Articles

Ethical consumerism in the UK is currently worth £29.3 billion, yet 60 per cent of us feel we don’t have enough information to make an ethical decision. There is an ever-growing array of eco labels, but what do they tell us? Or fail to tell us? Pat Thomas explains It used to be easy to […]

We all know that smokers should quit the habit. But does nicotine replacement really help? Pat Thomas investigates There’s no getting around it. The nicotine in cigarettes is highly addictive and can make stopping smoking a difficult undertaking. Without a regular nicotine fix, smokers can experience withdrawal symptoms such as depression, irritability, insomnia, difficulty in […]

Oliver James’ new book asks if we need a new definition of success to help us find happiness. Pat Thomas agrees The concept of ‘affluenza’ did not originate with Oliver James. It has been in the psychological and sociological lexicon for more than a decade. There are websites devoted to it; TV programmes have been made about it. However it […]

Pat Thomas looks at this common complaint – and how the most common treatment for it may just pile on the pain. In the mid 1970s, US Federal analgesics that they are widely, but wrongly, used to treat other types of no different from ‘pushers’. ‘We’ve got ‘pain’ for which they are not a drug […]

Ethical consumerism in the UK is currently worth £29.3 billion, yet 60 per cent of us feel we don’t have enough information to make an ethical decision. There is an ever-growing array of eco labels, but what do they tell us? Or fail to tell us? Pat Thomas explains It used to be easy to […]

Our love affair with convenience culture extends to a reliance on convenience ‘cures’ for minor complaints. In the first article of a new series, The Ecologist’s Health Editor Pat Thomas says that self-medication isn’t the same as self-help. Achieving ‘good health’ is one of the single biggest preoccupations in modern society. But if pressed, most […]

It has spawned a dozen urban legends. It gets praised and reviled by bloggers. And it tastes like carbonated cough syrup. But does Red Bull do you any good? Pat Thomas reports The global energy crisis isn’t just a problem for cars. Humans across the globe are also suffering a chronic lack of vim and […]

The Environment Agency (EA) is within weeks of letting Monsanto escape its liability for dumping thousands of tonnes of cancer-causing chemicals – including all the ingredients of the DDT defoliant Agent Orange – in two quarries in Wales. Jon Hughes and Pat Thomas report. Unless a claim and ‘adversary action’ is lodged with the US […]

In his final State of the Union address, George Bush announced his support for the adoption of biofuels on a massive scale. But is the plan such a good idea? By Pat Thomas There is an old saying: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In the current scramble to face […]

We didn’t want GM on your table, but the crucial question now is, will we allow it in our tanks? Robin Maynard and Pat Thomas report In recent years, as horror headlines about genetically modified (GM) crops have vanished from the mainstream media, it may have seemed as if those battling to stop them being […]