There’s lots of news to be found about the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Every few weeks or so we highlight a few stories which you may find interesting and draw your attention to awareness events.
6th November 2022
It was World Vegan Day on Tuesday 1st November, I hope you all had a chance to experience a vegan meal on our around that date and it’s World Kindness Week from 7th to 13th November, they suggest celebrating world kindness week by: i) giving a compliment to your friends and even strangers during World Kindness Week, compliment their new haircut, outfit, or anything you like about them; ii) smile at strangers passing by, hold open a door, or give up your seat on public transport, even these small gestures are a nice way of showing kindness to others; and iii) donate books, clothes, food, essential medicines, and even money to a charity of your choice.
COP27 will feature strongly in the news over the next couple of weeks. You can find out more about the conference and follow webcasts of elements of the conference at https://unfccc.int/COP27/schedule?access=All&field_event_has_webcast_value=1&amount-time=23%3A59%20h&field_start_datetime=&field_end_datetime=&search=&field_event_datetime_value_1=1. There are also many interesting presentations in the UN Climate Change Pavillion, you can find webcast links here: https://unfccc.int/un-climate-change-pavilion-cop-27.
19th October 2022
The UN Environment Agency warns that plastics from farming are accumulating in agricultural soil at an alarming rate because of their extensive use in modern farming practices; there’s an interesting article on Farming without Plastics on Word of Mouth.
Also, here’s an article on innovations in wind power generation from Aeromine, it seems to be very new to the market and there are big claims, but potentially worth following.
And, another fascinating innovation, what about Sand Batteries – as reported by the BBC back in July.
27th September 2022
This summer, the UK wasn’t alone with record temperatures, Europe as a whole experienced soaring temperatures leading, inevitably to more forest fires: these are reported to have destroyed a record 700,000 hectares across the EU. These conditions have also led to the worst drought in Europe for 500 years. Along, with floods in Pakistan, typhoons in Japan and hurricanes in Canada the reality of Global Heating is now ever present.
Good news on renewables though, the International Renewable Energy Agency reports in its Annual Review for 2022 that 700,000 new renewable energy jobs created over the last 12 months and there’s also an interesting story of Geothermal Power in Kenya.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has donated his apparel company (estimated valuation of at $3 billion) to fight climate change. In the arrangement, 2% of the family’s stock will fund an effort to ensure the company remains committed to Chouinard’s values, while the other 98% will go to projects that protect habitat and biodiversity, and fight the environmental crisis.
28th July 2022
Well, it would be hard not to mention the fact that we now have a new record temperature in the UK, 40.3 DegC in Conningsby, Lincolnshire. It’s sobering to watch the Met Office’s fictional forecast for July 2050, alongside the actual forecast for July 2022.
Locally, I think many of us would have been concerned about the recent fires on Hankley Common, the BBC reports that at least 50 hectares (123 acres) have been burnt.
Globally, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have warned that, with ‘business as usual’, 90% of the world’s topsoil is likely to be at risk by 2050. Currently, the equivalent of one soccer pitch of top-soil erodes every 5 seconds – about the time it took to read this sentence!
While in Oxford, UK the university’s Museum of Natural History held a conference focussing on Nature-base Solutions to the climate a ecological emergency.
11th July 2022
The Met Office have issued a weather warning for extreme heat later this week / next week and it’s not impossible that we may exceed the highest ever temperature recorded in England, which was 38.7 DegC in Cambridge in 2019.
In US, Joe Biden faces an even greater hurdle on the environment as the Supreme Court rule to limit the powers of the EPA.
Alongside the EAT Lancet Report, there is a report from the Sustainable Food Trust on how ‘Britain can feed itself sustainably, reducing its addiction to volatile food imports and costly fossil fuel fertilisers’.
29th June 2022
Don’t forget that July is Plastic Free.
Also, 2nd to 8th July was National Net Zero Week. There’s information for businesses and consumers on their web-site and it was London Climate Action Week from 25th June to 3rd July; You can see the events that were held here.
