France made planned obsolescence illegal as part of its push for a circular economy, and Epson are the first company to go to court over it. It is claimed their (already criminally overpriced) printer cartridges stop working before they have run out of ink.
A map showing legislation for balcony solar in each US state, with around half moving forward with it. Plug-in solar should be available in the UK by the end of the summer if all goes to plan, and will bring solar power within reach for millions of renters and low income households.
The culture warriors hate it, but London’s commitment to reducing air pollution under mayor Sadiq Khan has yielded a 40% drop in pollution related deaths.
Swedish railway operators have been painting the rails white to make them more reflective and reduce the risk of buckling during heatwaves.
Scientists and meteorologists, fired by the tens of thousands by the Trump administration, have rebuilt the Climate.gov website that their government deleted. They’re carrying on their work at Climate.us.
It’s been a very busy end of term round here. Lots of school visits to fit in, and I’m finishing the next draft of a children’s book, so not much time for the blog of late. It will likely remain fairly quiet over the summer, but I’m still here…
Recent highlights
Inequality and the planetary boundaries
It’s no great secret that climate change is predominantly caused by the world’s richest. Carbon footprint tends to expand along with wealth, as people fly and drive, eat more meat and run more appliances. It’s no surprise that other environmental limits see a similar pattern. A study in Nature offers this useful visual summary of…
Book review: We need to tax billionaires, by Gabriel Zucman
This was the year that we saw the world’s first trillionaire, a state of imbalance so absurd that it really ought to rewrite how we talk about inequality. I don’t see any sign of that yet, but this book might have one practical and popular answer: tax billionaires. An important thing to note here: first,…
The changing colours of the energy transition
Here’s a map that I enjoyed from the latest Our World in Data newsletter. It shows the leading source of electricity in each country. It’s a fascinating geopolitical snapshot, telling us a lot about who has access to cheap coal, gas or oil. There are lots of little stories here, adding up to one big…
The Earthbound Report 