Author: James Woudhuysen
Could the Philippines be the spark for the next global conflict?
A row over a tiny Filipino island in the South China Sea has ramped up tensions between the US and China
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What is China doing in the Philippines?
The South China Sea is a tinderbox waiting to ignite
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China is in crisis
Xi is strengthening his grip over his party, the military and society
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Net Zero is a war on the working class
We are sleepwalking towards a social and economic catastrophe
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Labour’s green extremism will leave Britain in the dark
Keir Starmer’s plan to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 is insane
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Net Zero is killing British industry
Port Talbot steelworks is just the latest casualty of our elites’ climate-change crusade
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Taiwan’s future is more uncertain than ever
The fall in support for Taiwan’s anti-Beijing government will embolden Xi Jinping
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Are the Houthis dragging us toward a global trade crisis?
The attacks on Red Sea ships are having a dangerously outsized impact on the global economy
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The battle for the Arctic
Russia, China and the West are scrambling for control over the frozen tundra
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The electric-car fantasy
Rishi Sunak’s green diktats are a recipe for disaster
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The Dutch revolt against Net Zero
Voters have sent Frans Timmermans, the EU’s ‘climate pope’, packing
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British steelmaking won’t survive Net Zero
The transition to eco-friendly steel is already threatening thousands of livelihoods
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Why wind power won’t cut our energy bills
Ignore the misinformation from the green lobby – Net Zero is a financial catastrophe
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Now Greta is protesting against wind farms
Not even renewable energy is safe from the deluded eco-activists
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How the war in Gaza could fuel the next energy crisis
The West is woefully unprepared for another oil and gas supply shock
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In defence of fast fashion
The crusade against the industry is fuelled by contempt for the consumer
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Labour’s elitist assault on housebuilding
Keir Starmer has sided with Brussels and the British aristocracy to block thousands of homes from being built
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The Remainer outrage over Horizon is entirely confected
The EU science scheme is really not all it’s cracked up to be
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Britain’s elites need to own up to their failures
Responsibility dodging is now endemic among our leaders
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The ‘blob’ has gone to war with housebuilding
Britain’s environmental quangos are perpetuating the housing crisis
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The pain of Net Zero is coming sooner than you think
The UK’s proposed bans on boilers and petrol cars will be economically devastating
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Why oil and gas are here to stay
The clean-energy transition is based on magical thinking
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Forecasting failure: A short history of the future
Watch the video of James Woudhysen’s lecture on Forecasting at The Academy, 2023
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How Net Zero will punish ordinary people
Households are paying a heavy price for our elites’ green dogma
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The green roots of the UK’s water crisis
Climate-change alarmism has throttled innovation in the water industry
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The never-ending failures of the forecasters
The Bank of England isn’t the only ‘expert’ body that keeps getting its predictions wrong
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The struggle for Taiwan
The stand-off between China and the US is at serious risk of escalating
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Labour could not be more wrong about working from home
Keir Starmer’s plan for a ‘right to work from home’ will let work take over our lives
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The EU is deepening the energy crisis
Brussels’ Net Zero obsession will make Europe poorer, colder and darker
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Lights Out: Is the EU failing on energy policy?
Let’s first remind ourselves of a very simple truth: the modern world is built on energy
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Why the world cannot ignore South Korea
How Seoul navigates the tensions between China and the West will have major repercussions for us all
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The shocking incompetence of Ofgem
Energy companies are breaking into people’s homes – and the regulator is looking the other way
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Why water rationing is coming down the pipeline
Instead of securing our water supply, the government plans to radically reduce home usage
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Labour’s eco-aristocracy
Ed Miliband’s green policies would amount to a massive bung to the wealthy
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The green elites are living in dreamland
Their ‘green industrial revolution’ is simply never going to happen
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Just say no to digital ID
Tony Blair and William Hague’s scheme would rob us of our civil liberties
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Digital ID, A Tool To Control Thee?
This week, once again, Tony Blair has been bleating on about ID cards
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Who killed the car industry?
The British state’s green diktats are making drivers’ lives a misery
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Net Zero is a threat to energy security
The UK’s new energy ministry is grappling with two contradictory goals
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Why the public has gone cold on heat pumps
The UK’s Net Zero boiler-replacement scheme has been a complete flop
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Keir Starmer’s green war on workers
A Labour government would sacrifice jobs, growth and energy security to Net Zero
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Paul Ehrlich and the madness of climate alarmists
His prophecies of eco-doom have been proven wrong time and again – why is he still taken seriously?
