Category Archives: Writing

Headlines like “We have only twelve years to save the world” appeared across the globe in early October, in the wake of a new report from the United Nations underlining the scale of the challenge posed by climate change. This wasn’t fake news. The world has already warmed by around 1°C since large-scale industrialisation began,Continue reading “One Earth, the impacts of climate change”

What links Donald Trump, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Corbyn? Answer: over the last couple of months, they’ve all sought to capture the political energy from the seemingly endless sequence of tech giant scandals. Trump has tweeted about a supposed (unfounded) anti-right-wing bias in Google searches. In the UK, Javid has warned of tech firms’ record on child safety,Continue reading “A world of digital plenty is possible, but only if we take on the data barons”

Today is Earth Overshoot Day, the date when we have taken more from nature than it can renew in an entire year. Unsustainable extraction is occurring on a planetary scale: we are using natural resources 1.7 times faster in 2018 than the Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate this year. Critically, this year is the earliest dateContinue reading “Today we’ve consumed more resources than the planet can renew in a year”

Facebook is being fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioner, the maximum amount possible, for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fine is unlikely to change Facebook’s behaviour. The company is worth an estimated $540 billion, and in the first quarter of 2018 took £500,000 in revenue every five and a half minutes. SomeContinue reading “Fining Facebook isn’t enough – we need total media reform”

Facebook is being fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioner, the maximum amount possible, for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fine is unlikely to change Facebook’s behaviour. The company is worth an estimated $540 billion, and in the first quarter of 2018 took £500,000 in revenue every five and a half minutes. Some claim theContinue reading “Fines are fine, but only structural reform can rein in the platform monopolies”

Since the second world war and end of empire, British foreign policy has been moored to two powerful partners. Our ‘special relationship’ with the US has dominated our defence policy, through the cold war into an era of liberal interventionism. Our relationship with Europe, most recently through the European Union, has provided the basis forContinue reading “Britain Unmoored: In Search of a Progressive Foreign Policy”

Today the 70 year-old National Health Service finds itself in a world radically different to that in which it was born. Compulsory health insurance had only arrived in 1911, part of a reformist welfare agenda spurred by concerns over working class conditions and the revolutionary urges they engendered. As in all ages, the nature andContinue reading “The NHS proves there’s always been an alternative”

We are currently living through an era of global environmental collapse. Resources are being consumed at around 1.5 times the Earth’s ability to regenerate them. The continued reliance on carbon to power our economies means that we are highly unlikely to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, increasing the chance of severe climateContinue reading “Time for politicians to get real about the Anthropocene”

Studies on the benefits of tackling climate change abound. In The Lancet Planetary Health, the study by Martin L Williams and colleagues1 has the great merit of using large datasets to illuminate the possible health benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the UK, the necessity to reduce emissions is enshrined in law through the 2008 ClimateContinue reading “The Lancet Countdown UK case study”

The Millennial generation will be the first to grapple with the full force of climate change. Until now, the outcomes of human damage to the environment have largely been associated with the distant future—the burden of generations yet unborn—and the far away, impacting low lying island states, if anyone at all. By October, these viewsContinue reading “Leadership on climate change is leadership on health”