Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 61
July 20, 2022
Why you might never charge your Aptera EV
How far are we from a self-charging solar car, I asked in 2017. We can now answer that question definitively. Turns out we were six years away. You can order a self-charging solar car now, and they should be on the roads in 2023. I’m aware of three. There’s the Sono Sion, which is available to pre-order and it will go into production if it gets enough orders. The Lightyear can be bought right now if you have a quarter of a million Euros to hand.
And then there’s the Aptera. By some distance,...
July 19, 2022
Book review: The Next Great Migration, by Sonia Shah
There is no hotter topic in today’s politics than migration. In the UK, debates around who is and who isn’t allowed to be in the country has fed into the historic self-sabotage of Brexit, and led to cruel policies such as exporting refugees to Rwanda. If policies are ugly now, it is troubling to contemplate how things might look in the coming decades as climate change drives growing numbers of people into moving.
Many things are often missing from popular debates on migration, including ...
July 18, 2022
Reporting heatwaves responsibly
Britain is experiencing a heatwave this week, with record temperatures expected today and tomorrow. The mercury has never reached 40C in the UK, and there’s a good chance it will breach that record today.
While this isn’t unusual heat for some parts of the world, Britain is not accustomed to those sorts of temperatures. Homes aren’t designed with cooling measures in mind – no shutters or shaded porches. Air conditioning is relatively rare. School and hospital buildings often overheat. Railwa...
July 16, 2022
What we learned this week
This week I was pointed to the Alliance for Just Money, which is a US equivalent to the Positive Money campaign that many UK readers will be familiar with.
Cities in China have opened up old air raid shelters this week so that people can escape record breaking heatwave temperatures.
It’s always worth listening to the BBC’s The Climate Question podcast, but a particular shout-out to this week’s episode on cycling, as my wife was the researcher on the show and spent days phoning urban plan...
July 15, 2022
Building of the week: Albany marine base
Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany is the first US Department of Defense base to reach net zero, it announced in May this year.
The US Marines might not be the first name that comes to mind when thinking of sustainability pioneers, but Albany started work on this project in 2005. It took several years to explain and convince the top brass, but by 2009 the Marine Corps had its own set of energy and climate targets.
This makes a leader within the department, with the US military as a whole...
July 13, 2022
Sustainable farming in a full world
When we think of sustainable farming, what comes to mind? I expect local and seasonal food feature. Organic standards. Free range, grass-fed, outdoor reared. Wholesome, natural foods. More recently, a lot of people would add plant-based to that list.
George Monbiot’s book ReGenesis, which I reviewed recently, complicates a lot of assumptions about this. Not because there is anything wrong with those movements, but because they won’t be enough.
Organic farming, for example, is obviously a...
July 12, 2022
Plastics crisis? Follow the money
It’s Plastic Free July, which means that millions of people will currently be ‘doing their bit’ to resist the relentless tide of single-use plastics into our homes, towns and countryside. I wish them all the best in their struggle, though I won’t be joining it myself. As I’ve written about before, avoiding plastic is impossible for most people. If you’re lucky enough to have a farmers market and a refill shop, and the money to spend there, you might make it work. For others its just not practica...
July 11, 2022
Book review: The Value of a Whale, by Adrienne Buller
What stops us from acting to stop climate change? Why are we yet to turn a corner on global emissions, let alone bring them down? How is so much talk by so many supposedly powerful people leading to so little action?
Adrienne Buller argues that “self-defeating adherence to flawed assumptions and ‘solutions'” is a big part of the problem. A narrow way of viewing the world has stunted our imaginations and shrunk the range of solutions seen as realistic. In this ‘stocktake’ of where we are, ...
July 9, 2022
What we learned this week
A little agrivoltaic update – researchers in South Korea have found that brocolli grows better under solar panels. In related news, I have trouble spelling the word broccoli.
The UK government neglected to mention meat and dairy in their new food strategy, despite livestock being a critical element of any credible plan to address climate change. Greenpeace have a petition.
Livestock aren’t just a cause of climate change. They also suffer its effects. 42C temperatures killed an estimated 1...
July 8, 2022
Green spaces for hot cities
This year has already seen a number of notable heatwaves. India and Pakistan were in the headlines earlier this year. Japan just came through the worst heatwave in 150 years. The town of Onslow in Australia equalled the highest temperature ever recorded in the Southern hemisphere, at 50.7C.
In a warming climate, these stories are increasingly frequent and cities will need to adapt to build resilience to heatwave conditions. New images from the European Space Agency give us a clue about that ...
