Category: Original
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Diary: Making a safer world for trans people
Content warning: suicide, depression Earlier this year my friend Danielle Myriam Fisher suicided. Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, and so I wanted to say a few words to remember her, what her story means to me, and why I think we need to act. Danielle was a deeply committed activist and contributed hugely to…
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Visualising UK oil and gas extraction
Oil and gas exploration began in UK waters in 1965. Since that time 44 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent have been extracted, 7,800 wells have been drilled and the industry’s operations pepper vast regions of the North Sea. Unlike coal or on-shore renewables, this major industrial activity goes far away from communities and…
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A Climate Justice Reading List
In Spring 2018 Friends of the Earth and 350.org hosted the Fossil Free UK Gathering, with a major focus on justice issues. This ‘reading list’ was created, and I share it here for others benefit: UPDATE: 350.org have published a more developed version of this list here.
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Boredom, bungles and dodging death: Charles Lander on the Western Front
What was is like to fight in the First World War? It is a question no living person can answer, but we have inherited many stories from the dead. My Great Grandfather, Charles Lander, kept a diary of his active service. It is a glimpse of the life of a fairly junior officer in a…
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Defy Trump: Read, Watch, Play
Have you become incredible angry this past week? Feel like fascism and autocracy are on the rise and our leaders are simply going along for the ride? Increasingly fearful about the security of your neighbours, yourself, and your planet? When not protesting and organising, here’s a list of things that keep my spirits up and…
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Flash stuff
Friends, as this Guardian writer points out, Flash – that annoying browser plugin that enables tiresome overblown ads in the tram lines of the Independent website – is dying. This is a good thing, but made me nostalgic for some lovely Flash crap. Flash was the first time the web got properly interactive, and it…
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“I began to feel a little bit shaky”: Charles Lander in the Somme, 100 years ago
Painting above: ‘We Are Making a New World’ by Paul Nash 100 years ago today began the Battle of the Somme. Few episodes in human history are remembered with such a grand sense of supreme awfulness. But with this grandeur comes distance and incomprehension. As time passes the gulf widens: we need personal stories to…
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What Scotland Looks Like Now
After the Referendum: A Gazetteer for Scottish NGOs For Scottish civil society two weeks ago was day zero of our political calendar. Two weeks later the impact of the referendum campaign and the result is becoming clearer. The result has set the platform for political campaigning in Scotland for years to come. We need to…
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Gay Marriage Message to the Scottish Parliament
At our wedding in 2012 Alys and I decided to gather signatures in support of same-sex marriage. Ruth and Fiona made a beautiful banner and it was signed by many of our guests. We wrote a letter with photos of the banner to our MSPs. Marco Biagi, Margo MacDonald, Kez Dugdale, and David McLetchie replied…
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7 Pillars of Awesome Events
Following a series of well received workshops on event planning for community groups (People & Planet Scotland Gathering, 2011; Strathclyde Sustainable Futures, 2012; Edinburgh Do, 2013) I’ve written up my golden rules for activist event planning for download. If you know someone who’s involved in community organising they should find it easy to use and…