Today we're blowing open a route towards energy security, reduced carbon footprint and saving money - all in the way we make, distribute and use power. If each of us could minimise our own power use, we'd be a step on the way to reducing our overall carbon footprint: more, we'd be changing the ways we think of ourselves as separate from the web of life.

This week's guest is long time friend of the podcast Howard Johns. Howard is an activist, author, and serial entrepreneur in the field of energy generation - of how we power our lives, keep the lights on and keep ourselves warm. Howard is now CEO of OneZero energy, a team of energy experts and digital nerds with a shared passion for getting homes off fossil fuels. One of the biggest climate actions anyone can take is to retrofit their home with four components: Solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation The combination of these makes homes more comfortable, but more importantly, it saves significant amounts of money and massively reduces the carbon footprint - weaning us off fossil fuels.

Howard himself has founded and led an award winning solar business, a pioneering community-owned energy company, and written a guide book to help others to do the same. He's given a TED Talk, occupied a coal mine and campaigned on energy and climate issues from inside parliament and atop treehouses, and until recently ran a large fleet of solar projects across the EU and UK.

One Zero https://www.onezero.energy/
Howard's website: https://www.howardjohns.net/
Howard's book: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/energy-revolution-your-guide-to-repowering-the-energy-system-howard-johns/706009
AG Episode 89https://accidentalgods.life/power-to-the-people/

Indenture Hemp Insulation https://www.indinature.co/
Homely Heat Pump Controllers https://www.homelyenergy.com/

Any Human Power (Manda's book) https://linktr.ee/anyhumanpower

Our guest this week is Richard Smyth, author, crossword designer, cartoonist - and father of two young children
Richard writes features, reviews and comment pieces for publications including The Guardian, The Times LiterarySupplement, The New Statesman, and New Scientist. His crosswords – both cryptic and quiz – appear regularly in New Scientist, History Today, and BBC Wildlife. He's part of the team that sets questions for BBC Mastermind, and he's a cartoonist: Private Eye, New Humanist and Claims magazines have all featured his work.

He's the author of five non-fiction books of which the latest is The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell which is one of those captivating works that is both memoir and eulogy of a dying world. It brings together Richard's passionate love of the natural world with his care for his two young children. It's a captivating read that shuttles back and forth along the time lines, weaving Twitter comments from 'Average Dad' with items from the memoirs of old Victorian naturalists who tasted bird's eggs and considerations of how we help the generations that come after us to fall in love with a world that is going to be so, so different from when we were young - however old you are now, whatever your memories.

So this is one or our more reflective, peaceful, contemplative podcasts, a paean to the worlds of our youth and a hope for the future. Enjoy!

Richard's Website
Richards books at Hive

in this second election special, we talk to Natalie Bennett (or Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle if we're going to be forma - but she said we didn't need to be) - one of two Green Party members in the House of Lords. Natalie is author of the Book 'Change Everything: How we can rethink, repair and rebuild society' - one of the essential books of our time that outlines in detail how we can create the total systemic change we need. Natalie will be back in the autumn to discuss this in more detail, but in the meantime, we had a broad, deep conversation on the UK election - where it's going, where it could go and how each of us can help move a progressive, radical, thoughtful, compassionate, useful, climate-and-meta-crisis-aware agenda so that an incoming government will listen to us. As she says, 'The Tories are Toast', but there's still a lot we can do to elect as many Green MPs as possible.

Natalie Bennett website: https://www.nataliebennett.org/
Natalie's Book: https://unbound.com/books/change-everything
Natalie on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GreenNatalieBennett/
Natalie on Twitter https://x.com/natalieben