Also by jossg

"The road to economic recovery isn't a road - it's a flight path." That's the message currently plastered all over the London underground, courtesy of Heathrow owners BAA. The company's new campaign to reopen the third runway debate is a self-serving effort to play on people's economic anxieties at a time of fear, that much is obvious. But more than that, it's a con - both politically unrealistic and, more importantly, economically incoherent.

I’m having one of those moments when I’m genuinely in awe of what people power can do when there’s enough of us working together to take on the most polluting companies in the world.

Staring out at the bright, open, broken plains of Arctic sea ice back in September, more than once I was struck by the thought of the early explorers who first trekked across similar icescapes at both frozen ends of the planet. My first time stepping down onto the floating Arctic ice was exciting enough; hard to comprehend what it was like for those who were pushing the boundaries of where humans had previously explored.

At about a quarter to eight, still sitting in the Mess having just cleaned off Ronnie's lasagne, we got a call from Paul, the first mate, over the ship's tanoy system. "There's a big polar bear to our starboard."