Jeremy Williams's Blog, page 9

Everybody wants climate action (but thinks nobody else does)

There’s a persistent problem when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. Polls consistently show that people care about climate change and want to see more done about it, but they’re not convinced that everyone else feels that way. Because we underestimate public support, we hesitate on climate action. Progress is slow and easily reversed.

At its worst, politicians falsely conclude that climate policies are unpopular and that they could win votes by binning them – and nobody calls them t...

Film review: Piggy Bank

“Here comes my story, for what it’s worth,” begins Christoph Schwarz’s debut feature film Piggy Bank, “and I’m not asking you to believe it.” It’s an apt opening line, setting the viewer up for a film that is wry and unassuming, and that playfully twists truth and fiction.

Filmmaker Schwarz has just been invited to participate in an Austrian TV documentary series called ‘Striking Years’, and they’d like him to do something climate related. The budget they are offering just happens to match t...

What we learned this week

Two thirds of the world experienced record breaking heat last year, and the Guardian has visualised where and when in this useful interactive feature.

Also a neat interactive, Grist have mapped all the announcements of climate spending by the Biden administration. All up in the air now that the Trump has cancelled the funding, but it’s a striking map of climate investment across the United States, and I’d love to see something similar in the UK one day.

This week I came across Context, a...

Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now, by Jaron Lanier

I’ve done quite a bit of thinking about social media over the last year. It’s been prompted by world events, an almost complete collapse of their usefulness to me, personally and professionally, and by the change I’ve seen in others. I have friends who I know as intelligent and compassionate people, but whose online presence now seems paranoid, unhappy and hateful. Social media has little positive to offer in 2025, and far too many negative effects to ignore.

Jaron Lanier spotted a lot o...

Waste tyres – a progress update

A few years ago I wrote a couple of posts about tyres, a sustainability headache that I hadn’t heard much about. I thought I’d revisit it to see if there was any update, but it appears that we’re not much closer to solving the problem, and the number of tyres produced every year has risen. Over two billion tyres are now manufactured every year, every one of them a big weight of non-biodegradeable mass of rubber and plastic. They can’t be recycled either, though they can be refurbished up to a po...

Highlights from Zero Carbon Luton

Storytelling is vital to creating a better world, celebrating successes and inspiring further ambition. It’s why I focus on solutions and stories of progress on this site, and I do that for more local audiences through Zero Carbon Luton. I thought I’d drop in some stories from around the town, to share what I’ve been up to and in case anyone is inspired to subscribe.

Retrofitting Morton House

Formerly known as K Block at Vauxhall’s Kimpton Road plant, Morton House is an elegant ea...

What we learned this week

Have China’s carbon emissions stopped rising? A plateau in emissions, driven by a surge in renewable energy capacity, is already observable and might make 2025 the year that China’s carbon pollution begins to decline.

I wrote earlier this week about the revolution in electrifying India’s railways – link below. Here’s an infographic from Indian NGO Down to Earth that sets the wider context of the energy transition underway, both its successes and challenges.

I use Ecosia, but this week I...

Book review: Subjugate the Earth, by Philipp Blom

“I thank God that Donald Trump won this election,” enthused evangelical leader Franklin Graham in November. To his mind it was a win for families and for religious liberty, but also “a win for coal miners. It’s a win for farmers. It’s a win for the oil and gas industry.” Victory for the fossil fuel industry is all part of God’s gift. I suspect Graham Franklin believes in subjugating the earth.

In his book on the idea, Philipp Blom describes what this means: “Man is outside and above natu...

Radio Dadaab: reporting for climate justice

Radio Dadaab is a 25 minute documentary about a young journalist in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, home to 200,000 Somalis. She is reporting on drought and climate change and migration, and it’s some of the best climate justice reportage that I’ve seen in a while.

Here’s the video, with some further thoughts below.

Radio Dadaab is beautifully shot, and gives us a real insight into life in an extraordinary and tragic place. It makes a compelling case: here are farmers showing us ...

India’s electric railway revolution

Every day, India electrifies 19.6 kilometres of railway line.

In the last decade the country has electrified 40,000 kilometres of track, and it is due to reach 100% electrification this year, exactly on time. It’s a remarkable achievement.

With 97% of its broad gauge lines now transitioned, India has the second highest electrification rate of any major rail network in the world. Only Switzerland has more, on 100%. By contrast, the UK manages 37%, Australia is at 10% and the US just below...