Category: Environment

I have to admit I start this column feeling furious. As you will no doubt be aware Rishi Sunak has agreed to over 100 new licences for drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Presumably he’s banking on securing a one-way ticket to Mars for his family, because these licences will undoubtedly worsen the climate […]

Inspired by a friend I’ve recently taken up jogging, using the free NHS Couch to 5k app. I’m not a natural runner; I’d much rather be out on a bike, but I figured it would help me to keep fit as I could slot in a 30 minute session from time to time into my […]

It’s been a busy time for protests. In late May a friend and I took part in a Surfers Against Sewage protest against water pollution, standing on the pontoon off the Tinside in Plymouth, waving a banner with a simple message; clean oceans. Clean water is enormously important, both from our taps and in the […]

I have been lucky enough to encounter the positive eco-guru Rob Hopkins twice in the last few months. His new book, titled How to Fall in Love with the Future is out on June 17th, and I’m eagerly looking forward to reading it. So this article is dedicated to the work of Rob, and those visionaries who create positive […]

“Say it with flowers” goes the saying, and as today is Valentine’s Day, it seems an appropriate subject to mull over. We spend a lot on flowers. A quick scan of the internet suggests the spending on cut flowers nudges the one billion pound mark, with 86% of those flowers coming from abroad. A carbon […]

I feel myself fortunate to have friends of all nationalities. Of these friends a few have fled from conflict. These include a conservationist, artist, musician, doctor, economist, chemist and locksmith. The countries they have fled from are as diverse as Iran, Serbia and Trinidad. All showed enormous bravery in coming to an alien territory to escape […]

The last few days have been very busy. Because our web providers accidentally wiped out our Railholiday blog (rather than the subscription to our band website that we’d asked them to cancel), I’ve had to start again from scratch. Luckily Dave found an Internet Archive website, with a very useful function called Wayback Machine that […]

It’s extraordinary to think that four years ago we were in deep lockdown, and life was so radically different. One of the memorable incidents of early Covid was the sudden rush to stock up on essentials leading to empty shelves, and a toilet roll shortage. Of all the things we felt we couldn’t manage without, […]

We live on a planet with finite resources, but we often behave as though our resources are infinite. A circular economy is an important cog in the tools we need to keep our planet healthy for generations to come. But what does circular economy actually mean? The term circular economy relates to resources. Once a product is […]

Or at least spending it locally… Inequality is a massive issue when it comes to climate change and social unrest. The wealthy, through their powerful media channels, are great at scapegoating the lower echelons of society. The truth is that the wealthiest are most likely to have the highest carbon footprint, through greater energy costs, […]