"Now that we are spending more time at home, we are noticing the large number of delivery vans and lorries driving through cities," said Netherlands environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, announcing plans to ban all but zero-emission deliveries in 14 cities.
"The agreements we are setting down will ensure that it will be a matter of course that within a few years, supermarket shelves will be stocked, waste will be collected, and packages will arrive on time, yet without any exhaust fumes and CO2 emissions," she added.
She expects 30 cities to announce zero emission urban logistics by this summer. City councils must give four years' notice before imposing bans as part of government plans for emission-free road traffic by 2050. The city bans aim to save 1 megaton of CO2 each year by 2030.
Help to Change
To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles. There will be additional measures to help small businesses make the change.
The Netherlands claims it is the first country in the world to give its cities the freedom to implement zero-emission zones. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht already have "milieuzones" where some types of vehicles are banned.
Tilburg, one of the first wave of cities imposing the Dutch ban, will not allow fossil-fuelled vehicles on streets within its outer ring road and plans to roll out a network of city-wide electric vehicle charging stations before the ban comes into effect in 2025.
"Such initiatives are imperative to improve air quality. The transport of the future must be emission-free, sustainable, and clean," said Tilburg city alderman Oscar Dusschooten.
Europe Takes Action
Research by Renault shows that many other European cities are heading in the same direction as the Netherlands, starting with Low Emission Zones of which Germany's "Umweltzone" were pioneers. More than 100 communes in Italy have introduced "Zonas a traffico limitato."
Madrid's "zona de baja emisión" bans diesel vehicles built before 2006 and petrol vehicles from before 2000 from central areas of the city. Barcelona has similar restrictions and the law will require all towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants to follow suit.
Perhaps the most stringent restrictions apply in London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which charges trucks and large vehicles up to US$137 a day to enter the central area if they do not comply with Euro 6 emissions standards. From October, the ULEZ is being expanded.
Cities are responsible for around 75% of CO2 emissions from global final energy use, according to the green thinktank REN21 - and much of these come from transport. Globally, transport accounts for 24% of world CO2 emissions.
The Rise of Online Shopping
Part of the reason for traffic in urban areas is the increase in delivery vehicles, as online shopping continues to grow. Retailer ecommerce sales are expected to pass $5billion in 2022, according to eMarketer.
The World Economic Forum's report The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem, published in January 2020, estimates that e-commerce will increase the number of delivery vehicles on the roads of the world's 100 largest cities by 36% by 2030.
If all those vehicles burn fossil fuels, the report says emissions will increase by 32%. But switching to all-electric delivery vehicles would cut emissions by 30% from current levels as well as reducing costs by 25%, the report says.
Other solutions explored in the report include introducing goods trams to handle deliveries alongside their passenger-carrying counterparts and increased use of parcel lockers to reduce the number of doorstep deliveries.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.
Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
Roughly a third of all the food produced around the world goes to waste. But now an innovator has come up with a way of making fruit last longer by simply applying a sticker.
It sounds too good to be true, but the inventor of StixFresh says that the sticker acts in the same way as the natural protections used by plants themselves. Simply sticking one to a piece of fruit can extend its shelf life by up to two weeks, says Zhafri Zainudin.
Going to Waste
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended food supply chains, leaving fruit and vegetables to rot because they cannot reach buyers in time.
China has the most estimated food waste per year. Statista
It's not a new problem, either. Even before the pandemic, 52% of fruits and vegetables grown in the United States went to waste, part of a $161 billion mountain of wasted food. More than 50 million Americans currently experience food insecurity, up by 13 million since 2018.
Zainudin says his StixFresh stickers will tackle hunger and improve health by giving more time to get fruit to consumers before it goes bad.
So How Does it Work?
The stickers, which are the size of a 50 cent piece, use 100% natural ingredients which replicate the antimicrobial compounds that plants use to protect themselves against post-harvest diseases.
Once the sticker is attached to the fruit, the chemicals spread out to create a protective layer covering the surface of the fruit and slowing the ripening process.
StixFresh stickers are said to increase the shelf life of fruit such as mangoes by up to two weeks. StixFresh
Zainudin came up with the idea after a friend asked for help to reduce the amount of stock on his fruit stall he was losing to spoilage.
