I have a new piece on comment is free this morning which assesses the motivation behind the recent proposal by the governor of the Chinese central bank for a new global reserve currency.
I also point readers towards Richard Douthwaite's pamphlet, The Ecology of Money, which contains a much better proposal to link such a currency to energy use.
This is a very interesting piece from Mark Lynas in yesterday's Sunday Times. Mark is a leading environmental campaigner and long-standing opponent of nuclear energy as a solution to the environmental crisis.
Recently however, having studied evidence about the new breed of nuclear reactors currently being developed, he has changed his mind. And, predictably, he has been ostracised by much of the green community.
Like Mark, I have long opposed nuclear energy on grounds of safety and cost. But I have have always hoped that the time might come when science would succeed in addressing those concerns, and there would no longer be any moral or financial objection to nuclear.
I haven't yet studied the evidence Mark cites, but he knows his stuff; there must be something in it. The fight against climate change needs all the help in can get, so we should at least give him a hearing. It's too easy to cling onto comfortable, long-held convictions, but they won't necessarily help save the planet.
Mark's website is here.
Conservative MP Tim Yeo makes a strong case on Comment is Free for his private members bill to pilot a new daylight savings scheme in the UK. Although the thought of it not getting light until 9 o'clock on cold winter mornings is pretty ghastly, his argument is persuasive and I think it an excellent idea. I shall be urging my MP to vote in favour, and you can too.
I have a new post over at Comment is Free just now. It's about the dreadful floods affecting parts of Mozambique, where I lived for a while and to which I still feel an attachment. The piece asks the simple question, if we can't manage to sort out our own society and economy so that the poor can be protected from floods, what hope is there for the people of Mozambique?
Someone at the BBC must be having a laugh. They've put a reporter on the Greenpeace ship, Esperanza, tracking the highly dubious Japanese whaling fleet in the southern ocean. Our intrepid correspondent's name? You guessed it: Jonah.
Fiona Bruce managed to introduce his report last night without so much as a wry smile, but thankfully at least one sub at the BBC has got the joke.
Those nice people over at Amazon have discounted my book, so if you haven't read it and would like a copy, you can buy it here.
When it was published, The Possibility of Progress garnered one or two positive comments.: Tony Benn thought it "a deeply moral and intellectual book". James Robertson called it "important, impressive and readable". Tony Vickers suggested that it might be "the book that Henry George would have written if he'd been alive today."
At the book launch Tony Benn, Clare Short and Susan Kramer all turned up to give their backing to the book, more information about which you can find here.
I'm currently working on another book which explores similar themes from different angles, but while that one is in production, The Possibility of Progress should keep you going.
If you're in the United States, you can order it through amazon.com by clicking here. (Sorry, no discount).
Of course, if you can afford it, and have an independent bookshop nearby, why not get them to order it in for you? It'll cost you the full price (£14.95) but you'll be supporting a small business, rather than a corporate giant, and contributing to the cause of progress in a tiny way.
Happy reading!
Mark
Zac Goldsmith was on Newsnight tonight discussing the government's plans to use nuclear energy to address climate change. He was debating with Tom Burke who was rational and practical, Sir Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's former press secretary who was, almost literally, barking, and some guy representing the electricity producers, who did his job perfectly well, but added little to the debate.
Goldsmith was superb, as he usually is. Surely if the Conservative party has a future he, and others like him (if there are any), rather than David Cameron and George Osborne, are it.
Goldsmith is standing against Susan Kramer at Richmond in the next general election. It's weird to think that if I lived in Richmond, I'd be struggling to decide whether to vote for a Lib-Dem or a Tory. The world is definitely changing.
