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:
Your role in climate finance
When I hear the term ‘climate finance’, I think of banks, governments and and big institutional funders. I think about the UN, the IMF, and international conferences where multi-billion dollar funding streams are negotiated. It turns out I might have had it upside down. Out of curiosity, I downloaded the latest Global Landscape of Climate…
What we learned this week
There is growing concern over the the El Nino cycle and the possibility of record heat next year. Here’s Bill McKibben on the topic, and David Wallace Wells. Less gloomy voices are also available, but now is a good time to be talking about summer heat and how we prepare for it. 11,103 new cars…
How South Korea cut food waste
My new food waste bin went out to the curb this morning. Like most of us in Luton, my family was given two blue plastic caddies last month for the start of food waste collection in the town. We’re one of the regions of the UK that hasn’t had food waste collected until now, and…
The Earthbound Report 
Very interesting, well done.