Happy Monday. 👋
Welcome back to The Grumpy Optimists. I took a week off last week because I decided I was done with the world and spent the weekend in a cabin. Quite literally touching grass. That, combined with a sauna and cold plunge, great food and lots of reading, made for the perfect break. The relaxation was immediately gone as I checked Slack on Monday morning and reconnected with the world. What is that all about??
Anyway, here’s a picture of where I stayed. I had a wonderful time.
👀 News to make you feel good this week
🌳 Lula’s presidency has saved at least 20,000km² of Brazilian Amazon since 2022. That’s roughly the size of Wales, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Annual deforestation has halved, from 11,594km² in 2022 to 5,731km² in 2025, and preliminary data suggests 2026 could be the lowest year since records began in 1988.
💭 My thoughts? Politics matters. Who we vote for matters. It’s clear that people who care about protecting the planet can use policy to make that happen.
⚡ Wind and solar saved the UK £5.9bn in gas imports during the Hormuz crisis. Since the crisis began in February, record wind and solar output has avoided gas imports worth £5.9bn, the equivalent of more than 100 LNG tanker deliveries. Wind and solar have generated 41% of UK electricity so far this year, with clean output up 14% and gas-fired generation down nearly 10%. Gas hit the highest prices since 2022 in September and are expected to continue to increase. Household gas bills are now 33% higher than in April, while electricity bills are up just 4%. Renewables can and should be cheaper.
🇵🇰 Pakistan’s solar boom is so widespread it is now part of wedding dowries. Pakistan’s cumulative solar imports have gone from under 1GW in 2018 to more than 51GW. Solar supplied 21.4% of its electricity in 2025, around a quarter of households have panels, and analysts estimate over $12bn in avoided oil and gas imports. You can best see the impact of that in the picture from Google Earth below. MAD.
🚲 £104 million to transform walking, wheeling and cycling routes across England. A record investment in the National Cycle Network, given to the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust over four years. It pays for new traffic-free routes, safer crossings, resurfacing, better wheelchair access, and the unglamorous work of keeping bridges and tunnels standing. Every £1 is estimated to return £4.10. I love cycling and therefore I love this.
🔥 The National Trust took a scorched Dunwich Heath to Labour conference. Anyone arriving at Liverpool Lime Street for conference was greeted by a colossal image of the Suffolk heath after this summer’s wildfire, with the line “Climate Change is Here”. The fire swept across the whole heath, an area the size of 220 football pitches and home to Dartford warblers, nightjars and silver-studded blue butterflies. It’s big, but so is the scale of the challenge. Bravo to the National Trust’s in-house creative team (pic by Adam Royle).
💭 My thoughts? The Spectator was not impressed, telling the Trust to “stick to the day job”. But when the places you’re there to protect are burning… surely that’s sticking to the job.
🐋 Andfjorden becomes Norway’s largest marine protected area. Around 1,850km² of fjord off Andøy, Harstad and Senja, home to coral reefs, kelp forests, maerl beds, whales and seabirds. It lifts Norway’s protected coastal waters from 4.8% to 6%. Fishing, defence and (delightfully) space operations all carry on, with tighter rules in the most vulnerable zones, and a board including the Sámi Parliament will manage it. Still a long way from 30x30, but Norway is now 24 areas into a 36-area plan.
🚗 Electric cars are more reliable than petrol cars, MOT data shows. With the data from 47.4 million MOT results, a study has found that between 90,000 and 120,000 miles, EVs failed 16.5% of the time against 22.1% for petrol. They're not better on everything: EVs had 1.8 times more tyre defects, due to their weight and torque. Even my parents are now shifting to an EV, the tide is turning and it’s good for wallets and the planet.
☀️ California legalises plug-in balcony solar. Governor Newsom signed SB 868 on 30th September, letting renters and homeowners plug up to 1,200W of solar into an ordinary socket from January, with no permit and no utility sign-off. California is the tenth US state to do it, and now the country’s largest balcony solar market. One installer said they plan on getting solar PV “on so many California balconies by then that no legislator will vote to take it away.”
🍫 Waitrose extends Tony’s Open Chain partnership. More than half of Waitrose’s seasonal chocolate will now be sourced through Tony’s Open Chain, with cocoa bean purchases up 53% since the 2023-24 season. That means traceable beans, Living Income Reference Price premiums and long-term contracts with farmer cooperatives. It’s madness that we have to have these sorts of things when we really should expect it. Fair play as ever to Tony’s for open-sourcing how they work.
That’s all from me this week folks. Ready to get into an excited flat move and a new chapter in my life. What a time to be alive.
This week’s music recommendation is A Good Day by Anderson .Paak and Cordae. Banger.
George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