Posts Tagged climate change
Debugging the curriculum
Posted by Nick Cowen in Education on 14/06/2011
Via Bishop Hill, we learn that schools will no longer be required to teach climate change as part of the science curriculum. This is a good step, not so much because of the political controversies surrounding climate change policy, but because its inclusion helped to set a bad precedent. It has become a common tactic of influential interest groups (whether on the right or the left) to try and get their pet issues inserted into educational policy so that they can be advocated nationally to the detriment of other important content. This is one of the drivers of unnecessary centralisation in the education system. This process diminishes teachers’ professional autonomy, reduces their local accountability to parents, and forces them to waste time complying with Government directives rather than delivering engaging lessons. Moreover, in concentrating on topical issues rather than the knowledge necessary to grasp subject areas, children’s educational horizons have been narrowed.
The EU’s roadmap for transport
Posted by Natalie Hamill in European Union, Uncategorized on 30/03/2011
The EU’s single market is epitomised by its adherence to the four freedoms, as set down in the Single European Act: the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Vital for the successful realisation of these four principles is the EU’s transport policy. Yet this area is under increasing pressure to modernise and evolve to meet consumer needs and the challenges of the future. This week, the European Commission published its white paper on transport. The paper sets out the Commission’s plans to meet climate change goals, reform an industry with a cumbersome overreliance on fossil fuels, and to improve and standardise transport links between the 27 member states. Unveiling the paper, Siim Kallas, EU Commissioner for Transport, emphasised its vital importance: ‘The choices we make today will determine the shape of transport in 2050.’
Carbon capers
Posted by David Merlin-Jones in Economics, Environment, European Union on 20/01/2011
The European carbon market has been temporarily closed after fears that it has been the victim of fraud. Having lost £7 million’s worth of carbon credits, there could be a polluter somewhere in Europe happily belching out their fumes knowing that they won’t be paying for it. This isn’t the first crisis to hit the scheme and the EU should now take a step back and assess if its climate change policies are the optimum way to curb emissions.
“It wasn’t me sir… It was him!”
Posted by Pete Quentin in European Union on 06/05/2008
Launching the buck on biofuel targets across the Atlantic, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson’s article in the Guardian last week stated “European biofuel production is having only a minimal effect on global prices”. (Roughly translated as: “It wasn’t me sir!”) But he warned “large-scale biofuel production, especially in the US, may be one of the factors pushing up global food prices as it diverts resources from food production.” (Roughly translated as: “It was him!”)