Professor Ian Williams: Other countries can learn from the UK’s successful shift to fortnightly bin collections
Heat is no longer a future climate risk. It is already here. Across continents, high temperatures are being pushed higher by forces acting at once: human-caused warming, very warm oceans, dry soils, slow-moving high-pressure weather systems and El Niño conditions that have now developed in the tropical Pacific. El Niño is a natural warming of part of the […]
Professor Ian Williams: Summer’s silent killer: why the world’s heatwaves are a global health emergency
Pairing scientists with an artist-in-residence can cut through “ecofatigue” (feelings of overwhelm or exhaustion about environment issues that lead to apathy and inaction), spark emotion and change the way people deal with plastics. My team and I recently published a study that demonstrated this is a low-cost and feasible way to tackle plastic waste in […]
Professor Ian Williams: 70 years on from the killer smog: what clean air laws teach us about power, pollution and profit
Seventy years ago, London choked. For five days in December 1952, a toxic smog smothered the city. Visibility collapsed. Transport failed. Thousands died. It was not a natural disaster. It was the product of policy failure. Out of that catastrophe came one of the most important environmental laws in UK history: the Clean Air Act 1956. It […]
Professor Ian Williams: Why European households throw away so much food – and how to curb the waste mountain
Europe is wasting huge amounts of food while millions of people globally experience hunger. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have squeezed supply chains. The cost of living crisis has pushed many families to the edge. Without strengthening environmental sustainability, supply chain resilience and household affordability, food security risks will increase significantly. Yet households still throw away huge amounts of edible […]