A striking climate change conundrum has emerged in Namibia, where drought threatens the survival of 200 elephants. The government’s solution? Sell the elephants.
My wife, who is a BBC radio journalist, recorded a special programme on ‘earth heroes’ in our local area. It features activists, inventors, entrepreneurs and more, and you can listen back here.
People have been talking about geothermal power from Cornwall for decades and the potential has never been properly tapped, so it’s great to hear that the first commercial contract has been signed to supply it. (It’s with Ecotricity, once again with another UK first.) It’s only for 3MW of power at the moment – but you’ve got to start somewhere.
Good to read about an amendment to the Basel Convention on waste trading, that will hopefully give developing countries more ways to prevent plastic dumping by overdeveloped nations.
This graph of new car sales in Norway, posted by Robbie Andrew on Twitter, shows how pure petrol or diesel cars are now very much a minority interest. This is a dramatic shift in a decade, and the kind of thing I would hope to see in Britain in the coming years – alongside an overall decline in car sales and increased public and active transport, naturally.
Three of this week’s posts, in case you missed them:
What we learned this week
A record month for solar and wind power in the UK saved £1 billion in gas costs and the equivalent of 18 LPG tankers, currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. While you’re visiting Carbon Brief for that story, have a look at their broader work on Trump’s Iran crisis and how countries are responding.…
The long road to reducing Britain’s plastic waste
Last week new national guidelines came into force on recycling in the UK. There will be some teething issues as not every council is quite ready. There will still be enduring questions around esoteric plastic items. But generally speaking recycling is much more straightforward. The postcode lottery of whether or not you can recycle something…
How to run projects that create bigger change
Now, more than ever, people need to see that environmental action makes a tangible improvement to their lives. These are febrile times. People want certainty and the safety of what they know. Politicians and the media can easily scapegoat climate policy and erode support for ‘new and untested’ low carbon technologies. Despite the urgency of…
The Earthbound Report 
Very interesting, well done.