Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 63

What we learned this week

News of another partnership to develop a circular economy for wind turbines. This is an important part of the energy transition, if we are to avoid replacing one kind of exploitative extraction with another.

By 2050, Britain could lose 200,000 homes a year to damage from climate change, according to a recent estimate.

Nobody isn’t interested in food and water, says the climate journalist project Covering Climate Now. Their short guide shows how food and water can be useful topics to help ...

What is agrivoltaic farming?

Agrivoltaics is a word we might hear more often in the coming years. It refers to using land for solar power and farming at the same time, which is something I’ve written about a couple of times without using that specific term.

For example, this week a substantial new solar farm was given the green light in Leicestershire. (It’s outside the village of Quorn on a street named Flesh Hovel Way, and I know this sounds like I’m making it up.) It got permission because it isn’t permanent – it will...

Three reasons to end fossil fuels

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the book Ending Fossil Fuels, by Holly Jean Buck. She argues that there has been plenty of attention on accelerating renewable energy and clean technologies, but not enough attention on the other end of the equation – eliminating coal, oil and gas.

The book presents many reasons why it makes sense to wind down fossil fuels as a specific goal, and I wanted to name a handful of them.

Public health: Measuring the exact impact of fossil fuels on human health ...

Book review: Who Owns the Wind? by David McDermott Hughes

Here’s an unusual approach to the topic of renewable energy, climate change, and wind power in particular. David McDermott Hughes is an anthropologist, and his interest is the social aspects of wind power. How do people feel about it? Who supports it and who doesn’t, and what makes the difference? By understanding the cultural and social aspects of wind power, we can ensure that we avoid potential pitfalls and build a broad support base for a major climate solution.

In true anthrolopolog...

What we learned this week

Years ago I wrote about the problem of waste tyres. While alternatives exist, there is little incentive for the big companies to make better tyres. Make them responsible for disposal and this will change – and here’s an article from the BBC about what future tyres might look like.

Homes For Us is a new campaign around social housing from the New Economics Foundation, a neglected solution to Britain’s slow motion crisis in housing.

Here’s a strange thing: this month the cost of filling a f...

Avoiding eco-fascist creep

Guest post by Harriët Bergman, who is studying for a PhD at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on how feminist and anti-racist thinking can inform discussions on climate breakdown concerning privilege, guilt, denial, power and social change.

In part one of this two-part series, I looked at definitions of eco-fascism, and some past and present examples. In part two, we will look at some common narratives within the climate change movement that...

The past, present and future of eco-fascism

Guest post by Harriët Bergman, who is studying for a PhD at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on how feminist and anti-racist thinking can inform discussions on climate breakdown concerning privilege, guilt, denial, power and social change.

With more extreme forms of politics on the rise, eco-fascism is a term that is growing in importance. In this article, I will look at what eco-fascism is, and some examples from the past and the present. ...

What you need to know about fast fashion

Ethical Consumer shared this video last week on the five things you need to know about fast fashion, starting with why it’s called fast in the first place. It’s a really good summary of the issues, both social and environmental.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given that moving fast is the whole point, but I was struck by how the issues have expanded and accelerated since I first wrote about clothing on the blog. The use of plastic in clothing, for example, didn’t seem like a major...

Book review: Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

I don’t review novels very often, but making an exception every once in a while is a good reminder that you can say all kinds of useful things through fiction, and you might reach a lot more people in the process. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a novel with lots to say, and it’s by Anthony Doerr, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his previous book All the Light we Cannot See.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is about a book – sort of. It’s also got war, terrorism, daring escapes, romance, and spaceships. At the heart ...

What we learned this week

I more or less ignored the Jubilee celebrations last week, after our neighbourhood thing was rained off. But I did rather like Flight Free’s review of 70 years of climate history.

The noise pollution maps released by Possible recently are neatly presented, especially with the sound on. New York, Paris and London are available. Luton not thought important enough to add to that list, alas.

The website for COP27 in Egypt has launched. I know it’s fairly relentless, the COP bandwagon. But host...