I was thinking about how governments respond to ‘surge capacity’ issues like this. Part of the reason they don’t drill for BIG things as well as they could is that they’re TOO complex. So rather than work out and maintain relationships with tonnes of organisations which you’re ‘very unlikely’ to need, you create emergency laws ...
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
This climate visualization shows the temperature anomalies by country from 1880 through 2017, based on data from NASA. Data source: NASA GISAnimation via Washington Post
“Mass social movements based on coalitions of a broad range of groups will be needed to drive political support as individual issue groups are not strong enough on their own. Forging a sense of collective identity and finding common values is vital.” — Zero Carbon Britain
In my silver-lining head, this is how it goes: 1. Israel and Palestine fight for decades. Nothing seems to change. 2. Trump makes a bold and antagonising move. 3. Other side realises this is the end game. 4. Some negotiations about logistics. 5. Everyone who wants Jerusalem as a capital decides to share it. 6. ...
This is probably one of these posts which will get me in trouble, but cycling past the soldiers standing in the rain this morning — marking the anniversary of the Somme — I was moved to tears and anger. In that 4 month long battle 1,000,000 men died to fight for 5 miles of mud. Such huge losses for ...
A tyrant is in power killing hundreds of thousands of people. The only morally right thing for anyone who is not otherwise more productively occupied is to rush to their assistance. If I were a UK Muslim woman (or any woman, or any man) I’d find it damned hard to make the case that the willing should ...
I have no idea what happened to political leadership, and in many ways I don’t much care. What is where are the politicians with vision? It used to be that the greatest minds went into politics with the sole intention of helping the citizens they cared for navigate the future successfully. Now it would appear ...
Let’s face it, we know a lot of stuff now. Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This data comes from everywhere: sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media ...
“If Day (French: “Si un jour”, “If one day”[1]) was a simulated Nazi invasion of the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and surrounding areas on February 19, 1942, during the Second World War.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Day
You’re only allowed to stay if you were on the guest list we wrote 18 years ago. You are to clean up after your dog. You will work harder, longer, and when you die you’ll be able to know exactly how your privatised hospital is failing. We acknowledge that prison is a crap solution, so ...
Every. Single. Day. Every single day there’s another damned petition to sign. Is it about anything sensible or reasonable? No. It’s about trying to prevent only the most stupid / villainous / malicious / self-serving people from doing the most ludicrous and outrageously stupid things they could ever possibly dream up to do. It makes ...
Oh Jesus.. There is nothing to see here. Move along. Everything will be fine. Keep flying, buying stuff you don’t keep, and eating meat at least 5 times per week. I SAID MOVE ALONG: NOTHING TO SEE HERE. The 32 most alarming charts from the government’s climate change report | Grist.
Written by MIT researchers for an international think tank, the Club of Rome, the study used computers to model several possible future scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and precipitous population decline could occur by 2030. However, the study ...
Someone told me recently that the tipping point for lasting social change is 8%. I don’t know where they got that number from but it seems believable. Especially if there’s no reason to resist the change. (A quick google turned up affirmation, so let’s go with it.) So if it’s true, this report from Germany ...
Posters in the Hub Westminster with typographical design by Robert Reed. Source: This is Reed
An animated map of Europe over the last 1012 years. Includes epic music. via Historic Atlas
And for Rock Hard Cop fans: “I don’t get it.. aliens?”
Open this one – the embed below is too small, sorry. Public spending by UK government department: an interactive guide
Stupid hippies out there protesting don’t know what they want and I’m not sure how sleeping in a tent does anything anyway I mean that’s basically camping isn’t it? No, you’ve just got to go with the flow and look after number one, that’s what I say. I mean just look at this summary list ...
