Articles (Geographical)

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and plays a major role in regulating the weather and climate of the planet. It seems unbelievable, then, that it has taken so long for climate scientists to factor in the dynamism of the ocean into their climate calculations. But it’s not as easy […]

Climate change worriers have been on a steep learning curve for years. Desperate for certainty about the carbon cycle and how it affects climate, they’ve been grappling with concepts like “parts per million”, “feed back loops”, “CO2 equivalents” and “carbon sinks”. Reliance on the media as a primary teacher simply has added to the confusion. […]

Of all the forms of alternative energy, none is so contentious as biofuels. More than a decade ago the possibility of filling the energy gap with fuels made from plants came charging onto our horizons full of bold promises.  But the promises have not been fulfilled and this book in part aims to explore why. Within […]

  There’s the price that you pay for something in the store and then there’s the other price, the hidden price, the price that everyone pretends isn’t real. This challenging, at times gritty documentary by director Frank Piasecki Poulsen goes deep behind the gloss, glamour and convenience of mobile phones and reveals a price so […]

Biodiversity. It’s this year’s big green word. Yet when we think of biodiversity we think mostly along the lines of plants, animals and insects. This beautifully illustrated book reminds us that human diversity is a vital, but often overlooked link in that chain. These days when we talk about learning from other cultures we often […]

As long as we can’t see it, it isn’t there. This is the kind of infantile logic, applied to the largely invisible destruction of our seas, that Paul Greenberg addresses in this really excellent book. Through a forensic exploration of the overexploitation of four of the most commercially popular fish – tuna, salmon, sea bass […]

Hunger drives us. Appetite is our motivation. The result, as this book suggests, is not always in our best interests. The premise of Pandora’s Seed is that switching from a hunter-gather culture to an agrarian one – probably driven by climatic changes which made food more scarce – set off a series of events which […]

‘Straight talk from an energy insider’ – declares the subtitle of John Hofmeister’s new book. And that may well be the problem. Hofmeister, a former director for Shell and a current director of several oil exploration and development companies, has a necessarily narrow view of both the problems and the solutions, and limited insight into […]

In response to Geographical’s special issue on the future of travel, Pat Thomas, editor of the Ecologist, pulls no punches as she offers her assessment of exactly what’s wrong with the global tourism industry. Another travel company bites the dust, thousands are stranded overseas. Some are stuck at home with no prospect of that dream […]