My first conference talk was at the European Conference on Artifical Life back in 2005. Beforehand I was super nervous. 16(!) years later I will give a keynote at this year’s international conference and I’m super excited. I will use this talk to develop some ideas around the technosphere concept …
For the past few years, I along with some lovely folk at the Stockholm Resilience Institute, and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, have organised a session at the annual European Geophysical Union Conference in Vienna. Last time I took the very splendid sleeper train that gets into Vienna …
The term “net zero” features in every climate policy. Why? Kevin Anderson gives his explanation in this short clip from the climate documentary film The Race is On (carry on watching to hear Kate Raworth diagnose some of the central dysfunctions of mainstream policy). Today, I and 40 other scientists …
Over the spring and summer of 2020 I worked with a small group of activitsts on the development of a bill that if passed by the UK Parliament would transform national and international policy. I played only a minor role. The full list of contributing experts is: Professor Kevin Anderson …
Does every cloud has a silver lining? It may be argued that Covid-19 has in a couple of months produced more action on the environment than international treaties have in many decades. Air pollution has precipitously dropped around the world. Skies are no longer lacerated with contrails as aircraft remain …
It came from an animal market in Wuhan, China. But this pathogen belongs to us all. Our continual destruction of ecosystems has disrupted wild animal populations and put them into closer contact with us and our livestock. This increases the chance of a virus jumping from animal to human host. …
To: George Eustice MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Alok Sharma MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care 24 February 2020 Dear Secretaries of State, Re: Urgent Need for PFAS / Forever …
Monday 20 January 2020. Available online here. We write as scientists who are appalled at the support of this government for the high-carbon emissions airline industry, and the grossly misleading statements made by Matt Hancock to justify this bailout. On 15 January, the health minister communicated his unqualified support for …
14th January 2020. Online here. We write as scientists alarmed that a minister has ignored scientific evidence, relying instead on grossly misleading social media sources. In the House of Commons on 9 January, Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister Heather Wheeler answered a question about the Australian bushfires by stating: “Very …
I was asked to serve as an expert witness for a December trail of an Extinction Rebellion activist who was arrested on Waterloo Bridge during the April 2019 actions. I was both keen to submit documents to the court and very concerned that I do my best to accurately and …
The i newspaper and inews online 26th September 2019. Is this it? Is this the long-awaited tipping point, the moment when a sufficient fraction of society not only wakes up to the dangers of global heating, but starts to demand action? An estimated four million people in more than 160 …
i newspaper and inews online 18th September. Perhaps the most dangerous sentence in the English language right now is “What difference can I make?” Dangerous, because if that is the widespread response to the challenge of rapidly reducing carbon emissions, then we have already lost any chance of securing a …
The i news online and i newspaper print edition 9th August 2019. A year ago, Greta Thurnberg was an anonymous school girl who every Friday sat outside the Swedish parliament with a home made sign protesting against inaction on climate change. Today politicians and celebrities hang on her words, the …
The Independent 27th August 2019 If the Amazon rainforest goes up in smoke, then we will all be cooked. Its two million square miles hold over a hundred billion tons of carbon. At a time when we urgently need to reduce carbon emissions, the current fires that are raging across …
The Independent 2nd August 2019. The phrase “I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life” has been uttered a great deal in the north of England this week. In some places an entire month’s rain fell in four hours. Small streams that are usually a few inches deep …
The i news online and i newspaper print edition 6th August 2019. 6th August 1945 8:15am local time, and a flash of light brighter than the sun bursts over Hiroshima. Within seconds the centre of the city is obliterated and tens of thousands of people are dead. 72 years later …
The following is a recording and then text of a talk I gave at the Lovelock Centenary event at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter 31st July 2019 Optimism is an essential component of any proposal for action. Action needs to be driven by hope. Sustainability transformations will not …
The Independent 24th July 2019 It’s not the fall that will kill you, but the suddenness of the stopping. Just as it is with a plane crash, so it is with global heating. Changes in the climate don’t in themselves represent a significant risk – the Earth’s climate has been …
The Independent | The i 10th July 2019. Today should mark a milestone in the UK’s rapid decarbonisation. Because today is the release of the Committee for Climate Change’s annual progress report in which it details how the UK government has been performing over the past year. With the recent …
The Independent 27th June 2019. Countries across Europe are bracing themselves for potentially lethally high temperatures this week. While there are no indications that an event as extreme as the 2003 heatwave, which killed 70,000 people, is likely, thermometers could rise to 45C in some places, and with it an …
