The kinds of mosses, lichen, algae and other epiphytes growing on trees in London is directly the result of the Clean Air Act of 1956 and 1968. That’s because those acts put restrictions on sulfur pollution, which was killing epiphytes. London had become a “lichen desert” says Jeff Duckett, emeritus professor of botany at Queen Mary University of London. In the decades since, lichens have made a come back. (As a side: some lichens can live for more than 8,000 years.)

Then later, further growth of epiphytes — essentially any plant-like thing growing on a plant — that is commonly seen on tree barks around London resulted from low-emissions zone introduced in 2008. That regulation led to reduction in nitrogen (NOx) emissions, which had continued to hold back epiphyte growth.

This is a beautiful tree, but nothing out of the ordinary. You may walk past without a second thought. But those things growing on it are actually a huge success story.

Thank you to the organizers of the Green Literature Festival and to the jury of judges for this award. I’m really pleased to receive it and sad that I can’t be there in person with you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to leave you with three messages. They are linked to the three factors that I lay down in Climate Capitalism that are necessary for success in fighting climate change: people, policy and technology.

Let me start with technology, because it’s perhaps the easiest. The vast majority of the emissions problem can be tackled with two steps: electrify as much of the economy as possible and decarbonize electricity. Most of the technologies that India needs to get itself on track to take these two steps now exist, which is more than the solar story I was able to capture in the book through the work that ReNew has done.

Second is policy. When we talk about policy in India, the first thing that comes to mind is that India has to tackle basic issues like corruption, lack of professionalism and votebank politics, before it can turn its policy into effective outcomes. And, yet, India has shown that when it is strategic – geopolitically and economically – then it can make policy work. 

That happened in the case of solar through SECI, the Solar Energy Corporation of India. Most recently, India is attempting to do something similar with its rare-earth magnets manufacturing program. For a resource poor country like ours, good policy can make a huge difference despite its many governance challenges.

Third and this is the most important one: people. I grew up in Nashik in Maharashtra, but have spent my adult life since the age of 21 in the UK, the country that is seen as a global climate leader. That’s the case not because it’s a rich country, just look at the US, Canada or Australia – they are not classed as climate leaders. But it happened because there was enough political will among citizens, academics and politicians to have a progressive outlook on climate change.

It is also now the country that is seeing a fracturing of the climate consensus with people feeling the pinch of recent years of inflation. Opportunistic politicians are trying to blame it on climate policies without good reasons. We’ll see if they succeed, but the lesson is clear: if a rich country’s citizens whose basic needs have been met can’t be convinced to care about climate change… something that will certainly impact their lives, what hope do we have in India, a poor country where we are far from meeting basic human needs?

The answer lies in people. Over the past decade, as I’ve covered climate issues around the world, I’ve seen more and more people be engaged with the topic. Not just in cursory ways, such as reading a news story and feeling outraged, but in deep ways, such as dedicating their careers to tackle this problem. This Green Literature Festival is a case in point and I’m so glad to see it’s been going since 2021.

India has no choice but to tackle climate change. India is among the world’s top 10 countries ranked by vulnerability to climate change. It’s the most populous country in the world, which means when the impacts occur we will also see among the greatest damages caused to humans. 

So it’s down to people like you to ensure that citizens of India can see why it’s in their benefit to act on climate change and why they must vote in the politicians who understand the urgency to act and why they must choose to do business with firms that are green.

This call for people power might feel particularly hard right now. At a time when citizens barely have a voice against visible air pollution. How can we start to tackle invisible carbon dioxide pollution? Well, that’s the hard challenge we face today and it’s a worthy challenge because the solutions needed to deal with carbon dioxide are often also the solutions that will help people breathe cleaner air pollution, eat more nutritious food, build stronger communities, reduce poverty and create an economy fit for the 21st century. The task is clear and the benefits are immense.

Thank you!

Saying what is self-evident is repetitive; the repeated is the already-known, and the already-known is the enemy of literature, its nemesis and true opposite. The self-evident confirms; literature challenges the confirmed. It is easy to describe what I see; it is easy to describe what I think. But why do I see what I see? Why do I think what I think? That is harder to grasp. For what I see is the world; what I think is me. What literature can do is establish an outside.

