As a frustrated would-be user of the government’s Green Homes Grant, I am saddened but entirely unsurprised by the confusion around the scheme at the moment. Might still be salvaged, but at the moment it looks like yet another wasted opportunity on refurbishment and energy efficiency.
I mentioned recently that Ikea had opened its first secondhand shop. It will soon be launching a buy-back scheme for unwanted furniture, taking responsibility for its goods at the end of their useful lives.
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade have re-designed their website, which makes it a good time to recommend their work generally. Among recent stories, the fact that Britain has given Yemen £1 billion in aid, while selling £6 billion in arms sales to its aggressors.
I’ll be on half term next week. Not sure if we’ll get away as a family or not, given the uncertainties of Covid, but if all goes to plan we’ll be in a cottage in the Midlands. There are some posts scheduled, but I hope to be offline and won’t be replying to comments.
Something a little bit different – Woodkid is a French musician and film-maker who I rather like. I’ve been listening to his new album this week and thought I’d share the music video to the track ‘Goliath’. It’s shot at an open cast coal mine, and it’s cinematic, industrial and striking. “This song refers to our individual and collective responsibility in creating a monster and in finding ways to defeat it”, he says.
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What we learned this week
Trump’s war in Iran has driven a decline in gas and oil demand, and even with a rise in coal use in some places, global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to fall by 0.5% this year. He may be a climate denier and fossil fuel booster, but luckily for the world he is incompetent.…
How Fyffes is adopting regenerative agriculture
Regenerative agriculture is an approach to farming that maintains and even enhances nature. Much of the pioneering work on it has happened on small farms, often set in opposition to ‘big ag’. But to really make a difference, regenerative agriculture needs to be practiced at large scale and the big boys need to learn from…
Learning to live as a hot country: Madagascar
Earlier this year the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s climate advisory body, published a report on adaptation. Britain’s progress on reducing emissions has not been matched on the adaptation side. “There has been little progress on preparing ourselves for the changing climate,” they warn. As one of the guests at the launch event put it,…
What we learned this week
Much rejoicing from geography nerds around the world as the UN voted to formally retire the Mercator map of the earth in favour of the Equal Earth projection. If you haven’t seen this version, it shows the continents in their right sizes without the odd stretching of the similarly corrective Peters projection. Togo led the…
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You might like the new album from iliktrains the Leeds based indie group called Kompromat . It’s about a post truth world and it’s impact on our fragile unsustainable world 🌎