Articles

There was a time when sustainability was a laudable concept. Today it is often a sales gimmick. Tag the word ‘sustainable’ on to anything and it becomes a niche commodity, a way to gain advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The travel business is a good case in point. You can hardly open a newspaper […]

If you don’t know what’s gone into making your drink, stick to organic beer and wine this Christmas, says Pat Thomas It’s that time of year again. Party time. A time of good cheer. Time to hoist one in honour of the old year and in hope for the new one. The holiday season is […]

Genetically modified food. It’s a big issue. Increasingly, we are handed the notion that GM food is just like any other food, only better, because of its almost magical power to solve our most immediate crises of poverty, hunger, fossil-fuel depletion and climate change. In a world where we are daily met with the grief […]

The Government and Big Biotech say GM food is safe to eat, but with no trials conducted on humans, what they call ‘safe’ and what we call ‘safe’ may be two very different things. Pat thomas reports When it comes to food safety, it is inevitably the smallest things that bring us to our knees; […]

Big Tobacco would have you believe that where there’s no cigarette smoke there’s no fire, and so no health issues. Pat Thomas stubs out that misapprehension. We get an entertaining selection of press releases each week at the Ecologist. Recently, however, amid claims for the greenest 4x4s ever, vegan-friendly breastmilk ice cream and strip-mining with […]

Welcome to the new look Ecologist, which, I hope, will make negotiating our monthly cornucopia of in-depth investigations and stories a little easier for everyone. More important than what’s on the outside, however, is what’s on the inside – which is as thorny as ever. Reading our special investigation on meat I am reminded of […]

Sometimes even the greenest of activities have hidden impacts on the environment. Pat Thomas explains why eco-minded cyclists should break the chain of lubrication dependence. I know, I know. Every time you think you’ve gone your greenest, some killjoy comes along and raises the bar a little higher. Apologies in advance. There are an estimated […]

The environmental movement has long thought that the answer to many of our societal ills is simply to slow down. We already have slow food, slow cities, slow travel. Pat Thomas suggests that it’s time for slow sex. In my days as a therapist, I once sat in a room full of women and my […]

Years ago, when Jonathon Porrit said that capitalism was ‘the only game in town’ it was not a ringing endorsement of the free market but rather a pragmatic, grudging acknowledgement of the reality of a world ruled by the current capitalist structure. His hope was that environmentalists would recognise this, factor it into their campaigns […]

Marketed as a superfood with almost magical properties, soya protein is found in almost everything we eat. It’s a shame its health claims aren’t worth a bean, says Pat Thomas. Within a very short time frame – a decade or two – soya has infiltrated our daily diets to a spectacular degree. Believe the PR […]