Some links to wrap up the last of this year’s posts:
Over half of all cars sold in China are now electric. They passed the 50% mark in August and EVs have outsold petrol and diesel every month since. The figure in the UK is 18.7%.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Wolfson College and their net zero plans. Here’s another pioneer in Coventry University, who are adding hundreds of PV panels, retrofitting buildings and investing in a heat network.
Around the world, an average 6.3% of environmental protests result in arrests. In the UK it is now 17%, according to an international review of protest policing from Bristol University.
Deforestation in the Amazon has halved since president Da Silva returned to power, reversing the increases seen under Bolsonaro. The target is to stop it altogether by 2030.
I took part in a panel event recently for the Just Money charity, called Challenging our Extractive Economy: Money, Race and Climate. The video is now online, along with some questions for discussion, if you want to dip a toe into the ethics and theology of extractivism.
Two articles this week. Neither of them are very Christmassy, but I feel like I started to think about Christmas – well, just now. With that it’s time to put the site into hibernation for a couple of weeks. Have a great Christmas season, and I’ll be back in January.
This week’s articles
Book review: Life After Doom, by Brian McLaren
When the Trump won a second term in November, a whole lot of ink was spilled over why. Much of it focused on things the Democrats had got wrong, or why Kamala Harris wasn’t quite good enough. I find the simplest and most obvious conclusion more chilling: a majority of Americans want Trump as president.…
Nice Rice: the first sustainable rice brand
Last year I wrote about the out-sized carbon footprint of rice, which accounts for almost a quarter of all greenhouse gases from global food production. Half the world eats rice every day and so that’s perhaps not surprising, but there’s no question that it’s much more damaging to the climate than other staple grain crops.…
The Earthbound Report 
Hi Jeremy! Had to laugh as I read your review of Doom . I cried when Kamala Harris lost her bid for the presidency, and started drinking at 3 or 4 pm, but I have three friends who voted for the former reality show host, and they are all three decent people. One is a gay woman, one is a mixed-race man, and one is a former military man. None of the three finished college. All three consume a great deal of misinformation, and two lack the scientific background to understand climate change, viruses and vaccines, etc. One of them pointed out to me that Trump donated all of his earnings as president to different causes. Someone else, a college-educated, multilingual colleague and friend, pointed out that Trump does not drink. (Neither does President Biden.) All that to say, there are hateful, racist, greedy people wanting Trump for president, but they were very clever about exploiting people’s educational gaps to convince those who are fairly ordinary that Trump is a nice, responsible guy. There is a lot of BS going around about how corrupt the Bidens are, that Jill cheated on her husband with Joe etc…It’s all lies, all easily debunked, but still people are choosing to believe that the Bidens are worse than the man of the gilded tower and bevvy of blonde sycophants. My friends all voted for the former president because they are convinced he is a caring Everyman who has their back and says what he thinks. And a lot of people believe that Biden’s policies caused inflation etc. Since those same people do not understand climate change and already think he’s corrupt, it was only a short leap to imagine that his administration made things more expensive. All the more reason to get your publisher to properly re-name your book and get it out there!!! ; ) But in the meantime, please have a good holiday and enjoy the break! Thank you for a wonderful year’s worth of blogs!!!