Author Archives: davidsprott

About davidsprott

Artist, writer, veteran IT professional

Prepare to Critically Assess the Hype Around COP26

I’m reading a very interesting book by William Catton called Overshoot. Amazingly this was first published in 1980, yet describes where our world is today, how we arrived at the current mess and what we need to do to extricate ourselves. Continue reading

Posted in Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, climate Change Models, COP26, Survival of the Human Race, Technology and Society | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to Fix Facebook and Reinvent Social Media Futures

Our problem is that Facebook is a huge monopoly. They can do what they like. Our opportunity is to encourage Facebook to come to recognize that their continued existence could be just as, if not even more lucrative, if it was socially responsible. Continue reading

Posted in Digital Transformation, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Governance, Technology and Society, Technology Platforms | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Community Based Food Production is the Future

The ideas of localisation, community initiatives and personal responsibility, particularly in food production, provide very real opportunities for everyone to make a valuable contribution now. Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, climate Change Models, Localisation, Organic Farming, Sustainability, Sustainable Food Productiojn | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ideas Load the Gun, but Instinct Pulls the Trigger

We mustn’t look to conventional politicians and business leaders. They are hopelessly conflicted. We need to empower numerous cohorts who become powerful by adopting instinctive thinking – where climate friendly decisions are the only option Continue reading

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Last Night at the Poms

I’m with Simon Rattle who said in a recent interview with the Radio Times that he avoided conducting the Last Night because of its “jingoistic elements”. However last night’s performance showed that a large section of the audience don’t like nationalistic behaviour spilling over into politics! Continue reading

Posted in Brexit, Brexit Britain, Technology and Society, Travel | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Future Government? It’s Time to Handover to the Next Generation

I would never try to tell the younger generation what to do. But just imagine for a moment how a worldwide organization could emerge, almost overnight. And imagine if that organization provided high profile communications on how individual countries are performing (or not) against climate and sustainability targets, and supply the media with material (ammunition) to challenge the existing political hierarchy. Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, COP26, Democracy, Governance, Policy Making, Politics, Technology and Society | 1 Comment

Magical Mystery Tour

So far, young people have mostly addressed the climate emergency as a protest group. No problem with that. But moving forward the younger generation needs to take charge, to ensure the world takes the right decisions and gets out of the mess we baby boomers have created. Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Covid19, Life Long Learning, Organic Farming, Skills Development, Technology and Society, Travel | Tagged | Leave a comment

Climate Change is Reversable, But “WE” need to take responsibility. Otherwise governments and vested interests will prevaricate with inevitable consequences.

As individuals we have limited leverage. But as consumers, if we work en masse, we do have power. This means stop blaming others and start figuring out what we can do collectively. Continue reading

Posted in Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, climate Change Models, Electric Vehicles, EV, Skills Development, Technology and Society | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Don’t Panic Mr. Mannering!

I have made the point many times that it will be almost impossible to link individual events to global climate. Hard evidence is almost impossible to acquire until large numbers of events and lots of data are available. By then it will be obvious to all. But given this conundrum we must expect a deluge of climate denial. In the last 18 months we have seen a huge amount of fake news and conspiracy theories surrounding Covid19. Given the extremely difficult and urgent decisions that will now need to be made around climate, we can expect a battle royal. Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, climate Change Models, COP26, Survival of the Human Race | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Net Zero is a Con Trick?

Carbon reduction technologies should be seen as a solution of last resort that could save humanity from rapid and catastrophic environmental change. Just like an ejector seat in a jet aircraft. However, governments and businesses seem to be serious about deploying unproven technologies as a way to avoid doing the hard graft. And of course it will be the new kid on the block for making unimaginably large amounts of money! Continue reading

Posted in Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, climate Change Models, COP26 | Tagged , | 4 Comments