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The Repair Revolution: Why Learning to Fix Things Is a Green Superpower

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  The Repair Revolution: Why Learning to Fix Things Is a Green Superpower “The greenest washing machine is often the one you already own.” We are very good at talking about recycling. We have recycling bins, recycling labels, recycling collections, recycling symbols and, occasionally, recycling confusion when nobody can decide whether a yoghurt pot lid belongs in the blue bin, the green bin, the food caddy or a small museum of modern plastic anxiety. But before recycling comes something much more powerful. Repair. Many environmental problems do not begin when something reaches the bin. They begin much earlier, at the moment we decide that a perfectly useful object is no longer worth the effort. A shirt loses a button. A toaster stops working. A garden tool becomes blunt. A chair leg wobbles. A boat fitting comes loose. A piece of science equipment starts behaving like a sulky teenager. And too often, the modern answer is: “Throw it away and buy another one.” That may be convenient,...
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Are We Worrying About Water While Forgetting the Metals?

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  Are We Worrying About Water While Forgetting the Metals? The Coming Resource Squeeze No One Wants to Talk About We talk a lot about water shortages, and rightly so. Water is immediate. We see hosepipe bans, dry gardens, empty reservoirs and farmers anxiously looking at the sky. But while we are watching the water butt, another problem is quietly sitting inside our phones, laptops, batteries, solar panels, electric motors, circuit boards, boats, cars and workshops. Metals. Copper. Gold. Silver. Tin. Tungsten. Lead. Graphite. Cadmium. They are not glamorous in the way that “renewable energy” is glamorous. No one puts a picture of a lump of tungsten on a glossy climate brochure. Graphite does not have the emotional pull of a polar bear. Copper does not look as photogenic as a field of solar panels glowing at sunset. Yet without these materials, much of modern life simply stops working. The green transition is not made of good intentions. It is made of wires, batteries, magnets, semi...
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Is AI Really Using All Our Water? A Student’s Question Worth Taking Seriously

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  Is AI Really Using All Our Water? A Student’s Question Worth Taking Seriously A student recently told me that she did not want to use AI because of the amount of water it uses. That stopped me in my tracks. Not because she was wrong to worry. In fact, I was quite impressed. Most students worry about whether AI will write their homework, destroy revision skills or produce a suspiciously polished essay about Macbeth. This student was thinking about the hidden environmental cost of the technology. And she has a point. AI does use water. Data centres use electricity, electricity generation can involve water, computer chips have a water footprint, and some data centres use water for cooling. The “cloud” is not really a cloud. It is a building full of hot machines, pipes, cooling systems, cables, backup power and planning applications. But as with many green issues, the truth is not as simple as: “AI uses water, therefore AI is bad.” The better question is: How much water does AI use c...
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Can Fetes, Regattas and Festivals Be Greener Without Losing the Fun?

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The Hidden Footprint of Summer Events Can Fetes, Regattas and Festivals Be Greener Without Losing the Fun? “A summer event should not need three skips, two generators and a small mountain of plastic cups to be considered successful.” There is something wonderfully British about a summer event. A school fair with bunting flapping in a slightly uncertain breeze. A village fete where someone has bravely agreed to run the tombola. A regatta with boats, flags, tea, cake, damp grass and at least one person carrying a clipboard with the seriousness of an air traffic controller. A sports day, an open day, a festival, a church event, a community barbecue, a charity fundraiser or a sailing club weekend. These events matter. They bring people together. They raise money. They create memories. They give children something to look forward to and adults a chance to stand around saying, “Well, at least the rain held off,” even when it clearly did not. But they also have a hidden environmental footprin...
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