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'Why do we allow adverts that actively promote our own destruction? Halting climate catastrophe is hard enough without ads selling things that pollute more. With Badvertising, Simms and Murray have done the world an urgent favour. Funny and readable, it will make us all see advertising in a very different way' Dr. Chris van Tulleken, doctor, broadcaster, and author of Ultra-Processed People

'Hugely timely and important ... Grapples with advertising's role in enabling climate crimes - and sets out why and how we need to stop the industry's complicity in its tracks, for the sake of a liveable future' Caroline Lucas MP

'Simms and Murray are clear-headed guides. Learn the history, be enraged at the tactics, and join the struggle for a less polluted public sphere' Sam Knights, writer, actor, and activist

'A much-needed book whose time has come. The continued advertising of high-carbon products at a time of climate crisis is a form of insanity. The authors are absolutely right' Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences, University College London

'This book was a watershed moment for me. Since it can't have an advertising campaign, we all need to tell our friends about it' Jeremy Vine, broadcaster and journalist

Advertising is selling us a dream, a lifestyle. It promises us fulfillment and tells us where to buy it - from international flights to a vast array of goods we consume like there is no tomorrow. If advertising succeeds in keeping us on our current trajectory, there may not be a tomorrow.

In Badvertising, Andrew Simms and Leo Murray raise the alarm about an industry that is making us both unhealthy and unhappy and driving the planet to the precipice of environmental collapse.

What is the psychological impact of being barraged by thousands of advertisements daily? How does the commercialization of our public spaces weaken our sense of belonging? How are car manufacturers, airlines, and oil companies lobbying to weaken climate action? Examining the devastating impact of advertising on our minds and the planet, Badvertising also crucially explores what we can do to change things for the better.

Andrew Simms was called a 'master at joined-up progressive thinking' by New Scientist magazine. He co-authored the original Green New Deal, created Earth Overshoot Day, and jointly proposed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. He is the author of several books, including Ecological Debt, Tescopoly, Cancel the Apocalypse and Economics: A Crash Course. He co-directs the New Weather Institute, is Assistant Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, coordinates the Rapid Transition Alliance, and is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex.

Leo Murray co-founded climate action charity Possible, where he is currently Director of Innovation, as well as noughties direct action pressure group Plane Stupid and pioneering solar rail enterprise Riding Sunbeams. Murray is also the creator of the Frequent Flyer Levy and the brains behind the Trump Baby blimp, which rose to global fame during Donald Trump's US presidency.

Overshooting The Earth’s Capacity

The ECOreport reposts an OP-Ed about overshooting the earth’s capacity and what we can do about it

From the David Suzuki Foundation

By David Suzuki

August 2 was Earth Overshoot Day. Unlike Earth Day or Canada Day, it’s not a time to celebrate. As the Earth Overshoot Day website explains, it marks the time when “we will have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year.” That…

The Tesco problem What happens when you bet on one future story.

Over at The Futures Company blog I have a short post on Tesco’s problems, prompted by the abrupt dismissal of its Chief Executive Philip Clarke in the face of the continuing pressure on the company’s market share and profitability.

For non-British readers,Tesco is (still) Britain’s largest supermarket, but having been utterly dominant in the 1990s,  has been struggling for much of the past decade.

…Some businesses, though, are less shy about the benefits of a shorter week. Michael Pawlyn is one of the architects who worked on the Eden Project in Cornwall, and has gone on to become a world expert on biomimicry, taking lessons from nature on how to make things better. He’ll explain how a beetle can teach you to harvest water in the desert or make fire detectors more sensitive. A big lesson from nature is the importance of fallow time: no ecosystem can be 100% productive all the time. Pawlyn gives staff at his own company “exploration days”, when people can just go away and think. “It helps you to distinguish the things that are important from the things that are merely urgent,” he says….