News: my long-running blog, Make Wealth History, won the Green and Eco category at the UK Blog Awards 2016.
writing
English comprehension testing in Japan
One of the joys of publishing under a Creative Commons license is finding your work picked up in unexpected places. This week saw an article on Equitrade chocolate used in an English comprehension test for a Japanese university entrance exam.
On banking, campaigning, and cats…
It’s been a while since I posted a cutting. My wife and I have had a baby since I last posted one. Little Zach is doing well, by writing not so much. Here’s a somewhat facetious post about fractional reserve banking up on the Positive Money website.
MCGs for PGI
Article on Millennium Consumption Goals for the Post Growth Institute.
Ask not what bees can do for you…
As you may be aware, bee populations across the world have been in freefall over the last couple of years. The West Coast of the US has lost 70% of its bees, the East Coast 60%. British bees succumbed a little later, and last year 1 in 3 bees vanished.
The disappearances are known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and it is a mysterious phenomenon – bees just disappear, sometimes overnight, leaving the queen bee and the larvae alone. The worker bees are gone, and nobody is sure where they go or why.
Waking from the consumer dream
It’s 07:49am and I’m standing on an escalator, flanked on both sides by streaming commuters and flashing LCD screens. Easyjet suggest I go skiing. Armani want me to know that their new mobile phone has ‘night effect’, whatever that might be. I deserve more TV channels, and Virgin would love to supply them to me. I am barely an hour into my day, and already I have seen dozens of these visions of commodified happiness. Where, in all this buzz of hype, is the promise of real life?
The consumer dream is, in essence, the promise that happiness will come to us through our consumer choices. I will be a more fulfilled person if I have a larger house, a faster car, and newer clothes. I will feel better about myself, and others will like me more.
Latest work
Peak oil and National Security
for Celsias
A quarter of all mammals now endangered – the 2008 Red List
For Celsias
Metavista
Blogging services for theologian Colin Greene
UK creates new Department for Energy and Climate Change
for Celsias
Christmas resources website
for SGM Lifewords
Urban Wilderness – the spirituality of the city
with Church on the Corner, for Greenbelt Festival
