Disposable nappies are so common in the west they’re thought of as normal. Yet, like so many of our consumer products, they are a recent invention only used by rich nations and are an unsustainable environmental nightmare.

The readily availablealternative, the washable nappy, is not only far better for the environmetn, but far cheaper too.

The aftermath of the war on Iraq has seen an avalanche of journalism rebuking the American case and making clear that we were hoodwinked into going to war. Yet the population at large was not hoodwinked at all – we knew at the time it was not about Weapons of Mass Destruction, and we said so loud and clear. That same mass media wilfully ignored us because, well, missiles exploding in Baghdad makes such good TV.

In this essay Merrick gives clear and specific insight into not only the admission by Western leaders that they lied, but how the mass media cannot be trusted any more than the self-confessed liars and murderers we have as leaders.

For decades the animal rights cause has been derided as sentimental anti-scientific nonsense. But increasingly it is being verified and vindicated by science. Peter Singer, author of the seminal book Animal Liberation in 1975, says that as we learn more about animals, so we are compelled to extend rights to life, liberty and protection from torture beyond humans.

As the leaders of the richest countries on earth met in Evian, france to promote the continuing carve up of global resopurces for corporate power, they were met once more by hundreds of thousands of protesters.

A peaceful protest to block a motorway along whaich the politicians were travelling was ended when Swiss police deliberately cut a rope by which a protester was hanging, letting him fall 20 metres on to a hard surface. He was severly injured, and lucky not to have been killed.

This is an eyewitness account of the event.

Wherever there are prisons, there are prisoners of conscience. Whatever your politics and morality, there are people who are in jail for doing things you’d applaud. If their resistance is to continue, they need support from those of us on the outside. If you want to write a letter that gives a real hope of a brighter future then write to a prisoner, not your MP.

The war for Iraq is war to prolong the supply of cheap oil. The demand for that cheap oil is our way of life, our personal consumption. We can stop the war, or we can have our cheap oil; we cannot have both.

While mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets are desirable items for Western consumers, they are all made with rare and unrecyclable mineral called coltan. Worse, the massive demand for coltan has been funding the biggest war in African history as militias take it from the rainforests of central Africa, poisoning the rivers with their mining and killing the rare wildlife for meat.

The more we spend, the happier we become. That’s the theory behind consumerism, and also behind the festive season’s consumption frenzy. During December, the average British adult will spend around £300 on christmas gifts. It is also the peak month for attempted suicide. Consumerism, far from making us happier, poisons our spirits and the earth we live on.

Fossil fuels are running out at an ever increasing rate. The oil-dependant way of life cannot be sustained for more than a couple of decades. So, what are the alternatives? Car companies promise hydrogen fuel calls as the way forward. But it seems that none of the promised techno-fixes can deliver a fuel supply like fossil fuels, and the scary truth is that when the oil goes, our whole culture goes

As the US government — obediently backed up by the UK regime — struggle to get the rest of the world to support a military attck on Iraq, a justification for such an attack remains elusive. The West actively supports many regimes far more armed and dangerous than Iraq.

In this article, Merrick finds the underlying reason for the war is oil supply; and further, the underlying reason for oil being a motive for war is the power all of us in the west give it by using so much of it.