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The Lost Art of Making Things Last

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  The Lost Art of Making Things Last The most sustainable purchase is often the one you only have to make once. There was a time when buying something good meant expecting it to last. A tool was not bought for one job. A camera was not expected to be replaced the moment a newer model appeared. A boat was not abandoned because the varnish had failed or a fitting had worked loose. Science apparatus, if looked after, could serve generations of students. Previous generations did not always have a choice. Products were expensive, wages were lower, and replacing things casually was not an option. But there was also a different attitude. Things were repaired, sharpened, polished, serviced, protected and passed on. Today, we live in a world where replacement often feels easier than maintenance. A phone battery weakens and the whole device is replaced. A printer refuses to cooperate and ends up at the recycling centre. A cheap tool breaks and another cheap tool is bought. A perfectly usable...
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The World Is Getting Warmer — And We Need to Stop Pretending It Is Still a Debate

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  The World Is Getting Warmer — And We Need to Stop Pretending It Is Still a Debate There are some subjects where pretending to be balanced becomes a problem. If someone says it is raining and someone else says the sky is bone dry, the sensible response is not to stand in the garden with one hand out saying, “Well, both sides have a point.” You look at the evidence. You check the ground. You notice whether your socks are wet. Climate change is now rather like that. The world is getting warmer. The records are not vague. They are not hidden in a dusty filing cabinet guarded by a suspicious scientist in a white coat. They are measured by meteorological organisations, satellites, ocean buoys, weather stations, climate centres and independent scientific teams across the world. And the pattern is painfully clear. The warmest years on record are not scattered randomly across history. They are clustered in the very recent past. We are no longer talking about some distant theoretical probl...
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The UK Was Not Designed for Hot Summers: How Do We Keep Cool Without Air Conditioning?

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  The UK Was Not Designed for Hot Summers: How Do We Keep Cool Without Air Conditioning? There is something rather British about being surprised by summer. We spend most of the year complaining about rain, grey skies, damp shoes, cold hands, and weather forecasts that seem to be written by someone shaking dice in a dark room. Then, suddenly, the temperature climbs into the thirties and we discover that the average UK house has been designed beautifully for holding warmth in February and rather less successfully for surviving a heatwave in June. Most British homes do not have air conditioning. We may have it in the car, where we use it for a ten-minute drive to the supermarket, but not in the bedroom where we are expected to sleep through a hot, humid night under a roof that has been absorbing sunshine all day. At the moment, my back garden is reading 37.5°C. That is not because I have accidentally moved to the Sahara. It is because paving slabs are very good at absorbing heat durin...
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“A Teaspoon of Healthy Soil Contains More Living Organisms Than There Are People on Earth”

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  Why Soil Is More Important Than We Think “A Teaspoon of Healthy Soil Contains More Living Organisms Than There Are People on Earth” That sentence ought to stop us in our tracks. Most of us walk over soil every day without giving it much thought. We call it mud when it is wet, dust when it is dry, and dirt when it appears on the kitchen floor. Yet soil is not just the brown stuff under the lawn. It is a living system, a food factory, a water filter, a carbon store, a wildlife habitat and one of the most important natural resources we have. Without healthy soil, our gardens struggle, our farms become less productive, our rivers become muddier, our wildlife loses habitat and our ability to store carbon is reduced. For something so essential, soil has a remarkably poor public relations department. We admire trees, birds, wildflowers, rivers and hedgerows. Soil tends to get noticed only when it sticks to our boots. Yet almost everything green and growing begins there. Soil Is Not Dirt...
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Learning to Identify Trees: A Green Skill Everyone Should Have

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  Learning to Identify Trees: A Green Skill Everyone Should Have Could You Identify Ten British Trees Without Using an App? Most of us can recognise dozens of company logos at a glance. We can spot a supermarket, a fast-food chain, a car badge or a technology brand from half a symbol glimpsed across a road. But could we identify ten British trees without reaching for an app? That question is slightly uncomfortable, because trees are not rare objects hidden away in specialist nature reserves. They are outside our houses, beside our roads, along the river, in parks, churchyards, school grounds, gardens and sailing clubs. They shape the character of the places where we live, yet many of us walk past them as if they were simply green background scenery. Learning to identify trees is not just a nice countryside hobby. It is a green skill. It improves observation, builds environmental awareness, connects us with the seasons and helps us understand the wildlife around us. It is also wonde...
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