The Climate Emergency: Building Communities of Concern

The key to all outreach regarding the climate crisis is in their word “Emergency”. As Greta Thunberg said a couple of years ago: “we want you to panic”, reminding us that our planet “really is on fire”. Without that sense of urgency, there can be no truthful way of helping others understand their own responsilbities, both personally and professionally. But how can we do that without causing despair, leaving people disempowered rather than getting urgently and enthusiastically stuck in?


This is my own personal website, and everything on it is here to help illustrate the breadth of all the work I do in the world of sustainability.

I’ve been in that world for a very long time (having joined the Green Party in the summer of 1974), but I genuinely can’t recall ever feeling the same intense combination of despair and hope!

After nearly 50 years of non-stop activism and advocating both for environmental sustainability and for social justice, I’m more persuaded now than ever that this is our time.

Hope often seems very fragile against such a disaster-strewn backdrop, but it still permeates my life as an incorrigible advocate of a solutions agenda that gets more and more substantive by the day.

But I’m grateful I still have such a diverse portfolio – not least to give full rein to my campaigning instincts (working against the insanity of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, for instance, or in support of progressive family planning, electoral reform and a host of other critical causes). And I remain a Member of the Green Party, as well as being Chancellor Keele University, which is a real privilege.

I know I’ve said this before, but I can’t help but think we’re nearing an inflection point – ecologically, politically and economically. So there are some very turbulent times ahead!’

Forum For The Future


As Founder Director of Forum for the Future, this remains my principal organisational base.

As Founder Director of Forum for the Future, this remains my principal organisational base.

Key Organisations


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Mainstream Climate Science: The New Denialism?

This is a bit of a long one! So here’s my “Executive Summary” so you can decide whether to commit the time to the rest of it: mainstream climate scientists run the risk of becoming the new climate deniers.

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More than £28bn: Chronic Political Failure in Tragic Times.

Now that the dust has settled after the Labour Party junked its commitment (on 8th February) to £28bn a year of new investment in the UK’s green economy, it’s worth reflecting on what this tells us about climate politics in the UK over the next couple of years. It’s not pretty.

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CRUSHING DISSENT: TORIES, LABOUR AND MAINSTREAM NGOs ALL ON THE SAME PAGE

First they came for Just Stop Oil; then they came for radical environmentalists; then they came for members of the National Trust, the RSPB, and WWF. But there was no one left to speak for them. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m astonished at the lack of concern/interest on the part of “mainstream…

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