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Jiang Zemin and the end of the era of openness
The late CCP bureaucrat’s liberalising reforms have made him an unlikely figure of nostalgia
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There’s no F in work
A new book sets out to unravel the complexities, opportunities and challenges of work in the post pandemic era
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Energy rationing is never acceptable
The UK government’s energy-saving campaign is an admission of failure
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The coming conflict with China
The smiles at the G20 cannot mask the deep tensions between East and West
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Why Sizewell C must go ahead
Failure to invest in nuclear power will lead to more energy crises in future
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The madness of the ‘15-minute city’
The green agenda is taking inspiration from the illiberal days of lockdown
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Blackouts: another dark consequence of Net Zero
Energy rationing is an integral feature of the green agenda
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22 Ideas About the Future
22 Ideas about the future, Edited by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram, Cybersalon Press, 2022
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Labour is living in eco-dreamland
Recycling failed policies will do nothing to solve the energy crisis
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John Kerry’s climate colonialism
Biden’s climate envoy wants to restrict Africa’s ability to grow
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That’s enough eco-propaganda, Sir David
David Attenborough should stick to educating us about animals rather than bashing human beings
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Renewables will not solve the energy crisis
Wind and solar are far too unreliable to meet Britain’s energy needs
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Stop blaming climate change for Pakistan’s floods
Poverty and underdevelopment are the real causes of this devastation
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Why Britain’s water industry stinks
The sewage crisis is a damning indictment of the water firms and our state bureaucracy
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Why Britain is on the brink of blackouts
Complacency and green virtue-signalling have wreaked havoc with our energy supplies
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Infrastructure Crisis on TalkTV
James talks to Julia Hartley Brewer about the infrastructure crisis in the UK
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Britain’s water shortages have nothing to do with climate change
Scaremongering about droughts lets the government and the water firms off the hook
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Why our infrastructure is falling apart
Britain’s elites have given up on building for the future
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The war on motorists is out of control
Making it more difficult for people to take short car journeys will hit the elderly and immobile the hardest
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Shinzo Abe’s troubling legacy
He was a giant of Japanese politics, but the hagiographies don’t tell the whole story
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We need democratic control over the Bank of England
‘Independence’ was a terrible idea. It’s time to reverse it
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Is the NHS now putting the planet before patients?
Senior managers are boasting about the environmental benefits of fewer face-to-face appointments
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The UK is squandering its gas reserves
Amid soaring prices and talk of blackouts, we need to get serious about energy
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Net Zero is a Stalinist fantasy
The UK government is imposing ever more drastic and coercive measures to meet its carbon targets
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Why the Elizabeth line is worth celebrating
We need more big, ambitious infrastructure projects across the UK
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Price caps won’t solve the energy crisis
We need to stop tinkering with tariffs and start scaling up nuclear power
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GB News Moral Dilemma: Should the West cripple the Russian military?
James talks about the moral dilemma facing western societies over the escalating war in Ukraine
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Russia is far from defeated
A complacent West underestimates just how low the Kremlin could go
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The energy transition we need
It’s time to drop the green pieties and invest in cheap and plentiful energy for all
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Scrapping green taxes is not enough
Net Zero is the real driver of soaring energy bills
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Surge pricing for energy is a dreadful idea
In its crazed pursuit of Net Zero, the government is bringing back electricity rationing
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We need energy security – not Net Zero
The government is too beholden to green fantasies to take our energy needs seriously
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Why Britain went to war over the Falklands
There was always more at stake than a tiny group of islands 8,000 miles away
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How many generals is Putin prepared to lose?
The loss of so many high-ranking generals is a sign of Russia’s meat-grinder militarism
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China has Taiwan on its mind, not Ukraine
Xi has little interest in getting dragged into Russia’s war
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This energy crisis has deeper roots than Ukraine
We are paying a heavy price for decades of policy failures
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China is playing a cynical game in Ukraine
Beijing has one eye on Kyiv, the other on Taiwan
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James discusses some key elements of the news on GBN’s Dews & Co.
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Debate on PartyGate police inquiry on talkRADIO tv
James on the on Darryl Morris show, talkRADIO TV, 11 February 2022, discussing PartyGate police inquiry
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The growth of the office gave employers unparalleled insight into their workers’ private lives
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Do you trust the SAGE modelling?
James responds to a discussion on GB News about why modellers tend to provide worst case scenarios around the Covid 19 pandemic
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The forgotten history of Pearl Harbor
Japan’s attack on the US 70 years ago was not a surprise, but rather the culmination of imperial rivalry.
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From profits to prophets: why has big business gone woke?
