Posts Tagged ‘transport’
Phoney ambition 2009
In: Uncategorized
2 Jan 2009Andrew Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), provides a typical example of environmentalism’s phoney ambition in his New Year’s Day comment piece for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. In response to what he calls “climate upheaval” he urges readers to: “squeeze those eyes open to 2009, and history tells us great things are […]
- Tags: climate, economics, energy, environment, transport
Origins of the congestion charge
In: Uncategorized
7 Sep 2008Those of you who attended the Bookshop Barnie at the London School of Economics last Thursday may be interested in a side argument we had on the intellectual origins of London’s traffic congestion charge. Some described it as “state socialist” while I said I thought I remember that Milton Friedman, a free market economics guru, […]
Growth scepticism hits the roads
In: Uncategorized
27 Mar 2008Kevin Watkins, now at Oxford University’s global economic governance programme but formerly at the United Nations Development Programme and Oxfam, had a comment in yesterday’s Guardian on the scourge of traffic accidents in developing countries. Sadly he used the opportunity to take a side swipe at economic growth while also implicitly calling for more external […]
- Tags: development, growth, transport
New Scientist on cleaner flying
In: Uncategorized
23 Feb 2007The cover story of the current New Scientist (24 February 2007) is on ways to make flying cleaner. It includes discussion of such technology as strut-braced wings, laminar flow control, fast forward and the flying wing. The piece, by Bennett Daviss, takes a sceptical view on whether such technologies will ever be implemented. But at […]
- Tags: climate, technology, transport
A robust defence of air travel
In: Uncategorized
22 Nov 2006An interesting article defending flying as one of the greenest ways to travel in today’s Guardian. Among the arguments put forward by Giovanni Bisignani, the director-general and chief executive officer of the International Air Transport Association: * Air travel currently accounts for only 2% of global carbon emissions. * The International Panel on Climate Change […]
- Tags: climate, energy, environment, transport
A plane clever idea
In: Uncategorized
6 Nov 2006An inspiring look into a possible future for air travel. The BBC website has an article on a plane, developed by the Cambridge-MIT Institute, with a revolutionary “blended wing” design. This shape enables the plane to be far quieter and more efficient than existing models. Sadly the current climate of risk aversion means that the […]
- Tags: energy, science, technology, transport
Attacks on air travel
In: Uncategorized
18 Oct 2006Air travel is becoming a particular target for climate change campaigners. Although air transport currently only accounts for a small percentage of global emissions the proportion is expected to rise rapidly in the coming years. The question is discussed in more detail in a report (PDF) from Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute published yesterday. It […]
- Tags: speeches, television, transport
Spiked article on modernity and 9/11
In: Uncategorized
5 Sep 2006I have a short article on Spiked on how hostility to modernity has become embedded in Western society (pasted below). It is part of a collection of articles looking at the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks: What strikes me as most odd about the response to the 9/11 attacks was their representation […]
Planes as symbols of modernity
In: Uncategorized
14 Aug 2006Do jihadis attack planes precisely because they are symbols of modernity? That is the argument of Michael Clarke, professor of defence studies at King’s College, London, in an article in Saturday’s Times (London): “Commercial aircraft represent globalism and high technology — they shrink the world and threaten cultural conservatism. The Boeing 747 was the last […]
- Tags: environment, modernity, technology, transport
A flying shame
In: Uncategorized
5 Aug 2006Changing attitudes to flying are lamented by Brendan O’Neill, the deputy editor of Spiked, in the Guardian’s comment is free. Once it was seen by some as “the epitome of breaking new worlds”. More recently it has even been portrayed as akin to child abuse because of the impact on climate change. Even mainstream commentators […]
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