Environment

Fight fire with fire: controlled burning could have protected Australia

11 January 2020 9:00 am

 Sydney By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in…

Our tree-planting obsession may do more harm than good

7 December 2019 9:00 am

‘Four beef burgers is the same as flying to New York and back! FOUR BURGERS!’ When I arrived at the…

Let’s give Extinction Rebellion protestors what they want

7 October 2019 11:25 pm

Extinction Rebellion’s leaders have arrived in London by fossil-powered train, car and bus – brandishing their mobile phones full of…

Young recycling zealots are talking rubbish

5 October 2019 9:00 am

Church attendances may be falling, but there’s a new religion in town: recycling. Its followers are devout and full of…

A modern-day El Dorado: the Serra Pelada gold mine, Brazil, 1986

Sebastiao Salgado – master of monochrome, chronicler of the depths of human barbarity

5 October 2019 9:00 am

Occasionally, we encounter an image that seems so ludicrously out of kilter with the modern world that we can only…

By taking on grouse-shooting, Labour is risking rural jobs

17 August 2019 9:00 am

The Glorious Twelfth this year, signalling the start of the grouse-shooting season, was overshadowed by a Labour party press release…

In praise of the bands that said no to Greta Thunberg

13 August 2019 8:41 pm

My faith in rock music has been temporarily restored. According to the manager of The 1975, the execrable essay/song that…

Were the US shootings racially motivated?

10 August 2019 9:00 am

Who wrote ‘Our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country … creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations…

Pure hagiography – the BBC’s Extinction Rebellion: Last Chance To Save The World?

20 July 2019 9:00 am

I’m beginning to feel like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: almost the last person on Earth who…

Re-wilders forget that humans are nature too

6 July 2019 9:00 am

‘Life pours back in.’ A score of us, listening to Charlie Burrell at the Knepp estate ten days ago, will…

Greenwashed: The strange triumph of eco-Toryism

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Even before the government this week announced a legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by…

Plastic fantastic: British Industried Fair, 1948

How plastic saved the elephant and tortoise

1 June 2019 9:00 am

Plastics — even venerable, historically eloquent plastics — hardly draw the eye. As this show’s insightful accompanying publication (a snip…

The truth about air quality? It’s the best (and cleanest) in living memory

18 May 2019 9:00 am

We are, of course, in the midst of an air pollution crisis which, like every other threat to our health…

The trouble with Greta Thunberg

23 April 2019 11:20 pm

In popular mythology Greta Thunberg is a one-girl revolution who has inspired millions of young people into action by being…

Will no one ever take on the Green Blob?

1 December 2018 9:00 am

Gosh it hurts when your little corner of paradise is destroyed by a few idiots’ ignorance and greed. This is…

I had no idea how fascinating rubbish could be: The Secret Life of Landfill reviewed

25 August 2018 9:00 am

Not the most beguiling of titles, I admit, but The Secret Life of Landfill: A Rubbish History (BBC4, Thursday) was…

Plywood at its most curvaceous, acceptable and collectible: Alvar Aalto armchair, 1930 (left), and moulded plywood chair by Grete Jalk, 1963

Grain of truth

8 July 2017 9:00 am

We routinely feel emotional about materials — often subliminally. Which is why new substances and techniques for manufacturing have provoked…

Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism

30 April 2016 9:00 am

Another pillar of climate alarmism is looking distinctly wobbly

It starts with tidying your sock drawer. It ends with emptying your mind

16 April 2016 9:00 am

It starts with tidying your sock drawer. It ends with emptying your mind

Justin Trudeau has his mother’s looks – and his father’s dodgy economics

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Justin Trudeau has his mother’s good looks – and his father’s dodgy economics

How humanity learned to love whales (and what they taught us in return)

13 February 2016 9:00 am

How humanity learned to love them – and what we learned about ourselves in the process

Are we at peak ‘peak’ yet?

30 January 2016 9:00 am

Near Victoria Station in London they began to build a tower-block advertised as ‘The Peak’. I expected it to resemble…

Zac Goldsmith: the London race will be tough for me – and the Conservative Party

2 January 2016 9:00 am

Zac Goldsmith explains how he will sell himself to a city that’s now solidly Labour

A Supreme Court justice and the scary plan to outlaw climate change

10 October 2015 9:00 am

How do you make an imaginary problem so painfully real that everyone suffers? It’s an odd question to ask, you…

We let programmers run our lives. So how’s their moral code?

10 October 2015 9:00 am

A few years ago, in the week before Christmas when supermarket sales are at their highest, staff at one branch…