Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 49

China’s sponge parks

In 2013 China had a notably heavy monsoon season. Over 200 cities experienced flooding, and it prompted a rethink in urban planning. How could cities be more resilient to flooding?

An architect and urban designer called Kongjian Yu had a potential solution. He had developed an approach called ‘sponge cities’, and in 2015 China announced a pilot scheme that would try out these techniques across 16 cities – see this previous post, or a little summary below. It was very succesful, and sponge ci...

Uganda’s free electric motorbikes

In his new year’s address earlier this month, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni susprised people with a possible new transport policy. As part of a plan to electrify the country’s transport, motorbike owers would be able to trade in their petrol bikes for electric. “Free of course,” he added. “Just swap.”

Motorbikes are a form of public transport in Uganda, and around 80% of motorcycles in the country operate as taxis – piki-pikis or boda-bodas, depending on where in East Africa you are. Elec...

More wealth for the rich is a waste

If I go into a restaurant and order five meals when I only intend to eat one, that would be recognised as wasteful. If I bought five tins of paint when I only needed one, I’d be wasting my money. We understand waste at the micro level. Why do these rules not apply at the macro level?

I ask because Oxfam’s latest inequality report, timed as usual for the World Economic Forum, shows how wasteful the global economy is. It reliably delivers more for those who already have plenty.

Here’s the h...

Bank Job, by Hilary Powell and Daniel Edelstyn

One of my favourite social justice projects is Rolling Jubilee, a ‘people’s bailout’ set up by the Strike Debt campaign in response to the financial crisis. Activists in the US, many of them previously involved in the Occupy movement, ran a series of fundraising events. They used the money to purchase bundles of medical or student loans on the secondary debt market, and then wrote them off.

It’s a good example of ‘prophetic’ protest, where “the vocation of the prophet is to keep alive th...

What we learned this week

Travel Positive is a new column from The Independent’s non-flying travel editor Helen Coffey, looking at ‘green good news stories’ from the world of travel.

The German government is planning a national nutrition strategy that may include eating less meat. No reason not to, as it would be supporting an existing trend towards lower meat consumption.

Some of the losses of climate change are far from obvious, as The Guardian highlights in this article about languages at risk. I’ve had conversa...

Reclaiming the kerbside as public space

How are kerbs used where you live? Or do you have curbs instead? Whatever your preferred spelling, if it’s anything like where I live, then the edges of the pavement are mainly reserved for cars to park on. Even on my wide residential street, many households have more vehicles than they can fit on their double-driveways, and the kerb serves as extra parking.

Lambeth Council in London are challenging this. As they point out, kerbs are the largest public space under their control. If you added...

How Solarduck floats solar panels at sea

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about floating solar farms, and the advantages of panels over water. All the projects I was writing about were on inland water – lakes, reservoirs or canals. Could you do the same thing over the sea?

The challenges are very different. The solar farms would have to resist the constant tug and pull of waves, and the very powerful forces of storms. Wind speeds can also be formidable at sea. Any kind of offshore infrastructure has to be over-engineered for resilience...

Have we succeeded in reducing our household energy use?

In campaigning on environmental issues, I want to make sure that I’m not demanding changes from people that I’m not prepared to make myself. I want to be able to try things out and share what I’m learning. With these things in mind, I set myself a target a few years ago: get our house to an A rating for efficiency by 2020, and zero carbon by 2025.

I’ve tracked our progress along the way with some of the important steps: adding solar panels and battery storage, underfloor insulation and solid...

How to Say No – Diogenes and the Cynics

The cynics were a niche movement within Greek philosophy. They didn’t leave much of a written record of their thinking, because they weren’t part of a scholarly tradition. They were more like performance artists and troublemakers. “Their mode of life was a philosophy of doing,” says M D Usher in his introduction, and this little book gathers together a variety of original sources describing their actions and thought, in a modern translation.

It’s worth bringing the cynics to new audience...

What we learned this week

COP28 will be hosted by the United Arab Emirates, and they have . It will be Dr Sultan al-Jaber – who is also CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Place your bets on whether or not COP28 will be the conference that agrees to phase out fossil fuels.

January is the time to sign the flight free pledge over at the Flight Free campaign. If you fly, could this be the year that you choose to stay on the ground for the climate?

Four Insulate Britain activists wer...