Two weeks before the spending review, the housing ombudsman has issued an important warning about a deepening crisis and growing human misery
The most obvious social housing problem in Britain is the lack of it. The failure to build enough homes to keep up with need, and replace those sold off under the right-to-buy scheme, has adversely affected millions of lives. In parts of England, the wait for family-size homes has reached 100 years, with long waiting lists also in Scotland and Wales. Charities rightly call this a national scandal.
While the slowdown dates back decades, the 60% cut in the affordable housing budget in 2010 made the situation far worse. The resulting shortages mean millions of people are stuck in privately rented accommodation with no prospect of buying their own. Hundreds of thousands of others are officially homeless, and trapped in overcrowded temporary flats and rooms.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/29/2025 - 12:25
05/29/2025 - 11:52
Up to 500,000 more plug-in hybrids could be sold because of government flexibility on the zero-emission mandate
The UK government’s weakening of vehicle sales rules in April could result in fewer electric cars on British roads and higher carbon emissions, according to its official climate adviser.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said flexibilities announced by Keir Starmer last month for the government’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate could lead to more plug-in hybrids being sold “at the expense of some EV sales, which would lead to a further reduction in emissions savings”.
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05/29/2025 - 11:49
The 8-0 ruling overturns lower court’s decision that halted the project intended to transport crude oil
The US supreme court on Thursday backed a multibillion-dollar oil railroad expansion in Utah, endorsing a scaled back interpretation of a key environmental law that could pave the way for faster fossil fuel expansion.
In a unanimous ruling, the supreme court justices overturned a lower court’s decision that had halted the fossil fuel project on the grounds that an environmental impact assessment by a federal agency had been too limited in scope.
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05/29/2025 - 09:00
Former army and navy leaders urge government to think beyond military capability in advance of key defence review
Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.
Earlier this year Keir Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending in the UK since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%.
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05/29/2025 - 08:23
Hosepipe ban could follow, says Environment Agency, after England had driest February-April period on record
A drought has been declared in north-west England as reservoir levels dwindle.
Hosepipe bans could follow, the Environment Agency said, though this is a matter for water companies, which have been directed to follow their drought plans.
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05/29/2025 - 08:13
Twenty-two plaintiffs between ages seven and 25 allege government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach
Twenty two young Americans have filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over its anti-environment executive orders. By intentionally boosting oil and gas production and stymying carbon-free energy, federal officials are violating their constitutional rights to life and liberty, alleges the lawsuit, filed on Thursday.
The federal government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach by breaching congressional mandates to protect ecosystems and public health, argue the plaintiffs, who are between the ages of seven and 25 and hail from the heavily climate-impacted states of Montana, Hawaii, Oregon, California and Florida. They also say officials’ emissions-increasing and science-suppressing orders have violated the state-created danger doctrine, a legal principle meant to prevent government actors from inflicting injury upon their citizens.
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05/29/2025 - 07:00
The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science
Science is under siege.
On Friday evening, the White House released an executive order called Restoring Gold Standard Science. At face value, this order promises a commitment to federally funded research that is “transparent, rigorous, and impactful” and policy that is informed by “the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available”. But hidden beneath the scientific rhetoric is a plan that would destroy scientific independence in the US by giving political appointees the latitude to dismiss entire bodies of research and punish researchers who fail to fall in line with the current administration’s objectives. In other words: this is Fool’s-Gold Standard Science.
Colette Delawalla is a PhD candidate at Emory University and executive director of Stand Up for Science. Victor Ambros is a 2024 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine at the Chan Medical School, University of Massachusetts. Carl Bergstrom is professor of biology at the University of Washington. Carol Greider is a 2009 Nobel laureate in medicine and distinguished professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael Mann is the presidential distinguished professor of earth and environmental science and director of the center for science, sustainability, and the media at the University of Pennsylvania. Brian Nosek is executive director of the Center for Open Science and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia
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05/29/2025 - 06:30
Geologists race to collect perishable data as Kentucky residents ‘scared to death’ over floods amid Trump cuts
The abandoned homes and razed lots along the meandering Troublesome Creek in rural eastern Kentucky is a constant reminder of the 2022 catastrophic floods that killed dozens of people and displaced thousands more.
Among the hardest hit was Fisty, a tiny community where eight homes, two shops and nine people including a woman who uses a wheelchair, her husband and two children, were swept away by the rising creek. Some residents dismissed cellphone alerts of potential flooding due to mistrust and warning fatigue, while for others it was already too late to escape. Landslides trapped the survivors and the deceased for several days.
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05/29/2025 - 05:00
Exclusive: researchers say defence spending boosts across world will worsen climate crisis which in turn will cause more conflict
A global military buildup poses an existential threat to climate goals, according to researchers who say the rearmament planned by Nato alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200m tonnes a year.
With the world embroiled in the highest number of armed conflicts since the second world war, countries have embarked on military spending sprees, collectively totalling a record $2.46tn in 2023.
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05/29/2025 - 03:15
‘Nationally significant’ status granted to reservoirs in East Anglia and Lincolnshire with seven more planned by 2050
The government has ordered the building of two reservoirs, the first to be built in England for more than 30 years.
The lack of reservoir capacity, combined with a rising population and drier summers caused by climate breakdown, has put the country at risk of water shortages. The government warned in recent weeks of an impending drought if there was not significant rainfall soon, and reservoirs have been reaching worryingly low levels.
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