britain Archive

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  To Be [Happy], or Not to Be: That is the Question - by Kennedy Graham

  
  
  
  Nobel economics prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz, has called on world leaders to move away from a purely economic concept of gross domestic product.  And the UK Govt. is reported as poised to start measuring people’s psychological and environmental well-being, bidding to be among the first countries to officially monitor ‘happiness’. This is not actually new, [...] read more
  November 16, 2010 1:47 pm - 25 Comments
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  What Has to be Done to Get Transparency? Afghanistan and the NZ SAS - by Kennedy Graham

  
  
  
  The latest reports of coalition forces in Afghanistan handing over detainees to Afghan authorities who then torture them have concentrated the mind here once more in New Zealand. In Britain, the High Court has upheld a ban on British forces transferring prisoners to the Afghan National Directorate for Security (NDS) because of the risk they [...] read more
  August 19, 2010 12:59 pm - 5 Comments
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  UK Green Party – living wage, warm homes and public transport - by frog

  
  
  
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  October 3, 2008 8:29 am - 1 Comment
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  Where’s Winston? - by frog

  
  
  
  Churchill that is. When one of the UK’s top scientists says “Prepare for global temperature rise of 4C“, we know we’re in trouble. “There is no doubt that we should aim to limit changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial,” Watson, the chief scientific adviser to the Department for the Environment, [...] read more
  August 8, 2008 11:09 am - 5 Comments
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  They don’t have to win, they only have to confuse - by frog

  
  
  
  Mark Lynas at the Guardian quite tidily summed up yesterday the current hit and run tactics of climate change deniers: Like the tobacco lobbyists who spent years denying the links between smoking and cancer, global warming denialists don’t have to win the debate – they simply have to confuse the public indefinitely to successfully undermine [...] read more
  July 3, 2008 11:51 am - 55 Comments
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  The real thing - by frog

  
  
  
  Turns out when you’re talking about Diet Coke the real thing in question is Sodium Benzoate (it travels on its shiny label on plastic bottles under the pseudonym 211). Last year British research linked sodium benozoate to cell damage: “These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the [...] read more
  June 25, 2008 3:33 pm - 34 Comments
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  Sian Berry for Mayor of London - by frog

  
  
  
  Londoners are currently out and about, electing a new Mayor, or maybe re-electing it’s current one. And it seems like all the parties have chosen true characters to represent them. My favourite is Sian Berry. The Independent describes her thus: Lovely Sian, once described as “environmental Viagra”. Committed Sian, who set up the Alliance Against [...] read more
  May 1, 2008 1:44 pm - 9 Comments
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  A healthy climate or a new runway? - by frog

  
  
  
  Britain, like the rest of the world, is scrabbling to be seen to be doing something about the issue for our times: Within days of Gordon Brown’s address to the conservation group WWF, in which he pledged eye-wateringly tough reductions in British emissions of Co2, the Government has announced its support for the construction of [...] read more
  December 5, 2007 9:42 am - 38 Comments