The Guardian have run a whole series of articles this week on the theme Beyond Growth (a name I once used for a sister website to this one). Good to see that kind of sustained attention on postgrowth futures in a mainstream newspaper.
As the Trump administration revoked the legal standing of climate regulation in the USA this week, I was reminded of the inquisitor in George Orwell’s 1984. “There will be no art, no literature, no science,” he says. “When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.”
A few weeks ago I wrote about how AI search engines had drunk my metaphorical milkshake. I don’t depend on web traffic for my income and I have the luxury of carrying on regardless, but the casualty list is growing in the wider journalism world. This week the Thomson Reuters Foundation announced that they are closing their Context news website, which has always been excellent. Visitor numbers have plummeted since Google launched their AI overview, and the site is no longer economically viable.
Climate journalist Sammy Roth is one of those turning to Substack as an outlet for his writing, and here he is on why Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show was a clever piece of advocacy for energy and climate justice. I enjoyed the performance without catching this, so I was pleased to have it pointed out to me.
Environmentalist Fred Pearce, writing in the New Scientist, offers five reasons why he’s still optimistic about the future (also here, if you’re not a subscriber).
It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while I write something and then decide it isn’t good enough to post. Or in the course of the writing I conclude that the resource I was about to share or the point I was about to make isn’t as valid as I thought it was. I don’t mind this. Writing helps me clarify my opinions and so that’s inevitable. Unfortunately that happened twice this week, which means I don’t have any articles scheduled for next week. It’s half term anyway, so I’ll take a break for a few days. In the meantime, here are this week’s posts:
Latest articles
Would you like to visit a heat pump?
Considering a heat pump, when the time comes to replace your gas boiler? You are not alone. All over the country people are debating the pros and cons of making the switch. Last week I had a conversation with a colleague who is thinking about having a heat pump installed, talked about them with some…
Book review: Code Dependent, by Madhumita Murgia
New technologies always come with trade-offs and unanticipated consequences. The more powerful the technology, the greater the potential for disruption. We’re still in the early stages of accessible AI tools, but we’re already seeing profound rippling effects. In this eye-opening and important book, Madhumita Murgia investigates some of those effects in a global tour of…
Three board games for the climate
We were playing a board game the other everning as a family, and my daughter chose Carbon City Zero. It’s an educational game about climate change, but it totally stands up as a form of entertainment. This isn’t always true of educational games, and climate change isn’t the easiest thing to make a game out…
The Earthbound Report 