Housing: creative solutions

  We have grown accustomed to seeing the world burn on our screens. This summer of 2025, the images have been particularly lurid. The orange skies over the Aude region in France, the terrified columns of evacuees fleeing the flames in Spain and Portugal, the endless, smoke-choked horizon in Canada – a nation that appears to be in a permanent state of combustion. We watch, we tut, we perhaps share a post with a sad emoji. Then we move on. But what the screen fails to convey is the reality on the ground. This isn't just scenery burning; it is the wholesale slaughter of the living world. The creatures that cannot outrun the fire front – the tortoises, the slow-worms, the fledglings in their nests – are simply vaporised. Those that can flee, a terrified menagerie of deer, boar, and fox, spill out onto roads into the path of cars, or into barren agricultural lands where they will starve. The air, thick with the ghosts of a million incinerated lives, becomes unbreathable for those that...

Climate change affects everyone, but its impacts are far from equal. Across the UK and globally, those living in poor quality housing face the harshest consequences of our changing climate, creating a cruel irony where the people who contributed least to global warming suffer most from its effects. The Heat Island Effect: When Housing Location Becomes Life-Threatening People on low incomes are more likely to live in housing not suited to heat and are twice as likely to live in places that are significantly hotter than neighbouring areas due to the 'urban heat island' effect. This phenomenon means that while affluent neighbourhoods enjoy tree-lined streets and green spaces that naturally cool the air, poorer communities endure concrete jungles that trap and intensify heat. The statistics are stark: around a quarter of the poorest families live in homes that regularly overheat, compared to just one in twenty of the richest households. This isn't simply about comfort—...

  Soaring renewable energy installations masked a harsh truth in 2023: the clean energy transition is faltering. Fossil fuel use continues to climb, with China shouldering most of the renewables burden. China's secret? State-owned companies prioritise national goals over profit, driving massive clean energy projects. The West, reliant on profit-driven private enterprise, struggles. Renewable energy offers modest returns, a stark contrast to traditional energy sources. Intense competition further squeezes profits. Subsidies keep the West's renewables afloat, but don't guarantee strong profits. As the Earth heats inexorably, Governments face a stark choice: accept the failure of the free market for clean energy, or embrace climate catastrophe

  Progress has been a simple equation: economic growth measured by GDP. The endless upward climb promised solutions to everything from poverty to pollution. But the reality hasn't lived up to the promise. It's time to redefine progress before the changing climate becomes irreversible. The Allure of Growth Growth is appealing. We see it in thriving gardens and children reaching their full potential. No wonder we embraced it as the economic ideal, adopting the "more is better" mantra. Yet, nature teaches us that endless growth is unsustainable. Everything eventually reaches maturity, focusing on health and well-being rather than constant expansion. As Janine Benyus, a pioneer in biomimicry , reminds us, trees prioritise distributing resources to their entire being, stopping growth once that function is compromised. The Growth Addiction Cheap fossil fuels in the 20th century fueled rapid growth, which became ingrained in our economic systems. This has led to policies – ...