I’ve grumbled in the past about the absence of climate change in Britain’s national curriculum (there’s one mention of it in the entire secondary national curriculum, and none at all in primary). UNESCO have just released an analysis of curricula in 100 countries and we’re not alone: 47% didn’t mention it.
From the Volts podcast we learn that in many parts of Africa, the population is growing faster than access to electricity is expanding, meaning that the number of people living without clean and reliable power is rising rather than falling.
Fossil Free Books is an activist campaign within the union I’m part of, the Society of Authors, calling for divestment from fossil fuels and for literature festivals to drop Baillie Gifford as a sponsor. It’s not a campaign I’ve supported, as it risks serious damage to literary events for largely symbolic gains, so I appreciated Hannah Ritchie’s take on it in her newsletter.
UnLandmarks invites us to consider what we love about Britain’s most popular buildings by reimagining them as boring and ugly versions of themselves – that’s the Houses of Parliament above. It’s part of the Humanise campaign that accompanies the book, more on which below.
After my home crowd of Luton, the place where my children’s book proved most popular was Leicester, where it was championed by their library service. So this week I’m off on a little tour of schools in Leicester to do assemblies and creative writing workshops. I don’t expect to have any time to write, so there will be fewer posts this week.
Book review: Humanise
As it inspired a post earlier this week, allow me to recommend Thomas Heatherwick’s book Humanise. It’s a plea for better buildings, ones that people like and value, and that are – for lack of a stronger word, interesting. He makes a good case for how architecture can improve ordinary people’s lives, creating community and sense of place, and how boring buildings and lazy developments do the opposite.
Along the way there are notes on how architecture became an elite profession, separating from the older tradition of master craftsmanship. He excoriates the modernist movement that blighted the world with impersonal glass and concrete boxes, and enthuses about ancient and modern buildings around the world that point to better and more human places.
The book is presented like a scrapbook, with illustrations and photos and scribbled notes on every page, so it’s not as long as its thick spine suggests, nor is it one to listen to on audiobook. It’s inspiring, it will enrich the way you look at the world around you, and even if you have the most passing interest in buildings and architecture, you’ll get something out of it.
- You can get Humanise from Earthbound Books UK or US.
This week’s articles
10 reasons to take cultivated meat seriously
There are a host of unanswered questions about cultivated meat, produced in factories without having to kill an animal. Is it commercially viable? Does it further break our relationship to the natural world? Is it necessary? How will it affect farming and farmers? This post isn’t about those questions. Drawing on figures from the book…
Why ugly buildings are bad for the environment
When I lived in Stoke on Trent, there was a notorious 18 storey building in the town centre that was known locally as ‘Gotham City’. It was built for the council in 1973 and it never quite worked. It had ‘sick building syndrome’ and was a miserable place to work. The council occupied it for…
A just transition for transport
There are lots of different ways to address climate change, and not all of them are fair or ethical. How we reach a low emissions future is just as important as the goal itself, which is why ‘just transition’ principles matter. A just transition is one that asks the right people to take action, that…
The Earthbound Report 