Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 67

Book review: The Time to Act is Now, by Carola Rackete

This month the British government announced an illegal, inhumane and impractical new policy to deal with asylum seekers: give them a one-way ticket to Rwanda. There’s a lot to say about it, but I thought I’d comment by way of a book review.

Carola Rackete is a German ecologist, formerly ship captain, who found herself in the middle of a media storm in 2019. She had been arrested for saving the lives of refugees in the Mediterranean. Her ship, the charity-operated Sea Watch 3, had taken o...

What we learned this week

I feel like I’ve been sharing links about seaweed farming for years, without seeing any evidence of it catching on. When I find seaweed stocked in my local supermarket I’ll know we’re getting somewhere, but for now here’s another article on how transformative sea farming could be.

Molecular solar thermal energy storage is a new one to me, and one of those things that I don’t really understand. But scientists in Sweden have identified a way to store solar power at a molecular level and release...

The FT Climate Game

Allow me to ruin your Friday productivity by pointing you towards a climate quiz game created by the Financial Times. Your task is to get to net zero by 2050, and the game presents you with a series of choices. Select the policies that will cut emissions, set targets, invest in technologies, and see what the global temperature is by 2050.

It’s a massive simplification, naturally, but a valid one for educational purposes. You don’t get the degrowth option, and it’s heavy on the hydrogen an...

The Green Claims Code to counter greenwash

I suppose it’s somewhat inevitable, but the more people become aware of the environmental crisis, the more likely it is that companies will exaggerate or fabricate their green credentials. People expect companies to be taking the environment seriously, and companies want to tell people what they’re up to. The result is a proliferation of green claims – behold, our product is ‘eco’, ‘natural’ and ‘plant-based’. We offset! We care!

Greenwashing is annoying because it allows people to inflate t...

Guest post: On David Cameron and his husky friend

All Our Yesterdays is a unique project from Dr Marc Hudson. Throughout 2022, he is posting a climate related anniversary every day – some significant, some not. Together, they illustrate just how long we have been collectively ignoring the climate crisis. Like this website, content is published under a Creative Commons licence, and I’ve been waiting for a daily post to share as a way of introducing the project. Given the cost of energy and the missed opportunity that it represents, today’s seems...

Join the Big Plastic Count

Despite the attention on single-use plastic in the last few years, plastic is still everywhere. All those books and TV programmes and environmental campaigns, and it’s still impossible to avoid. Individual action is not enough, and promised government plans to tackle plastic never seem to get beyond consultations. I’ve seen glaciers move faster than the government’s plastic bottle deposit scheme.

It’s time to put some pressure on government and industry, and it would help to have more data on...

Book review: The Book of Trespass, by Nick Hayes

I reviewed Nature is a Human Right recently, and as Nick Hayes is one of the contributors, I was reminded that I never got around to reviewing The Book of Trespass. Nick’s book doesn’t really need my review, being a bestseller already, but there are a couple of reasons to write up my thoughts. One is that it’s a book that I really enjoyed and that breaks new ground. And the second is that there are chapters in it that really resonate with current affairs.

I’ve heard the phrase ‘the count...

What we learned this week

I liked this story in the Guardian about a thousand year old irrigation system being refurbished as a climate adaptation in Spain. It celebrates both low-tech and commons approaches.

I’ve written before about the NHS target to reach net zero carbon by 2040 – a formidable challenge for an institution responsible for 4% of the country’s greenhouses gases. According to a new report, so far that is not on track.

As a satisfied customer of the modular and repairable Fairphone, I was intereste...

The least visited bit of the Imperial War Museum

I’ve been on holiday last week and this week – sort of. I’ve been doing some school assemblies and events at libraries, as part of the second career as a children’s author that I seem to have made for myself while I wasn’t looking. We’ve also been visiting family, and yesterday were at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford to see my brother-in-law fly a Spitfire for his birthday.

While there, I was browsing the map of what is a very extensive site. You can walk through the supersonic Concorde, ...

How to upcycle a bin lorry

Remanufacturing is an aspect of the circular economy that we don’t hear so much about. It’s defined as “a series of manufacturing steps acting on an end-of-life part or product in order to return it to like-new or better performance, with warranty to match.” It’s better than refurbishment, aiming to achieve a final product that is often better than it was when new, because it’s been upgraded and improved.

A variety of businesses use these techniques at scale, JCB’s parts network among the be...