Contagious Tales is a new collection of short stories that turns our troubled times into modern folk tales to shine a light on how we got here and illuminate the way ahead. It takes an imaginatively different look at our current crises, from the climate emergency to...
Initiatives
Economic prospects in 2022: the New Weather Institute in the Financial Times survey
Each year the Financial Times polls a group of economic analysts on what they think the next year holds in store for the UK. The New Weather Institute is part of that survey published today, and here are our responses collected together. They argue that huge economic...
Towards a one-stop shop for greener homes
This post first appeared on the Rapid Transition site... t is about time the UK government got to grips with retrofitting existing housing to scale up home energy efficiency across the country. One way to do this would be to establish a one-stop shop on every high...
Demand for climate-damaging SUVs is higher when people are exposed to advertising – ‘green’ transport messages make no difference
A ground breaking new study reveals that demand for climate-damaging SUVs is higher when people are exposed to advertising and that even the small number of messages encouraging ‘greener’ transport appear to get drowned out by the car adverts. The new primary research...
How to increase the chances of success at COP26
So that was the budget then – and, bizarrely, on the eve of a hugely important climate conference, UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced billions in road spending, cuts to taxes on polluting domestic flights and has cancelled long-delayed fuel duty...
It is time we stopped the ‘brain pollution’ of high-carbon advertising
The advertising industry has enjoyed a lack of scrutiny for its role in the climate crisis, but its time end the promotion of polluting fossil fuel companies and high-carbon lifestyles by adverts, and see such advertising now as a form of ‘Brain Pollution’. A newly...
Car Free Megacities
Great cities set the tone for modern living and a new campaign for Car Free Megacities is aiming to improve the music of our urban streets as well as clear their air. The campaign is writing to the mayors of Paris, New York and London to ask if they will...
How advertisers got people shopping in two-tonne trucks
New study shows three quarters of ‘off road’ SUVs sold in towns and cities and calls on ad agencies to drop polluters We are far less in control of the things that we buy, such as cars, than we think. In a new study, Mindgames on wheels we show how marketing created...
Re-Green the Village
It's time to put the secateurs, herbicide and peat compost away and let the over-manicured English village return to nature. Thirty years ago we bought a rather rat infested - alright, very rat infested – cottage, and have enjoyed it ever since. It’s where we’ve spent...
‘Super’ tax break for the company sucking life from high streets
The Chancellor’s recent ‘New Towns’ deal - £1bn for 45 towns (of which 40 just happen to be in Tory constituencies) is welcome. So is the £150m to help communities take over pubs, theatres and other local institutions in their areas which have a unifying social effect...









