🌱 The Grumpy Optimists #89
My experience of running a long way and a new found hate for hills
Happy Monday. 👋
Welcome back to another episode of The Grumpy Optimists and thank you again for tuning in and reading my thoughts and the top articles I’ve read this week. In the UK, this weekend really felt like the start of summer with long, warm days, a little bit of sunburn and a lot of growth on my courgette plants it really was a great time.
A lot of positive news this week, from the UK’s largest solar park to the EU banning products linked to deforestation. I also have a personal story to share as I completed my first and potentially last ultra-marathon (we’ll see how I feel in a week) and I feel pretty damn proud and appreciative of the planet we live on and the opportunities we have.
Anyway, that’s enough of that for now, dig into your usual dose of optimistic news below. Oh, and if you want to subscribe, leave a like, a comment or just generally share some optimism, that would make me very happy.
👀 Articles to read
☀️ UK’s largest solar and battery storage project begins construction. The Cleve Hill Solar Park, based in Kent, consists of 880,000 solar panels and battery storage and is expected to be complete by the end of 2024.
🐑 Ewe’d never guess but solar farm sheep graze more. One of the many criticisms people falsely level against solar farms is that it stops land from being used for farming, but new research suggests otherwise. Emma Kampherbeek, a master's student found that solar panels have two benefits for ‘solar sheep’. One, the sheep graze more thanks to solar panels protecting sheep from the heat and harsh weather. Two, the solar panels also influence the grass around them with more shade and condensation creating higher protein content and better digestibility.
🎣 How rewiggling brought fish back to Cumbrian River. Restoring a river in Cumbria has shown the benefits of re-wiggling, or remeandering, to restore natural habitats and increase biodiversity. The river had been straightened 200 years ago, but this led to unintended consequences including faster-flowing water that made it difficult for fish to spawn and carried more sediment downstream. After just 3 months, the now slower-running river had salmon and trout spawning.
🪵 EU bans goods linked to deforestation. The European Parliament has passed a new law to ban the import of commodities linked to deforestation, including soy, beef, coffee and palm oil unless they can be proven to be deforestation-free. The new rules require companies to produce a due diligence statement, with verifiable information proving their goods were not grown on deforested land after 2020, or face hefty fines.
💐 Put your lawnmower away for No Mo May. Conservationists at Plantlife have revealed the 10 most common plants found in British lawns, as they urge people to let their grass grow for "No Mow May" to protect wildflowers and other plants. So let that grass grow long or just leave small areas of your garden a little longer this month.
🥓 THIS give the NFU a little bit of beef. The National Farmers Union are trying to ban plant-based brands from using meaty words so THIS, the plant-based meat alternative company asked some linguistics about the meaning of words like sausage, or steak. The answers put into perspective the stupidity of banning meaty words. A great video by a great brand.
🇲🇦 Xlinks gets £30m in backing for cable from Morocco to the UK. Xlinks is an ambitious 3,800km undersea cable that will connect sun-drenched Morocco and the UK. The company will use the power of the sun and build huge solar plants in Morocco before sending the energy to the UK to power 7 million British homes. The project is expected to cost $18bn, with the recent funding round being used to accelerate its feasibility with the aim of being complete by the end of the decade. A bold project for a big problem.
☕ Dutch supermarkets trial the true price of a coffee. Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is trialling a "true pricing" initiative in three convenience stores, displaying two prices for a self-service cup of coffee that factors in CO2 emissions, water use, resource consumption and labour conditions related to the production of coffee, cow's milk and oat milk. The initiative aims to promote sustainable choices by revealing externalised social and ecological costs throughout a product's supply chain, with extra revenue generated invested in Rainforest Alliance projects.
🏃♂️ Personal update - I went running
This weekend I put myself through the test of running an ultra-marathon and it turns out running for over 5 hours is very very hard. I have previously run one marathon (on Christmas Eve last year) and while I run fairly regularly, this was a different level of mental and physical effort.
The reason I’m sharing this, other than to ever so slightly humblebrag, is to show that we can do a lot more than we think if we put out minds to it. 12 months ago I struggled to run more than 10km, made very little effort to exercise and probably didn’t eat as well as I could, but now, I do stupid things like running 33 miles for ‘fun’.
Please use this as motivation to just get outside for 20 minutes for a walk, a run or anything and realise why we’re trying to save the planet we live on. Check out this video of my housemates greeting me with a pint at the end here.
Oh, and to the person at mile 16 who told me it would be a good idea to run into the South Downs and up 200m of elevation at the 25-mile mark for a ‘better view’, I hate you.
This weekend was written with a slightly sunburnt body, some beaten-up toes and feet and stiff legs but a really happy and fulfilled mind. I’ve also been enjoying some Ben Howard if you want that British summertime wholesome vibe, do give the new song a listen.
George, The Grumpy Optimist 💚