How about life on Mars?

We can't trust billionaires to get us out of the climate crisis.

Elon Musk's this false notion of hope is often packaged and sold in plastic solutions and empty promises.

As the war in Ukraine continues to devastate lives, Russian oil roulette plays out across the political table. Bulgaria and Poland have been cut off from Russian oil and gas supplies, while Europe scrambles over Putin's demand that customers pay in Rubles - creating a further spike in energy prices.

It's clear that fossil fuels are a risky game. Perhaps the answer is blowing in the wind, or illuminating from above. While the solutions are out there, I shivered whilst watching Elon Musk excitedly talk about nuclear energy, lithium, electric cars and boats being the pathway out of climate breakdown.

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Eco-Anxiety

Musk's false notion of hope is often packaged and sold in plastic solutions and empty promises. And if it doesn't work out - how about life on Mars? And it always comes from commentators who brand activists who are generally concerned about the environment as "the doomsday people".

Ecocide is often covered up by boundlessly creative greenwashing campaigns. Net-zero and carbon capture are both sneaky ways in which corporations cover up their dirty carbon footprints. Andrew Simms discusses in his article in The Ecologist argues that bad climate ads should be banned - just as harmful tobacco advertising has been regulated.

The Ecologist also unpicks eco-anxiety with Richard Seymour, author of The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on Ecosocialism and Barbarism. Activists often feel the brunt of guilt around climate catastrophe despite the fact about a hundred corporations are "responsible for 71 percent of global carbon emissions”.

Brendan Montague publishes an article that looks at ecotourism's negative impact on primates. Anyone who has visited a popular 'ecologically protected site' will have witnessed first-hand the ways tourism can pollute, disrupt and endanger fragile species and ecosystems. How can we find a way to protect nature and love it too? 

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Yasmin Dahnoun is assistant editor of The Ecologist.

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