The Sustainable Futures Report

While the hydrogen debate continues, the Extinction Rebellion protest continues as well - but it's not getting many headlines. If you exercise your democratic right to protest could it prevent you from getting a job, from getting motor insurance, from getting a visa to visit Europe? In this episode there's also news about a new form of mass electricity storage and details of the events that the Su...

Denialists and those in denial - hydrogen - should it be grey, green or blue, or is it a red herring? - Should Alok Sharma be driving a diesel car? Why are both Biden and Boris encouraging the extraction of more oil and coal? And an interview with the team at Bucha Bio: young entrepreneurs replacing a traditional material with a sustainable alternative.

Yes, that report's out. No surprises for most of us. What do we do now? What do governments do now? Well, they take action, and we make sure they do. Never give up!

In episode No. 350 we have an interview with Ross O'Ceallaigh of the Green Urbanist podcast. In other news there's the Siberian heatwave and methane emissions, foreign control of North Sea oil  threatens UK's net zero goal, the mortality cost of carbon, HS2 may never reach the end of the line and new insights from Allegra Stratton, the Prime Minister's climate crisis spokesperson.

This is an extra edition of the Sustainable Futures Report. There's so much comment, reporting and news that this is an attempt to keep you up to date. There will be another edition on Friday as normal!

Rewilding to address the climate crisis: I talk to Ria Rocha of Mossy Earth. And there's news from Ireland of creative climate action. 

Floods in Edinburgh and London, floods and fatalities in Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, India and China; wildfires across North America, heatwaves in Europe. Is this our final wake-up call?

I'm talking to Jason Szeftel about China's role in solving the climate crisis, and how the West has exported much of its manufacturing, its carbon footprint and its rubbish to China. We look at economic stress and strains within the country, its desire for secrecy and the ever-increasing surveillance of its population. 

Sustainable business plus extreme weather, continued warnings, Belgians have their day in court and so does the Transport Action Network, (more) climate-warming plans from the UK government, what is Amazon throwing away? And the BBC has a change of heart. All this and more in your latest Sustainable Futures Report.

This week Climate Action staged the Climate Innovation Forum 2021, a three-day event. I got a press pass and I'll share my review of some of the sessions. Also on this week's agenda: more on the nuclear plant at Taishan, extreme weather in North America, shortfalls in the UK, and the future of the Sustainable Futures Report.

Last week the leaders of seven powerful nations met in the UK. Let's look at what they said and indeed what they didn't say. I also have the usual miscellanea to share with you, and some thoughts on the future of the Sustainable Futures Report.  

No clear theme this week. G-7 is still going on so I can only report on speculation rather than outcomes. We look at a potential pitfall of trade deals, analyse rain in Newcastle, I'll draw your attention to some events which look interesting and there is more, yes more, about bitcoin. In the Amazon region they have been living in harmony with nature for some 5,000 years. Then civilisation happene...

Last week Business Green staged an important conference - Net Zero Nature. I share some of the insights I gained. In other news, some thoughts about G7 - the upcoming intergovernmental conference, a missed opportunity for green recovery, more reaction to the news about Shell, blowing hot and cold on energy storage, is public transport the way forward? And a bit of mining in the West Midlands.

Should the Nord Stream 2 pipeline face sanctions following this week's air piracy by Russian ally Belarus? Oil company Shell faces continued protests and car manufacturers - and other industries - find the chips are down. In the hunt for rare metals, mining may come back to the UK. Will it cause as much pollution as mining for bitcoin - now opening new markets for coal-generated electricity? Resta...

This week Fatih Birol, a leading energy economist and currently executive director of the International Energy Agency, said that exploitation and development of new oil and gas fields must stop this year and no new coal-fired power stations could be built if the world were to stay within safe limits of global heating and meet the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.   Meeting net zero is one target...

A lot more stories, actually. I'm trying to get to grips with the stories that I haven't covered over the last four or five weeks. Links to all the sources, as usual, below. There's a whole range of issues which I've loosely grouped into Energy, Science and Warning Signs, Managing the Message, and Inconsistencies, Greenwash and Counter-Intuitive ideas. With that last category in mind, we'll look a...

One year on I'm talking again to James Dyke of Exeter University. This time our discussions ranged from Chelsea tractors to carbon sinks in the Arctic and the Amazon, the mystery of the missing methane (missing from the stats, that is, there's too much of it in the atmosphere), why injecting sulphuric acid into the stratosphere might be a good idea and why it might not be. We reflected that peat t...

Joe Biden hosted a climate summit last week. Greta Thunberg accused leaders of still talking and not doing, and nine women were arrested for breaking windows at the HQ of HSBC, a major investor in fossil fuel industries. Talk Radio wanted to know what I thought about it all. You'll hear what I told them.

We are living in dangerous times, but the good news is that people - powerful people - are talking about the climate crisis. They are talking about actions they'll take to deal with the climate crisis. But at the same time, climate protestors are being criminalised across the world. Newspapers reporting on these prosecutions have withdrawn articles in the face of threats of legal action. Yes, here...

This week, a follow-up to Fukushima, COP26 - why Greta won't be going, why she certainly won't be going in an SUV, Seaspiracy- that Netflix film, Ade Adepitan on the front line, lab-grown meat and growing your own pan scourer. And an interview with Bertrand Piccard, the man who flew round the world on solar power and now has assembled 1000 solutions to climate problems.

A brief look back at my 14 years of podcasting.

It's Earth Hour on Saturday and stories this week include riots in Bristol, time  running short to get a grip on the climate crisis  and calls to speed up renewable energy growth. Health risks from oil, British government cuts electric car grants, puts climate change at the heart of its integrated strategy and announces more nukes. There's greenwash, and Ecotricity is drilling.

The good news is that there's no bad news, just challenges and new opportunities. Here's a selection of the sustainability stories that have crossed my desk recently.

Over 70% of the earth's surface is covered by water. The beaches, the boundary between the oceans and the other 30% of the surface where we live, is constantly battered by waves. This week I had a conversation with Kim McCoy, author of the third edition of Waves and Beaches. Kim has recently completed an Ironman and will continue to swim, dive, surf, sail, rock-climb and paraglide until motion sto...

Geothermal energy, or ground source heat pumps. Kathy Hannun of Dandelion Energy explains how they do it in New York. Welcome to two new Silver Supporters!  Brexit releases the UK from the obligation to follow EU Directives on climate - or anything else for that matter. There's a new Office for Environmental Protection, but how far can it hold the British government to account?