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The Invisible Machine – a gas pipeline in the Caucasus and a handshake in No10
Blog post -
May 1, 2018
On the evening of Thursday 26th April 2018, it was warm and sunny in London. President Ilham Aliyev strode down Downing Street and was met by Prime Minister Theresa May with smile and a handshake. They posed for the cameras on the red carpet outside No 10 and then retired inside. A short formal chat...
Aliyev re-elected as President for another 7 years – the chain of oil autocracy that binds Azerbaijan
Blog post -
Apr 18, 2018
On 18th April Ilham Aliyev will be inaugurated for the fourth time as President of Azerbaijan. His re-election comes as no surprise. It is so predictable that it barely counted as ‘news’ and consequently got next to no coverage in the international media. Originally the election was scheduled for 17th October, but at nine weeks...
The slow dismantling the house of oil – The Gulbenkian Foundation divests
Blog post -
Mar 18, 2018
Quite unexpected comes remarkable news! Lucy Neal, a long-term part of the Platform family, e-mails out of the blue, forwarding an article from the Algarve Daily News, published on 1st February in southern Portugal. The headline reads: ‘Gulbenkian Foundation gets out of the oil business’ That truly is unexpected. Lucy had not foreseen this coming...
Communal Memory – the power of community to resist Shell in Nigeria
Blog post -
Feb 22, 2018
I’m holding in my hands a report published by Amnesty International in November last year – ‘A Criminal Enterprise? Shell’s involvement in human rights violations in Nigeria in the 1990s’. It analyses in forensic detail exactly how much Shell staff knew about, and were involved in supporting, the actions by the Nigerian military taken against...
Today, remembering the Ogoni Bill of Rights
Blog post -
Nov 10, 2017
10th November 2017 marks the 22nd anniversary since the executions of nine Ogoni men from the Niger Delta who had been protesting against the exploitation of oil in their homelands. These Nigerian activists – outspoken author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John...
Councils: Fuelling the Fire
Publication -
Nov 9, 2017
Councils: Fuelling the Fire reveals that UK councils invest £16.1 billion of their workers’ pensions into companies that extract coal, oil and gas, fueling dangerous climate change. Download the report The report uncovers: Councils invest £16.1 billion of pensions into fossil fuel companies out of a total of £289.9 billion, new data reveals No significant...
Conversations with Suzi Gablik – Living in wartime.
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Apr 29, 2017
I’ve recently returned from a visit to my friend and mentor, Suzi Gablik, in Virginia, USA. She has been an inspiration to so many over the past 33 years since the publication of ‘Has Modernism Failed’, and later her book ‘Conversations Before The End of Time‘. Her work harnessed an ecological sensibility in the...
Hackney Council as the climate vanguard – or is it just a laggard?
Blog post -
Jan 24, 2017
Hackney Council is voting tonight on its investment policy regarding fossil fuels and climate change. After years of campaigning by Divest Hackney and lots of media attention, this Tuesday is the big day for the Pensions Committee. But despite the hype and the repeated delays, the proposals are pretty disappointing. Hackney Council has £42 million in fossil...
“Art is direct, it challenges the authorities, the power structure” Ken Saro-Wiwa jr, 1968 – 2016
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Nov 29, 2016
Yesterday at All Saints Church in Fulham, London, we attended a celebration of the life of journalist, government special advisor, and digital tech innovator Ken Saro-Wiwa jr. His life was suddenly cut short at the age of 47. We are sorrowed by this profound loss to the Saro-Wiwa family, and of a talented man invested in...
We are still feeling the aftershocks of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murder 21 years later
Blog post -
Nov 16, 2016
November 10th marked the 21st anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murder by Nigeria’s military dictatorship for challenging Shell’s devastation of his home – Ogoniland. His only remaining son died a few weeks before this terrible anniversary. His funeral was this week. Last year, at the request of allies in the Niger Delta still resisting Shell’s oil...
Today’s oil drilling round could bust us through UK’s climate limits
Blog post -
Oct 26, 2016
The UK government is pushing a massive new offshore drilling programme, that will take the UK beyond its climate limits. Oil companies had until 2pm today to bid for 1200 blocks covering large swathes of the sea off North-west and North-east Scotland and England. This is the the 29th Offshore Licensing Round, and it aims to identify hundreds of millions in...
Subsidising spills – British public pays BP $300 million to drill and spill
Blog post -
Oct 7, 2016
BP came under criticism this week when it caused a 95 tonne oil leak from its Clair Field into the North Sea. The company decided not to clear up the spill, and wait for the oil to wash further out to sea. The new spill comes as BP no longer pays net taxes to the...
