News and Updates

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

I split new year between Germany and the Netherlands and it was a noisy, messy affair.  I read (somewhere or other) that the end of the year is a violent time in Germany, when fireworks are aimed at people, buildings,...

I wrote recently about when there might have been a golden age [*] for environmental education in the UK, and in that post I did not come to any conclusion.  When I spoke at the LEEF event a few days afterwards...

Today's post is a guest blog by David Oldroyd who has lived in Poland for many years and who writes a regular Letter from Poland.  The third December 18 letter concerns the Polish backdrop to COP24.  Here it is: From...

The Times reports that Konstantin Kisin turned down his invitation to speak at SOAS after he was sent a behavioural agreement form by the students organising the event, Unicef on Campus.  The form asked him to accept the group’s no tolerance...

The Economist says that many children's lives would be better if they went to school even if they didn't learn anything. This is how their recent feature article begins: "AS YOU WALK from classroom to classroom at Tibba Khara school on...