Source: The Reenchanted World: On finding mystery in the digital age, Harper’s Magazine, June 2025

It’s perfect from the moment you see it. It’s unmissable, even as it sits among seven different types of melons at our local Eastern European grocery in north London. The Persian melon is shaped like a rugby ball, with light orange skin that has ridges. Even though it’s large (weighing about three kilos), it’s easy to hold and drop into the tote bag.

It’s nothing like the smooth, round and all-too-heavy watermelon. You don’t have to clench your stomach and tighten your sphincter before you lift one. You don’t have to worry that it will accidentally slide out and splatter on the shop floor, splaying its insides in places hard to reach.

And the Persian melon smells good: sweet and summery. You can be sure it’s ripe and soft enough. Just give it a firm squeeze and a satisfying sniff. Unlike most other melons, you don’t have to wait to cut it open to find a mistake. You can be assured that the Persian melon will be worth the slightly awkward stares you get as you walk back home lugging around one of the heaviest fruits that you can buy at the grocers.

Now let’s face it: how many melons have you ended up spoiling because you could not bring yourself to cutting them? You picked one up at the shop because you wanted a tasty and healthy treat. But when it’s time to cut it (often days after you bought it), you don’t have the same enthusiasm.

I’m not blaming you. The undoing of a melon is a messy affair. Melons are nothing but balls of water held together by some thin biofilms and wrapped in a seemingly bullet-proof jacket. It’s never going to be as easy to cut into pieces as an apple.

The easiest melons to cut are cantaloupes. And, fortunately, the Persian melon is just like a large cantaloupe. The green rind is thick, but not too firm to cut out. That means there’s little risk of applying unnecessary force on the rind and cutting your hand instead. All the seeds are in the middle and thus there’s no need to spit out seeds when you eat the melon.

Once served in a big bowl, it’s a pleasure to eat. You can push in the fork without effort, and yet when you lift it the piece holds perfectly firm. There’s no drip and no risk of accidental spillage. So far so cantaloupe, except its color: a lovely white with a yellow tinge.

The best part is the magic in the mouth. This is where the Persian melon one-ups the cantaloupe (and the others). All melons are watery, but the Persian melon lets you taste the sweet water for as long as you’d like to taste it. The taste is subtle and refreshing. It hydrates the body and pampers the tongue. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. Once you stop eating, the sweetness stays with you for at least 15 minutes and the memory forever.

