Category Archives: climate change

Why do we wear disposable gloves in Chemistry labs?

Posted on September 3, 2012 by

Do you wear disposable gloves in the lab? Our undergraduates wear them even when building spectroscopes out of cardboard boxes and sticky tape, let alone handling solutions. Our graduate students, working in the research labs use them all the time … Continue reading →

Posted in green champions, safety, saving money, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Hot Hot News – Capitalism is a Scam

Posted on April 3, 2012 by

The Financial Times and the Stock Exchange have long been the gold standard in economic data, underpinning the belief that capitalism and free enterprise are the optimum route to personal and national enrichment. Over the years a whole industry has … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, Irony, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s the Demand, Stupid!

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

The kerfuffle in the UK this week about possible disruption to petrol supplies as a result of an industrial dispute involving tanker driver has turned into an astonishing political liability for the coalition government. In part this was because of … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, energy, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

UCL Chemistry water flow update – ups and downs

Posted on March 4, 2012 by

Annoyingly I pressed publish accidentally so an incomplete version may have been posted out to the few subscribers I have – apologies for wasting your time. Time for an update on the water flow situation in our Department. In case … Continue reading →

Posted in carbon footprint, climate change, green champions, Uncategorized, water | Tagged , | 4 Comments

And the water flows on…..

Posted on June 30, 2011 by

Through the autumn and winter I wrote several times about our Department’s water use and our attempts to get a handle on where the water was going and then to find ways to stem the flow.  As I haven’t written … Continue reading →

Posted in green champions, water | Leave a comment

Lord Monckton and the painful truth

Posted on February 4, 2011 by

You probably think I live in front of the television as, once again, I find myself commenting on a science documentary, this time from the wonderful BBC4. The programme, in the Storyville series,  “Meet the Climate Sceptics” by Rupert Murray, … Continue reading →

Posted in bad science, carbon, climate change, public science | 8 Comments

James Delingpole and the Scientific Consensus

Posted on January 26, 2011 by

I’ve just watched the latest edition of the BBC’s Horizon programme, Science under Attack, in which Paul Nurse, the current head of the UK’s Royal Society goes out to try to understand why there is so little trust in science … Continue reading →

Posted in bad science, climate change, public science | 39 Comments

And yet it flows…..

Posted on December 17, 2010 by

Christmas is in the air. Temperatures are dropping again. And we are only days away from the Departmental Christmas shut down. To my surprise, it didn’t prove too hard to get agreement to ensure that every single experiment in the … Continue reading →

Posted in green champions, water | 2 Comments

Is Idealism dead?

Posted on October 2, 2010 by

Start of the academic year. Time for me to give my annual lecture on lab safety. As the person in the department who, I suspect, has done himself more damage doing chemistry or chemistry-related activities, I was fingered a couple … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, green champions | Leave a comment

Tipping Point 2010

Posted on September 11, 2010 by

Term is approaching at an alarming rate. But I get to take a couple of days off at Tipping Point in Oxford. I feel very privileged – I was asked last year by Mark Maslin of UCL Environmental Institute who … Continue reading →

Posted in climate change, public science | Leave a comment