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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Politics” category
Showing results 141 - 145 of 154 for the category: Politics.
10 Apr 2006
Listening to Friday’s Any Answers programme from Norfolk while I did the evening washing up, I was incensed, nay, incandescent, to hear the reaction of some of the audience to a question about wind turbines. The school that was hosting the programme had apparently applied to put a wind turbine on its roof. When one of the panellists said that they thought that having a wind turbine on a school was good for the environment, and also good for the children to see their school walking its talk, he was booed! Booed!
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6 Apr 2006
I want to draw your attention to a new film release that you really should see. **Loose Change 2nd Edition** was recently released, an updated and much improved version of the film about the events of 911 which originally came out last year. The film explores what critics might call a ‘conspiracy theory’ version of the events of 911, however the film makers take on and challenge this label. *”Conspiracy theory?”* they argue on the back of the DVD, *”it’s not a theory if you can prove it”*, and for my money they do a much better job of ‘proving it’ than the official version does.
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30 Mar 2006
“Vote for Me – I’ll guarantee you less every year”. Not something you are likely to hear from your local politician. Even though some MPs, like Michael Meacher, talk about the reality of peak oil, they still cling to the concept of business as usual, not really taking on board the depth of its implications and the inevitable need for relocalisation and for economic contraction. At what stage will MPs start to acknowledge the inevitable fact that we have to start rethinking some very basic assumptions and start working out how to make relocalisation and contraction electable?
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22 Mar 2006
Being able to admit that we made a mistake is a rare gift these days. Politicians cling on to decisions that everyone else knew to be a disastrous mistake months ago (Tony Blair’s recent restating that he was right to invade Iraq being a timely example). There is something rare and somehow wonderful about someone who held one position very strongly taking a fresh stock of the situation and deciding that actually, in all honesty, that position is untenable, and that despite the stick they’re going to get for changing their mind, they feel they have to do it.
I was very touched to read an excellent article in Monday’s Independent by Johann Hari
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17 Mar 2006
FEASTA, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, based in Dublin, have just issued a briefing paper called The Great Emissions Rights Give Away, which explores the question of what is the fairest form of emissions trading. The paper is deeply critical of the EU’s proposed carbon trading system and suggests a new more equitable and effective system. It is also critical of David Fleming’s TEQ’s approach as set out in his book ‘Energy and the Common Purpose’, for reasons which all rather go over my head. The two will be debating the subject in Dublin in mid-April, I’ll let you know more about that soon. The paper can be downloaded for free and is very readable and illuminating.
Read more»
Listening to Friday’s Any Answers programme from Norfolk while I did the evening washing up, I was incensed, nay, incandescent, to hear the reaction of some of the audience to a question about wind turbines. The school that was hosting the programme had apparently applied to put a wind turbine on its roof. When one of the panellists said that they thought that having a wind turbine on a school was good for the environment, and also good for the children to see their school walking its talk, he was booed! Booed!