United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, declared an ‘Ocean Emergency’ as global leaders gather in Lisbon. There’s more detail on the UN web-site.
14th June 2022
Anthropocene reports that ‘Halving air pollution could yield up to 25% more food’.
The National Geographic have an interesting piece from California: ‘Goats may help prevent wildfires in California as drought worsens’, apparently these voracious herbivores are being deployed to clear invasive plants throughout wildlands.
More worryingly, it is anticipated that Spain and southern France may be hit by a second extreme heat wave this year before mid-June. It is reported that Spain’s summer now begins between 20 and 40 days earlier than it did 50 years ago.
5th June 2022
It was National Bike Week from 6th to 12th June and Sunday, 5th June, was World Environment Day; find out more here.
The Guardian reports that: “Three former UN climate heads say gap between government promises and actions will change environment irreversibly”.
The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has again been raising concerns about global wellbeing being at risk in large part because we haven’t kept our promises on the environment.
The US has a long way to go with respect to reducing the nation’s impact on the global environment, but Inside Climate News reports on “The US’s New Record in Renewables, Explained in Three Chart.
16th May 2022
It was National Vegetarian Week from 16th to 22nd May and Friday 13th May was World Migratory Bird Day, where the challenges of light pollution were put into the spotlight.
There was a concerning feature in the Guardian on Carbon Bombs, essentially future plans for substantial fossil-fuel based projects that will certainly push us passed 1.5 DegC and, most likely, 2 DegC of heating.
We’ve all heard about Flash Flooding, but what about Flash Droughts, read about this new threat in the US Midwest.
And, of course, we should recognise the success of Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest and our own Sam Ryder as the runner-up.
29th April 2022
It is International Compost Awareness Week from 1st to 7th May.
This week heralded extreme temperatures in the Indian Sub-continent, as reported on the UN News Page. They report: “With extreme heat gripping large parts of India and Pakistan, the two countries are working to roll out life-saving health action plans to combat the heatwave, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday.” While, in the oceans, the Guardian reports that: “Global heating risks most cataclysmic extinction of marine life in 250m years” as a result of rising temperatures and a loss of oxygen.
But, dating with a climate conscious is now a thing: dating platforms have noticed their users are hot for climate issues and are incorporating features to help them connect with each other. For those of you looking for romance, click here.
5th April 2022
Clearly, the big news this week is the release of the latest instalment of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report from Working Group III on the Mitigation of Climate Change.
The summary for policy makers is sobering reading. We now await the publication of the Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report, due in September 2022, which will draw together the findings of all three reports for the benefit of all policy makers. We still have time, but it’s clear that we must see very meaningful change by the middle of this decade.
14th March 2022
Our thoughts, of course, go out the the people of Ukraine at this horrendous time. We hope for a cessation of hostilities and peace talks as soon as possible.
It was UK Compost Week from 14th to 20th March and we featured Composting as our theme for the Climate Club on 25th March.
As the United National Environment Assembly looks at ending plastic pollution, youth-led initiatives in Nairobi show the way – Turning waste to wealth: In Nairobi, UN deputy chief lauds youth-led development solutions.
Sadly, a more concerning story about the Amazon Rain Forest, where researchers report that we may reach a tipping point sooner than feared.
7th March 2022
The IPCC published the next part of their 6th Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptability and Vulnerability, it’s sobering reading, but probably about what most of us expected. Interestingly, more women than ever have contributed as authors to this latest instalment.
Residents on the East Coast of Australia are clearly feeling the effects, there has been some horrendous flooding in the area over the last week.
Up and coming we have UK Compost Week from 14th to 20th March and we will be featuring Composting as our theme for the Climate Club on 25th March.
21st February 2022
It’s Fairtrade Fortnight, 21st February to 5th March. The Fairtrade Foundation campaign for better prices, safer working practices, local sustainability and better terms of trade for farmers and workers. To find our more about the Fairtrade Foundation click here and the Fairtrade Fortnight Festival click here.
