One of the documentary stories in The Age of Stupid looks at life in the Niger Delta, where oil giant Shell has promised the moon to the local people, but has delivered, well... 

This week Shell's shareholders have gathered in London and The Hague for their annual AGM, but they've not been alone. Outside both meetings they have been met by activists from ShellGuilty, an international coalition of campaign groups including Platform, Friends of the Earth and Oil Change International. They're there to demand an end to Shell's dangerous and outdated practice of gas flaring in Nigeria, and to draw attention to a landmark human rights case that starts in the US next week.

Shell is to stand trial for their alleged part in the execution of Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his Ogoni colleagues. Saro-Wiwa was a dogged campaigner on behalf of the Ogoni people, leading peaceful protests against the environmental damage wreaked by oil companies in the Niger Delta. In 1995 the Nigerian military government framed and executed him, and the lawsuit alleges that Shell played an active role in this outrage, bribing prosecution witnesses and subsidising a campaign of terror by security forces in the Delta in an attempt to influence the trial. Shell denies the accusations.

Whatever the outcome of next week's case, there is no doubt about the fact that Shell remains guilty of the environmental crimes against the Ogoni and against the climate which Ken Saro-Wiwa worked so hard to prevent. For 50 years now, oil companies have been flaring the gas generated during oil extraction in the Delta, a practice which is featured in The Age of Stupid. Shell etc do this simply because it is cheaper than pumping it back underground, or using it to meet the energy needs of local communities.

This is not merely a waste of energy. It poisons communities with a toxic cocktail of waste gases, devastates local ecosystems and is a vast and horribly pointless source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Gas flaring in Nigeria emits more greenhouse gases in sub-Saharan Africa than all other sources combined.

Nigeria is the only place in the world where this dangerous and wasteful practice, once commonplace in oil-producing nations, still persists. Yet gas flaring has been technically illegal in Nigeria since 1984 - but the corrupt government will not enforce its own laws against the big oil companies who line their pockets. Shell just carries on doing what it has always done with impunity.

Clearly this madness has to stop. To get involved, visit www.ShellGuilty.com.