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Explaining climate science – in three pages… - 19th July 2011

I know that you can’t get people to take climate change seriously just by talking at them about science. Lots of excellent work (like Sizzle, Futerra’s guide to climate communications) says that you need messages that are  relevant, engaging, positive and inspiring, before people tune in. But you can’t do it without the science. Over the past couple of years, (more…)

A co-operative approach to energy - 9th June 2011

It was back in 1997 that the blades started spinning on the UK’s first co-operatively owned wind farm, Baywind, in the Cumbrian fells. Since then, others have followed, from commercial-scale turbines in community ownership like Westmill, to small-scale water power like Torrs Hydro and ‘renewables building societies’ like this one in Oxford. And we know that co-operative ownership can make (more…)

A new job… - 23rd May 2011

I’m really pleased to have been appointed to the Natural Environment Research Council, as a Council Member, starting this summer. Council Members contribute a few days each month. NERC (as it is rather prosaically known) is a government body responsible for the £400 million of public money for research and training in environmental science – from the British Antarctic Survey (more…)

Reflections from the bonfire – or where we went wrong with sustainable development - 15th April 2011

This week I spoke at a gathering of sustainability thinkers in the NorthWest, organised by Lancaster University’s management school. It was my first chance since the closure of the SDC two weeks ago to reflect, so I rather cheesily called my talk ‘reflections from the bonfire’, trying to capture that moment on Guy Fawkes Night when you stare into the (more…)