Welcome! It’s timely to stress that The Political Compass has been on the internet since 2001. The uniqueness of our take on politics is reflected in the gratifyingly enthusiastic reviews we’ve enjoyed in the national media of many countries from our earliest years — as well as from many teachers and academics who continue to use our work.
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This is a crucial election involving, no less, Scotland’s constitutional future and a likely collision course with the UK government. An impressive overall majority would make the Scottish National Party’s call for another independence referendum almost impossible to deny. Given the unpopularity of the Johnson government in Scotland and widespread opposition to Brexit, there is growing support for independence.
Since you’ve been in the news, it seems timely to drop you a line. After all, it’s not everyone that gets a US holiday in their honour. You and Martin Luther King. The two of you could hardly be more different …
The Population Bomb was a bombshell best-seller when it was unleashed in 1968. Author Paul Ehrlich, a renowned biologist, warned of the consequences of unchecked population growth and introduced the term Zero Population Growth (ZPG).
The population then was less than half of today’s figure, yet the issue is barely mentioned now in the media and public discourse. Despite our greater awareness of climate change, peak oil and other related hazards, why did population slip off the radar?
Our growing list of interviews
It’s now 10 years since the catastrophic triple meltdowns of reactors at Fukushima in Japan. As Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health project put it three years ago, “Enormous amounts of radioactive chemicals, including caesium, strontium, plutonium, and iodine were emitted into the air, and releases of the same toxins into the Pacific have never stopped, as workers struggle to contain over 100 cancer-causing chemicals.”
There is news of the shortage of Fukushima health studies, big earthquakes (aftershocks) and typhoons rattling nerves …
Writers and artists have been generally more engaged in the big political debates of their day than composers, and their views are often more easily discerned through their works. So how well can we tell the positions of the great composers?