James joined this panel led audience discussion at the Battle of Ideas festival 2021 on the pros & cons of Woke Capitalism and what’s driving it.
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James on talkRADIO TV discussing COP26 and Carbon Net Zero
James on the Kevin O’Sullivan show, talkRADIO TV, 5 November 2021, discussing COP26, Net Zero and the climate change agenda
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Renewables won’t keep the lights on
The government’s clean-energy targets are a recipe for more shortages
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Will Aukus lead to conflict with China?
Tensions were already building in the Indo-Pacific
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Is China about to invade Taiwan?
Xi Jinping is hesitant – and he has good reason to be
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Electric cars are going nowhere fast
They are far too expensive to displace petrol cars anytime soon
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Why working from home is bad news for workers
Employers will intrude ever more deeply into employees’ private lives.
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Retailers have become an arm of the nanny state
Sainsbury’s is nudging its customers to become more ‘healthy’ and ‘sustainable’
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The Tokyo Trial: Japan as America’s alien ally and child
How Uncle Sam browbeat the Japanese
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Yuri Gagarin: when the world admired Russia
Western leaders’ praise for the USSR’s achievement 60 years ago stands in stark contrast to their Russophobia today
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Hands off Taiwan!
Neither Beijing nor Washington should be meddling in Taiwanese affairs
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Our armed forces need a total overhaul
The military is far too embroiled in destructive foreign interventions to defend the country
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Could the borderless home be worse than the open office?
At a time when the future of open-plan space is under review, a re-reading of Billy Wilder classic 1960 movie The Apartment reminds us of the dangers of a corporate over-reach into private lives
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The designer who unmasked Stalinism
David King exposed Uncle Joe’s attempts to rewrite the historical record
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Matt Hancock’s NHS power grab
His reforms provide enormous scope for ministers to meddle in our everyday lives
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Net Zero will take over our lives
The new energy White Paper will force us to obsess over the minutiae of everyday energy consumption
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The heat pump revolution: extracting power from the people
The climate technocrats’ posturing over heat pumps will be expensive, impractical and invasive
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In defence of Mark Twain
He was many things — an idealist, a wit, a supreme writer — but he was not a racist
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The Nuremberg Trials: fascism as a morality play
They reduced the historical and political horror of Nazism to an act of evil
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Why the next financial crisis could be green
States, banks and big business have gone all in on ‘sustainable’ funny money
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Trial of the Chicago 7: great cinema, bad politics
Despite its overbearing liberalism, Aaron Sorkin’s new film is a cinematic triumph
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The Stalinist folly of the ban on petrol cars
The government’s mad target of phasing out petrol, diesel and hybrid cars is not even close to achievable
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How Shinzo Abe failed
His reign as Japanese PM proved as ineffective as it was illiberal
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Taking China to task
Andrew Marr was right to grill the CCP over its brutal treatment of Uighur Muslims. Brits must resist easy moral posturing, however.
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What’s really behind the Huawei ban?
The security case against Huawei has always been weak
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Battle of Britain: empires at war
On the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, Richard Overy’s account shoots down many a myth
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Working from home: a living hell
A post-Covid ‘WFH’ regime will allow bosses to snoop as never before and isolate workers from each other
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Tailoring IT to the needs of customers
Few IT-based products and services are really a byword for intelligibility, let alone unalloyed customer satisfaction
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Working from Home: the 1985 verdict
The downsides to WFH were evident 35 years ago
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Boycott China? Don’t be stupid
China is set to become even more central to the world economy after Covid than it was before
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Covid-19 and the Chinese economy
At an Academy of Ideas discussion chaired by Rob Lyons, architecture guru Austin Williams (at 5m) and James (at 23m) talk about China’s history, its economy and its prospects
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There is no ‘appeasement’ of China
On the 80th anniversary of Dunkirk, we should remember not to dress up today’s conflicts in the politics of the past
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The war on transport
Even before Covid-19, elites were keen to reduce our mobility
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China since Wuhan
China expert Austin Williams and I introduce a debate on the internal and external dimensions of the Middle Kingdom’s economics and politics
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The end of oil is not in sight
Environmentalists dreaming of a post-pandemic future free of fossil fuels need to wake up
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Track and trace: The technology debate
Is there a #smartphone #app that can beat #Covid19?
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An epidemic of doomsday forecasts
Worst-case scenario thinking has clouded political judgement for decades
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Nudging: an elite disease
No10’s Behavioural Insights Team deserves close scrutiny. So do its critics.
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Electric cars – or electric vehicles?
