The West Coast Main Line, on its last push into the built-up South East, rises through a tantalising swathe of rolling, yearning countryside. The trains breast the scarp in minutes. Then this narrow ribbon of the Chilterns is gone. How many travellers, since Robert Stephenson built the line in the 1830s, must have thought: ‘If…
Read full postI feel the tug of the sea as I exit Hastings railway station. No need for a map. Just follow the wheeling seagulls downhill to the beach. What does the town forever linked, with geographical imprecision, to England’s biggest home-defeat do to erase 1,000 years of hurt? It turns instant recognition to its advantage, rebranding…
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Imagine you are trying to create inhospitable conditions for wildlife. Cut down any plants, dig out the soil, compact the ground and concrete it over. This is what millions of people in the UK choose to do when they raze their front gardens to the ground for reasons such as ‘ease of maintenance’ and ‘convenient…
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‘What do you think of climate change?’ I often ask people. If they reply ‘a hoax, and if it is true it’s natural’ – I think, ‘seriously’? Then I run out of words! Or they may reply, ‘we’ve left it too late’, which I can stomach but still I’m puzzled. To put this into context,…
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The environment and the health of our planet are in the hands of you and I. Every single thing we do affects what happens. Even when we walk to school or work, most of us are wearing shoes that have been created from leather from a cow, which, over time, will wear down and then…
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The words ‘palm oil’ make my heart drop. This usually occurs when I help do the weekly grocery shop. For some years I was aware of palm oil’s impact on our environment, but it’s only in the last eighteen months that the scale of the problem has hit home. The Good Derived from the fruit…
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Is it reasonable to demand that the UK government take drastic action to address the climate emergency, when China’s emissions far outweigh our own? As someone who works in the media, this is a question I’m asked a lot. It is clear that seismic shifts will have to take place globally if we are to…
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A plant-based diet isn’t just good for the environment, but also for our health and animal welfare. I’ve been vegan for 4 years and it’s one of the best life choices I’ve ever made. At first I found it hard to believe that I could live without meat, eggs and dairy. I needed protein –…
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I’m not a funeral director, but I’ve wrapped dozens of people in a funeral shroud. It was the same shroud every time; my shroud, and the people I’ve wrapped in it were very much alive. After a demonstration of shroud wrapping, I ask people how it feels. ‘Peaceful,’ they usually tell me. ‘Like being tucked…
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Jessica Townsend meets Maxine Peake, an actress keen to talk about the climate and ecological emergency When Maxine Peake enters the small back room at the National Theatre for our interview, she is tall and glamorous: so far so showbiz. But it’s only when she begins to speak that I’m smitten: this woman is smart,…
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