Is Plastic Really Fantastic? by Faith Canter

Plastics have been around since the 1940s. They’re used all over the world and are commonplace in our everyday lives. So what exactly is plastic and where does it come from?

There are actually a few natural plastics, but for the most part, the plastics we use are manmade and most come from crude oil (although some come from coal and natural gases). Plastic, petrol, paraffin, lubricants and petroleum gases are all bi-products of the refining process of crude oil. Read more…

Podcast: NHS SOS; Five British Medical Association Council Members Speak Out

On the 24th of June 2013, a press release and book launch was given by five of the British Medical Association council who had broken rank to talk about how the National Health Service was being eroded from the inside and how the trade unions were putting gagging orders on their members. Read more…

Rest In Pieces: The Competition Commission

John Robertson, member of the Cross Party Energy and Climate Change committee went on public record saying: “The biggest opacity is the profit making itself, if you look at the bill you get through the door, the understanding you have of it. There is a need for the companies to explain how they make their profit and where; also make it easy for the consumer to understand their bill. We can see what is happening on the retail side, but not on the generation side of the equation.

The companies are jealously guarding their information. It is strange that you have six large companies, who all charge roughly the same, have roughly the same increases in price, and yet they are all meant to be in competition with each other”

Natural Monopoly, Essential Goods and Regulation

If the public have a problem with the energy companies, they are first directed to Ombudsman Services, which suggests itself to provide ‘independent dispute resolution for the communications, energy, property and copyright licensing sectors’.

Ombudsman Services is funded by the companies it handles complaints about, which raises questions about conflicts of interest and influence. According to WhatDoTheyKnow.Com, a website which covers Freedom of Information requests to 15440 authorities, Ombudsman Services is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Read more…

The Energy Companies Wear No Clothes

I have written these citizenship journalism articles as I have become increasingly interested in the hard details of what is driving fuel poverty as I and others encounter it. My experience with energy suppliers have been negative as a consumer which brings me to expect that the ‘customer’ is always wrong at every turn.
Energy companies yearly report increasing profits as my bills go up and up, and the service gets poorer and poorer. Similarly, the companies seem to be avoiding sufficient investment in sustainable infrastructure or technologies that will enable a society which does not squander intergenerational equity – i.e. the natural resources which belong to future generations.
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Prof Peter Beresford Introduces Studies in Mad Matters

On Thursday 24 October 2013 at 7.00pm Peter Beresford introduced Mad Matters at the 17th Edinburgh Independent Radical Book Fair. This is a podcast of his talk:
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Mapping the Human Brain by Mike McInnes

A recent initiative of the US National institutes of Health (NIH) to map the human brain was announced. The project has been entitled: “Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN).”

The quotation below is sourced from the NIH:
“On April 2, 2013, President Obama launched the BRAIN Initiative to “accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought.” Read more…