The Bathtub Effect

by Jules Peck on 1,July, 2009

I heard philosopher A C Grayling quoted this weekend as saying that our current breakdown in trust in politics and capitalism 1.0 is “as if there is no longer any interchange between Bank and Monument.”

What he means by this London Underground analogy is that the link between society/the citizen and that of ‘the system’, or corporate-consumer-capitalism, has broken down. Of course this is just what we are saying in Citizen Renaissance (see for instance this on Trust) but its fascinating how many people are saying the same thing in slightly different ways. Continue…

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Scientist and citizen

by Jules Peck on 25,June, 2009

One could not help but be underwhelmed by Ed Milliband’s lacklustre performance last night on Newsnight where he gave a very poor explanation as to why the UK should be so much more proud of its climate change performance than the US. John Podesta – Obama’s joint head of Transition – made the valid point that the US are coming from a standing start and a very low level of engagement after ten years of Bush.

The UK has no such excuse. We have had almost as many years of Blair’s rhetoric and – Climate Act aside – are not looking so rosy ourselves. Joss Garman of Greenpeace gave a Texan Republican Congressman a good talking to on Newsnight about morals – I don’t think the Congressman gave a hoot. He was proud to say he drove Prius not for green reason but because it made him feel superior. Unfortunately there are a few of his type lurking in the bowels of Westminster as well.

This week the US’s top climate scientist, James Hansen of NASA, has been arrested for CC direct action along with actress Daryl Hannah, and 94 year-old former West Virginia Congressman Ken Hechler. As he was arrested Hansen told onlookers “I am not a politician; I am a scientist and a citizen.” Hansen’s arrest came in spite of the fact that Obama had promised to act on CC through a lens of science not politics. And this week in the UK one of our top climate scientists, Professor Kevin Anderson, has told Parliament that the UK Government’s CC policies are “dangerously optimistic” and would have a “50-50 chance” of keeping us below the magic 2 degrees celcius beyond which CC is most certain to plunge us into unstoppable runaway climate-chaos. Continue…

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The End of the End of History

June 18, 2009

I was listening to Professor Lord Anthony Giddens talk about his new book The Politics Of Climate Change today and one thing in particular struck a cord. Giddens pooh-poohed Fukuyama’s concepts of The End of History pointing out that if anything, climate change and the new politics it requires of the mankind-project calls for an [...]

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Broken Rules and The Courage of Conscience

June 8, 2009

Sandel and Steare may sound like two characters out of a ‘70s cop series. Instead, here are two philosophers both demanding a fundamental re-appraisal of the old hierarchies and the rules by which we let ourselves be governed.
I have posted before on Roger Steare’s ‘Ethicability‘ and the ascendancy from a childish ethos of Rule Compliance, [...]

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The Stalking Horse and the Stable Door

May 25, 2009

Alan Johnson’s call today for a return to the Jenkins Commission advice for an Alternative Vote Plus system of Proportional Representation feels a bit hollow after the revelations and fiascos of recent Parliamentary days.
Alongside Cameron’s call to open up the Parliamentary Prospects list, even to non-Tories and those interested in public service over politics, this [...]

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Ab Fab for The Citizen

May 21, 2009

At an event at the Edelman London offices earlier this week – co-hosted with Editorial Intelligence and the Reuters Institute of Journalism – we discussed whether or not the Fourth Estate was in permanent decline? Many were trumpeting the Parliamentary expenses scandal as a victory for a (resurgent) media. I, however, would prefer to see [...]

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Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts

May 15, 2009

You can tell a penny is dropping for wider society when the neoclassical, free-market economist commentariat writes that growth is bad. Thats effectively what the highly influential New York Times’ Thomas Friedman is saying in this piece and its a world away from things he has written in the past.
OK so he is still pro-growth [...]

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Citizen Renaissance aka Michelle Obama

May 10, 2009

Conclusive proof just in that the President and his wife are keen readers of the Citizen Renaissance book and blog. It’s been reported that Michelle has taken the secret-service codename ‘renaissance’ – so that of course makes her Citizen Renaissance.
I’m glad the first-family are tuning in to our blog as I have concerns that the [...]

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Back to the ‘70s and The Good Life?

May 7, 2009

David Cameron has told us we are entering an ‘age of austerity’, a time where we need to focus on ‘more for less’. He is mainly talking about an increase in public goods through less public service and more efficiency. What he should be talking about is a theme he seems to have lost of [...]

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Sanity Fills the Vacuum of Leadership

May 5, 2009

News filtering through over the weekend – and reported again today – that a number of prominent business leaders have found their voice over the proposed third runway at Heathrow, is proof positive that there is some emergent sanity in an increasingly insane and illogical, re-trenching world.
At a time where there is a real danger, [...]

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