Expensive electric cars have become a cover for nationalist carbonistas. Bigger electric vehicles should be our priority
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Flood warnings: prevention and the Environment Agency
Sky News discussion on the Environment Agency’s gospel of despair in response to recent floods
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HS2: a principle worth upholding
It’s time to advance a strong, democratic case for high speed trains in Britain
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The Huawei dilemma
Should Britain do a deal with the Chinese company? It’s complicated
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Sky News discussion on Davos, Prince Charles and Greta
The prince and the profiteers
Prince Charles has found a new role for himself as a globe-trotting convener of ‘green finance’
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Taiwan’s blow for democracy
Inspired by the Hong Kong protests, Taiwan has decisively rejected Beijing rule
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Honours list data breach
Sky News discussion on the data breach of 1100 addresses of people on the New Year’s honours list
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Ageing in China
Sky News interview on ageing in China and government interest in shaping family sizes
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Climate protests and Extinction Rebellion
Sky News on climate protests with Richard Ecclestone of Extinction Rebellion
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The EU is holding back innovation
Its plans for innovation have precious little to do with science and technology
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Greta Thunberg and climate change
Sky News discussion on Greta Thunberg and climate change
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Brexit is not a threat to British science
Will Brexit cause irreparable damage to British science? Eminent scientists seem to think so
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Massacre of the (future) innocents
Two key papers form the theory behind today’s anti-natalism. They are junk science.
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Prince Harry’s climate pledge
Sky News discussion on Prince Harry’s climate pledge to only have two children with Clare Farrell from Extinction Rebellion
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In defence of HS2
Planning and execution have been pure Theresa May, but the principle is right
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July 2019 heat wave and climate change
Sky News debate with Angela Terry of One Home on the July 2019 heat wave in the UK and climate change
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China and India set the pace in space
Fifty years on from the first Moon landings, the human conquest of space has changed
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The political economy of informal events, 2030
Below, a summary of my book – available at the bottom of this page – on #LiveEntertainment #musicfestivals #livemusic #nightclubs and events in the #arts and #sport.
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Net zero carbon emissions by 2050
Sky News debate with Amy Mount on the UK Government’s pledge to reach Net Zero in carbon emissions by 2050
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Justin Trudeau’s ban on single-use plastics
Sky News discussion with Dr Sharon George around Canadian premier Justin Trudeau’s ban on single-use plastics, 11 June 2019
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Trump’s trade war with Huawei
Sky News discussion on Trump’s trade war with Huawei
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D-Day: beyond the myth of the Good War
Seventy-five years on, let’s reckon with what really happened
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Rescuing British Steel
Sky News discussion on rescue plans for British Steel with Faiza Shaheen from Centre for Labour and Social Studies and James Woudhuysen
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Speech to IPSOS Academy: Disruption, climate change – and plastics
In this 30-minute talk, James interrogates trendy categories in innovation, explores the domains of forecasting and risk, and puts forward solutions to the problem of plastics
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Climate change report
Sky News discussion on the latest report by the government Committee on Climate Change with Amy Mount from Greener UK and James Woudhuysen
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"betray their immigrant heritage?"
This is flat-out white supremacist ancestry analytics. Values aren't genetically encoded by background & progressive poison like this is indistinguishable from far-right bigotry. @theipaper should be ashamed for giving this venal racism credit.
@jameswoudhuysen #Phrenology was reborn, with the dawn of #IdentityPolitics, and this #Stanford study is #pseudoscience in its purest form.
Innovators I like
Robert Furchgott – discovered that nitric oxide transmits signals within the human body
Barry Marshall – showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid
N Joseph Woodland – co-inventor of the barcode
Jocelyn Bell Burnell – she discovered the first radio pulsars
John Tyndall – the man who worked out why the sky was blue
Rosalind Franklin co-discovered the structure of DNA, with Crick and Watson
Rosalyn Sussman Yallow – development of radioimmunoassay (RIA), a method of quantifying minute amounts of biological substances in the body
Jonas Salk – discovery and development of the first successful polio vaccine
John Waterlow – discovered that lack of body potassium causes altitude sickness. First experiment: on himself
Werner Forssmann – the first man to insert a catheter into a human heart: his own
Bruce Bayer – scientist with Kodak whose invention of a colour filter array enabled digital imaging sensors to capture colour
Yuri Gagarin – first man in space. My piece of fandom: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/10421
Sir Godfrey Hounsfield – inventor, with Robert Ledley, of the CAT scanner
Martin Cooper – inventor of the mobile phone
Eugene Polley – TV remote controls
George Devol – 'father of robotics’ who helped to revolutionise carmaking
Thomas Tuohy – Windscale manager who doused the flames of the 1957 fire