The Nord Stream pipeline explosions: challenging false narratives

The claim that the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up by US special forces, made by the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, is being used to reinforce false narratives about Russia’s culpability for the war in Ukraine. In this article in New Politics, I write that Hersh’s claims about the purpose of the sabotage are factually incorrect, his account of the build-up to the explosion is misleading, his explanation for US motivation is flawed, and his failure to examine Russian motivation is one-sided.

Transport: how Silicon Valley turns technologies against us all

A review of Road to Nowhere: what Silicon Valley gets wrong about the future of transportation, by Paris Marx 

Appeal to Labour Party members: help turn back this tide of greenwash

A letter to Maggie Ferncombe, chair of the London Regional Labour party, Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for climate change, and friends in the Labour party in London, about the Silvertown tunnel project

Greenwashing governments and oil companies turned COP27 into a climate disaster

The international climate talks in Egypt have become a dystopian nightmare: Oil companies, dictators and greenwashers captured the process more effectively than ever. But there is hope: Alliances are taking shape — between civil society, scientists and labor — that aim to break the fossil fuel companies’ deathly grip on climate policy. Read the full story on Truthout.

The limits of western economic war with Russia and the failure of climate policy

In this long-read analytical article on the New Politics web site, I argue that the western powers’ economic war on Russia is limited, because capital values its fossil fuel exports & kleptocrats' dollars pouring into offshore zones. Western policy always aimed to integrate Russia into the world economy; only the Kremlin's imperial adventure this year forced a change. The invasion of Ukraine has aggravated rising prices, but the labour movement and social movements should reject "energy security" narratives being used to justify fossil fuel investments that trash climate policy. The roots of climate crisis and of war are entangled; responses by labour and social movements can be linked, too. 

Ukraine: bogus 'anti imperialism' serves the Kremlin

Based on a talk at an on line event, arranged by the Future of the Left group, at which I debated how the UK labour movement should respond to the war in Ukraine, with Richard Sakwa

Cut motor traffic. Live better lives. Tackle climate change

 A submission to the borough of Greenwich consultation on its transport strategy.

Europe Is Trying to Solve Its Energy Crisis With Fossil Fuel Projects in Africa

In response to the Russian gas supply squeeze and rising food and fuel prices, European governments are paving the way to massive investments in fossil fuels from non-Russian sources that imperil efforts to tackle climate change. Published by Truthout

The EU's plan for Ukraine hydrogen exports is colonialist greenwash

Plan to pipe huge amounts of resource-intensive “green” hydrogen to Europe would undermine Ukraine’s recovery. A comment article in OpenDemocracy

Durham and Ukraine miners: historic links of friendship

Durham miners have sent aid to Ukrainian mining communities near the front lines. Their friendship goes back to the early 1990s, and built on links made over decades before that. A feature article published in the programme for the Durham Miners Gala on Saturday 9 July.

Why is Ukrainian resistance invisible to you?

An appeal to supporters of the Stop the War Coalition. These are notes I made for a meeting I was invited to, to discuss UK labour movement attitude to the war in Ukraine. 

Goodbye Russian gas, hello rapid decarbonisation

A European embargo on imports of Russian fossil fuels could, combined with the right energy conservation policies, also help to tackle dangerous climate change. Open Democracy,  20 May.