Back from a couple of weeks in Italy during what has been an unprecedented and extremely long heatwave. Everyday we were there the temperature was somewhere between 34-39oC.

I'm glad to see these stats being reported as headline news. These tragic deaths were avoidable and the public need to understand the link between climate change > extreme heat > additional deaths. People need to understand that climate change is costing lives today and will only get worse.

Language is about "coping", "managing with" etc. At a time when people are suffering from extreme heat and want to avoid a repeat of this, why are we not talking about "avoiding", "reducing", "minimising" the impacts of climate change. It seems editors think we've accepted a hot hellscape future.

The next wave of community resistance to energy hungry infrastructure is all about data centres. The below is a map of the 26 proposed centres in Scotland, mostly in-and-around the central belt: aprs.scot/data-centres... SPICE have a great primer here too: spice-spotlight.scot/2026/06/26/d...

First green finch spotted in my garden since 2018. If you can spot it you’re doing well 😂 It’s not a magic eye I promise. Fox and cubs doing the rounds yesterday. Bumblebees nesting nextdoor. Field mouse and vole spotted in the veg beds. Nature finds a way if you let it in.

Data centres likely the next in line for heated discussions about community impacts & re-distribution of "benefits". In the UK, it's been all about wind, now solar, batteries, transmission etc. Elsewhere, landfill, mining etc. We wrote this as a good practice guide: doi.org/10.17868/str...

Linked to a lit review I'm doing for our people-led net-zero project, led by Bath, and question of what individual/group leadership on climate actual entails. www.people-led.org.uk/netzero Inspired by this great paper I came across from Sam Hampton and @lwhitmarsh.bsky.social

@luciemidd.bsky.social et al with another knock-out paper that distills all the messiness of climate action into real-world speak. Key they align aspects of 'real life' with key actions and associated policy changes. Print. Stick. Read. Repeat. rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

You can play around with the ArcGIS maps to produce things like the below, which is where all the battery and pumped storage is in Scotland. A really helpful tool.

And this on different local-regional-national Community Benefit Fund distribution models.

A particularly helpful summary table of all sovereign wealth funds in the report.

We've lived here for over 8 years. Much of that time I've spent in the garden. Thick clay soil but some rich topsoil, especially by the mature trees. Amazing to think then, it's only been in the past 6 months I've seen earthworms. None, for 8 years. And then all of a sudden, there they are.

As author, I'm delighted to see Flex 705 Nature Markets Community Engagement & Benefits launch for public consultation. It offers guidance for suppliers of nature projects, on how best to engage & deliver benefits for communities. Have your say: standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/Projects/902...

Interesting from Sustainability First exploring how the UK's big grid expansion is impacting communities. Big push back on £250 cut on energy bills, for those living close to pylons. Appetite for a different approach "that meaningfully improve households’ long‑term resilience or quality of life."

Has Ofgem stopped capturing data on UK generator profitability? It certainly looks that way. If anyone knows of time series data that outlines UK electricity generator profits, that would be greatly appreciated.

An newer version from the @iea.org High oil prices raise the appetite for investment in non-fossil fuels (FFs) & energy efficiency but note how you still see a steady band of FF R&D as we seek new means of extracting hydrocarbons. It doesn't disappear. iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/b0bed...

Remember that when geo-politics throws us a curveball - esp an energy crisis - we often look to innovation for alternatives. It took the 70s crises to get serious about renewables. From my former colleague @jimskeaclimate.bsky.social during our time at Imperial. doi.org/10.1039/C3EE...

Sank a half whisky barrel into the hill a few years back. Every year since we’ve had frog spawn. Slug numbers way down. Always something stirring in the tub 😂

Reading GB Energy's Strategic Plan and we expect to see the Local Power Plan published this year. www.gbe.gov.uk/sites/defaul...

And let us for a moment understand the full gravity of what going without these essentials means. It's shameful to think 7 millions homes are experiencing this. I believe reversing this will be the true test of a successful Labour government and will be the only way to counter the rise of Reform.

Labour and their forthcoming budget have one big problem to fix. It's this: "In the 6 months to May 2025, 7.1 million low-income households (60%) were going without essentials. This number has been at least 7 million since October 2022" The question is not if it should be fixed but how.

"Traditional Conservatives strongly identify with the need to respect our environment, and use this language when they talk about these issues." So who do these voters turn to now? I suspect the Lib Dems will capture this fertile centre ground & do rather well out of it in some constituencies.

Revisiting what bonkers decision it was from the Tories to commit to scrapping the Climate Change Act we find the recent report from @climateoutreach.bsky.social, which finds: 1. People are very worried about climate change harming nature and wildlife 2. This 100% includes Traditional Conservatives

Labour's Local Power Plan has not yet launched but GBEnergy's latest strategic statement from DESNZ retains a commitment to it, with further details due later this year (i.e. soon) A little more detail too here on what it will include assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c807...

And in numbers.

Spot the difference. www.ons.gov.uk/economy/envi... This is what I suspect is (partly) driving a political push back against net-zero. It illustrates out some of the excellent thinking in this piece too: theconversation.com/port-talbot-...

It's subtle but it's there. The shift from "very concerned" to "unconcerned" is present in UK Gov's attitudes tracker. This trend is of course paradoxical, when year-on-year, people are experiencing first-hand the worsening impacts of climate change. Humans are far from rational beasts.

That background hum is bees, not traffic. Ivy is one seriously important food for insects at this time of year.

With UK Gov's policy to establish transmission line Community Benefit Funds, we're now heading into a very complicated space of overlapping and nested funds; all with varying degrees of community involvement across the UK. Things are about to get pretty complicated.

There *may* be examples of where mergers could yield cost-savings & won't -ve impact upon employee/student experience. It's a debate we must have What I will say however is real-term decline in fees has helped force the issue alongside rising uni costs www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #academicsky