Contrary to what you might have heard…, nuclear power is an outdated technology. Scotland can build a strong, resilient energy supply based on renewable energy.
The rules of the road in the Highlands
“Sometimes at night, when the rain is coming down like iron spikes and the road is as dark as a werewolf’s armpit I feel that the brown signs directing you to local services are a sick joke. The signs don’t contain any information as to distance, so you could come off and find it is a 20-minute drive..”
ChatGPT, you’re fired!
“The quotes were generally ideal, exactly what I was looking for, so I searched a little harder. But after fouterin for literary hours, I realised that it just makes the damn things up.”
A letter on Ukraine from Berlin Hbf
‘The current conflict seems one from an anachronous, imperial past. There is little to separate a Ukrainian and a Russian – this is not an ethnic conflict but one over territory.’
From Big Oil to Big Wind
“Challenges lie ahead. But one major difference between Big Oil and Big Wind is that the latter has the potential to help rescue the planet from the climate emergency.”
A hundred years of selling
“The Barras is a historic spot. But could it benefit, if not from gentrifiction, from some fresh blood – perhaps the kind of vintage clothing and upcycling operation which seems to bring the young and the tourists to Brick Lane or Portobello Road in London?”
From poor house to empty hotel
“Most people in the sector I speak to agree – this system wasn’t broken before Brexit. Now it is. But who will answer the pleas of Highland hospitality business owners? They are desperate for the mitigation of seasonal visas. But the Scottish Government has no control over immigration, just as it had no say over Brexit itself.”
COP26 and Africa’s development needs
“Are we in the developed world prepared to accept that it would be fair for Africa’s C02 emissions to rise even as ours fall? Or are we prepared to fund a transfer of resources to enable solar, tidal, wind and so on, to supply their needs? At the end of COP26, more money was promised – but it fell far short of what African negotiators wanted.”
Garb-Age in the Highlands
“They filled a boat with 15 bags of plastic waste. By weight, 90% of the waste was from the area’s salmon farms, which regularly discard long black snakes of feeding tubes into the sea.”
Regenerative farming could cut methane emissions
Food production will have to change to deliver the methane emissions reductions agreed at COP26. How will this work? Last week, I interviewed a “regenerative farmer” in Fife who may have some answers. Claire Pollock has a mixed farm of animals and arable – she doesn’t plough but sows cereal straight onto harvest stubble. Cows […]