Psychology of human responses to climate change

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I recently spoke at, and took part in, a UK event organised by the Climate Psychology called “Fertile and Sterile Dialogue in the Climate Change Debate”. It was a stimulating day, shared with emotionally smart people who think deeply about why we are so slow to respond to gathering evidence of human-induced climate change. I […]

Comment faire face au fascisme?

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Yannis Youlountas parle de son film “Ne vivons plus comme des esclaves” – un documentaire qui fait le tour des actions, des journaux alternatifs, des radios rebelles et lieux d’occupation et d’autogestion qui se multiplient dans une Grèce en crise. Pourquoi une mise en ligne gratuite? Youlountas souhaite que l’accès gratuit au film participera à […]

Résistances – un festival unique

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J’ai passé deux jours cette semaine au 17ème édition du festival de films Résistances à Foix en France. Ils se sont donné comme objectif le suivant: …de promouvoir un cinéma rarement diffusé sur les écrans, pour créer un salutaire étonnement, faire connaître d’autres regards et d’autres cinéastes que ceux du prêt-à-penser habituel. Alors bravo – […]

And the winner isn’t…

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Development reporting suffers exactly the same sort of problems as does  journalism that purports to cover conventional politics and economics – probably worse even. Too much focus on official sources and too little questioning of mainstream Western ideas about what countries and their citizens must do to “develop”. All the arguments of Fraudcast News with […]

Demand the impossible – sounds like the least we can do

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I’ve just come across this Guardian report about a free, five-day course at Goldsmith’s College in London on activism and radical politics. I commented on the piece, criticisng the piss-taking style in which it was written while also including an offer to help out with future courses or with spreading the idea elsewhere. Just in […]

Stand aside George

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People’s budgets The Chancellor George Osborne was talking of his plans to cut a further £10 billion from the UK’s annual welfare budget as I drove through rush-hour traffic to Kingston-upon-Thames. News of his crowd-pleasing speech to the Conservative party conference spouted from the radio as I wondered how such questions might be decided with […]

What role for government in changing our behaviour?

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Very little, I say, as I explained in a video recorded for a GlobalNet21 debate held in London on Tuesday, July 31. Not least of the problems is the gathering, multiple crises in government legitimacy, at every level from the local to global. There was an interesting array of opinions expressed on the night, judging […]