As Cameron 'cuts the green crap' Paul Mobbs remembers how the decisions of a Conservative government 20 years ago to go easy on the owners of contaminated land and old waste dumps have led to present day blight, ill-health and death. Now brow-beaten regulators and politicians in hock to party funders are doing it all over again.
A new financial crisis is threatening to dwarf the 'subprime' mortgage debacle, writes Paul Mobbs. Cheap money from central banks has fuelled some $1.3 trillion of risky investments in high-cost 'unconventional' oil and gas. Now, with oil sinking below $60, all that paper is turning to junk - and that's putting the entire economic system at risk.
Politicians are forever citing 'terror' as a reason to expand the security state and restrict civil liberties, writes Paul Mobbs. But when it comes to the real threats that face the world - ecological breakdown, climate disruption, resource crises, and an unjust and rapacious world order ... well, that's all 'green crap'. Isn't it?
Campaigning has never been so easy - sign an Avaaz petition here, send an email there ... and the world is soon put to rights, no? No, writes Paul Mobbs. We must examine the impacts and implications of our e-life, from climate change to corporate dominance, and take control of the technologies we increasingly depend on.
The UK Government's policy is to frack at all costs, against public opinion and compelling evidence of environmental damage and poor returns, writes Paul Mobbs - a timely reminder that as far as the Government is concerned, it has a God-given right to rule over us, no matter what we think or want.
A new scientific paper presents the radiation produced by fracking as 'natural' and harmless. But it's based on sketchy data, hyperbolic statistics and questionable assumptions, writes Paul Mobbs. Is it an attempt to stifle an essential public debate?
Why does the fracking lobby refuse to engage in open, public debate? Because, writes Paul Mobbs, it has already got its way, with the uncritical support of all the 'mainstream' media and political parties. You and I simply do not matter. So what are we going to do about that?
A wholesale corruption of science underlies the UK Government's insistence that gas from fracking offers a 'low carbon', low cost route to energy abundance, writes Paul Mobbs. On the contrary: it's expensive, over-hyped - and just as bad for climate change as coal.
A company bidding to undertake 'underground coal gasification (UGC) - a notoriously hazardous and polluting process - in the UK has threatened a Scottish clean energy campaigner: shut up or get sued. Paul Mobbs reports ...
Public Health England is guilty of gross scientific misconduct, writes Paul Mobbs, for its apparently deliberate whitewashing of the public health impacts of fracking. But it's all part of a pattern of maladministration that reaches to the heart of government.
In the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 we have found oil slicks and debris everywhere - none of it connected to the missing plane, writes Paul Mobbs. The seas are littered with human trash, and it's killing the oceanic ecosystem.
Fracking is just another step on the fossil fuel treadmill, according to 'Snake Oil' by Richard Heinberg. High costs, diminishing returns and growing pollution will ultimately nail its future. Paul Mobbs urges readers - give a copy to your MP before it's too late!
Political support for fracking is not just about energy, writes Paul Mobbs. It reflects the greater ecological and resource crisis at the root of our current economic woes - and only postpones the essential shift to a new kind of economy.
In rural West Wales, with no public consultation, the Ministry of Defence and QinetiQ are about to launch a new era in drone technology and experimentation. Paul Mobbs reports on Wales's role in a legally dubious future of mass surveillance and remote killing.
Three years after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe hit our TV screens, Paul Mobbs examines the still unfolding global disaster - and the motives of politicians whose love of nuclear power is stronger, than it is wise.
None of the various technofixes on offer alter the fact that humanity has to learn to stop living on the last drops of cheap energy, and to start living within its means
