You could call it the see-saw effect: it has long been an article of political faith that as worries about the economy go up, interest in the environment must go down. It stands to reason: people who are concerned today about their jobs have more immediate matters of alarm than whether or not there may be more storms in 2055. Environmental concerns are a luxury of the rich, something we [...]

"If nuclear power is the answer, it must have been a pretty stupid question," went an oft-cited slogan of the 1970s environmental movement. But the question was not stupid, and it is even less so today when the challenge is even blunter: how are we going to provide for our energy needs in a way that does not destroy, via global warming, the capacity of our planet to support life? [...]

This might sound hyperbolic, but it is true: there is no longer any part of the globe that remains "natural" in any meaningful sense. Even the apparently pristine ice-clad poles are contaminated by man-made chemicals, many of which concentrate in the food chain - through fish, whales and seals - making the breastmilk of Inuit women so loaded with poisons as to constitute, in effect, toxic waste. Humanity bestrides the [...]

The location for this year's Camp for Climate Action - outside the Kingsnorth power station in Kent - was well chosen: it is here that E.ON wants to build the first new coal-fired plant in the UK in nearly 30 years. With coal the most global-warming-intensive fuel on the market, and six more coal plants in the pipeline if Kingsnorth gets the go-ahead, there is a clear line to be [...]

Three years ago, the environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben made a striking observation: that despite overwhelming evidence of a world-threatening rise in temperatures, our cultural realm seemed unaware of the looming crisis. "Where are the books?" he demanded. "The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas?" Global warming, he concluded, "hasn't registered in our gut; it isn't part of our culture".

How things have changed. Today, bookshops have entire shelves devoted [...]

If you thought a growing economy was bad, try living through a recession. Environmentalists routinely denounce the "mantra" of economic growth, pointing out - quite rationally and entirely correctly - that infinite growth on a finite planet does not make mathematical, let alone ecological, sense. But the idea of a no-growth, steady-state economy has always sounded like pie in the sky - and you have only to read the papers [...]

I am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain my optimism that we can stabilise global temperature increases below the "danger level" of 2°C. First, there is no sign that emissions are being reduced; rather, the opposite is happening. Second, it is becoming clear that the danger level for temperature increase is a good deal lower than 2°C.

The Arctic Sea ice cover is already approaching a new low. The new [...]

There are two competing explanations for today's high oil prices. One sees the price rise as the result of a temporary imbalance between supply and demand, exacerbated by a weak dollar and a bubble of speculative commodities trading. Fix these problems, adherents suggest, and the price can return to previous low levels, allowing business to continue as usual. The other sees the current price spike as symptomatic of a much [...]

I should start with an apology. In October 2006 I wrote an article for the New Statesman strongly advocating carbon rationing as the only appropriate response to the emergency of climate change. So you might expect me to be furious that the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, has shelved a suggested rationing scheme following a lukewarm government feasibility study. But I believe Benn has taken the right decision. Rationing now seems [...]

You may have seen the ads - enough to make any football fan's blood boil: "Germany 200, England 1". No, this was not a report from the World Cup qualifiers, it was a straightforward calculation of how much further forward Germany is in implementing the clean-energy revolution. Germany has 200 times more solar power installed than the UK - and this is not because Germany gets any more sun. The [...]