Zero carbon world

Can I have some truth with my news please?

It's an honour to have John Pilger back in the pages of the New Internationalist. An unflinching seeker after truth and justice, he has had quite an influence on me over the years.

I remember vividly, as a student, watching his documentary about the brutal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, and the sense of disbelief and outrage at the revelation that my government was providing the Hawk jets responsible for the massacre of thousands.

More than anyone else, it was John Pilger who brought home to me the extent to which the corporate media was presenting me with a distorted picture, and led me to seek out alternative, independent sources of news and analysis. His work is no doubt one of the reasons why I am now at the New Internationalist and not News International...

This month, he releases a new film, taking aim at journalists and the news industry, and the way they support and perpetuate war. We talk to him about it on page 29.

December also sees the Cancún climate summit, for which no-one, it seems, has high hopes. So to counteract the doom and gloom, we tackle the following questions: is a zero carbon world possible? (Answer: yes.) What would it look like? And how can we get there?

Elsewhere in the magazine, we debate the emotive subject of whether there should be any controls at all on immigration, highlight the growing rebellion in West Papua, and take a peek inside the mind of legendary civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.

All this, and (if you’re a subscriber) the magazine now arrives through your letterbox in 100 per cent compostable bags!

Jess Worth for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org