Interesting if true

Our fortnightly digest of facts and rumours from the UK and beyond.

Done and dusted

Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute, home to some of the world’s best, has been elevated to an even loftier pedestal thanks to Oxford Times magazine In Business. “Have Oxford scientists discovered a way to combat climate change?” its February cover asks in all seriousness. The associated article describes the work of two scientists who have founded a company called Oxford Biochar, which advocates burying charcoal in soils as a way to trap carbon. An example of the company’s fundraising successes, we learn, is a £3,000 research grant from TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Well, that’s climate change clearly sorted, then.