Features

Unbelievably, people still exist whose task in life is shovelling shit, as Mari Marcel Thekaekara explains.

Toilets have been around since the days of Elizabeth I. Systems old and new.

Everything you ever wanted to know about toilets.

David Satterthwaite speaks out in praise of sewers, and Mayling Simpson-Hébert retaliates on behalf of pits.

Toilet champions are not so rare a breed as you’d think. Here are some distinguished exemplars.

2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. Or, asks Maggie Black, is it the International Year of Silence and Embarrassment?

To save Yasuní, the oil must stay in the ground.

Adam Ma’anit navigates the snakepits of global carbon trading in the context of Yasuní.

Calm the panic or delay the inevitable?

The five oil concession regions in Yasuní National Park

No-one said oil was clean. But Ecuador’s experience of extracting fossil fuels is about as bad as it gets, reports David Ransom.

People from the Ecuadorian rainforest tell Fabrício Guamán what they think of their Government’s proposal to leave petroleum in the ground.

Is Ecuador’s bold proposal not to exploit a billion barrels of oil in the Yasuní National Park a serious option for combating climate change? If so, the world is going to have to move fast, warns Vanessa Baird.

Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy explores his country’s rocky relationship with nukes.

David Ransom finds a likeness between the addictions of gambling and the speculative impulses of capitalism.

Anti-nuke action across the world

From the Manhattan Project and Hiroshima, to the Cold War, North Korea and beyond, nuclear fission has changed everything.

What are the West’s weapons actually for? asks Paul Rogers.

Activist Angie Zelter celebrates a year-long blockade of Britain’s weapons of mass destruction.

Wayward warheads, mid-air collisions and dangerous detonations.