Ariane Sherine on The Pod Delusion #11 November 29, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Atheism, Podcast, Science and Rationaltiy, climate change , add a commentThis week’s Pod Delusion features a fascinating interview with the wonderful Ariane Sherine, creator of the Atheist Bus campaign and editor of the one essential Christmas gift this year, The Atheists’ Guide to Christmas.
The Atheists’ Guide is a brilliant anthology of atheist and science writing, comedy, fiction and even a section on silly party games, and the best thing about it is that half the profits go to the Terrence Higgins’ Trust
Pod Delusion #11 also includes some other great topical material on the Climate change email leaks (yes, these prove beyond doubt that climate change is a scam) and the new campaign against Boots for selling homeopathic remedies that they admit don’t work. Don’t miss!
Now is the Winter of our Discontent November 26, 2009
Posted by Graham in : climate change, collapse , add a commentThe flooding was so bad around the city and county of cork last week that I was wondering whether I would actually be able to travel to Kinsale on Tuesday to do my comradely duty and picket the college.
Kinsale College staff on picket duty
As it turned out, the road through Bandon, which had been closed by the floods, was open by last Tuesday. In fact although I had traveled to the Tipperary Institute on Wednesday night, returning Friday afternoon, I saw none of the floods at all.
I was in two minds about the national day of action by public service workers: there are a lot of issues around the split between the public and private sectors and I am not yet convinced any union or political group has a coherent enough plan of action given the country is bankrupt.
The Celtic Tiger began in earnest around the time I first moved to Ireland in 1992. I watched through those years aghast at the sheer rate of change and development, not able to believe that it could last long, amazed each year that it continued. As an awareness of impending peak oil dawned, it seemed the party’s end would not be long coming, yet even after the collapse of Lehman Brothers the two-car Dublin commuters were claiming we were just “talking ourselves into a recession”.
Ireland has amassed one of the highest per capita debts in the world through a regime of cheap finance for houses and cars; the collapse was always inevitable and has now left us with a broken economy barely able to keep it social services going. Further cuts in health and education and welfare seem inevitable; the government has barely begun to adress the public finance deficit with what is currently proposed.
Of course we should be calling for the heads of the bankers and political leaders who exacerbated the crisis but the real problem has been a complete disconnect with reality caused by the fantasy world that cheap oil and finance had created. The ultimate cargo cult, the wealth was wasted rather than being used to develop resilience of any kind.
The floods bring a double whammy as all the chickens come home to roost for this small island nation. Rapid economic growth has meant Ireland has contributed more than its per capita fair share of carbon emissions during the boom years and the warmer than average sea surface temperatures are likely connected to the record breaking rainfall this month. In addition, unrestricted development on flood plains and lack of investment in flood prevention has hugely exacerbated the problems, with a larger population just meaning more people are effected.
As I write parts of Athlone and parts of Galway are still closed off and under water, and hundreds of people already struggling with their repayments have lost their homes or their businesses. Many already beleagured farmers have been decimated, and land and plant damaged or destroyed.
We have a way to go in this country before a Katrina-like disaster strikes but the confluence of debt, climate change and peak oil bring the possibility closer each year. In an environment of increasing industrial discontent and financial misery how long before we are simply unable to recover from repeated climate change events. Already there is serious discussion parts of Limerick and other towns becoming permenantly uninhabitable.
The need to plan for a general curtailment of our activities and retreat into more sustainable modes of existence is now an immediate necessity.
Pat Kenny joins the climate change deniers November 24, 2009
Posted by Graham in : climate change , 3commentsFrom the Irish Times by John Gibbons: Pat Kenny, the premier Irish broadcaster famed for his grasp of current affairs has recently stated:
“The climate change debate has been raging for decades, and there are still so many fundamental questions left unanswered.”
WTF?! There is no debate Pat other than how much time we might have left before TSHTF and whether this will result in total annihalation or just the collapse of industrial civilisation.
See also John’s excellent blog ThinkOrSwim the ClimateChange.ie Blog.
