Pluralistic Ignorance and Climate Change
How can most people support serious action on climate change and yet continue to believe we are in the minority? The answer: pluralistic ignorance.
Prevent Prevent
How a system designed to identify potential terrorists is catching innocent people and destroying freedom of speech.
I’ve forgotten how to blog
How to write a blog post when the world is disintegrating around you.
It’s Just a Few Bad Apples
Welcome to another of my occasional rants about the use and misuse of the English language. Previous entries have included people who talk about their bandwidth and the irritating habit of writing “See what I did there?” after a pun.…
No, I Don’t Have the Bandwidth Right Now
Something is very wrong with the English language. People have started asking me if I have the “bandwidth” to work on new projects. What am I, a modem? This is part of a broader trend of viewing human beings as…
Life-Threatening Repercussions of the Hostile Environment During Covid-19
This is a guest post by Lynsey Burrows at the Immigration Advice Service, an organisation of immigration lawyers based in the UK & Ireland. I don’t normally publish guest posts here, but this one is important and timely, and I…
How Can We Talk About Climate Change? How Can We Not?
Climate change has become such a clear, species-threatening emergency that sometimes it feels strange to talk or write about anything else. Yes, I know, Covid-19. But a pandemic, although immensely destructive, will end eventually. In the longer term, climate change…
Read to Your Children. They’ll Thank You for It
It’s International Literacy Day today, and I’d like to talk about fostering a love of reading. Recent research by Egmont shows that reading for pleasure has huge benefits for children, and the best way to encourage them to do that…
Cultural Time Zones and the Global City
What is a cultural time zone? Think of tennis, says Melissa Tandiwe Myambo in a fascinating essay in New Left Review. On the international tennis circuit, all the courts and facilities must meet certain standards, with only minor local variations.…