feature is regret that her policy of selling council houses – which we welcomed — was not balanced by an equivalent house-building programme to ensure a continuity...

Late last year, I moderated a panel discussion in an on-line workshop organised by NAAEE /GEEP. Net zero challenges and opportunities for education.  How can climate change education help achieve global net zero goals and work towards a just transition to...

From my various readings over the holidays, I’d particularly recommend two long articles from The Economist double Christmas issue. The first, The Green Man's Burden, is an evaluation of the options available to anyone who'd like to live a “good...