Ian Christie is a writer, researcher and local government policymaker, based in London. He was joint head of environmental and economic policy at Surrey County Council in southeast England. He is an associate of the Green alliance and of the New Economics Foundation. He is a visiting professor of sustainable development at Surrey University and has advised many public agencies and businesses in the UK on environmental policy, sustainability and analysis of political and social change. His publications include From Here to Sustainability: politics in the real world (Earthscan, 2001, with Diane Warburton).

Recent articles

The New Orleans disaster should inundate the rich world’s political imagination with awareness of man-made climate change, says Ian Christie.

(This article was first published on 2nd September 2005)

Food, the daily ingredient of human survival, raises deep questions of politics, economics, the environment, and culture. Ian Christie introduces the Ecology & Place theme’s new debate on this most universal yet intimate of themes.

Transatlantic strategic and political divisions lie within the United States and Europe as well as between them. Yet in this contested terrain, Europe’s debility is even more marked in light of the visionary fire of US neo-conservatives. Where is the source of passion and ideas that the European Union needs?

The sheer ugliness and anonymity of motorways seem only to reinforce their destructive environmental impact. Yet even motorways have their poets and celebrants. But what are they doing to our soul?