Steep Decline: Douthwaite on the Economy November 18, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , add a commentThanks to Tom for sending me the link to this essential reading from Ireland’s premier green economist Richard Douthwaite in Construct Ireland Magazine.
Douthwaite explains the state of the world and Irish economy with reference to the housing bubble and declining fossil energy reserves. The predictions are fairly grim- stop paying into a pension, they wont deliver; if there is a slight respite in the general decline, choose your moment to sell any assets; but be aware that any such “upturn” will send fuel prices spiralling.
Quoting the also essential Orlov Douthwaite presents a sober and realistic view of our current economic predicament and sends out a clear message to our political leaders and commentators: forget about “green shoots”, we are at a turning point in history and in the future will have to get used to a continually declining standard of living.
The Heretic’s Guide to vegan Cookery November 12, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Food, Health, Science and Rationaltiy, book review , 1 comment so farBook Review: The Heretic’s Guide to Vegan Cookery
Warning! Not suitable for Breatharians
Andy Murray
The Good Elf Press 2009
187pp
Astrology is an amazing tool to run your life by, without having to waste time with the fraudulent pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo of Science. Astrology explains wars, thunderstorms and plagues. We can even use it historically. For example, if we know exactly when and where Queen Elizabeth was born, we can find out exactly who she was without having to waste time on fictitious history books. With it we can even discover why Einstein was so damn clever. Astrology is way better than sex.
You don’t have to be a vegan to enjoy Andy Murray’s brilliant Heretic’s Guide, which is packed with dozens of tasty simple recipes to satisfy even the most hardened omnivore at least some of the time, you dont even need to have any great interest in cooking or even food. That is because for our amusement and philosophical delectation there are numerous passages in between the recipes giving us fascinating and hilarious perspectives from the Mecca of New Age beliefs in Britain, the town of Glastonbury near where the author lives.
While waiting for the pumpkin soup to cook or in between making preperations for the Hazelnut and Celery Risotto you will be able to work up an appetite by rolling around clutching your belly after reading the sure -to-become-classic passages “Reiki Reiki Rise and Shine” “Cooking with Astrology” or “Breeding Gurus for Profit”.
This book has it all really- great advice on cooking with fresh ingredients and all the usual good reasons to grow your own and buy local; loads of easy to follow recipes including a big choice of soups, salads and dips; and inspirational chapter on cooking in the great outdoors, including a useful guide to wild food; Posh Things to Do with Vegetables; Main Meals; Side Dishes and Extras; Desserts, and Cakes and Biscuits.
And then the alternative Contents covers everything else- Cults, Gurus, Satanism, Religion, Crop Circles, Homeopathy- nothing is sacred and nothing is spared the sharp rib-splitting egg-whisk of Murray’s irreverence.
Homeopathic Cookery Doubters of this form of cookery pour scorn on the fact that a diner might receive a drop of gravy and a shred of carrot on a plate. How can this be a meal, they ask? What they fail to understand is that carbon,the building block of all life, has a memory. A potentised meal maintains a complete carbon hologram, the information of the whole, even down to the smallest atomic sum of its parts.A homeopathic amount of food is of course more than sufficient to provide all the nutritional benefits that would be expected from a plateful of food, and puts paid to any shrill cries of fraud. Filthy skeptics who come to the homeopathic table having already made up their tiny minds will trhow down their napkins and walk away still believing what they believe tio be true, and little can be done to change their wrongness.
Even the his own sacred Creed of Veganism is given the once-over. This is something I know a little about, because I once lived in a vegan community on the Welsh Borders. I was not especially into veganism per se and went there to learn to grow vegetables; I happily lived a vegan diet however, but was aware of an accute divide between some of my fellow communards, who seemed to be at each other’s throats all the time.
On one extreme there were the the vegans who were happy to eat anything so long as it was vegan, including skip food, vegan chocolate from Malaysia (or somewhere) and chip butty’s. This group of vegans were also keen to give over some of the best land we had to rescued sheep and ageing dogs, and generally turn the place into an animal sanctury.
