The UK government recently gave its 'low carbon transition plan' an airing. At the launch of the plan, the unelected Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills who has been forced, twice, to resign from previous roles within the government for his...
A Peak Peak-Oil-Theory Theory
Five months is a long time in climate politics. The arguments change with the seasons. Back in the hazy days of July and August, the eco-newswires were dominated by stories about ‘record-breaking’ arctic ice extent – even though it wasn’t record-breaking, and the...
Who's the Basket Case, Oxfam?
There's an advert for Oxfam running on UK TV at the moment that caught our attention. It is most odd. [youtube eQK6ODxDfDY] The little old lady and her friends seem to be vomiting at injustice, thereby making the world a better place. In a way, this almost represents...
Road to an Atomic Damascus or the Green Reformation?
Poor old Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees: our future on a hotter planet, who once thrust custard pies into the faces of people who dared to question environmental orthodoxies. He now finds himself on the receiving end of eco-dogma. Fancy that. Just a month ago I had...
The Relentless Morbidity of Environmentalism
It’s Caroline Lucas again. Caroline Lucas MEP, who is expected to be elected as the Green Party's first leader later this week, said: "People will be literally dying from cold this winter while companies like Shell and BP are making record profits – that outrages...
Identity Crisis Politics
According to commentisfree, Ewa Jasiewicz is a writer, journalist, human rights activist and union organiser. In a recent post to the site, she identifies a split in the environmental movement between those who aim to stop climate change through ‘the system’, so to...
Split Over the Atom
George Monbiot's recent conversion to atomic energy, on the basis that 'I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear. Let it happen', continues to generate fallout. The latest is that Arthur Scargill, the man who led the...
Camping It Up
It's Climate Camp time again. Last year, activists numbering 1500 (less than the capacity of some nightclubs) took part in a high-profile protest near Heathrow Airport, the site of a proposed new runway. As the camps occupied themselves recycling their own urine,...
Climate Change Delusion By Proxy
Since the first case of the psychiatric disorder 'climate change delusion' was diagnosed in an Australian patient earlier this month, commentators have suggested that the symptoms expressed by Al Gore and the like point to the condition being a rather common one....
BBC On Bad Acid Trip
The merest sniff of an environmental problem can go straight to the heads of the soberest of science reporters and leave them mumbling jibberish about the imminent end of the world as we know it. Take last Thursday's edition of BBC Radio 4's normally excellent...