There’s an interesting report from the UN Environment Programme on noise pollution, wildfires and the disruption of life-cycle patterns entitled Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches, download the report here.
The recent stormy weather we’ve all been experiencing is a reminder that climate change will have an increasingly dramatic impact on our lives. The storms also magnify our challenges by directly negating some of the things we are doing to combat climate change. It sobering to reflect on the BBC Report that more that eight million trees have been lost in the UK so far this winter.
The recent news that JET, the pilot-scale nuclear fusion reactor, has managed to generate 59 megajoules of heat, which has been described as a stunning result, is undoubtedly positive news, nuclear fusion is a potential source of enormous amounts of clean energy. However, the concept of nuclear fusion dates back to the early 1950’s, with the first experiment to achieve ‘controlled’ fusion dating back to 1958 and JET generating energy for the first time in 1997. That’s over 60 years to get to where we are today and almost certainly decades yet before we achieve a commercially viable solution. This is a good example of why should be rightly wary of technological fixes for the climate crisis. For example, while we can recognise that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies, in their various forms, are likely to make a contribution, we should also recognise that scaling-up these technologies to a meaningful capacity may take many decades. In the case of CCS, this was first proposed as a complete concept in 1977 and methods for separating and capturing CO2 in industrial processes have been around since the 1920s. Today, there are pilot-scale CCS plants in operation around the world, but there’s still a very long way to go.
7th February 2022
The BBC reports that the earth has more tree species than we previously thought, which is a positive. But, we are still having a very negative impact upon biodiversity – click here for a summary of the latter from 2020.
Sticking with the floral theme, a paper revealing that UK plants typically now flower a month earlier, as compared to typical flowering dates in the 1980, has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In the paper, the scientists attribute this change to Global Warning.
Earlier this week Madagascar was hit by Tropical Cyclone Batsirai and this is just two weeks after Storm Ana hit Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi.
Finally, here’s an interesting one, the slide show that convinced the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to engage with the reality of Global Warming has been revealed.
31st January 2022
As mentioned below, It was UN World Wetlands Day last Wednesday. Here’s a lovely, inspiring video here on Preserving Wetlands with Water Lilies.
The BBC report that the earth has more tree species than we previously thought , which is a great. But, we are still having a very negative impact upon biodiversity – here’s a summary from 2020.
Sticking with the floral theme, a paper revealing that UK plants now typically flower a month earlier, as compared to typical flowering dates in the 1980, has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In the paper, the scientists attribute this change to Global Warning.
Mid-week Madagascar was hit by Tropical Cyclone Batsirai and this is just two weeks after Storm Ana hit Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi.
Finally, here’s an interesting one, the slide show that convinced the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to engage with the reality of Global Warming has been revealed.
24th January 2022
Wednesday 2nd February is World Wetlands Day, this is a United National International Day and Thursday 3rd of February of Time to Talk Day; the focus of this day is mental health, a very important topic in it’s own right, but I think we would all agree that the climate crisis is a demand on all our mental health.
There’s a sobering blog from the Centre for Global Development which details the day of the year when an average UK citizen’s carbon emissions surpasses the annual emissions of the average citizen in other countries.
17th January 2022
It’s Veganuary, a great opportunity to start experimenting with a plant-based diet. Why not visit the visit the Vegan Society website for some ideas. Going completely vegan may not be for everyone, but making at least a few of your meals plant-based is both healthy and more climate and ecologically friendly.
From Hollywood, if you haven’t yet had a chance to see ‘Don’t Look Up’ it’s well worth a watch. It’s a fun, if sobering, allegory of the climate and ecological crisis.
This month, the World Meteorological Organisation has announced that 2021 is one of the seven warmest years on record; 2016 stills holds the top spot though. Also, this month a cut down virtual version of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos, Switzerland. Concerningly, in the WEF’s Global Risks Report 2022, the projected top five global risks 5 to 10 years from now are all related to the climate and ecological emergency, they are: Climate Action Failure, Extreme Weather, Biodiversity Loss, Natural Resources Crises and Human Environmental Damage.