The latest from Hans Rosling, pioneering Swedish statistician and passionate...
Latest posts
What we learned this week
Having concluded that the government and telecommunications wouldn’t ever get them high-speed broadband, this village decided to raise the money and dig the cable in themselves. Talking of digging, the new draft national curriculum for Britain’s primary schools includes horticulture for the first time, meaning all children could learn how to grow their own food. [...]
Obama on climate change, finally
I always make a point of reading the State of the Union address. When the president is given a platform to cast a vision for the world’s most powerful country, it’s worth paying attention. I won’t comment on the whole speech, but this time I was pleased to see whole paragraphs about climate change. The [...]
A record year for wind power
2012 was a record year for wind power, with global wind capacity increasing by almost 20%, according to the complied figures from the Global Wind Energy Council. 44,771 MW of new wind energy came online, with China once again accounting for the largest part of that. 30% of new installations were in China, giving the [...]
Five kinds of negative growth
This week I’ve been reading Andrew Simms’ forthcoming book Cancel the Apocalypse. It’s full of great observations about economic growth and the quirks of an economy that has worked for too long with a faulty definition of progress. One thing struck me over the weekend that I thought I’d look up – the UN Human [...]
What we learned this week
This week the EU voted for reform of the daft Common Fishing Policy. Hurrah! I read a striking quote from Alan Greenspan this week, in this Bloomberg article about Libor.: “Through all of my experience, what I never contemplated was that there were bankers who would purposely misrepresent facts to banking authorities”. Really? “Western support [...]
Kate Raworth on the safe space for humanity
I’ve mentioned ‘doughnut economics‘ before, the idea that there is a safe space for human life to flourish. There are both upper and lower limits to human wellbeing, and we need to remain between them. It’s a useful way of thinking about development and the economy, and in this talk for the RSA, Oxfam senior [...]
Gambia’s four day week
Last week the Gambian president declared a four day week for all public sector workers. “This new arrangement will allow Gambians to devote more time to prayers, social activities and agriculture – going back to the land and grow what we eat and eat what we grow, for a healthy and wealthy nation” says the [...]
Sustainable business – a spotlight on Patagonia
I’ve been writing about the Circular Economy a little recently, and how the future of business needs to move from a linear model to a circular one where everything is reused. This isn’t some theoretical business idea. There are a number of companies that work on this basis already, and others in the process of [...]
Book review: Enough is Enough, by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill
In 2010 I took the train up to Leeds and joined Britain’s first Steady State Conference, organised by CASSE and Economic Justice for All. It was a conference that aimed to generate ideas rather than just talk at its attendees, and the series of workshops produced a big stack of possible policies for creating a [...]
The 10 worst dirty energy projects
If the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, there needs to be a dramatic shift towards renewable energy. If we continue burning fossil fuels the way we do today, the world may warm by as much as 5 degrees. Changing that possible future means leaving fossil fuels in the ground. Unfortunately they are hugely [...]
