Eating wild plants and mushrooms is a pleasure we should all indulge in, believes open air gastronomist Humphrey Birley - and this new edition of 'Wild Food : a complete guide for foragers' is just what's needed to get us exploring woods, hedgerows, meadows and salt marshes in search of edible delicacies.
For today's tourists and travellers the elephant in the room is the jumbo jet which whisks us to our destinations - but pollutes the air, promotes destructive development, and isolates us from the the real world. Rose Bridger reviews 'Beyond Flying'.
What kind of life really matters? Big, showy species, or the uncountable gadzillions of microbiota that do the biosphere's hard work, and whose DNA occupies every cell in our bodies and makes 'higher' life possible? Martin Spray on 'The amoeba in the room'.
Jonathon Porritt finds Mark Lynas's latest pro-nuclear tome 'gratifyingly short' and reasonably open-minded. But Lynas falls into the trap of seeing nuclear technologies as fast developing, while renewables are stuck - when the reverse is the case!
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!
'Business' has to made sustainable - but how is the transformation to be achieved? Finn Jackson reviews a key book on the topic - but finds that amid the checklists of criteria, the authors have somehow missed the point of it all.
Seeds are the gift of nature and past generations to us, and our gift to the future. Karl Grossman reviews 'Seedtime' - and finds that we must make that gift wholesome and fruitful - not a Pandora's box of genetically modified horrors.
Will the World Bank ever change? After decades of promises, initiatives, accords and re-branding, Bruce rich finds that the World Bank is the same old indiscriminate money-pump, still funding social and environmental catastrophe worldwide.
The Ecologist Guide to Food is no soft-centered feel-good flim-flam, warns Jan Goodey, as it tackles tough topics like the slave labour behind your prawns and tomatoes: essential reading for concerned gourmets everywhere.
Martin Spray reviews Protest Inc. - and is discomforted do find quite how deeply corporate money and influence has penetrated into our biggest conservation organizations.
The True Cost Accounting in Food and Farming conference was remarkable - star speakers ... fine food, drink and music ... even an impromptu Panto performance. In short, writes Sharon Garfinkel, it was an inspiration to all who attended.
The Gaia Foundation just launched its latest film - Seeds of Sovereignty. Sharon Garfinkel attended the launch - and urges all those interested food and farming, in Africa and elsewhere, to watch it.
Lone Droscher Nielsen addressed the Oxfordshire village of Wootton about the deforestation that is pushing orangutans towards extinction - all driven by the world's hunger for palm oil. Andy Morgan was deeply moved ...
As plans go ahead for the UK’s first new nuclear plant in twenty years, Edgar Vaid reviews a film that takes a look at the issues surrounding the use of nuclear power by our neighbours across the Channel ...
Edgar Vaid reviews the biography of a man who, after a supernatural experience, takes it upon himself to clone species of tree that he deems 'special'; trees that he believes may be crusaders in the fight against global warming ...
A new fictional character who ‘fights pain' wherever he finds it is a kind of eco-Bond for our time, says Heathcote Williams. Few could resist this ripping yarn.
Martin Spray reviews a text on eco-art that whilst (surprisingly) not visually stunning he found presented a comprehensive guide to the issues and approaches of the genre, as well as providing clues on 'where to look to next' ...
As George Osborne hails a renaissance for nuclear power in Britain, Alex Macbeth reviews Pandora's Promise, a new documentary film that asks whether we've got nuclear energy all wrong.......
It may be one of those New York Times bestsellers on sale at the airport, but Susan Clark is not fooled: this is a novel that sets out to tackle the biggest single issue we are facing.....
