Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 50

Fossil fuels and toxic masculinity

In writing about cars yesterday, I was reminded of an incident a couple of weeks ago. A certain man I’m not going to name tweeted Greta Thunberg to ask for her email address, so he could send her details of his car collection and each car’s emissions. Thunberg’s withering reply is now legendary, and a matter of days later said cars were impounded by the police anyway.

I don’t really want to give this story any oxygen, but it is perhaps the defining moment of what is sometimes called petro-ma...

Tracking the decline of the combustion engine

Since 2016, transport has been the largest contributor to Britain’s carbon emissions. Most of that is cars, making car culture a huge challenge on the way to a zero carbon future. Shifting car habits starts with active transport and public transport, but private cars will be with us for the foreseeable future, leaving a major role for electric cars.

There is some notable progress to report here. In 2016, the same year that transport overtook energy to become carbon problem number one, only 1...

The alliance of carbon negative countries

Britain is working towards the long term goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Japan and the EU have set the same date, Russia and China have chosen 2060. While these dates still feel like a long way away, there are some countries that have already reached net zero. This small handful of countries are part of an elite club, the Alliance of Carbon Negative Countries.

A quick reminder of what net zero is: it’s the balance point at which a country, business or organisation absorbs...

The UK’s warmest year on record

The Met Office has confirmed that 2022 was Britain’s warmest year in a record dating back to 1884. It’s the first time that temperatures have averaged 10 degrees.

In a climate attribution study (see this book for more on how those work) the Met Office says that climate change has made the record 160 times more likely. That very precise number is a useful reminder that when dealing with any weather events or records, we’re talking about the likelihood of something occurring or not. It’s entir...

Book review: Profit, by Mark Stoll

Profit, says author and environmental historian Mark Stoll, is “a history of capitalism that seeks to explain both how capitalism changed the natural world and how the environment shaped capitalism.” It’s a wide-ranging book that takes readers from antiquity all the way to today’s internet-powered global consumerism, exploring the environmental consequences along the way.

Capitalism has emerged in a series of stages, from Greek and Roman merchants, through the ages of empire, plantation ...

What we learned this week

A survey of eight African countries has found that 88% of respondents said their lives were already being affected by climate change.

I’ve heard a couple of people mention open shop doors recently in conversation, and the waste of energy this must represent in cold weather. Yep, and there’s a campaign about that: lostheat.org.uk

Wild potatoes could help to feed the world while reducing agricultural chemical use, according to the International Potato Centre. Before you read on, pause to ro...

Let’s float some more solar farms

There has been some unwarranted fussing about solar farms in the UK recently. There is an enduring perception that they compete with food production and should be restricted. I’ve described why that’s not the case, but even if land is in short supply and isn’t suitable for solar panels, there are other options. Yes, there are roofs, the natural habitat of the PV. There are options above roads, on bridges and over car parks, and the one I wanted to highlight today: solar panels on water.

As a...

Rishi Sunak’s priorities are missing something

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a new year speech yesterday announcing his government’s priorities. “I want to make a simple commitment: this government will always reflect the people’s priorities,” he told the UK.

You can guess what one of those priorities will be. Like the last five Prime Ministers before him, he affirmed his faith in the god of economic growth. But what else? Sunak made five promises:

Halve inflationGrow the economyReduce debtCut waiting listsAnd stop ...

My books of 2022

Impossible though it may be, I’ve chosen some favourites from the books I read in 2022. I know everyone else writes their end-of-year lists in December, but that misses out on all the great reading time that happens between Christmas and New Year, right?

Here are a handful of recommendations out of the 82 books I read last year. (These are the grown-up ones. I picked a top ten children’s books here.) Click on the titles for full reviews, and they’re all available from Earthbound Books UK.

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Film review: The Letter

The Letter is a film inspired by Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter, Laudato Si. It was released on Youtube a couple of months ago and it is freely available for everyone to watch. There’s a cinematic scope to the film, but that’s a release strategy that reflects the encyclical itself. The pope wrote his message as a letter to everyone on earth, and the film is everyone too. Here it is in full if you’d like to see it, with my notes on the film below.

The documentary is not so much abo...