All this tended to jar somewhat with the second group who apart from being rather snobby in their choice of edibles- Vegan Organic Wholefoods only, no white flour allowed, lots of Miso- didnt seem to like animals at all anywhere near them. Wild animals were OK in their own wild homes, but no pets, farm animals or incontinent retired donkeys of any kind permitted.
Murray gives a total of 7 Vegan groups, including the Fat Vegan, the Sensitive Vegan and the Style Vegan, but presumable fitsd into he first category of The Common Vegan:
The most widespread of all vegans, the common vegan has been quietly animal free for years and still hasn’t died. Usually healthy, fit and happy, they tend to be quite normal, although sometimes a little willowy to stand in a strong wind.
For Murray, veganism might well play a role in a sustainable future, but is mainly just about bloody good food. While no longer a Vegan myself, my animal-free taste buds have been re-awakened by the Heretics Guide and who knows, so have some of my chakras.
And with that I think Ill go and make a quick Potato Rosti.
Policy and Preposterism: New online journal Forth November 10, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , add a commentThe new online journal Forth has an article by Lenni Antonelli who interviewed me on the subject of pseudoscience and the environmental movement.
Beyond Belief: When woo turns murderous November 7, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Science and Rationaltiy , add a commentMuch of the time woo cannot be directly attributed to any specific incidence of great harm, rather, superstitious and anti-science beliefs chip away at people’s ability to think straight, opens them up to exploitation to the unscrupulous who would sell them lies, and generally undermines democracy and freedom by slowly turning the population into a sludge-pool of half-wits. Sometimes however I come across examples of the perpetration of woo beliefs that just make me sick. The Ministry of Truth has a story detailing the insane practice of selling dowsing rods to Iraqi soldiers for the purpose of detecting explosives including landmines. Apparently, while the US military dismiss them as nothing more than “magic wands” the Iraqis swear by them.
But it doesn’t detect bombs and Iraqis are going to continue to die in attacks that might well have been prevented has their security forces invested in trained explosives sniffer dogs, which do work very well, while companies in the UK and Germany continue to rack up the profits from selling fancy-looking but utterly useless dowsing rods. This is not just fraud, its culpable involvement in negligent homicide
I cant help thinking though, without a touch of irony or humour, that maybe those who swear by dowsing for more benign effects- water etc- might be asked to test their faith with explosives. I wouldnt do this however; I’m afraid that some people I know would be happy to risk their lives trying.
Biodynamics on the Pod Delusion November 6, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Health, Podcast, Science and Rationaltiy , add a commentI am on this week’s episode of the UK-based Pod Delusion talking about Biodynamics and the environmental movement:
This week:
David Nutt’s Sacking and Government Policy by Simon Howard A.N Wilson’s Attitude to Science by Pete Hague Irrationality and Environmentalism by Graham Strouts Collective Worship in Schools by Owen Duffy
This is a weekly podcast full of great material on lots of interesting stuff including politics, current affairs, skepticism etc.. Enjoy!
Many thanks to ThetisMercurio for making the connection and getting me onto the Pod Delusion.
Zone5 Podcast #1 with Albert Bates and #2 with Noel Carillo November 2, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , 3commentsWelcome to the first Zone5 Podcast!
These are likely to come out rather irregularly but I might manage one a month or so.
- Albert Bates at the charcoal barrel at Cloughjordan Eco-village, August 2009
This first podcast is with Albert Bates of The Farm, Tennessee, who I interviewed in back in August . Albert talks about permaculture, Powerdown, the Cloughjordan Eco-village where the interview took place, organic food and much more.
Update: You should be able to subscribe to an rss feed with this link.
As a special bonus, you can also listen here to a few minutes I managed to grab the same day with the Cuban Ambassador to Ireland, Noel Carillo, who was also visiting the Eco-village:
(Please click the link and the file will load)
Apologies for the poor sound quality and the abrupt end when the Ambassador was whisked away by his hosts to go and watch an exhibition match of hurling.
