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- 🌱💡 Homes that only cost the earth
🌱💡 Homes that only cost the earth
Today's good climate and environment news
Here’s today’s stories of progress in the fight against climate change.
🛖 Returning to traditional homes
Adobe homes, comprised of bricks made from dried mud, have been around for centuries - but attention is turning to their potential as shelters from climate disasters. Reinforced with barbed wire and sandbags, ‘SuperAdobe’ dwellings have so far been built across 60 countries, and are fire and hurricane resistant. They’re also affordable, and it’s possible to build them in a day – plus, they’re surprisingly beautiful.
There is simply not enough steel and brick in the world to build; we have to use the material that is already here, the earth.
In the US, the youth-led Sunrise Movement is getting ready for a new campaign that will focus on forcing fossil fuel companies to cough up for climate damages, rather than letting ordinary people shoulder the cost. The activist group, known for popularising the Green New Deal, previously helped move the needle on climate policies when Biden was in office. Now it’s turning its attention to spotlighting climate superfund – aka ‘polluter pays’ – bills across the country, while trying to win over people who were swayed by Trump’s populist approach.
📱 New uses for old phones
1.2 billion smartphones are created every year, with our broken or outdated devices creating a mountain of e-waste. But rather than throwing them away, with some minor upgrades our old mobile phones can be given a second life as mini data centres. As one example, a prototype created by researchers was submerged underseas, where it was used to count marine species.
The Green Light is written by freelance climate writer Molly Millar.