Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 83

What we learned this week

After fuel price rises this year, fewer than a third of Chinese coal plants are running profitably, according to new analysis from Transition Zero.

NOAA have compiled the temperature records from around the world for last month and concluded that July was the hottest month on record.

With the new IPCC report out this week and reams of supporting evidence in the form of fires and floods, it’s been a depressing week for anyone with an eye on the climate. So it’s a good week for Vox to run an...

The Ants and the Grasshopper trailer

One of the most important messages in my book is to listen to the people most affected by climate change, especially voices from Africa. African voices have been sidelined in the climate change conversation, despite the continent being the hardest hit by the crisis.

Vanessa Nakate’s new book, due out later this year, is one way to listen. It’s called A Bigger Picture and it’s excellent, and you should definitely pre-order it right now.

Here’s another project I’ve got my eye on. The Ants ...

How Athens is adapting to climate change

In recent weeks I’ve written about how to cool cities, and how to reduce the risk of urban flooding. The kinds of adaptation measures I described in both those posts are visible in a city that’s been in the climate news recently: Athens. Greece’s capital is currently preoccupied with fires to the north, but other climate disasters also trouble the city. It is very built up and has too little green space – the lowest per capita green space of any city in the EU in fact. This exacerbates the urban...

Book review: We Have A Dream, by Mya-Rose Craig

Mya-Rose Craig is a leading British youth activist, also known as Birdgirl, who has been blogging about birds since the age of 11.

As a British-Bangladeshi, she noticed that there weren’t many people like her in the environmental movement, or among the birdwatcher and naturalist circles that she moved in. This led to the founding of Black2Nature, a charity that runs outdoor camps for young people who may not usually have access to nature, and raises the visibility of ethnic minorities in...

What we learned this week

“African countries are among the most threatened from shifts in weather patterns they played no part in triggering” writes David Pilling in the Financial Times, looking at how Africa has been marginalised in climate negotiations.

On a related note, climate negotiators often refer to an energy transition – and African leaders ask how that is relevant if you don’t have a dirty energy system to transition away from. The New Scientist asks the right question here: Can low-income countries leapfro...

Building materials from waste plastics

Nzambi Matee is an entrepreneur from Kenya who is turning waste plastic into paving blocks through her company Gjenge Makers. “I’m using one problem to solve another problem” she says, tackling plastic pollution and affordable housing at the same time.

There’s a lot to like about this project, including the 112 jobs created in waste picking to source the scrap plastic. In many places that’s work for those at the bottom of the pile, done informally and at high risk, so anything that ser...

Depaving can be a life-saving climate adaptation

Last month the Chinese city of Zhengzhou was inundated by record breaking rainfall. An entire average year’s rainfall dropped in just three days, and the consequences were catastrophic. Unable to absorb that quantity of water, streets flooded, rivers overflowed and houses collapsed. The subway line filled with water. 500 people had to be rescued from a flooded road tunnel, and 14 people drowned in their cars.

As greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, these sorts of events become more likely. ...

Let me tell you about the Elephant Bike

For years I’ve been getting around Luton on an old BMX, a primitive and simple bike that has required little maintenance and is easy to move through our mid-terrace house when not in use. But it’s knackered. It can’t carry anything. The kids’ bikes are now bigger and better than mine, and they want to go on longer rides than you can do on a BMX. It’s time for an upgrade – though my wife has made that argument for about a decade.

It has taken me a long time to find a bike to replace it. I wan...

Book review: Footprints, by David Farrier

In 2013 a storm revealed fossil footprints on Happisburgh beach in Norfork. At 900,000 years old, they were the earliest evidence of humans in Britain – a remarkable echo of the distant past that vanished again as quickly as it appeared.

That same year, the earth’s atmosphere crossed the symbolic threshold of 400 parts per million of CO2. The juxtaposition of these two events triggered a question in David Farrier’s mind: what will we leave behind? What will wash up on beaches and speak o...

What we learned this week

Coutts, London’s elite bank for the wealthy and the royals, has become a B-Corps – quite a statement of intent from the 300 year old instution.

“The fossil fuel sector is not about to turn its back on hydrocarbons. It has seen a beacon of hope in plastics”. DW.com have a nicely designed feature on how fossil fuel companies are turning to plastics in response to the existential threat of climate action.

Greenland recently banned any exploration for fossil fuels, effectively ruling it out ...