‘Research estimates that by 2025, the IT industry could use 20% of all electricity produced and emit up to 5.5% of the world’s carbon emissions. That’s more than most countries’ total emissions bar China, India and the US’: the case for an internet powered by renewables.
Blog
The green ascendancy
‘The message for and from Scotland is that the trends in society and the economy favour outward-looking, social democratic, culturally progressive, green (in the widest sense) political movements and this was reaffirmed by last week’s results in Holyrood. Now, more than ever, is the time for these Scottish political forces to reach out to their fellows across the EU and Europe as a whole.’
Memeification of the Metro
“It’s the kind of elitist statement that rescues failed experimentation from the paper bin (or “recently deleted” folder) and forces the viewer to deny the evidence of their own eyes and join the art world and its enablers in nodding approvingly over the emperors’ new clothes.” In her first post here a young artist comments on a Tube makeover…
Saltire in the sky
‘It is perhaps under-recognised by many in the independence camp just how much support there was for the Union in 1707 among middle-class Scots. That support was based on a hunger for opportunity. But Brexit has reversed that – it means a big reduction in the degree of opportunity that Union with the rest of the UK once offered.’
#SP2021: it’s the economy…
“The manifestos have fallen short on the level of financial detail behind their plans.” And so has the debate. Parties need to be more transparent about their fiscal options…
‘Strategic lies’ in Downing St
“The quality of our democracy depends on the quality of the political debate within the public sphere. New campaigning techniques represent a real threat to both the debate and our democracy and something needs to be done urgently to address this problem.”
Radical change needed to boost Scotland’s economy
In a special guest blog, Sir Tom Hunter, whose eponymous Foundation commissioned the recent Raising Scotland’s Economic Growth Rate report from Oxford Economics, underlines how Scotland’s economy lags behind and needs radical change to catch up and rediscover its innovative dynamism.
Dateline Covid capital of Scotland
“The tension between reporting the facts and the grave reality of the situation and the responsibility to boost morale is laid out in front of you as a reporter.” Trials and tribulations of being a frontline local news reporter during the pandemic movingly described by the author.
Scotland’s Glorious Thirty
Going beyond recovery from the pandemic. In reviewing a recent book on Scotland post-Covid-19, we urge an ambitious, granular debate on the ways to transform our country and make it greener, fairer and more democratic for all.
Fractured Union
As epitaphs are written for the Union of 1707, prematurely or not, the author argues that unionists misunderstand it: it’s a process under constant negotiation.