Bill McKibben On Degrowth Movements Past & Present

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Bill McKibben gives a thorough reconsideration of what, if any, growth is helpful now:

To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower?

The degrowth movement makes a comeback.

John Maynard Keynes once observed that dating from “say, to two thousand years before Christ—down to the beginning of the 18th century, there was no very great change in the standard of life of the average man living in the civilised centres of the earth. Ups and downs certainly. Visitations of plague, famine, and war. Golden intervals. But no progressive, violent change.” Continue reading →

Rewilding On The Beara Peninsula

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Eoghan Daltun with his dog on his farm, where native trees such as sessile oak, rowan and downy birch have self-seeded. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Guardian

Rewilding remains one of our favorite topics to read about, and we share accordingly. Thanks to Rory Carroll for this article in the Guardian:

‘The result was amazing’: one man’s mission to reforest a barren Irish hillside

Eoghan Daltun has spent 14 years rewilding part of Beara peninsula into a showcase of diversity

Eoghan Daltun stood on a slope and pointed to a distant vista of verdant fields, craggy hills and conifer trees across the Beara peninsula in west Cork. Continue reading →

The Diligence Of Local Bees

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Native Bees Yield Hardier Flowers Than Honey Bees, Research Finds

Bees getting the scientific attention they deserve, our thanks to Yale e360 for summarizing and sharing these findings:

Native Bees Yield Hardier Flowers Than Honey Bees, Research Finds

Flowers pollinated by native bees produce fitter offspring than flowers pollinated by honey bees, according to a new study carried out in San Diego, California. Continue reading →

Celebrating Energy Independence

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he Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm along the Iowa-Minnesota state line. TONY WEBSTER VIA WIKIPEDIA

If you are in the USA and are looking for more reasons to celebrate independence, consider renewables (thanks to Yale e360):

U.S. Wind and Solar Overtake Coal for the First Time

In a first for the U.S. power sector, wind and solar have generated more electricity than coal so far this year. Continue reading →

Panthera’s Puma Program

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Puma in Wyoming. | Photo by Neal Wight, courtesy of Panthera

Thanks to Grace van Deelen for this article in the magazine of the Sierra Club:

Mountain Lions Are Murder Gardeners

By leaving carcasses, mountain lions create lush landscapes for future victims that could attract prey

If you’re hiking in Yellowstone and stumble upon an unusually lush landscape, you might have found a mountain lion’s garden. Continue reading →

California Bumble Bee Atlas

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Leif Richardson examines a queen bee. Grace Widyatmajda/NPR

Bumble bees need help and the California Bumble Bee Atlas Project is on it. Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for bringing it to our attention:

Krystle Hickman, a bee photographer and volunteer for the Bumble Bee Atlas Project, carefully places a bee onto a flower.
Grace Widyatmadja/NPR

Nets, coolers and courage: A day in the life of a volunteer bee conservationist

I never realized how fuzzy a bumble bee is until I got to hold one between my fingertips. It feels like a furry black and yellow bear, buzzing with its tiny body, wriggling with its legs.

The conservation biologist Leif Richardson, who handed me this bee a moment ago, has some advice for holding it. “You’re going to squeeze harder than you think you need to, but not so hard that you hurt him.” Continue reading →

Climate Migration’s Upsides

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Reporting from Niger, the Economist offers a glass-half-full consideration of a daunting topic (the podcast version of this story is excellent), and pulls it off:

image: josh haner/the new york times/redux/eyevine

The surprising upside of climate migration

To adapt to climate change, people will move. The results will not be all bad

On the outskirts of Niamey, the capital of Niger, it looks as if the countryside has moved to the city. Clusters of dome-like wooden huts have popped up. Cows and goats are tethered in the shade. Waves of rural folk have arrived, largely because of climate change. Continue reading →

Graphic Comprehension Of Forest Loss

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A section of forest in the Brazilian Amazon that was burned by cattle ranchers, seen on August 16, 2020. Cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Andre Penner/AP

The photograph heading the story is alarming enough, but the illustrations (especially the “scroll down” graphic) accompanying the written explanations are extremely compelling. Thanks to Benji Jones for the story and to Alvin Chang for the graphics in this Vox article:

The alarming decline of Earth’s forests, in 4 charts

Deforestation raged ahead again in 2022, even after scores of countries pledged to protect their forests.

Over the last decade, dozens of companies and nearly all large countries have vowed to stop demolishing forests, a practice that destroys entire communities of wildlife and pollutes the air with enormous amounts of carbon dioxide.

A big climate conference in Glasgow, in the fall of 2021, produced the most significant pledge to date: 145 countries, including Brazil, China, and Indonesia, committed to “halt and reverse” forest loss within the decade. Never before, it seems, has the world been this dedicated to stopping deforestation. Continue reading →

The Downside Of Dry

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Baitings reservoir in Ripponden, West Yorkshire, in summer 2022, when the total stock of water in England’s reservoirs was at its lowest level since 1995. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

We do not favor panic button words in headlines; but when the cap fits, wear it:

‘Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic’

While the world becomes drier, profit and pollution are draining our resources. We have to change our approach

The River Derwent in Cumbria has run dry in parts of the Borrowdale valley for the third consecutive year. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

During the summer months in the Oxfordshire town where I live, I go swimming in the nearby 50-metre lido. With my inelegantly slow breaststroke, from time to time I accidentally gulp some of the pool’s opulent, chlorine-clean 5.9m litres of water. Sometimes, I swim while it’s raining, when fewer people brave it, alone in my lane with the strangely comforting feeling of having water above and below me. I stand a bottle of water at the end of the lane, to drink from halfway through my swim. I normally have a shower afterwards, even if I’ve showered that morning. I live a wet, drenched, quenched existence. But, as I discovered, this won’t last. I am living on borrowed time and borrowed water. Continue reading →

Duckweed, By Plantible Foods

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Duckweed at the Plantible Foods aqua farm in San Marcos, Calif. (Eric Thayer/for The Washington Post)

We link frequently to articles about meat replacement options, and this appears to be the first time that duckweed is the plant protein being featured. So, thanks to Michael J. Coren, a climate advice columnist at the Washington Post, for this:

The plant protein that could push meat off your plate

Plantible grows duckweed in ponds housed in greenhouses. (Eric Thayer/for The Washington Post)

SAN MARCOS, Calif. — I came to this aquatic farm an hour outside of San Diego because I wanted to see what could be the future of humanity’s protein supply.

At the moment, it looks more like a meth lab out of the drama “Breaking Bad,” jokes Tony Martens Fekini, the chief executive of Plantible Foods.

Debris from a machine that grinds duckweed. (Eric Thayer/for The Washington Post)

Decrepit recreational vehicles squat on the property. In one corner, people tend to vials, grow lights and centrifuges in a trailer lab. More than a dozen big ponds filled with duckweed, a tiny green plant, bask in the Southern California sunshine.

But the only thing cooking here is protein.

Continue reading →