Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 8

What we learned from getting a heat pump

After several years of planning towards it, we had a heat pump installed in the house last week. It’s the last step in getting our house to zero carbon – or effectively so. It’s impossible to eliminate fossil fuels in the supply chain, but as a household we’re no longer burning any directly.

As I’ve been doing with each of the low carbon interventions we’ve made to the house, I thought I’d write up what we’ve learned in the process. There is a lot of interest in heat pumps at the moment,...

What we learned this week

It was World Glacier Day this week, not that the glaciers knew much about it. Qianggong Zhang writes about the state of the world’s glaciers at Dialogue Earth, and why they matter.

Sainsbury’s is trialling a scheme where food waste from its stores is turned into biofuel, which will power 30 trucks at one of their distribution centres.

Iran is almost always mentioned in the news for other reasons, so don’t miss this story: the country is in a drought so severe that it is at risk of ‘water...

A new age of solar for UK schools?

When I first heard about Labour’s plans to create a national energy company, inevitably called Great British Energy, I had one immediate thought: stick solar on schools. Also hospitals and public sector buildings generally. Start there, and a whole load of vital public services will get cheaper energy, saving taxpayers money and easing the stress on budgets.

Today Great British Energy announced their first big project, and it is indeed exactly that. £80 million has been assigned to solar for...

Borrow Cup vs the coffee cup mountain

Do you remember the old days when a reusable cup was just called a cup? Now we have to be more specific, the rise of disposable drinkware coining a retronym. Disposable cups are now so ubiquitous that Britain gets through 2.5 billion of them a year, which is a bafflingly large number.

Although many people believe they can be recycled and loyally stick them in the correct bin for it, they’re not recyclable in any practical sense. They’re made of paper lined with plastic, and most have be sort...

Book review: Dark Laboratory, by Tao Leigh Goffe

Tao Leigh Goffe is a professor of cultural history and the founder of the multi-disciplinary arts collective Dark Laboratory. Her work explores the interconnections between race and climate, as does her book of the same title.

The book looks mainly at the Caribbean, and how the legacy of plantation slavery echoes through the region’s experience of climate change. I say ‘mainly’ because as a writer of Jamaican and Chinese descent, Goffe brings an unusual perspective. She compares and cont...

What we learned this week

My employer Ashden Climate Solutions have won NGO of the year at the Edie Sustainable Awards for their Let’s Go Zero project, which I’ve been working on for almost a year now. I already knew it was an exceptional campaign, so it’s nice to see it being recognised. Here are the details.

Former archbishop Rowan Williams writes about the growth obsession in politics in the Guardian, and reminds us to ask ‘why, and for whom?’ when people start talking about growth.

David Roberts’ Volts podcast...

Ten ways to get solar without a rooftop

What happens if you’d love to have solar panels but don’t have a roof to put it on?

It’s not uncommon. You might be in rented accomodation or in an apartment, and don’t have access to a roof of your own. Perhaps you’ve got a roof but it faces the wrong way, is the wrong shape or isn’t strong enough to take the weight. Sometimes it’s planning rules, with solar frowned upon in heritage areas.

Just as likely, maybe what stands between you and solar power is nothing to do with a roof, and is...

The first country to say goodbye to ICE cars

Which country do you think will be the first to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars?

A good bet might be Norway, which leads the world on electric car adoption. 90% of new cars sold are electric, so they’re closer than anyone else. But it’s not Norway.

Or you might guess China, which has invested more in the transition to electric vehicles than anyone else. 58% of all the world’s electric cars are made in China. But it’s not them either.

Neither is it Sweden, who declared in 2...

Why real debate needs better questions

This morning I got a call from a radio station that was doing a phone-in on low emissions zones. After London reported on the success of its Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), people are talking about introducing something similar across other towns in the region. Could I come on the show and talk about it?

This is a regular occurence when there’s a local environmental story. Most callers will be against, so the station lines up a couple of voices to present the other side. That means that I h...

Book review: Less, by Patrick Grant

I suspect I am in a minority among readers of this book in not knowing who Patrick Grant is in advance. He is the dapper judge from The Great British Sewing Bee, a Savile Row master tailor and founder of Community Clothing. I discovered all of this while reading the book, which I picked up for its title.

There have been a steady stream of books with titles like this one – Enough, Consumed, Possessed, and Stuffocation all come to mind as single-word titles on consumerism. Each of them upd...