Articles

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 […]

Controversial proposals for the first UK ‘superdairy’ at Nocton, in Lincolnshire areabout to be re-submitted to the planning authorities. In the face of accumulating data that intensive factory-style livestock production is cruel and polluting, the US is beginning to question the wisdom of this type of farming. Pat Thomas asks, why on earth would the […]

How to make your food your medicine and medicine your food, starting with six common herbs you can use in your recipes and everyday cooking The smell of our food is inexorably linked to our enjoyment of it. In fact, taste and smell are the two most directly linked of our senses. Aroma is the […]

Wildlife documentaries? Eco-tourism? Pat Thomas asks: Are we loving nature to death? A new report puts forward the theory that wildlife film makers are invading the privacy of animals by going to ever greater extremes to film otherwise unseen moments of life in the animal kingdom. According to Brett Mills, a lecturer in film studies at the University of […]

In the run up to the British general election, Pat Thomas says the various party manifestos are starved of sound policies on food security and sustainability Food is a four letter word. Or at least that’s the impression given by the election manifestos of the main political parties. Most of the documents devote a demure […]

Keeping your baby’s bottom soft and dry shouldn’t mean exposing it to a potentially harmful and environmentally costly substance. By Pat Thomas Talcum powder is a traditional mainstay of freshness. We use it liberally on babies’ bottoms and to absorb perspiration on hot summer days and nights. A few of us are old enough to […]

“The people are revolting” – as the old joke goes. But revolting against what? And just who are this era’s revolutionaries? The metaphorical, if not actual, role of the revolutionary is to have a vision. It is to overthrow a tired status quo, to liberate the enslaved – whether they are physically enslaved or whether they are […]

News agencies, newspapers and especially the blogs of Big Agriculture and the livestock industry are rubbing their hand with glee. A new analysis claims that meat may not have as great a climate impact as has recently been reported. The paper, Clearing the Air:  Livestock’s Contribution to Climate Change, suggests that figures in the UN […]