A report from the International Energy Agency says that although carbon dioxide levels fell by 17% on average globally during the lockdown, emissions are already back to within 5% of last year’s, and warns that a rebound may cause dangerously high emissions as we go back to “normal”. If emissions rebound, says the executive director, Fatih Birol, “it is [...]

As a respiratory doctor, I’m really interested in air pollution, so the recent high media profile of the various relationships between Covid-19 and air pollution has caught my attention. The bulk of my work as a doctor is seeing people who come into hospital with flare ups of their chronic lung condition - mostly asthma and COPD. In fact, [...]

A lot has changed since Lewisham Council declared a climate emergency in February 2019, with a pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. More than a year has passed and we all have found ourselves in a very different reality as a result of global coronavirus outbreak. What remains unchanged is the ever increasing urgency of taking positive action [...]

We closed our street for the first time to become a ‘play street’ on car-free day. Our street slopes steeply up from the South Circular up to Blythe Hill Fields in SE6. We’re a friendly community, linked by many close relationships, inter-dependencies and common culture. We’ve had Big Lunches and street parties, and we share babysitting, gardening tips, bulk food [...]