What happened in the House of Lords in 2022?
As so many reviews of the year will say, what a year 2022 was. And not in a good way. From the perspective of the House of Lords chamber, it…
We’re finally set to get an announcement from the government on methane
At the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, with the UK as chair, methane was a big part of the discussion – and the pact on this potent greenhouse gas held…
We must break the power of the rich. It’s time to #StopTheRot.
The #StopTheRot campaign kicked off on Sunday. Organised by Open Britain and calling for an end to the rotten politics of the UK, backing a petition to rewrite the ministerial…
The world cannot afford more militarism and exploitation
Editor's note - this is abridged version of an article that was first published in November 2021 - prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine There are many things…
Review: Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree
I was given Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest by a friend who knows me well. She was undoubtedly thinking of the…
The UK needs to sign up to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance to keep 1.5 alive
In the WWF briefing on the progress of the COP26 climate talks yesterday, its Climate & Energy Global Practice Leader Manuel Pulgar Vidal said, in reference to the agreement announced…
Telling the history of migration is an important step in establishing safe routes for refugees
Last week, with the world’s attention focused on the climate talks in Glasgow, there was yet more tragedy, desperate danger and awful fear in the Channel. At least four refugees…
From Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia – it’s time to end Britain’s lethal arms peddling
Politics has its cycles, not just elections, but events that come around again and again. But that doesn’t make it repetitive. No event occurs twice in the same political environment,…
Book review: The Inside Out of Flies by Erica McAlister
When I was aged 10 or so, I was fascinated by lungfish. This pioneering group that built an evolutionary bridge between sea and land life, survived the extinction of the…
The Environment Bill needs to go much further
Amendments to Bills can be opaque, impenetrable things: “delete the word ‘may’ and replace with ‘must’” and such like. Even with the increasingly standard practice of including a sentence of…