Author Archives: Laurie

That Cambridge Analytica used millions of Facebook profiles to create tools to target and manipulate US voters comes as no surprise to those who watch and work in large digital firms. This is for two main reasons. Firstly, many simply already knew. Secondly, activity of this kind – data accumulation and analysis to build toolsContinue reading “The oldest sins in the newest ways”

Before headline statistics were developed, governments had little idea of what was going on in the economy. In the 1930s, American presidents Hoover and Roosevelt grasped at a range of statistics in an attempt to understand the functioning of the economy, from the number and value of freight train loadings to stock price indices.  AsContinue reading “Lies, damn lies, and GDP”

Ours is the age of global environmental collapse. Resources are being consumed at around 1.5 times the Earth’s ability to regenerate them. We are living through the sixth mass extinction and nearly two-thirds of all vertebral life has died since 1970. The stubborn entrenchment of carbon into our economies means that we are highly unlikelyContinue reading “The Road to Ruin: Making Sense of the Anthropocene (editorial)”

Britain has often led the world in understanding and responding to global environmental change. IPPR Progressive Review’s Laurie Laybourn-Langton talks to former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett about what made Britain a leader and if it remains one today.  Laurie Laybourn-Langton:   Margaret Beckett, you are a former Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for the DepartmentContinue reading “British leadership in the Anthropocene: an interview with Margaret Beckett”