Loads of good news this week. Actually, there isn’t. There never is.

You’ll be familiar with the government’s oft-stated intention to build 300,000 homes a year – which sounds fine and dandy and the perfect tonic to deal with our never-ending housing crisis.

But, wouldn’t you know, there’s a potential flaw in the otherwise splendid concept – analysis has revealed that should the government’s dream become a reality, England would chew through 104% of its carbon budget by 2050, the deadline for fixing all of our horrible, self-inflicted problems.

Sophus zu Ermgassen, lead author of the damning analysis from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at Kent University, said: “You can’t just go on building new infrastructure forever.” Well, obviously.

So, what’s your big plan, then, clever scientific researcher type person?

Well, Ermgassen reckons we should make a massive effort to retrofit the homes we already have while simultaneously dealing with the menace of second homes and investment properties – a double whammy that’ll cut carbon emissions and assuage the housing crisis.

Oh, ok, that’s actually a great idea. It’s not going to happen, clearly, but it’s a great idea.

According to the analysis, the housing crisis is probably “less with the total supply of housing units and more with their distribution across the population and ‘overconsumption’ by wealthier groups”.

All sounds dangerously close to something like socialism, doesn’t it? Oh well, back to the drawing (dividends) board.

***

Another new study, another revelation of impending disaster – this time, it’s hay.

Yields of the dried and baled grass that ruminants adore munching are declining fast in southern England, according to a report from Rothamsted Research and the University of Reading.

Good old climate change has seen to it that harvests have dropped 35% in the last century – and the researchers forecast another 20-50% fall over the next 50 years.

It’s because the weather’s gone all awry, you see – partly screwed up by the very animal farming the increasingly uncommon hay sustains. Circle of life, or end of life, and all that.

Statistician Dr John Addy said: “The precise response of spring hay yield to temperature and rainfall varied during the year but there is an optimum ‘goldilocks’ spring rainfall and temperature associated with the maximum level of yield.

“Changes in autumn and winter temperature had more of an effect on yield than autumn and winter rainfall.”

Will this be the final straw? Sorry. No, really, I am. I’m sorry.

***

Water, water nowhere except in the Jacuzzis – is what Samuel Tayor Coleridge may have penned if he lived in modern-day north-east France. You’ll find out what I’m talking about if you carry on reading.

Somebody locals are calling the ‘Jacuzzi driller’ is skulking about and piercing outdoor whirlpools, in an apparent protest against what he or she deems inappropriate water usage.

Eight chalets in the besieged town of Gérardmer in the Vosges region have been struck by the H₂herO, whose modus operandi is a 2cm hole drilled into the sides of outdoor bathing tubs. A note left at the scene of one raid summarised the rebel’s manifesto: “Water is made for drinking! You are killing the Vosges. Seriously, the planet is sick. Wake up!”

And the insurgent has a point: France is suffering a severe drought. Should people really be filling outdoor pleasure pools when water is so scarce?

Olivier Robert, concerned local and victim, isn’t having any of that: “What’s now happening is the result of several factors, but we aren’t responsible for the water shortage. The drought is the main cause, and the influx of tourists. They’re attacking property now; will they be attacking people next?”

So, make of that what you will.