Arthur Downing, author of Power and the People: A History of British Energy, says all-encompassing rapid transition will need a mutualised system
Have you ever wondered why it is that most houses in the UK are reliant on gas boilers? Not what’s stopping more people from replacing them with heat pumps, but instead why and how the gas boiler became so ubiquitous in the first place?
Arthur Downing, the author of the new book Power and the People: A History of British Energy, can tell you exactly why. “We only have boilers in our houses because of a state-owned enterprise that went into everybody’s home and installed natural gas-suitable appliances at no direct cost,” he says. The nationalised gas industry of the 1940s to the 1980s, which oversaw this huge project, was for three decades one of the “most dynamic, innovative, efficient industries in Britain”, Downing says. Yet few of us would use these terms to describe it as such now.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/02/2026 - 02:00
09/02/2026 - 01:00
Study reveals that pesticide poisoning kills 11,000 people each year, with India accounting for nearly 60% of fatalities
Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.
Continue reading...
09/02/2026 - 00:45
In today’s newsletter: Communities from Scotland to India are pushing back against datacentres, warning they threaten energy supplies and the climate
Good morning. This summer, datacentres have become targets of resistance across the world. Ever since the arrival of ChatGPT, big tech has been lobbying for the creation of enormous new facilities. Many governments claim they’re essential in any country that wants to cash in on AI.
Campaigners argue datacentres drain resources and exacerbate the climate crisis. The Scottish National Party has backed a moratorium on new developments; so has the Greens. The boom has been immense, and so has the backlash. Today’s newsletter explains why.
UK politics | Andy Burnham has blamed Brexit and Margaret Thatcher for a decade of low growth in the UK, arguing that Britain needs to be brutally honest about having taken “a series of wrong turns” in the last 40 years.
Nepal-Tibet | A week on from the flash flooding disaster, authorities are urging relatives of the thousands of missing and dead to provide blood samples.
Middle East | The US has launched new airstrikes on Iranian targets, prompting counter strikes by Tehran targeting American interests in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq, fuelling concerns about a wider renewal of hostilities.
Ukraine | Russia has opened a deadly new phase in its war against Ukraine by deliberately targeting the country’s railway network, with six employees killed on Tuesday in the latest strikes on Kyiv.
US news | Mark Carney has rebuked Donald Trump’s administration and urged officials in Washington to “start being serious” amid escalation trade tensions between the US and Canada.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 23:00
But scientists say the world could get back to 1.5C through deep, rapid emissions cuts and removing carbon from the atmosphere
Global heating will reach at least 1.8C under even the most optimistic future, well beyond the Paris agreement goal of 1.5C, according to a UN report that warns every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion.
The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 13:16
Experts say more bears are wandering into humans' homes and shops in search of food, due to drought-driven food shortages across the US west
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 11:11
State cannot enforce policy requiring oil firms to pay $75bn over 25 years for climate mitigation and adaptation
A federal judge has struck down a landmark New York law that forces major polluters to pay climate damages.
In her Monday ruling, Brenda Sannes, chief judge of the US district court for the northern district of New York, sided with Republican-led states and oil interests in saying the state cannot enforce its “climate superfund” law, signed by Kathy Hochul, the governor, in December 2024. The policy required big oil companies to pay $75bn over 25 years for projects to help New York pay for climate mitigation and adaptation.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 11:00
Taha Kafil-Hussain flies a drone above Coogee beach. Mostly he zooms in on seaweed or turtles – but occasionally he spots a shark and clears the water
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
“Hey Taha, what’s the visibility like?” shouts a man with a towel slung over his shoulder.
“Uh, nice,” says Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone operator Taha Kafil-Hussain.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 09:19
Nearly 80 people have been rescued, and two people confirmed dead, after flood hit national park
A US border patrol technical search team is expected to deploy in the Grand Canyon, as authorities continue the search for at least one missing person after a fatal flash flood washed through the national park over the weekend.
Authorities are rushing to scour the area as more heavy rain and thunderstorms in weather forecasts threaten additional debris flows, flash floods or rock falls.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 09:00
Head of tree collections at Kew ‘very worried about this autumn’ as hot, dry summer has caused brittleness
High winds associated with El Niño could cause widespread mortality among tree species already weakened by a prolonged period of extreme heat and drought, experts have warned.
This summer much of Europe has been scorched by a series of record-breaking climate crisis-induced heatwaves. The impact is notable across much of England’s countryside, where once green land has turned brown, and many trees are undergoing “early autumn” – wilting and losing their leaves early – to cope with extreme heat.
Continue reading...
09/01/2026 - 06:00
Rollback of ‘roadless rule’ expected to benefit companies US Forest Service chief, Tom Schultz, previously lobbied for
Donald Trump this month announced plans to rescind a landmark rule that has protected old-growth forests in the US for 25 years. If finalized, the rollback is expected to benefit the companies that Tom Schultz, chief of the US Forest Service, represented in his previous roles as a timber industry lobbyist and executive, according to research by consumer advocacy non-profit Public Citizen.
The Roadless Area Conservation Rule, more commonly known as the “roadless rule”, was adopted in 2001 to limit development in roughly 45m acres of national forest. Industry interests and Republican representatives have long lobbied for the rule’s rescission, which would open up those swaths of untouched land to road construction, drilling and logging.
Continue reading...
