General

The fork in the road

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We could still aspire to the Sunlit Uplands, says Colin Tudge – but the world’s leaders are taking us and our fellow creatures in the opposite direction. The “People-led Renaissance” is necessary and urgent  Truly, humanity has reached a fork in the road; and, influential creatures that we are, whichever way we go we will … Read more

The real cost of junk food: why we need to re-think food strategy from first principles

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A new report from economist Tim Jackson at the University of Surrey tells us that our “addiction” to junk food is costing Britain £268 billion per year —  which far exceeds the total budget of the NHS. Professor Jackson calls for “bold, ambitious leadership aligned across government” to provide a more propitious “legal, fiscal and … Read more

How might the world be different

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In three recent blogs – The Biology of Compassion; Life is a Master-class in Cooperativeness; and The Battle for Darwin’s Soul – I have argued that a capacity for Compassion (kindness; love) is deeply embedded in our psyche. We should have far more faith in ourselves, and in “human nature” in general.  Here and in … Read more

Technology – and especially farming – for a kinder world

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If we really care about humanity, and our fellow creatures, and the future, then all our technologies, like everything else, must be rooted in the “bedrock principles” of Morality and Ecology. Colin Tudge asks what this might imply in practice There’s a very wide spectrum of technologies, from the humblest of crafts to “high-tech”.  Crafts … Read more

Onward the Greens! 

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Colin Tudge predicts big political re-alliances over the next few years – with a growing army of Greens  All political parties are coalitions. As someone once remarked re the Church of England, no two people sharing a pew think exactly the same, and this is abundantly true too of politicians sharing a bench. But some … Read more

A new bottom line

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— and a glimmer of hope. By Colin Tudge Keir Starmer promises change – but the change he is promising is of a very limited kind. Whatever form it takes it will be within the present “neoliberal” economic paradigm: an all-against-all competition with the world at large to increase material wealth, known as “growth”. Within … Read more

The biology of compassion: work in progress

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Colin Tudge introduces a new series of blogs on whether and to what extent the insights of modern biology can throw light on matters of morality, and hence on politics and economics  In a nutshell, I want to argue that humanity has been led astray these past few thousand years, and particularly over the last … Read more

Smoked Salmon – off the Christmas Table

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With smoked salmon off the table, what will take its place over Christmas?

Morality, reality, and policy

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Economic strategies worldwide take precious little account of the world’s real problems, says Colin Tudge  Even at this late hour, we (humanity) might still realistically hope to prevent the world’s final descent from catastrophe into meltdown – provided we took the real problems seriously enough and really were prepared to do, in Rishi Sunak’s bulldog … Read more

Agroecology, food sovereignty and the absolute need for economic democracy

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This blog is from a guest contributor, Professor Michel Pimbert of Coventry University — on the corporate takeover of the world’s farming and hence of our food supply, which is increasingly abetted and ratified by governments like ours and even these days by the United Nations. This power-shift is seriously undermining the principles of Agroecology … Read more