Archive for August, 2008
Upgraded links
In: Uncategorized
25 Aug 2008I have added to and updated the list of useful links on the left hand bar at the side of this site. New links include China Digital Daily, Climate Debate Daily, Culture Wars’ world development pages, the Future Cities Project and Indur Goklany’s papers. Any suggestions for further links or material for posts please email […]
- Tags: china, cities, climate, development, progress
London lecture on trade and development
In: Uncategorized
25 Aug 2008Supachai Panitchpakdi, the secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, will present The Trade and Development Report 2008 at a public lecture at the London School of Economics on the evening of Tuesday 2 September. The theme of this year’s report is “Commodity Prices, Capital Flows and the Financing of Investment”. […]
- Tags: development, economics, finance, trade
Britain From Above on TV
In: Uncategorized
24 Aug 2008Andrew Marr’s Britain From Above documentary series on BBC television was a pleasant surprise. His aerial perspective of Britain, although impressionistic in some respects, enabled him to make some useful thematic points. In particular the episode on “Manmade Britain” argued that Britain’s landscape is entirely shaped by human beings. The patchwork quilt of different coloured […]
- Tags: cities, environment, television
Me debating at Battle of Ideas
In: Uncategorized
23 Aug 2008I will be debating Ha-Joon Chang of Cambridge University, Paul Mason of BBC Newsnight and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times in a session on the pros and cons of economic dynamism on 1 November. It is part of the Battle for Prosperity strand at this year’s Battle of Ideas festival in London.
- Tags: development, economics, growth, speeches
Friedman’s new Malthusian text
In: Uncategorized
23 Aug 2008Tom Friedman, a foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, is having a new book published in September called Hot, Flat and Crowded. Evidently he argues that America should pursue environmental goals both as a good in itself and because it can help the nation retain its position of world leadership. It sounds like […]
- Tags: America, book, environment, Malthus
Water, water, every where
In: Uncategorized
22 Aug 2008Yet more articles on the wet stuff to coincide with World Water Week: * New Scientist (23 August) has a cover story on water by Jonathan Chenoweth of the University of Surrey. It makes some useful points including the argument that “virtual water” (a term evidently coined by Tony Allan of King’s College, London) can […]
- Tags: celebrities, environment, spiked, technology, water
Opposition to GM technology hurts Africa
In: Uncategorized
22 Aug 2008For time reasons I have so far avoided commenting on Prince Charles’s silly intervention in the debate on genetically modified (GM) foods. But the Comment Is Free article by Paul Collier, the director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, on the damaging effect of opposition to GM makes many […]
- Tags: Africa, environment, food, science, technology
Now water gets a footprint too
In: Uncategorized
20 Aug 2008The annual World Water Week in Stockholm seems to be an occasion for an outpouring of panic about global water shortages. BBC Two’s flagship Newsnight programme has already fallen for it (see Monday’s post) and now, not surprisingly given its environmentalist leanings, the Guardian has too. The lead news story in today’s paper gave credence […]
- Tags: consumption, environment, footprint, water
Found a publisher!
In: Uncategorized
19 Aug 2008I have finally managed to find a publisher for my book on growth scepticism! I tried three other publishers before I found my present one but each of them backed away when they realised the full implications of my argument. The experience reinforced my view that an uncompromising defence of prosperity is both necessary and […]
Celebrate Brazil’s agricultural surge
In: Uncategorized
19 Aug 2008In this climate of gloom and low expectations it is fantastically refreshing to come across anyone with a positive “can do” spirit. This is certainly the case in relation to Brazilian agriculture which, according to an article on BBC online, has enjoyed a productivity surge in recent years. As a result it has grown from […]
- Tags: development, food, Latin America
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