Mehri Khosravi
Mehri Khosravi writes about the intersection of heat, housing and inequality, using her environment beat at The Independent to turn technical research on overheating and cooling into clear, practical guidance for the public. Her work is grounded in her role as an energy and carbon senior research fellow at a university sustainability research institute, which she draws on to connect climate-driven heatwaves with the way homes are built and lived in. Across her coverage she treats overheating as a structural problem in the housing stock rather than just a matter of individual comfort, linking everyday cooling choices to energy demand and infrastructure stress.
Heatwaves and keeping homes cool without air conditioning
A core strand of Khosravi’s writing explains how households can keep their homes bearably cool during heatwaves without relying on air conditioning. In her piece on staying cool in a heatwave, she warns that many homes are designed in ways that trap heat indoors, turning them into “heat boxes” when temperatures rise. She then sets out passive cooling measures - such as managing ventilation, shading, and internal heat sources - that can reduce indoor temperatures without mechanical cooling and the energy use that comes with it.
Her approach in this coverage is to start from the physics of buildings and then translate those details into simple actions a non-specialist reader can take room by room. She frames each recommendation in the context of hotter summers and more frequent extreme heat events, making it clear that these are adaptation strategies rather than one-off tips.
The emphasis on “smarter, lower‑energy ways to adapt to rising temperatures” runs through the piece, positioning air conditioning as a last resort rather than the default solution.
Cooling divide and unequal exposure to extreme heat
Another distinctive thread in Khosravi’s coverage is her focus on what she calls a “cooling divide” emerging as heatwaves intensify.
In an opinion piece for The Independent, she argues that widespread adoption of air conditioning as a quick fix risks deepening inequality between those who can afford mechanical cooling and those who cannot. She links this divide to rising energy demand and the strain that peak cooling loads place on existing infrastructure during extreme heat events.
Khosravi brings quantitative evidence into that argument, drawing on research showing that 80 per cent of homes reported overheating during the summer of 2022, around four times the level recorded a decade earlier. She uses that trend to show that overheating is already pervasive, not a hypothetical future risk. Her writing connects these findings to the design and performance of the housing stock, underscoring that residents in poorly performing homes face the greatest exposure when temperatures spike.
Rather than treating cooling purely as a consumer choice, she presents it as a question of housing standards, urban planning and social equity.
Urban overheating, housing stock and future risk
Khosravi’s journalism is informed by her research on urban overheating, where she stresses that risk depends on a combination of rising temperatures, urban density, the amount of hard surfaces and green space, and the design and performance of the homes people live in. In coverage looking ahead to which cities are likely to overheat in the next 15 years, she is cited explaining how these factors interact to trap heat and limit night‑time cooling. That lens feeds back into her writing on housing and heatwaves, which consistently treats homes not as isolated units but as part of wider urban systems.
By bringing this systems view into an environment beat, she is able to connect individual experiences of stifling bedrooms and overheated living rooms with broader trends in urban form and climate. Her work highlights that the same choices about density, paving and green space that shape everyday neighbourhoods also determine who will be most exposed when prolonged heat arrives. This focus on the built environment gives her coverage a different character from generic weather or lifestyle reporting, anchoring practical advice in a clear explanation of risk drivers.
Translating sustainability research for a general audience
Across these pieces, Khosravi’s distinguishing trait is the way she moves between academic research and everyday language without losing precision. She pulls findings on overheating prevalence, energy demand and building performance into The Independent, but presents them in short, direct sentences tied to decisions readers make about their homes.
Her advice is less about gadgets and more about understanding how buildings behave under heat, and how simple changes can cut both temperatures and energy use.
This combination of detailed evidence and plain prose means her environment coverage serves as a bridge between sustainability research and people living through hotter summers. When she writes about heatwaves, she treats them as tests of the housing system and energy infrastructure as much as meteorological events.
The result is work that is both practical and structurally minded, useful to readers looking for immediate steps and to those thinking about longer‑term adaptation and resilience.
4 more environment journalists.
Abby Wallace
Abby Wallace covers where energy, climate and politics meet, with a focus on how net zero, power markets and extreme weather affect people and institutions. She is an energy and climate reporter at POLITICO, covering U.K. energy policy, climate targets and the transition from fossil fuels. Her subjects include government and opposition debates over net zero, decarbonization, support schemes, infrastructure, public spending and climate adaptation. She also reports on energy companies, household bills, labor standards, supply chains and corporate accountability. Her work connects technical policy choices to jobs, competitiveness, public services and voter sentiment. She uses polling, expert voices and political analysis to examine public attitudes and government response to extreme weather. Before POLITICO, she worked on the companies desk at the Financial Times and the business news desk at Insider. She has also freelanced on politics, business and climate.
Adam Fulton
Adam Fulton is a digital news producer focused on fast-moving global stories where environment, conflict and politics meet. He works on the Guardian’s Australian operation, using rolling live blogs to cover geopolitical crises, climate-linked disasters and wars with clear structure and context. His Middle East coverage, including the Gaza peace plan, tracks tension between political messaging and on-the-ground realities, tying leaders’ statements to military movements, diplomatic reactions and humanitarian reports. His disaster reporting, such as on Nepal–Tibet floods, links rising tolls and missing people to infrastructure damage, rescue strain and cascading environmental threats. His Ukraine war blogs treat resource scarcity, especially water and energy, as strategic factors and track how infrastructure damage shapes the conflict. A former entertainment and arts reporter and senior editor at major Australian newspapers, he applies careful pacing and narrative arcs to collaborative, time-stamped live coverage.
Alec Luhn
Alec Luhn is an environment reporter whose work follows climate change at its extremes, frontiers and human consequences, often reporting directly from places where warming, instability and displacement intersect. He covers climate, conflict and migration, showing how abstract climate trends turn into risks for communities, infrastructure, health and preparedness. He reports for New Scientist on climate breakdown, extreme events, El Niño, limits of models, melting glaciers, warming seas and adaptation to heat, mixing scientific explanation with lived experience. A defining strand of his work is reporting from remote icy and mountainous regions on Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost, polar bears, pollution and fragile ecosystems. He has a long record on conflict and security, including the Skripal poisoning case. His reporting appears in New Scientist and major international outlets, with work across print, digital, audio and television and recognition from climate and journalism awards.
Amy Lyall
Amy Lyall is a regular contributor to The Connexion, and her work stands out for turning French rules, services and the built environment into clear, usable advice for everyday readers. She covers housing, energy use, resident obligations and the practical steps behind things like getting air-conditioning approved for flats. Her beat also includes national and local schemes, insurance and legal conditions for lending a car, mobile network coverage, mosquito-borne diseases, water filters, fruit harvests and emergency drones with defibrillators. She writes news, practical guides and magazine-style features, using plain language to explain technical topics and official systems. She also writes explainers on French words and phrases and occasional culture pieces on unusual sites such as Maison Picassiette.