Monday, September 17, 2007

Michael O'Leary's green business model...

From an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

'For once Mr. O'Leary--whose ego is reputedly as large as Ryanair is profitable--may be selling himself short. While Ryanair mimics Southwest in avoiding the largest hub airports and not selling assigned seats, the Irish carrier's efforts to reduce overhead go much further. If you want to check a bag, you pay extra. If you want a soft drink or pretzels on the flight, you pay extra. If you want an air-sickness bag, too bad--Ryanair has removed those, along with the back-of-the-seat pockets where they might have been stored, on all its aircraft. If there's a cost to be cut, it's been cut.'

In other words, if you don't want someone to do something, slap a charge on it. It seems like that's the only policy the UK government has, these days. Maybe they have more in common with O'Leary than they'd like to think.

My 'Stupid Business'

(Personally, I quite like O'Leary's take-no-shit approach but I hate flying Ryanair. Sometimes, though, they're so damned cheap there's no alternative. Just don't expect it to be a stress free experience and never travel at night if you can avoid it - the slightest whiff of a problem and their bargain basement planes can't fly. And as soon as anything goes wrong, you're screwed with them.)

Friday, September 14, 2007

Fast Food Nation

I've written a review tied to the DVD release of Richard Linklater's film in the UK.

Culture Wars

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Speaking at the Battle of Ideas

I'm speaking at this year's Battle of Ideas festival which takes place at the Royal College of Art in London on 27/28 October. My sessions are:

Will ethical shopping save the world?

and

Recycling is a waste of time

Monday, September 10, 2007

Mobile phones and the environment

I've contributed a piece for this debate:

What future for the mobile footprint?

My basic argument is that human labour time, not resource efficiency, should be the test of whether we do something or not. Environmentalists are more concerned with stuff than with the needs of people.