City of London Environmental

For all things environmental in the City of London and beyond. RTs aren’t endorsements.

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

I removed by bees from Oxford street after years of them struggling. Not enough forage in the area & high hive density. Putting additiinal hives there is not helping biodiversity. This is utter #beewash from Alveole. Expect more as #worldbeeday approaches. https://t.co/CTuNy81WCt

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

London desperately needs some rain this weekend. Forecast is for 5-10mm between Saturday and Monday. There’s been no rain since February and the green roofs are now brown months earlier than usual. Nothing for pollinators, biodiversity crashing and they are no longer cooling 🏢

[Kabir Kaul @Kaulofthewilduk]

@networkrail Swifts are charismatic, magical birds, but they're in severe decline across the country.

Every nesting site counts - unblock the nesting sites at the Chapel Milton viaduct!

[Pollinating London Together @PollinatingLT]

Pollinators are vital for food production. Around 1 in 3 bites we eat depends on them. That includes foods you might not expect, like chocolate and vanilla. Protecting pollinators means protecting our food systems.

#PollinatingLT

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

Found a few meadow saxifrage plants on a very thin substrate green roof this afternoon. A plant that has died out on most of the other roofs in the neighbourhood of @thecityofldn. Climate becoming to dry for it. @CoLEnvironment @BSBIbotany lots of rue leaved saxifrage as well

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

Pyrrhidium sanguineum -Welsh Oak Longhorn Beetle found on a green roof on Cheapside today. It’s listed as rare and vulnerable RDB2. The larva are saproxylic feeding on dead wood, typically oak. @CoLEnvironment @treeruss @iGiGL

[Philip Oldfield @SustainableTall]

My kind of MAGA…

‘Make Awnings Great Again’

Kindergarten in Affoltern Am Albis, Switzerland. By Kummer/Schiess

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

Honey bee research receives a disproportionate and bias amount of funding for research compared to wild bees. Instead of sponsoring a bee hive, sponsor a bee scientist.

https://t.co/1Ztzvhu7Qn

[Barbican@55+ @Barbicanat50]

The state of Cheapside yesterday #DestinationCity @cityoflondon @CheapsideBA

[Pollinating London Together @PollinatingLT]

Did you know? Every part of the daffodil is poisonous to humans? However they also contain galantamine, a compound used in drugs that slow the progression of Alzheimers disease.

#PollinatingLT

[Api:Cultural @apiculturalLdn]

Since @BrightonHoveCC mandated bee bricks in new developments I’m seeing a surge in ESG professionals and architects posting about these really badly designed bee death traps. If only Brighton had done an evidence based assessment before passing policy!

https://t.co/HXttXPD9sD

[City of London Environmental @CoLEnvironment]

@cityoflondon @MIPIMWorld Good to see that Middlesex Street Estate will be basked in sunshine. So much for the Residential Reset @citypolicychair.

[City of London Environmental @CoLEnvironment]

@cityoflondon It can hardly look as bad the current version.

[Pollinating London Together @PollinatingLT]

Did you know the City of London is a haven for wild bees? Our 2024 surveys recorded 8 different bumblebee species, 39 species of solitary bee, and 27 hoverfly species right here in the Square Mile! Not much longer to wait until we share our results from last year! Stay tuned…

[Patrick Lee @PatrickjaLee]

Brilliant from Sir Stephen Holgate:

"Domestic burning is now responsible for around 20% of UK emissions of particulate matter pollution – ‘PM2.5’ – the most harmful form of air pollution.

https://t.co/iSVrpHDX1S

[City of London Environmental @CoLEnvironment]

@Meg_HillierMP @DemolitionsLdn @TfL has no concern for passengers (customers!) who now have to change buses to complete their journeys. Not the weather, they had a seat, they’re wheeling, they have luggage, they have a long wait for the next bus permeates the callousness of its decisions @SebDance

[Mark W Tebbutt @mwt2008]

There is now clear evidence that domestic wood burning cannot be cleaned up enough to protect public health in towns and cities. For years the debate focused on PM2.5 mass. Toxicology shows that what matters most for health is not only how much particulate matter is present but how chemically reactive it is.

