Some good news. London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces. The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

incredible things are happening on LinkedIn, where someone is trying to persuade EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall that having PFAS in her bloodstream may be Good Actually

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

🚨🚨Campaigners have called on the government to ban all plastic waste exports following a joint ENDS investigation out yesterday. It revealed hundreds of boys and men have been killed in recycling factories in Turkey - a top destination for UK waste exports👇 www.endsreport.com/article/1932...

Today's Big News from the UK feels like a good moment to reshare this classic Mike Skinner clip www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue1U...

A bale of plastic. A mystery body. A global investigation. Next week we release something a bit special - 'Boy Wasted' - a new true crime podcast series. This has been a massive, heart-breaking project! Please share & subscribe to the Eco Chamber now to get it in your podcast feed.

NEW | China’s clean energy boom and rapid electrification are creating the conditions for a FOSSIL DECLINE at home and abroad⚡ Fossil use in end-use sectors plateaued in 2015--while electricity use grew 65%, becoming central to 🇨🇳’s energy system. https://loom.ly/psjqvhE

You can just... not publish this stuff

A thing I genuinely can't get my head around is that you can still buy old railway sleepers for your garden. Like, the EU specifically bans the use of creosote-treated wood in parks and gardens, and specifically mentions plant containers, because it contains such a nasty bunch of chemicals...

They paved paradise and put up medium density housing served by light rail

Fresque murale récente qui prolonge l'effet de la végétation Rue d'Aubervilliers dans le 19ème

What has been the impact of Norway’s shift to electric vehicles? New study finds: “… BEV ownership leads to an overall increase in car trip demand in the order of 10–20%. This reflects shifts from ICEV to BEV use, but also sizeable shifts away from public transport use, cycling and walking.”

Aside from anything else, this article is a good reminder that AI image generators are still terrible!

Humbly submitting Geschirrrückgabe for consideration as one of the top German compound nouns, partly for its precision + elegance (what do we even say for this in English? 'used crockery here'?) -- but mainly for the incredible triple r

Ea-Nasir is a lesson to all merchants about downsides of preserving records beyond statutory minimums Ea-Nasir's reputation has suffered significantly despite passing of relevant statutes of limitation

Une entrée / sortie de parking condamnée en plein 10ème arrondissement de Paris, les temps continuent de changer.

It's nice to see the Ruhr get a bit of love in the Guardian today. There's so many great places to visit -- Duisburg's Landschaftspark (pictured below) alone makes a trip there worth it

🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨 After obtaining reams of internal docs, I have a new story out revealing how govt has sat for three years on plans to tighten rules letting water companies SELL sewage sludge contaminated with PFAS & microplastics. Read it in @theguardian.com, and.. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

One of the challenges to understanding climate change is that extremes don't necessarily change in the same way as averages. In Western Europe, for example, the hottest day of the year is warming noticeably faster than the average summer day.

Can't read press releases like this without thinking of Disco Stu

I have such a visceral reaction to walking past cars — in London!! — with wheels that are taller than my toddler. Nobody needs them and they are so much more dangerous than smaller cars.

Probably fair to say this is the first time Britney has been cited in an ECJ opinion??

You may not like it, but this is what peak European Commission performance looks like

Cockatoos are the absolute best. They’re hilarious too - complete clowns. Years ago, one used to visit my balcony daily. S/he would comically pretend to sneak up to the window to say hello. Never failed to make me laugh.

Avant / Après la végétalisation de la contre-allée Rue de Meaux dans le 19ème arrondissement de Paris. Je vois bien que les arbres récents paraissent différents des arbres anciens sur la photo, mais ce n'est pas de l'IA, je le jure ! ;)

This opinion piece (from an editor at the Guardian no less) is, uh, really something!

My new favourite category of EU document 😜

Remplacement d'une route par un chemin pour piétons et cyclistes dans le Bois de Vincennes

A big part of why I hate consumer-facing LLMs and generative "A.i." is the degradation of taste. That garbage reads poorly and looks terrible. Pushing it into everything makes everything shabbier and drags down people's standards regarding all writing, art, and aesthetics.

Chemicals news: EU member states voted last week to back the phase-out of PFAS 'forever chemicals' in firefighting foams. We've now got the details of how the vote went down: 26 voted in favour and Poland abstained

Avant / Après la végétalisation de cette partie de la Rue Riquet dans le 19ème arrondissement de Paris

A cycling life hack: have a child, then ride around with them on the back of your bike for a drastic reduction in the amount of driver rage that comes your way!

On a serious note, given a lot of this nonsense still goes with the carbon grifter view that nothing matters because of China, this is done on the eve (vaguely speaking) of it becoming abundantly clear that Chinese renewable deployment and electrification is destroying the outlook for fossil fuels.

In case you missed it: we spoke to EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall for a special episode of our podcast... It's rare to hear a word said against the Draghi report these days, but Roswall told us she doesn't agree with what he said about chemicals... podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Happy to see that my reporting on Switzerland's investment programme to treat micropollutants in wastewater has been picked up by the Guardian today! www.theguardian.com/environment/...

📢ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 3.6% in 2024 to lowest since 1872 🏭Coal lowest since 1666, when Great Fire ravaged London 🚗EVs pushed oil down despite more traffic, saving £1.7bn 🌇Gas down on "cleanest ever" power 📈📉Since 1990, CO2 -54% / GDP +84% www.carbonbrief.org/... 1/9

Rue du Docteur Paquelin in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, formerly a parking street, recently transformed into a "garden street". The vote on March 23rd will ask Parisians if they are for or against the project to create 500 such streets in the whole town.

🚨 BREAKING 🚨The team responsible for preventing environmental risks at England’s most hazardous sites is facing a recruitment crisis, an internal document has revealed, with insiders warning that environmental incidents are going unchecked. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

To no one's surprise, UK newspapers are full of truly dreadful - and, at times, outright bizarre - "reporting" of the Climate Change Committee's new carbon-budget advice. For a sane and nuanced summary – with lots of charts - here's our detailed coverage... www.carbonbrief.org/ccc-reducing...

CCC now says electrification is THE key tool for net-zero Heat, road transport (inc ALL HGVs), + even most industrial heat would be electric Electricity would double, fossil fuels nearly disappear – and energy waste cut in half Yet UK would get more "energy services" 6/10

A little glimpse into my inbox following today's Clean Industrial Deal announcement 😵‍

It's good news for seal hunters, historical reenactment societies, airgun aficionados and the Finnish army: the European Commission is proposing a bunch of exemptions to its (very delayed) ban on lead in ammunition and fishing tackle.

"It's so so surreal that somewhere so peaceful and so small is having stuff like this"... 🟥 Subscribe to the Eco Chamber to be the first to listen to our new podcast 🟥 God's Own Dark Waters: Exposing a chemical scandal.

Episode 2 of our unexpectedly popular podcast is now live and free to listen to! this week we're talking about the Commission's work programme and -- in my bid to drive down listener numbers -- the Forest Monitoring Law. open.spotify.com/episode/4FGy...

Listen to the first ever episode of our new podcast here!

🚨 EXCLUSIVE 🚨 No 10 has been raising questions over flagship nature policy in growth push, sources have told me www.endsreport.com/article/1905...

The Commission is fighting legal challenges on all fronts at the EU's General Court

European consumer groups found some truly incredible products on Temu, including a "black survival knife" -- a "perfect gift for men" that you can store in your car door for ~special reasons~

wow Oil demand is falling at such a rate in China that "it is expected that China will eliminate 20,000 gas stations by 2030, from the current 110,000 to about 90,000" m.caijing.com.cn/article/359487