I was all set to go on the radio just now to talk about how the media can best cover climate change - they ran out of time alas.
THE NATION HAS MISSED OUT.
Here's what I would have said
🧵
1) there is no 'one' story about climate change - it's scientific & political & economic & above all profoundly human.
That said:
- go easy on the graphs and terrifying numbers, unless you give people a way to grasp em.
- go easy on the technical lingo.
Dec 16, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
A 🧵 about what might be about to happen to my brain over the next 48 hours, and why this is relevant to climate action.
Whatever my current view about things like 'should I go out on [eg] next Tuesday', I'm almost certainly going to feel differently about it by Tuesday. [2]
Learned a new phrase today (“boundary object”). Concept that sound good & yet which is usefully ambiguous & vague. We all agree we want them even if we intend to do naff all. The environment policy world (particularly where business facing) is often 1 big boundary object (1)
Examples may include: “taking a public health approach”; “increasing natural capital”; and of course the momma, “sustainable development”.
At core, clear concepts, but used in such a bewilderment of ways that the term itself becomes little more than an excuse for a meeting
(2)
Feb 27, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Re Heathrow -
Can I have a moment to say how important our planning system is. It’s one of the few things the UK has done since 1066 to try to make decisions about what happens to the places we live not entirely at the behest of private landowners.
(1/4)
No doubt it could be “sped up” but those who demand this happens are usually talking in code for “do we really have to give people so much of a say in whether (eg) a runway is built over their house?”
(2/4)
Oct 8, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
You may have heard of the 1976 Lucas Plan. Workers came up with their own plan for what their aerospace factory should make. 43 years later, let's look at the pie-in-the-sky stuff they came up with. (h/t @Aidan_Harper_ ) [1/7]
1. Heat pumps!
Sep 27, 2019 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
Some things I said (will turn into proper paper at some point when mad things stop happening in politics)
doesn’t make much sense to talk about redirecting fossil fuel *subsidies* to clean energy, cos vast majority of our considerable subsidy for fossil fuels doesn’t really work like that. But we can & should retilt them to have the opposite effect to what they do now. Read on (1/n)
Firstly there is no official definition of a fossil fuel subsidy that everyone agrees on. Semantic slipperiness applies and it can all become very tiresome as countries like the UK tried to find their way out of subsidy. Read my blog about it neweconomics.org/2016/07/the-lo…
1) we have no national mandate for disruptive change. need a popular plan that we all feel we own. Which is where a #GreenNewDeal comes in. neweconomics.org/campaigns/gree…2) we have a terrible legacy on industrial just transition. Need to empower affected places and workers to design own green futures. Essential for justice and the raw politics of it all. neweconomics.org/2018/11/workin…
Jul 27, 2019 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
As you troupe off on summer hols, thought I’d bung you some podcast recommendations.
(Other than my own (@thebabblewagon) and the work’s (@WeeklyEconPod) of course. And watch this space for a new podcast from me later in the year.)
Let me know things you like and why.
1/n
Podcast recc #1. The superb Don’t Tell Me The Score by @simonmundie. Sport + mental health + psychology + life stuff. I love it. Podcast of the year as far as I’m concerned. bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06…
Jun 20, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Here are five ideas as to how the UK GreenNewDeal can make sure it's an international force for good, not just more economic-nationalism-and-sod-the-global-south.
(tell me yours! Slag mine off!)
[0/5]
[1] Include within GND a big increase in UK funding for 'loss and damage' for countries suffering huge climate damage. Pay for by a Climate Damages Tax on oil profits.
Apr 16, 2019 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Equal parts love / despair at this massive list in which EU patiently rebuts the Mail et al's decades worth of total bullshit lies about things like bendy bananas. Some right zingers on here. Thread. [1/n] blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euro…
eg Europe to ban CORGIS (Daily Mail, 2002)
No that's total bullshit blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/corg…
[2/n]
Mar 19, 2019 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Spent all morning via @BusinessGreen listening to business leaders from transport world talking about how to get to “net zero” emissions. Some things I thought. [1]
There are exponential changes happening in low carbon tech. Single largest reason for optimism on climate is that change can happen really fast. Humans and our hairtrigger mental health aren’t wired for exponential thinking tho. (2)
Mar 11, 2019 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
[1] Hammond expected to announce some stuff on environment in Spring Statement. Some quick, probably partially unfair, thoughts. (1/n) businessgreen.com/bg/news/307235…
[2] I expect there will be naff all new money to speak of. I expect new rules will be a shadow of what's needed or even previously existed. I expect it to allow polluters to continue to pollute. The climate and nature crisis will not be *that* important.
