Articles

A new book by WWF ‘Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity’ makes the case for a new kind of campaigning that sees the person behind the behaviour. Pat Thomas is impressed In the last few years the Ecologist has published many articles that sought to shed light on the psychological aspects of environmentalism. […]

Is orange juice as healthy and natural as it claims to be? Can it ever be ‘eco’? Pat Thomas reports Most orange juice manufacturers would have you believe that OJ is purity in a glass; a simple, natural, single-ingredient product. But behind this image of purity is a product that is heavily processed and engineered. […]

In his letter to the founder of Alcoholic’s Anonymous, in 1961, the psychoanalyst Carl Jung noted that the addiction was, at a very deep level, a ‘spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness’. Instead of internalising the search, experiencing it for ourselves, however, the alcoholic looks to the spirit in the bottle to fill the […]

You may think that by avoiding the near-extinct bluefin you’re off the hook and can tuck into other types of tuna. Think again, says Pat Thomas While the powerful new film The End of the Line has sparked a media frenzy of outrage, and pricked the conscience of many people about eating endangered fish, especially tuna, it’s […]

If you are reading this, chances are that you live in a city – one, perhaps, on its way to becoming a megacity with a population that exceeds 10 million or more. If not, it is likely that you, along with most of the world’s population, soon will be. Statistics from UNESCO suggest that 50 […]

Sustainability consultant Dr David Strong tells Pat Thomas why the way we think about sustainable building needs to be demolished and rebuilt In the recent budget, the chancellor committed the UK to the world’s first carbon budgets, which fix binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions over five-year periods, including carbon dioxide reductions of 34 per […]

In the movie The Matrix, characters are presented with a stark choice related to self-imposed ignorance. They can choose to swallow a red pill, after which they will become immersed in the real world, with all its hopelessness and despair and desolation. Or they can swallow a blue pill, which will cause them to forget […]

A little bit of natural seasoning won’t kill you, it’s what gets added – or taken away – that matters. Pat Thomas explains why refining and demonising salt is such a crude response There was a time when salt was worth its weight in gold – literally. And quite right too. Without salt, life would […]

Lack of funding for environmental groups is a chronic and worldwide problem. These groups are arguably some of the most important change-drivers. They are the ones with the data at their fingertips, the energy and creativity to tackle environmental problems head-on, and the will to keep at it even when the mainstream media has decided […]

In the last few years the Ecologist has written extensively on the flu – both the garden variety that strikes us on an annual basis and the wider threat of avian influenza, H5N1. The latest H1N1 virus is somewhat more worrying than H5N1 because of the greater ease with which swine viruses can be passed […]