Environmentalism

Policed conviviality: Serpentine Pavilion 2023 reviewed

1 July 2023 9:00 am

As I sat down at this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, I overheard a curious exchange. ‘You mustn’t create art within art,’…

The podcast that makes the world strange, mysterious and compelling again

29 May 2021 9:00 am

It’s interesting that we have decided shaming and yelling are the easiest ways to change people’s minds. Which is not…

The only things left worth watching on the BBC are foreign buy-ins like The Last Wave

8 August 2020 9:00 am

Soon, very soon now — even sooner than I imagined, if A Suitable Boy turns out to be as lacklustre…

Oodles of fun – but unfair on climate sceptics: Kill Climate Deniers reviewed

22 June 2019 9:00 am

Kill Climate Deniers is a provocative satire by Australian theatre-activist David Finnigan. The title sounds misanthropic and faintly deranged but…

The new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker is a delight – but the script isn’t

13 October 2018 9:00 am

You won’t be aware of this because the BBC has been keeping it very quiet. But the new Doctor Who…

From left to right: embroidered linen jacket, 1620s; pine marten fur hat, Caroline Reboux, 1895; man’s silk waistcoat embroidered in silk with a pattern of macaque monkeys, 1780–89

This V&A show, about fashion’s fascination with the natural world, will seduce and appal

21 April 2018 9:00 am

One of the prettiest pieces in the V&A exhibition Fashioned from Nature is a man’s cream waistcoat, silk and linen,…

The slow death of environmentalism

7 May 2016 9:00 am

Would you describe yourself as an ‘environmentalist’? I would, mainly to annoy greenies, but also because it’s true. If your…

I offered Zac Goldsmith £50 to stay 20 feet away from me

17 October 2015 9:00 am

I once tried to bribe Zac Goldsmith with a £50 note, but he didn’t bite even back then. He was…

My eco-home nightmare

20 June 2015 9:00 am

Buying an eco-home? Expect stifling springs and summers

The Green party isn’t nearly tough enough on Ancient Greece

14 March 2015 9:00 am

The Green party’s manifesto appears to make saving the planet only a small element in its otherwise painfully unoriginal agenda.…

Calling the Green party socialist is an insult to socialists

31 January 2015 9:00 am

The Green party has been likened to a watermelon: green on the outside and red on the inside. But that…

The darkest secret about commuting: some of us enjoy it

29 November 2014 9:00 am

In the early days of Victorian railways, train journeys were (rightly) considered so dangerous that ticket offices sold life insurance…

Does Ukip believe in anything any more?

7 June 2014 9:00 am

I’m worried about Ukip. It’s possible that my concerns are entirely misplaced but let me give you some examples of…

Tim Rice’s diary: From Eternity to here

8 March 2014 9:00 am

Last October, in these very pages, I wrote with what is now annoying prescience, ‘Like almost everyone else in the…

Spectator letters: Wind and bias, and the Scots at war

22 February 2014 9:00 am

Caution over wind Sir: While the broadcast media have assailed their audiences with simplistic yet blanket coverage of the floods…

The Environment Agency cares more about wildlife than people

22 February 2014 9:00 am

The Environment Agency may not be much use to humans, but it does great things for the depressed river mussel

You, too, can be a shale profiteer

22 February 2014 9:00 am

Here’s how to get a slice of the fracking action

The martyrdom of Mark Steyn

15 February 2014 9:00 am

When I first read, many months ago, that the notorious US climate scientist Michael Mann was suing the notorious right-wing…

How the MPs' expenses scandal proved the wisdom of Alain de Botton

1 February 2014 9:00 am

Whenever I’m tempted to pretend to be nicer so that fewer people hate me, I remember my old friend Alain…

Why we should let Faroe islanders hunt whales

1 February 2014 9:00 am

Marine charities should stop obsessing about a few Faroe islanders and go after the real villains

Agitprop for toddlers: the oddly strident politics of CBeebies

25 January 2014 9:00 am

The oddly strident politics of CBeebies

Why climate change is good for the world

19 October 2013 9:00 am

The current scientific consensus is that climate change is doing more good than harm