The UK’s Housing Crisis: Declining Prosperity, Climate Change, Immigration, and the Need for Sustainable Housing Design

The UK is grappling with a deepening housing crisis driven by declining prosperity, increasing immigration, the effects of climate change, and an ageing population. The convergence of these factors puts immense pressure on housing supply and demand, making it harder to afford homes while existing properties fall into disrepair. To tackle this challenge, future housing …

Bringing Hardy’s “The Woodlanders” into a World of Declining Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy

I asked ChatGPT to update Thomas Hardy’s view of woodland life. This could be seen as the imagination of a stage in the transition into the post-grown future—or maybe where it ends. In Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders (1887), the rural landscape of Little Hintock is a world bound by nature and the rhythms of agricultural …

Road Pricing to raise revenue and be compatible with Localism

ROAD PRICING: The Economic and Technical PossibilitiesReport of a Panel set up by theMinistry of TransportLONDON1964 FOREWORD by Dr. R. J. Smeed, Road Research Laboratory Economists have claimed that considerable net benefits could accrue to the nation if vehicle owners had to pay higher charges or taxes when they used congested roads than when they …

The Path to Happiness

Focusing on Quality Over Quantity Will Change Our Lives In today’s world, it often feels like we’re all running a never-ending race.  We’re told to work harder, earn more money, buy more stuff, and always be on the lookout for the next big thing.  This is what most of us know as “materialism”—the idea that …

What Would a Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?

By Richard HeinbergWith his permission Download printable PDF version Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential. A boosterish attitude on the part of many renewable energy advocates is understandable: overcoming people’s climate despair and sowing confidence could help muster …

Restoring Nature Is Our Only Climate Solution

MuseLetter #376 / July 2024 by Richard Heinberg Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an understandable tendency to mentally simplify it by focusing on just one cause (carbon emissions) and just one solution (alternative energy). Sustainability scholar Jan Konietzko has called this “carbon tunnel vision.” Oversimplifying the problem this way …