Con-Fusion?

Whilst the usual oodles and squillions change hands across the boardroom tables, the actual hardware upon which we are apparently doomed to depend turns out to be a bit shit.

It seems we only stop shitting in the kitchen when we're constipated

The part of the brain that finds cars irresistible seems to be missing in my case, so I'm probably embarrassingly late with this. The Honda hybrid is called the Insight. Oh how we laughed.

Power Play

The UK Government's chosen sites for nuclear reactors include one already occupied by a wind farm. Another will be sited on the already over-crowded grave of satire.

Meanwhile, the rush to palm oil and biofuels receives some small knock-backs, and Shell seem to be up to their old tricks again, this time a little closer to home.
Gilded sociopaths bugger off, and law enforcement has a laugh at our expense.

Our complications have complications

The Only Planet cartoon below originally appeared in this month's New Internationalist magazine. Go buy it.

Long Term Plan

The brain seems ill-equipped to deal with what it has to deal with. Oh dear.
No wonder we forget the maths about electric cars and ignore sinking islands and bury our heads in disposable trash. No wonder we hold our breath for "clean" coal and look on the bright side of neo-colonialism.

And yet...

...and then again...

Titanic Blunders (again)

In honour of US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu opting for the good ol' Titanic imagery to describe the threat of Climate Change, I'm re-posting my own take on the metaphor from 2007, written with Marc Hudson.

Technobubble

Biochar arguments are batted about, technofixes bite the dust and market stalwarts call for state intervention in the energy markets to ensure renewables targets are met.

Meanwhile, borders go missing in Europe

Fixing Medea

If this looks somewhat familiar it's because it's a reworking of a Christmas strip - riffing on an amendment suggested by the venerable Tom Wigley - who knows a lot more about this than I do. Thanks to Andrew Revkin.

Slip Hazard

With apologies to Robert Newman

A percentage of Climate scientists expect that climate engineering of some sort will be required - because we as a species just can't be arsed with changing our behaviour.
Marvellous. Can I have my Jet-Pack now?

Peak-All

For some reason a lot of people insist on thinking of evolution as a progressive and purposeful process - as though it is somehow going somewhere instead of being just the random sum of blind luck, sex and catastrophe. I doubt that any serious researcher falls into this Utopian nonsense, but the press are rolling in it with their treatmnent of this story. A somewhat narcissistic view of time.
Meanwhile the real hand of evolution falls on our victims, as one in four mammal species faces the final curtain
...and the growing certainty of the peaking of the age of cheap energy brings the usual mix of profiteering, pleading and plunder - whilst the nuclear debate goes on

PLEASE VISIT 350.org and excercise a little democratic pressure

Economic Creationism

These things don't always lend themselves to pithy strips.
I'm getting increasingly alarmed, depressed and generally pissed off by the rise of creationism as some sort of "alternative science" that deserves to be considered by sensible people and even taught to our children. Perhaps we should consider teaching Erik von Daniken as well, or maybe Terry Pratchet. It's turtles all the way down, you know. I suppose it's not surprising - seeing as our entire economic system - and therefore our culture - is based on a fairytale that flies in the face of reason. Specifically - Why do we believe we can prize an infinite amount from a finite resource and grow our economies exponentially in perpetuity? Because we want to. Because it's easier to believe that than to face the realities of our situation and because it upsets people to think otherwise. So Bollocks to physics, biology and climatology. They're too difficult. Give us Super Heroes and Father Christmas. Give us cornucopia and abracadabra.
The fact that we persist in this doublethunk mindf*ck under our present economic management - with banks going tits-up left, right and centre - is a remarkable testament to our "faith"

The idea was to seamlessly plait these two threads into irrefutable comic gold. The evidence may point in another direction but, in the spirit of the age, I shall choose to believe I succeeded.


And finally...
Many thanks to Andrew Revkin for pointing readers of his (and the New York Times') DotEarth in our direction. Much appreciated