Times Literary Supplement

"Williams ... identifies radical environmentalists as 'enemies of progress' who have fundamentally turned away from human development and advancement'. Peter Pesic, TLS (September 19th, 2008)

At times it's not the most full-bodied endorsement - where once again I am riding on the coat tails of Nigel Lawson's book, (not my fault... and slightly embarrassing for my left-wing credentials, if truth be told) - but it's pretty good, I think.

I am grateful to the TLS for the mention.

In my role as co-editor, I have a new book "The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated" that will be reviewed in the TLS in January. See: http://www.futureofcommunity.org.uk/

Saturday Telegraph

Kind words indeed from Andrew English at the Telegraph Motoring desk. Many thanks.

As he says, sometimes books get overtaken by events, but the example he cites - of describing drivers of 4X4s as worse than paedophiles - is not uncommon. In fact I do indeed quote the ubiquitous George Monbiot as saying ‘a car is now more dangerous than a gun; flying across the Atlantic is as unacceptable, in terms of its impact on human well-being, as child abuse.’

But this update is all grist to the mill and more examples of this kind of degraded comparison - and moral grandstanding - are welcome.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/3163735/Why-motoring-will-only-get-more-expensive-Enemies-of-progress.html

Comment is Free

Andrew Simm, in Comment is Free, proclaims my small notoriety... and pretends that he hasn't read my book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/04/greenpolitics.climatechange

Culture Wars

A favourable review on Culture Wars website by Ben Pile, one of the founders of Climate Resistance
http://www.culturewars.org.uk/index.php/site/article/in_praise_of_unsustainability_1/

See Climate Resistance on www.climate-resistance.org

Little Atoms

Here's an interview about the book... and the subsequent Manifesto: Towards a New Humanism [ManTowNHuman] on Little Atoms with Neil Denny and Padraig Reidy.

http://www.littleatoms.com/sounds/austinwilliams.mp3

Climate Change

Here's a review of our team's heroic loss in the final debate about Climate Change in Melbourne.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7541&page=2
I think we won a moral victory... !

RIBA Journal

Here's a review from the RIBA Journal (July 2008) by Grant Gibson. I like it.

I have to say I caught my breath when described as a cross between Michael Moore and Sir Keith Joseph (two more reprehensible characters in modern history, I struggle to bring to mind) but Grant makes some valid criticisms:

http://www.ribajournal.com/story.asp?sectioncode=396&storyCode=3117008

Mind you, I have to say that I think it's a peculiar wishful thinking to suggest that the environmental consensus is cracking simply because Alastair Darling has refused to put two pence a litre on petrol prices. Actually, having read the article, I think that that is a far more strained example than my Libya one (at least, in the book, I said that I was using the Libya example as a rhetorical device).