General

The Renaissance Movement: Part I

A modest proposal from Colin Tudge to establish a new, people-led initiative to save the world from terminal decline  PART I: WHAT IS AND WHAT COULD BE  On every front there is disaster: ecological, social, political, economic, moral, spiritual; and, unsurprisingly, a pervading mood of pessimism and indeed of despair. Yet if only we –…

The Renaissance Movement: Part II

The agenda To bring about the Renaissance that is so urgently required we need:  To rethink everything we do and take for granted from first principles; to rethink everything in the light of everything else; and to re-structure where necessary, which is much but not all of the time Emphatically, we don’t need to start…

How many people can the earth support?

Andrew Lack takes issue with Colin Tudge’s suggestion that we, humanity, should be aiming for a world population of one billion rather than the 10 billion that now seems liable to come about  Colin has suggested that a billion people on earth may be sustainable, requiring an eight-fold or even greater reduction from the situation…

Soil is a community. It is a conversation

Rabbi Jeffery Newman reflects on the harmony of life, as is manifest in science, in religion, and is visible in a clod of earth Civilisation rests on six inches of soil. The film of that name — Six Inches of Soil (Colin Ramsay, 2024) has made this truth newly visible to a wide audience, but…

To Everything There Is A Season – Part 2

Continuing suggestions for a Natural History GCSE from a cook’s perspective.

Why we need the Renaissance Party even though there seem to be more than enough political parties already

An Apologia by Colin Tudge Many thanks to everyone who commented on my blog of September 11 suggesting that we need a new political party – “The Renaissance Party”, aka the RP. By far the majority were favourable though there were objections of various kinds to which I would like very briefly to respond. Thus: …

Fellow Creatures

PART ONE: THE ABSOLUTE IMPORTANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY Why wildlife matters – and why Britain needs to introduce a GCSE in Natural History In 2011 the wildlife campaigner and author Mary Colwell began to publicise the idea that we – Britain; society; the world – need a GCSE in Natural History. With help from the…

Blackshirts under the organic bed

A new 30-page booklet called Organicism and Fascism in the UK claims that the organic movement, including the Soil Association and the Biodynamic Association and also, by association, the Oxford Real Farming Conference, is tainted by its Far Right and racist origins which it fails to face up to. In truth, says Colin Tudge, the…

How might we live in the future?  And what do we really need to do to enable us to live as well as possible? 

Chris Jones suggests that the high technologies we are developing now with such vigour and at such expense, are leading us into a future that is not realistic. So what do we need instead? We have become used to lives of increasing complexity, with a steady increase in the availability of ever smarter, labour-saving, pleasure-giving…

Not much scope for optimism – but never lose hope!

A fellow journalist, Barrie Lees, has written in pessimistic vein to tell me that my plans for A 21st Century Renaissance (April 2 2025) are unrealistic, or indeed forlorn (see comment number 7). Here’s my response:  Dear Barrie,  I’m not saying the Renaissance will in any sense be easy. I am merely saying it is…