1. Marinating meat in beer (or wine) can help reduce the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—known are known to be cancer-causing agents—during barbecuing.
2. Cramps are only caused by exhausted muscles, not because of lack of salt or water. Best way to relieve it is to stretch the muscle that is cramping. To prevent more cramps from happening, try putting a pillow under the muscle, which will gently stretch it.
3. More than one in four health supplements don’t contain what they claim to contain. Don’t think high price indicates high quality. In the UK, look for the THR certification mark.
4. Ear buds don’t remove ear wax. If anything, they make it worse. We should leave ear wax where it is.
5. Rosemary aroma can improve memory by about 10%, because of the way the aromatic chemicals interact with our brain. Lavender smell, on the other hand, can make us feel sleepy.
6. The claims that overweight people may be protected against dementia doesn’t stand up, because researchers used the flawed metric of BMI. The best way to protect against dementia remains getting fit by keeping active and cutting belly fat. Socializing and learning a new skill are definitively helpful.
7. The use of soap, shower gel, and shampoo is best minimized. These “detergents” remove the beneficial oils that our body secretes. Using moisturizers to replace some of these healthy oils is only a cycle of illogicality.
8. To stop snoring: 1. avoid alcohol 2. lie on your side 3. try a nasal strip or a mouth piece. The best solution, however, is a simple set of exercises. Done 2 mins at a time at least 3 times a day. Roll your tongue on to the top and bottom palate (once each) and hold. Open your mouth as wide as possible and say “AAAAA.”
9. A lot of shoes are too high, too flat and too small. Wearing such shoes affects are posture, putting us at greater risk of osteoarthritis, knee pain and back pain. The solution is to get shoes of the right size, use cushion on heels, and avoid using high heels altogether. Some foot exercises using a tennis or a golf ball to massage the foot or picking marbles with the foot can go a long way to keep your feet healthy.
10. How to stop a hiccup? Try to get your attention on something else (hold lemon wedge in your mouth, drink lots of water slowly, breathe slowly). Try exercising the diaphragm by holding your knee to your chest.
11. How to prevent lyme disease? If you are outdoors, check your body for ticks. If you are bit by a tick, look out for symptoms such as a bad rash, headache, fever, and muscle pain.
12. Fecal transplants work, at least in the case of those with Clostridium difficile infections. Other uses are under trials, and the initial results seem promising.
13. Could a DNA-test mediated diet help us to lose weight better? Probably not. We just don’t know enough. Trials are on and may tell us more soon.
14. How can you prevent heart disease? Lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, and stop smoking. Try lowering salt intake. Doing exercise. Taking statins works. Aspiring should be used only if you have had a heart disease or stroke.
15. The best way to lowering cholesterol by altering your diet: Cut animal fat (red meat, cheese). Increase fibre (oats, aubergines, nuts). The “portfolio” diet can work.
16. To reduce cravings, imagine the situation of satisfying your craving. Your overall consumption should reduce.
17. You can lose warts with duct tape. Stick it on, keep it for six days. When you remove it, try rid yourself of the dead cells. Repeat three or four times.
18. For cooking and frying, use oil with more monounsaturated than polyunsaturates. So olive oil, groundnut oil and rapeseed oil. But not sunflower oil, corn oil and vegetable oil.
19. Don’t waste your money on Manuka honey. There is no evidence that it is beneficial.
20. Non-organic food in the UK contains only trace levels of pesticide and thus are no more harmful than organic food. And surprisingly frozen food can be as good as fresh food.

Here are links to lessons I learnt from the 2014 series and the 2013 series of “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor”.

Image by grasper. Published under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.

akshat: Separately here: “Al Jazeera’s Jigar Mehta nails it: “When we produce video for Facebook, we have to assume that the audience is going to be watching on their mobile phones with NO SOUND, so we have to optimize video to tell the story with no sound. Facebook, we know that we are competing for time on a platform where content FOMO [fear of missing out] is rampant, so we strive to make our videos very engaging from the start, and not waste any time getting straight into the stories we tell.”

solana: I read these things and feel like everyone just repeats the same talking points.

solana: Some of them are clearly true, but … then someone will try something else that works and everyone will write articles about how the 1-minute no-sound video was good, but now it’s all about the bla bla new format

akshat: So is this kind of an analysis just an effect of the ever-growing number of journalists covering the journalism industry?

solana: I think it’s really just that this is all so new, that no one really knows what works. And I think what works changes. And maybe it changes because once everyone starts doing exactly the same thing, people get bored. And also, Facebook is rigging the system. They’re favoring videos, and they’re auto playing them without sound.

akshat: Right, and that phenomenon is true of non-video article formats too.

solana: Yeah, totally. Like the Upworthy headlines that worked at first and then people started to hate.

akshat: The thing that doesn’t get old and always gets lots of views is a good story.

solana: Yeah, exactly.

akshat: But you still need to package for the age. You need to give it the wings to reach full potential.

solana: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. First you need the story, then you need to think about where you’ll be publishing it and where your audience will be getting it

akshat: All that the internet’s algorithms have done is reduced the “age” to years or even months.

solana: True.

Image by evdg under CC-BY-NC.

Republicans’ slow attack on the right to abortion is working. Find out how on Quartz, published May 11, 2015.

Image by ashley rose under CC-BY-NC-ND

In research recently published in Science, researchers from Facebook and the University of Michigan suggest that the news feed algorithm is less influential than some people have made it out to be. Instead, they claim it is mostly users themselves who, through their decisions about what to click on or who to be friends with, are responsible for the creation of any ideological bubbles.

Don’t be so quick to let Facebook off the hook, though. Despite being published in a reputable science journal, the researchers’ conclusion appears to be questionable.

Read more on Quartz, published May 11, 2015.

Image by nate bolt under CC-BY-SA.

Read more on Quartz, published May 12, 2015.

Image by DFID under CC-BY.