The UK has some of the oldest – and leakiest – housing stock in the western world. The vast majority of it will still be standing in 2050, the year by which the government has set itself a target to cut…
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Environment – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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Energy Minister Michael Fallon’s recent comments about the impact of fracking on communities in the leafy Home Counties (“We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring…
It was a ball of grease so enormous, so destructive and so repugnant that not just London, but the whole world, recoiled in horror. The city’s biggest-ever fatberg lurked under Kingston-upon-Thames for…
Each year more than 1 million tonnes of mineral nitrogen fertiliser is applied to arable and grass crops in the UK. This pollutes waterways through nitrate run-off and the atmosphere from the release of…
The recent comments from former government energy policy advisor David Howell, Lord Howell of Guildford, on the suitability of different parts of England for fracking amply demonstrate how off-the-cuff…
What propels us to notice when a place is badly littered or surprisingly clean? When abroad, why do we often make comparisons between well-swept cities and badly kept ones? Of course, there is the banal…
When officials in the northern Chinese province of Hubei recently declared their dedication to cleaning up air pollution by giving up smoking, few were impressed by their grasp of the problem. But China…
Germany and the UK have ambitious clean energy policies. Both have set themselves national emission reduction targets beyond the European Union’s goal of 20% below emissions levels of 1990. Germany has…
When the carbon price collapsed to below €3 in April this year, EU policymakers sought to prop up carbon prices by a deal that would delay the release of carbon allowances (known as “backloading”). This…
The Russian state’s engagement with environmental concerns is complicated, carrying as it does a heavy legacy from Soviet times. From the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster (in what is Ukraine…
Geothermal energy is derived from heat produced by the decay of radioactive elements within the Earth’s molten core, where temperatures reach 6000°C around 6000km below the ground. This heat naturally…
Lying to either side of the Urals, the Republic of Komi and Khanty-Mansiysk in the north of Russia are among the country’s most oil-rich regions. Scarcely populated, they provide a substantial share of…
What has nature ever done for us? This is what leading environmentalist Tony Juniper asks in his latest book. He wants us to account for the “ecosystem services” that nature freely provides in order to…
Damaging hurricanes are familiar along the US east coast, with the recent hurricane Sandy a dramatic example. In Europe we are unused to such dramatic weather and the widespread destruction that hurricanes…
We all know that weather is not the same as climate, but it is surprising how our perceptions of global warming vary according to what we see outside our window. In the UK for example, last year’s washed-out…
A commitment to building a new wave of high-speed rail networks has emerged, such as HS2 in Britain. But given how costly they are, their wider impact has been under-investigated. It is little wonder that…
Arctic sea ice is retreating, with projections suggesting that the summer months will be substantially ice-free within the next few years. Nations are waking up to the possibilities for shipping and resource…
The display of a frozen mammoth in Japan has again raised questions as to the possibility of creating a live born clone of extinct animals. Theoretically, mammoths could be cloned by recovering, reconstructing…
Britain’s badgers stand on the brink of being shot, gassed or even forcibly fed oral contraceptives, all in the name of fighting the spread of tuberculosis in cattle. But what dangers does bovine TB (as…
Last week, Chancellor George Osborne announced a 30% tax rate on shale gas production. Representing a 32% reduction on the standard rate for oil and gas companies, the move is the latest in a series of…
Hearing the words “airborne nanoparticles” for the first time, one would probably ask: just how tiny are they, where do they come from, and do we need to worry about them? These tiny particles between…
The London mayor’s recent decision to endorse the Thames Estuary’s Isle of Grain as the site for a new major hub airport has already raised concerns about threats to local birds, but perhaps it is threats…
The islands off the north and west of Scotland hold the UK’s best renewable resources, yet for more than a decade energy policies have prevented them from realising their full potential. Due to long out-of-date…
The School Food Plan for England released last week is supposed to be the blueprint that improves lunches in schools across the country. The important role of head teachers, a funding commitment from the…
There is something of a sensory dissonance in modern cities. Glamorous as they are, the breath of contemporary cities stinks. A recent study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters found…