Lots of interesting articles around at the moment, so thought I'd post yet another one : ) 

Interesting little piece on Channel 4 news about the roots of Occupy and what might be next...

Final part of the blog from the Nice G20 counter summit.

So Boris’ bike scheme (actually thought up by Ken Livingstone of course) has been launched in London today. The idea is to give us a network of pay as you go bikes similar to Paris or Montreal, so that people give up their cars for trips around the city.

Great – it’s a start towards making London a bit more liveable and less polluted, as well as increasing office workers’ health. But it’s going to take a lot more than a few thousand bikes to make a serious change to our transport system and start really decarbonising. I don’t see much in the way of infrastructure for electric cars being put up, for instance. Instead, some token measures to make it look like we’re doing something.

But what’s really galling is the sponsorship by Barclays bank. Unable to contemplate actually putting some money into a public system like transport – for the good of all – our politicians have to seek £20 million from a financial institution that is up to its neck in funding the arms trade.

Check out this clip about the reasons for the financial crisis from radical social theorist David Harvey. There are several theories about why we are in this mess, including institutional and policy failures, blind belief in free markets or even cultural reasons.