The New Climate, on Medium.com

Waste-to-energy incinerators are touted as ‘renewable’, attracting private investors and public subsidies. But is it all smoke and mirrors?

The fastest growing climate publication on Medium, covering the environment, biodiversity, net zero, renewable energy, social justice and regenerative agriculture. It’s time for The New Climate.

Banaba, a small Pacific island of just six square kilometres, should be the postcard-picture of paradise. But, Colonialism. In 1945, the British Phosphate Commission — jointly owned by the British, Australian and New Zealand governments—relocated the entire population of Banaba (also known as Ocean Island and part of present-day Kiribati) to Rabi Island (Fiji), in order to mine for phosphate. By the 1980s, the BPC had exhausted the phosphate supply and mined 90% of the Banaba’s surface...

Is doom a proactive or a reactive emotion? Is it useful? Does it galvanise us with a sense of purpose, or drown us in apathy? As Vox wittily put it, “it’s boom times for doom times” right now. When the Pew Research Center polled 17 countries on attitudes towards climate change, the overwhelming majority said they were willing to change the way they lived to tackle the problem. We are poised and ready for action...

Take a train journey through the British countryside, and you’re sure to come across a view like the one in the photo above. When fields full of solar panels — known as solar farms or solar parks—started to become common around 10–15 years ago, I used to gaze out on them with a mix of hope and excitement. They seemed to offer tangible, irrefutable evidence that the renewable energy transition was underway. But as they become more ubiquitous I get a karmic pang of guilt...

It all started for me one year ago. My energy provider in the UK asked if I’d like to take part in an energy saving trial. Being somewhat of an energy nerd, and Editor of a climate publication, I was likely to say yes anyway. But there was an extra sweetener — they would pay me for it. And in the middle of a cost of living crisis, with energy bills the highest in living memory, I happily plonked that sweetener in my cup of English Breakfast tea, gave it a stir, and gulped it down...

I’d already written one environmental book, plus several reports for the BBC on water issues. So writing my next book on the subject of the water crisis seemed a logical step when discussing it with my publisher in February 2020 — how hard can it be? The following month I had a book deal, but the world had a pandemic — I was locked down and thinking more about my family’s health and survival. The book now seemed impossible. And the words ‘how hard can it be?’ took on a whole new meaning...