Tag: opinion
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The Green in the White Paper
What does the Independence White Paper tell us about how the environment would be protected in an independent Scotland? In one sense, not very much. The SNP’s document is a manifesto for a future election to run a state that does not yet exist. A lot of the contents is old news, and of what…
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Is Britain becoming Gasland?
It’s not every day that you see images of farmland turned to wasteland, normally healthy people describing their unnatural diseases, and the killer: people’s tap water catching on fire. Welcome to Gasland, Josh Fox’s excellent 2010 flick about hydraulic gas fracturing, or “fracking”, in the US which has picked up laurels from numerous festivals not…
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Durban, and how we stopped climate change
photo courtesy of UNFCCC Durban could yet be a chapter in the story of how we stopped climate change If a successful campaign needs a story, then since 2009 the global climate movement has been in deep trouble. We certainly started off with a great story. I love to tell it to people all the…
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Machiavelli: power, transition and institutional change
In 1513 Machiavelli provided a seminal analysis of the flow of power in Europe. The ideas defined in “The Prince” have inspired political thinkers ever since. At the time his acute, perhaps cynical, understanding of power, made him notorious, and his works were added to the Vatican’s list of banned literature. Today his name has…
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What the environment needs is sustainability
What the environment needs is sustainability – our current governments seem incapable of delivering it This week, some talented researchers and policy professionals packed up their desks, and left Osborne House in Edinburgh, marking the end of the Sustainable Development Commission Scotland. No more assessments on the Government’s progress on sustainability. No more independent policy…
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France v Mexico: 600,000 pesos is a lot for a pastry shop
In 1838 in a period of unrest during the fledgling years of the Mexican Republic, a French pastry chef living in Mexico City had his shop destroyed by looting soldiers. Receiving no sympathy from the Mexican Government, he turned to his native France for assistance. Paris responded by demanding 600,000 Pesos from Mexico in compensation…
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From Facebook to the Streets: The Humble Spray Can Still Holds its Charm
Don’t just vote with a cross (seen in Hereford). The internet is a wonderful place to share ideas. It’s an even better place for sharing inane crap. Sometimes the two crash together to create something quite brilliant, like wikipedia and last month’s hilarious tory-advert meddling at Mydavidcameron.com. The net’s utterly anarchic structure, having something of…
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Message to RBS: We’re Just Getting Started
People & Planet joined by scores of others at the RBS Week of Action In 2007 People & Planet and Platform launched a campaign for the Royal Bank of Scotland to stop funding fossil fuel extraction and “ditch dirty development”, with groups across the country putting on talks, asking difficult questions at careers fairs, protesting…
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They Huffed and they Puffed…
My last Activist Winds post told of the Edinburgh uni Occupation for Gaza. Well since then the hurricane has continued to spread like that hilarious super-storm in the Day After Tomorrow, with further occupations and protests in St. Andrews, York and Aberdeen. So we can see which way the wind is blowing: a lot of…
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You don’t need a weatherman…
…to know which way the wind blows (so said Mr. Dylan). That’s right, you don’t need a weatherman, you need me: this is my first post of Activist Winds, my point source emission-contribution to the activist babble. And the title of this post (a reference to the militant off-shoot of the 60s US student peace…