Greenpeace: putting trees before people

At the end of last month, the Guardian’s environment correspondent, David Adam, reported from Brazil on Greenpeace’s allegation that illegal deforestation in the Amazon Basin was linked to a number of giant UK food firms. But were Greenpeace’s claims all that they...

Top British boffin: Time to ditch the climate consensus

Just two years ago, Mike Hulme would have been about the last person you'd expect to hear criticising conventional climate change wisdom. Back then, he was the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, an organisation so revered by...

What would you pay for 400,000 new green jobs?

Good news emerged from the recent Low Carbon Summit hosted by bailed-out £10bn loss-making bank, RBS. Peter Mandelson got covered in custard, and the government announced a new industrial strategy. Apparently 400,000 new "environmental sector" jobs will be created by...

‘We have an extremely selfish population’

In November 2008, the UK’s Climate Change Act was passed, committing the country to an 80 per cent cut in CO2 emissions by 2050. Politicians, NGOs, journalists and activists welcomed the target, but to meet it many far-reaching changes in our working- and day-to-day...

How you pay for tomorrow's scares, today

In a remarkably gullible news item, the BBC reported that 2008 was a ‘huge year for natural disasters’. "The past year has been one of the most devastating ever in terms of natural disasters... climate change [is] boosting the destructive power of disasters like...