The Paul Scherrer Institute explains that the particles most linked to biological harm are those with high oxidative potential, a measure of their ability to trigger oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.
https://t.co/oyi8X9FByl

Secondary organic aerosol is especially important. These particles form in the air when combustion gases react with sunlight, ozone and nitrogen oxides. The most harmful particles appear after the smoke leaves the chimney and spread through neighbourhoods.

A 2025 toxicology study showed that secondary organic aerosol from combusted biomass gases causes oxidative stress and inflammatory responses in lung cells.
https://t.co/KkSCp6v1kf

Atmospheric chamber research shows that as wood smoke ages its oxidative potential increases by around sixty percent.
https://t.co/zuTeoRbHmQ

The strongest ambient evidence comes from Rinaldi et al. (2024), who found that residential solid fuel burning was the dominant contributor to oxidative potential in a small Irish town and that around eighty seven percent of that contribution came from wood.
https://t.co/d315y1uJOG

The oxidative potential measured there was comparable to or higher than levels seen in major cities, showing that domestic wood burning can create highly toxic air even where traffic is low.

This matters for technical solutions. Electrostatic precipitators reduce primary soot but do not remove the gases that form secondary organic aerosol. Catalysts and wet scrubbers are unreliable in domestic stoves because of temperature swings, fuel chemistry and user behaviour. Even if primary soot were fully captured the most harmful pollution would still form downwind.

Modern eco-certified stoves also emit similar PM2.5 per hour as around eighteen Euro 6 diesel cars and produce very high levels of ultrafine particles. Road transport is cleaning up as around one quarter of new UK cars are now fully electric. Domestic wood burning is not.

Most UK studies also show that wood burning is used mainly for ambience. Most burners already have full central heating and use stoves as a secondary or decorative heat source. A significant pollution burden is being created for non-essential reasons in densely populated areas.

Once oxidative potential, secondary organic aerosol, ultrafine particles and real-world use are taken together the conclusion is clear. There is no realistic or enforceable pathway to make routine domestic solid fuel burning safe in urban or suburban areas. The most harmful pollution forms from untreated gases in the local atmosphere.

The only effective public health response is to phase out domestic solid fuel burning in built-up areas and help households move to clean heating that does not expose neighbours to pollution. This is not about lifestyle. It is about the right of every person to breathe clean air in their own home.

#AirPollution #CleanAir #PM25 #WoodSmoke #Health #CleanAirNight

[James Mackenzie @mrjamesmack]

in case you ever wonder if Whitehall knows how screwed we are without the most urgent climate action, well, yes they do

[Rupert Read 🌍 🔥 @GreenRupertRead]

BREAKING!: Huge news: The Government has quietly published [link below] on its website, without any fanfare, the Joint Intelligence Committee / Defra report on
'GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY LOSS, ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY'
that it suppressed last October. It has presumably done this at this point (in the middle of an international crisis) to try to bury the story. <DON'T LET IT BE BURIED> ...this is a huge story. Just consider the report's title, for starters... the report warns of multiple likely ecosystem >collapses< that will have dire implications for our national security, and that require serious strategic adaptation at minimum. The report also sets out how these collapses if they are allowed to occur will significantly increase migration-pressure: "as development gains begin to reverse", a phrase that should make any human shudder in anguish. There is much more... But it doesn't end there: what they have published very much appears to be >only part of a larger piece of work<: there is no detail at all in what they have published on the geo-regional analyses; the connections from those regional analyses to the national security threats consequently facing Britain are not detailed; the "Key Judgements" of the report are not properly explained. It is fairly obvious what has happened here: in response to FOIs, they are trying to slip this report out, presumably because they feared it would otherwise get out anyway; but they have done so in a form that holds back much of the most disturbing content - the content that WE as citizens need to know if we are to know how to protect ourselves, what we are potentially going to have to adapt TO.
We must continue to press for the full report to be released...
But in the meantime there is much here to digest and reflect on, to put it mildly. Kudos to those who commissioned the report; do READ this version of it (it's only short!), and let's take it from there... Kudos too to those who pursued an (at least partly) successful battle to get the report released, via Freedom of Information requests...
>>Please share widely!
https://t.co/lMI3Nr5mPL

[The Wildlife Trusts @WildlifeTrusts]

UK nature is declining fast, yet the Fingleton Review proposes weakening vital protections. Wildlife can’t afford more loss. These plans aren’t law .. yet.

There’s still time to act. Speak up now to protect nature 👉 https://t.co/QGPqV2eTk5