As Ed Miliband seeks to 'double down' on the UK energy transition to clean power, this is a reminder of why that matters to consumers:
The highest proportion of fossil fuels in the energy mix leads to the highest prices according to Fidelity international
www.ft.com/content/6b4e...
Can we finally agree that burning wood for energy is a terrible idea and won't be carbon neutral, let alone carbon negative, in our lifetimes? BECCS using wood certainly shouldn't qualify as CO₂ removal (CDR).
Bio-precipitation cycle with fungi: "As wind kicks up, their ice-making proteins are launched into the clouds. They act as powerful "seeds".
And industrial agriculture relies on extensive use of fungicide. We need to #Unlearn it
www.sciencealert.com/tiny-microbe...
“The hypothesis that thawing of permafrost could release sufficient climate forcing gases not only to continue but to accelerate climate change is one step closer to being confirmed by the results we are publishing today.”
Real Country Sizes Shown on Mercator Projection
Credit: Engaging Data
Animated Map: brilliantmaps.com/mercator-...
How little we understand about the damage we are doing on this #PoisonedPlanet
phys.org/news/2026-04...
Heat pumps are the most efficient heating technology ever invented.
They harvest and compress pre existing heat in the air, ground or water and transport it where it is needed.
That energy is all around us.
And it does not have to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
As war-driven fossil prices ripped through global markets, Britain's clean energy buildout provided the nation with an impressive buffer. Wind and solar cut gas generation to just 2.4% of their power mix in late March, helping prices fall to their lowest since October.
news.fixthenews.com/3Alnv6S
Nearly 1 in 6 UK species are threatened with extinction.
We've lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s.
We have 73 million fewer birds than in the 1970s - a decline of almost a third.
And yet some politicians still just see wildlife as a blocker to progress.
In honor of Kinari’s first birthday this Sunday, we wanted to highlight wolf pup developmental milestones 🐺
🔗Read more on our blog: nywolf.org/2026/04/wolf-pup-develop...
We are looking for a Conservation Projects Manager (Species Recovery) maternity cover 🐝
It’s an exciting time to join the team and be part of our species recovery work.
See our vacancy page for the full details: https://ow.ly/gKk750YFEIH
"In 2023, pesticide use reached 3.73 million tons globally, roughly twice the amount used in 1990."
"Pesticides appear to drive not just population shifts in the microbes, but also changes in their activity."
#PoisonedPlanet - #PublicHealth concern mounting
www.science.org/content/arti...
ICYMI. Free to hear, universally available in the UK, funded by >49p per day per UK household licence fee. Only the BBC among UK broadcasters would and could do this. Discover…
Number Of Amphibian Species In The World
17 more maps in the series: brilliantmaps.com/biodivers...
🚨 | Hello! Bit of a weird one this, but I'm going to be away from 27th April for up to 24 nights without access to the internet (I can explain why in a few months time...).
Obviously, I'm aware this is the worst possible time of year for me to be absent.
Researchers have, for the first time, directly measured methane spikes during oil loading onto shuttle tankers in the North Sea.
The findings suggest that 5–47% more methane may be emitted than currently reported.
ncas.ac.uk/airborne-obs...
Now is the perfect time to start identifying flowers on trees! 🌸
Here are a few to get you started.
#SpringinYourStep
New: The April update to the ECMWF seasonal forecast shows an even greater likelihood of a strong El Niño later this year.
A few ensemble members go to +3.5 °C anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region!
The price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 99% since 1991 Representative estimate of the price of battery cells for lithium-ion batteries, across all major cell chemistries. Prices are in US dollars per kilowatt-hour, adjusted for inflation.
At a time when everything seems bad, here’s a bit of good news. In 1991, lithium-ion batteries cost around $9,200 per kilowatt-hour — 33 years later, they cost just $78. This helps us move towards electrification of transport and energy storage in homes
ourworldindata.org/battery-pric...
A new study from an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory shows that two different cell populations in a skate embryo can give rise to the same repeating structures (or “serial homologs”) in the adult.
Read the full story here: go.mbl.edu/fft
Tonight I'll be talking about the First Women of Science, while Christina Koch, the 1st woman to orbit the moon, is currently onboard #Artemis on her way to make history.🥳
If you're in #Edinburgh, do come along! I have a few ticket discount codes to share: reply if you're interested.
Map of the UK, showing the huge proportion of land used for beef, dairy and lamb production and the tiny proportion used for crops, next to a plot showing that 68% of UK calories and 52% of our protein come from the plants.
Maybe these need to be put on a few menus/supermarket walls. These are from the UK National Food Strategy, showing the proportion of UK land used for different things (huge for beef/lamb, tiny for crops), & where we get our calories and protein (68% & 52% from plants). The difference is staggering.
Stylised picture of fungi in soil sharing nutrients
This is a lovely short video from the Royal Society on why soil is one of the most amazing things on Earth: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJU... Beautifully done.
And soil is our topic for this week's Rare Earth, so lots more on the joy, importance & surprises of soil will be coming soon. 🪱🌱🍄
Beautiful! And one thing that’s important to share with people is the shape of the ladybird beetle larvae.
Many people can confuse these lovely little larvae for pests in the garden.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccine...
Bar graph showing Fort Collins days with high temperatures at or above 60°F in December through winter. 2025-2026 is a record high of 43 days, with the previous record of 22 in 1980-1981.
This is another one of those jump scare graphs, showing the number of 60°F days in Fort Collins, Colorado this winter compared to any prior season since the 1800s.
More here: source.colostate.edu/colorado-rec... and via the @climate.colostate.edu.
For those of you who haven't heard, the arts and cultural hub at 103 Trongate is being threatened with eviction. Amongst other things, it's home to the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre, one of Glasgow's best-loved and unique visitor attractions.
Cont./
#glasgow #103trongate #trongate
Two global maps, side-by-side. The map on the left shows calorie production on croplands in shades of blue (in million calories per hectare). The global map on the right shows the percentage of calories production available as food. In the midwest of the U.S. there is high crop calorie production but a small fraction is available as food. in India and countries in central and southern Africa, much of the calorie production is used for food.
In the U.S., out of every 10 calories grown on croplands, less than 2 of those calories (17%) are grown for food.
The rest? Animal feed and biofuels.
My @projectdrawdown.bsky.social colleagues and I updated country-level crop use stats to 2020 in our latest paper: drawdown.org/news/only-ha...
Huzzah! Tomorrow's Sewage Spill Day when the full stats are released on how much was discharged into rivers, lakes and coasts last year. To whet your appetites I’ve mapped the 2025 spills at outfalls affecting bathing waters.
Here are the top 10 worst offenders in reverse order:
