Last week the British government’s climate plans were judged to be inadequate, and in June they face another legal case that challenges restrictions on housing efficiency. Some good work going on from those using the law to push for stronger climate policies.
Reporters Without Borders have released the 2024 edition of the Press Freedom Index. Press freedom is declining, they warn, in a year with a record number of elections around the world.
The first all-electric container ship has been launched in China. It can be loaded with more batteries in containers if it needs to go further.
I was writing a feature article for a design magazine this week on ‘meanwhile development’, which was fun to research. Have a look at the London charity Global Generation, which created the mobile Skip Garden that travelled around derelict sites in Kings Cross for a decade.
I was in Oxford this week and spent a lot of time in bookshops, which reminds me: if you buy any book from Earthbound Books this weekend, you’ll be entered into a draw for a £250 voucher.
Book review: The Hopeful Activist
The Hopeful Activist is a podcast by Rich Gower, Abi Thomas and Rachel Walker which features Christian activists. They have now combined the inspiration they have picked up from their many guest interviews and distilled it into a book of the same name, which is out next week from SPCK.
It’s a book for Christians who want to make the world a better place, in all sorts of ways. There are insights from climate activists, people working on poverty and community building, to Krish Kandiah, who has been a foster parent to dozens of children. The book begins with theology, looking at how activism is rooted in love and the pursuit of shalom, the holistic vision of peace that’s central to the grand narrative of the Bible.
As the book goes on, it addresses a series of topics that all activists face – things like how to stay motivated and avoid burnout, how to find allies and build a team. There are really practical sections on how to construct a campaign, or identifying decision makers and navigating political power. A lot of passionate campaigning achieves very little because people don’t have a grasp of how power operates and how to influence it, and this is exactly the kind of thing you want to press into the hands of enthusiastic young people agitating for change. It will give them, in the authors’ words, “fuel for the fire, tools for your toolkit”.
I really liked the tone of The Hopeful Activist – generous and affirming, convinced that we are promised a better world and can play our part in bringing it about, even if the ultimate victories lie beyond our own lifetimes.
- You can pick up The Hopeful Activist from Earthbound Books.
This week’s articles
Five examples of highway removal
A few weeks ago I wrote about how highways can divide communities and create long-lasting social problems in cities. Removing highways and bringing neighbourhoods back together can be a powerful act of restoration and regeneration, and it’s great to see the US government committing funds to doing this in several major cities. As a follow…
Who tops the Happy Planet Index in 2024?
As some people have been warning for over half a century, Gross Domestic Product is unfit as a measure of progress. GDP growth only tells about how much economic activity is going on, and nothing about whether it’s useful or not, or who is benefiting from it. And yet every politician with a chance of…
The irresistible rise of clean energy
There’s a ready supply of bad news in climate circles. The bad news writes itself onto the landscape as the climate destabilises. There’s good news out there too though, and the Global Electricity Review from Ember Climate is a case in point. The main takeaway is that the clean energy transition is well underway globally,…
The Earthbound Report 