May 2013

We're rounding up a Twitter posse to persuade MPs to back clean power. Will you join us?

For once, we all agree. 82% of people want to see more renewable energy. Yet George Osborne is still trying to keep us hooked on fossil fuels. On Tuesday, MPs must pick a side.

Here's a tip for anyone looking to do public relations for forest-destroying companies. The correct way to respond to a simple question about how much forest you're clearing is not to ask the journalist to stop filming.

Of all the shoulders to cry on, it might seem strange to pick the German Chancellor’s. But that’s what the German car association (VDA) did this week when its president Matthias Wissman wrote to her to moan that long-term targets for cleaner cars could strangle the car industry. He asked her to take a strong position against the regulations which are currently being debated in Brussels.

“I know that everything I say sounds like utter fucking bullshit,” a top Cuadrilla PR executive told me yesterday when I asked him about the risks fracking poses to the sleepy Sussex village of Balcombe.

When I heard it was World Turtle Day, I hatched a plan. I know that to an international audience ‘turtle’ covers  a multitude of reptile species, but rather than getting all Queens’ English-y over what is a tortoise, a terrapin or a turtle, I thought this was a good opportunity to focus in on the seven amazing species that roam our oceans – the sea turtles.

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity. An opportunity to celebrate and wonder at the amazingly diverse variety of species we share the planet with. This year it has a water theme, so we’ve been having some fun over on Twitter, and here’s our pick of the weirdest and most wondrous watery wildlife you definitely need to know about.

Drilling for oil in the Arctic – is it literally crazy?  Because it is driving some of the biggest companies in the world to exhibit what can only be described as irrational behaviour. The end of easily accessible oil from conventional sources is leading international oil companies (IOCs) to consider ever more extreme forms of oil and gas extraction – with the Arctic Ocean being among the last frontiers.