What we learned this week

Conservative environmental think-tank Bright Blue have released a report on gas: “Deeper decarbonisation of the gas network is essential if the UK is to meet its current greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 80% by 2050.”

From Bright Blue to Bright Now, who are inviting churches to sign the Easter Declaration for Fossil Free Churches.

News from Rothampsted Research, not far from me – the first earthworm survey of England’s farmland has revealed that worm diversity has fallen in many fields. The study was carried out by farmers themselves, making it an example of citizen science. And 57% of participating farmers say they will change their farming practices as a result.

Also on the topic of soil and farming, dry spells in India leave people with lots of dead leaves to tidy up and burn – unless someone uses a new app to contact them and take them away for composting.

“What if we had a much more democratic economy and we had forms of economic activity and production and ownership that were a lot more rooted in the hands of the public and the community?” Rob Hopkins interviews local councillor Matthew Brown on Preston and the ‘economics of the imagination’.

This week I was on holiday and reading fiction: Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines, in which vast mobile cities go lumbering through a blighted landscape devouring smaller towns. Highly imaginative and good fun, and in many ways it could be seen as a postgrowth parable too.