Since the dome’s closure, pundits and politicians have been lecturing us sternly. “This fiasco must end soon.” Their solutions vary: it should be demolished; it should be integrated into worthy urban regeneration; it should have “meaningful” exhibitions. But all agree on one point. The dome was a disaster because it had no brand.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/13/dome.comment
Tragedies hurt us all, even if we are just watching on television
Are we all suffering from a version of post-traumatic stress caused by repeated exposure to horrific images in the media? This may sound insulting to those involved in disasters. But modern media with their graphic coverage of horrific events may be stirring up public anxiety and grief which has no recognition or outlet. Could this be one reason for increased levels of anxiety, depression and stress-related illnesses?
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/mar/04/selby.railtravel
Ros Coward on how the hunter-gatherer world-view contains important lessons for humanity’s future in Hugh Brody’s The Other Side of Eden
The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-Gatherers, Farmers and the Shaping of the World – Hugh Brody
Anthropologist Hugh Brody describes the visit to London of Anaviapik, an Inuit who had never previously left the Arctic. Anaviapik is disgorged from a British Airways plane on a hot summer’s day swathed in a fox-fur- trimmed parka and ‘wearing sealskin boots with brown trousers tucked into their patterned tops’. To Brody’s relief, Anaviapik survives this visit with equanimity. One thing he never masters, however, is the built environment. Everyday Brody teases him, challenging him to find the short way home from the Tube. Everyday he fails: ‘How amazing that the Qallunaat [white people] live in cliffs. I would never be able to find my way here without you.’
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/28/society
The current teacher shortage is not so much entirely predictable as entirely predicted. The so-called education “reforms” initiated by the Tories and continued by David Blunkett were carried out in the context of a concerted attack on teachers’ competence and values. Why would anyone want to belong to a profession that is undervalued, over-scrutinised and simultaneously blamed for so many social problems?
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jan/16/teachershortage.schools
If the government can think the unthinkable on the tube, next it should return Railtrack to public control
What would be the public response if an electricity supplier declared they had let their pylons rot, so electricity would now only be available sporadically? Would we passively accept this because “not everyone depends on electricity”? Would the government give the supplier until Easter to sort itself out? Would the newspapers relegate the story to back pages? Not likely. A private company failing to deliver a public utility, especially over Christmas, would be a national scandal.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/19/world.comment
The French minister hits back, as an anti-Europe tone breaks out again in Britain
The trashing of Dominique Voynet, France’s environment minister, by Prescott and sections of the British press was astonishing. She was said to head a team of “French wreckers” who “sandbagged” Prescott. Or she was “too tired” to hammer out details of a compromise at the Hague implying she’d behaved “irrationally” before. What would you expect; French, a woman and an environmentalist – she might just as well have a couple of horns and a forked tail.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/nov/28/comment.climatechange
As world leaders meet to talk (and talk) about global warming, Ros Coward offers 10 practical steps we can all take to help save the planet
Today, world leaders are meeting in the Hague to discuss climate change and what – if anything – can be done to combat global warming. Their discussions will be full of abstractions about “carbon trading” and “flexible mechanisms”. But for many us here, the issue has suddenly become far from abstract. Extreme weather conditions have brought home the fact that our climate is changing – and changing fast. It may be easy to be fatalistic about it, but the truth is that although we humans have caused the problem, we also have the solution. “Think global and act local,” said Friends of the Earth founder David Bower, who died last week. In many small but important ways we can make a difference. Here are my top tips for how to begin:
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2000/nov/13/shopping
The public’s intimate relationship with their car as a ‘second skin’ is what drives their irrational fuel protests
The fuel protests are a ragbag of different interests. Their cause – “cheaper fuel” – is actively unpopular with people concerned about the environment. This is not the stuff of popular revolution. It has only become so because it has tapped into something potent; the feel bad factor.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/nov/07/oil.roscoward
Deborah Cadbury goes back to the Victorian era to track down the strange creatures abroad at the dawn of archaelogy in The Dinosaur Hunters
The Dinosaur Hunters – Deborah Cadbury
We live in times where the idea of dinosaurs is familiar, even banal. It’s hard to imagine these creatures were once unknown, or a time when scientists, fearful for what was implied about Creation, were utterly baffled by the enormous fossilised bones.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/15/historybooks.scienceandnature
The News of the World campaign is wrong – but so are those who vilify the ordinary people who support it
The News of the World campaign to name and shame paedophiles has met with universal condemnation in the quality press. It is represented as dangerous vigilantism which will lead to murder. Of course, I agree this campaign is misguided; it will drive paedophiles into hiding, where the possibility of monitoring is lost. But I am equally appalled at the contempt which this same liberal press is meting out on the people and communities involved in such campaigns.
Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2000/aug/01/childprotection.roscoward