A record month for solar and wind power in the UK saved £1 billion in gas costs and the equivalent of 18 LPG tankers, currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. While you’re visiting Carbon Brief for that story, have a look at their broader work on Trump’s Iran crisis and how countries are responding. They’ve been busy.
“When America goes to war, the costs are distributed broadly, onto every American who drives a car or heats a home. The benefits are distributed narrowly, flowing to a small group of men whose compensation is designed to capture exactly this kind of windfall.” Emily Atkin on how oil executives profit directly from war.
I made a passing mention of how refills have failed to go mainstream in the UK in a post this week. Until they do, refill shops are holding a space for those wanting to bring their own containers, and Recycle Now just launched a refill locator to find your nearest shop. Still none near me.
The story of the fishing industry off the US West Coast demonstrates how fish stocks can recover when you just leave them alone. Having collapsed entirely by 2000, today it has a smaller and sustainable fishing industry.
Scientists have discovered that data centers produce so much waste heat that they can create local micro-climates and heat island effects. More reasons why we should locate them in cold places, and capture and use that heat.
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks round here with the Easter holidays and my writing time directed to other things, but here are some recent articles.
Recent highlights
Why buildings overheat
Last week I wrote about how Britain was built for a different climate, and how a growing number of buildings are overheating in the summer. In order to do anything about that, we’re going to need to understand the causes of overheating. Buildings don’t just overheat because it’s hot outside. Design plays a big part,…
What we learned this week
Hum, by Helen Philips, has been awarded the Climate Fiction Award for 2026. Her novel explores “the intersection of climate, technology and AI” and is naturally available from Earthbound Books. I’ve written about this before, but it was nice to see a proper explainer from Carbon Brief on how China uses solar power to combat…
Book review: Environomics, by Dharshini David
One of the rewarding aspects of covering sustainability stories over time is watching good ideas creep towards the mainstream. Technologies and approaches that were once filed as alternative move from being theoretical to operational. They spread from pioneers and early adopters to wide scale use. This book demonstrates the transition. Not so long ago the…
The Earthbound Report 