Seagulls are much on my mind at the moment. Urban bloody seagulls! Of which we would appear to have a huge number in Cheltenham, many of which would appear to like nothing more than starting their day (at around 4am) in the immediate vicinity of our...
“The problem about sustainability is that it’s all about systems thinking. And the modern world just doesn’t do systems thinking – whether you’re talking science, policy-making, health, education – or anything else that matters, for that matter!”...
At the heart of the notion of sustainable development lies the very big idea of justice between generations. What makes economic development either sustainable or unsustainable is the degree to which it not only produces substantive economic...
If you segment ‘the history of the modern environment movement’ over the last 45 years, (seen through the lens of my governance triangle – see below), there would be three main stages. The first stage was mostly about national governments...
For reasons beyond my control, I missed out on my annual Ashden fix last week (the Awards ceremony was on Thursday 22 May), and have had to make do with checking out the website, reading up on the winners, and getting the usual brilliant feedback...
In the north-west corner of Greenland, there’s a community of a few hundred Inuit people in a place called Qaanaaq. They don’t spend a lot of time talking about the theory of climate change, simply because their lives are already impacted by climate...
Imagine the scene amongst the eager and idealistic employees of Stakeholder Forum. SF boss: “Ok guys, exactly what do we have to do to get people focussed on this governance stuff? Nobody seems remotely interested. DON’T THEY REALISE JUST HOW...
Offsetting remains so controversial – but I spent quite some time last week wondering why. And that’s because it was a great week for ‘offsetting done well’. First up was the announcement from ClimateCare that it’s just won a sustainable development...
In case you think I’ve just gone soft on the IPCC in every respect, let me just tell you that it’s as pathetic on the link between population and accelerating climate change as almost every other international agency in the world today. Addressing...
The Report from Working Groups I (on the science of climate change) and II (on the impacts of climate change on human society) were – inevitably – deeply depressing. The science is what it is, and won’t go away. And the grim analysis of what this...
