The other day I got into a conversation about whether or not motorways should have tolls. This was in response to the planned imposition of tolls on the M5. My position was that, while there may be many reasons to oppose this new toll specifically, we should not be opposed to tolls in principle.
My argument rested on a particular premise – that not having a toll on a motorway was equivalent to a subsidy. Read More...
A friend of mine on Facebook occasionally shares posts from groups like ‘Progressives for Nuclear Progress’. They generally argue that nuclear power is an obvious and necessary part of addressing climate change and that opposition to it stems from a small-minded, anti-scientific environmentalism. I’ve always been agnostic on the question of nuclear power so I decided to do some research and here are my first impressions:
If you had asked me in the 50s whether we should have gone with nuclear or coal, knowing what I know now about both, I would have said nuclear without hesitation. Read More...
Some people seem to have no problem expressing opinions in public. Threads on Facebook news posts show thousands of people each time willing to publish a comment that is ill-informed, misspelt, or unrelated to the story at hand.
Whenever I feel the desire to comment on an issue though my first instinct is to do some more thinking on the topic and look things up. The more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know – things usually become more complicated, less certain. Read More...
