Working in schools means a different schedule to the one I’m used to, with some very busy weeks before things close down for the summer. So I didn’t get any writing done this week.
Actually I did, and I directed what time I had towards the Zero Carbon Luton newsletter. The latest edition includes a greener carnival, and as we’re a three-Poundland town, what Poundland are doing about the climate crisis. And here’s why Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Luton was a bit of a leader on sustainability.
The country doesn’t really need my take on the general election, but I would invite you to consider what the outcome would have been if we had a more representative electoral system.
While legacy is being discussed, Rebecca Willis celebrates one environmental success story that’s overlooked, including by the Conservatives themselves: the 2014 contracts for difference that enabled the boom in offshore wind power.
While offshore wind is now a well established technology, offshore solar is less common – but China has big plans to place floating solar farms off its coastline.
Speaking of solar, it all went a bit wrong for the solar cars that I’ve been patiently waiting for – but all is not lost for Aptera, the most fun of them all. The latest episode of the Fully Charged Show podcast has news of progress.
This week’s article
Just the one article this week: Three degrees of difference in the cold chain – how slightly warmer freezers could cut emissions in the supply chain for frozen foods, and the campaign that’s trying to make it happen.
Recommended
This week I rather enjoyed Ray Nayler’s novel The Mountain in the Sea. Nayler has a day job as a marine reserves advisor at NOAA, and this is his first novel. It’s about intelligent octopi and the scientists attempting to communicate with them, creating a kind of sci-fi first encounters story in the sea rather than in space.
While you can just read it for the story, I also found it interesting as a discussion of consciousness beyond the human. Human minds, octopus minds and AI minds all intersect here and either succeed or fail at communicating. At a time when other forms of intelligence are a talking point, this is an engaging sideways look at the question.
The Earthbound Report 