South Australia

“The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival”

Now when Ethics, Policy and the Environment has finally published my commentary, I should be careful not to overuse quotes by Carl Sagan but, undoubtedly, South Australia is such a far-off place with a certain invested romance. The closest I ever been was when driving along the Great Ocean Road back in the autumn of 2008. This morning, Carol Bacchi from the University of Adelaide gave a talk here in Umeå in recognition of the honorary doctorate that she has received. Bacchi's method of critical policy analysis is immensely popular among my students so giving her an honorary degree feels very appropriate.

In other news and to my great surprise, the special citizen jury on nuclear energy in South Korea voted 60 percent in favour of resuming construction of the two halted reactors at Shin Kori near Busan. This is testimony to the hard work that Michael Shellenberger and others have put in to steer Korea away from fossil energy dependence. With a new report just published in The Lancet suggesting that, every year, more than 9 million deaths worldwide can be attributed to pollution, the case for accelerated deployment of nuclear energy and clean air could hardly be more convincing.