George Monbiot

Is the airship a viable alternative to jet travel?

Vegetable evangelist George Monbiot on his healthy obsession with home-grown produce: Why do people become obsessed with growing vegetables?

"Coal is so clean and fresh that the prime minister brushes his teeth with it, Downing Street said last night. Mr Brown said advances in coal technology meant it was now one of the cleanest substances on Earth, and an unrivalled remover of stains and scaling." So says the satirical website the Daily Mash. The real claims are scarcely battier.

Developing nations are being pushed to grow crops for ethanol, rather than food - all thanks to political expediency. It doesn't get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava.

A powerful novel's vision of a dystopian future shines a cold light on the dreadful consequences of our universal apathy.