After hundreds of experiments, he arrived at a formula that would protect fruit. But how to apply it? It turned out that the answer was right in front of him on his friend's fruit stall in a community near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Most of the fruit already carried a sticker describing the variety, so Zainudin reasoned that using another sticker to protect the fruit would work with existing processing and avoid the need for extra investment by growers and retailers.
Future Goals
The stickers work best on apples, avocados, citrus fruits and mangoes. Zainudin's team are now working on new versions that will enhance the shelf life of berries and vegetables as well.
By reducing food waste they hope to help farmers, distributors, retailers and consumers save money, while at the same time protecting the environment.
Zainudin and StixFresh have been selected to join The Circulars Accelerator Cohort 2021, an initiative to help circular economy entrepreneurs scale their innovations.
The accelerator is a collaboration with UpLink, the World Economic Forum's innovation crowdsourcing platform, and is led by professional services company Accenture in partnership with Anglo American, Ecolab, and Schneider Electric.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.
Access to water shapes economic development. An estimated $260 billion is lost globally every year due to the lack of basic water and sanitation. Neglecting water risks (pollution, over-usage, climate change impacting freshwater) will amount to US$301 billion in costs – five times higher than if we would face them. Without clean water, one-fifth of the US economy would come to a stop.
Water also carries significant implications for climate change: improved wastewater treatment can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also supplying us with energy – being already the most renewable source. Recognising its scarcity value, water is now being traded as a commodity on the wall street next to oil and gold.
Yet, water is often still treated as an infinite resource in water-rich nations, being polluted to worrying levels. Its importance drowns under the range of diverse global issues that compete for our attention. Let's get this right: in order to have enough water for a continuously increasing population, we must manage water more wisely. Without water, we cannot grow food, continue industrial production, stop climate change or achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
How can we ensure water is properly valued? Here are steps individuals, governments and companies can take to prioritize water and create positive outcomes.
1. Steps Individuals Can Take to Prioritize Water
Valuing water as an individual means we must stop polluting and start reducing daily water use (SDG 3, 13, 14).
Did you know that millions of people still dispose of their medicines in toilets, and that discarded plastics pollute our rivers and oceans, with microplastics found in 81% of our urban drinking water. Or that contrary to popular belief, water pollution does not decrease with economic growth, but expands? Tackling water quality can be simple: think before you flush or throw anything into waterways.
Did you know that a running tap wastes 4-8L of water/minute, while showers take up 9-19L/minute? Each T-shirt absorbs 2700L of water, while red meat production consumes 5,000-20,000L per 1kg. By closing the taps and shopping mindfully, collective action by individuals could have a significant impact on saving water.
As a citizen of your country, you can influence political decisions by signing petitions, such as the Water Act in the US, or contacting your local government representatives to support or challenge water allocations. You can also join social movements, such as the youth organization MyH2O that collects, measures and uploads water quality data in rural China on to an open platform, or voice your water solutions on UpLink.
2. Measures Governments Can Take
Valuing water on the policy level implies featuring water as a key element in cross-sectoral policy documents and enforcements (SDG 10, 11, 16).
Only a few countries, such as South Africa and Slovenia, have water access written into their constitution as a human right. Many have signed a water charter, such as the US or the European Union, that recognizes the importance of water, but do not enforce their guidelines.
Governments can raise awareness of their citizens' water footprint and offer tax incentives to be less wasteful e.g. financially rewarding water conservation rather than charging for its consumption, while also engaging businesses to establish water-positive behavior. This might include setting limits for water consumptions and pollution, but also collecting data on the national water footprint. A clearer water statistic can help inform water resource management, governance and policies.
Globally, governments can demand that water be featured as the enabler to achieve the SDGs and Paris Agreement.
3. What Companies Can Do to Improve Their Water Management
Valuing water in the private sector relates to practices, pollution and partnerships (SDG 7, 8, 9, 12 and 17).
Many companies have improved their water usage in innovative ways. Companies such as Colgate- Palmolive have set their own internal water pricing, paying more than the current below-cost price for industrial water supply. Not only does that prepare companies for the inevitable cost increase, but it also signals that water should be valued more. Others have committed to give back more water than they consume, such as Microsoft, or are working on a transformational investment framework for water, such as DWS.
Private sector action to reduce water pollution is still dangerously lacking. Water pollution: CDP, 2020
There has been much less progress in relation to water quality, however, with only 4.4% businesses showing improvement in their water pollution reduction targets. If current available technologies were fully utilized, companies could aim to release water in an even cleaner state to the environment than how it was extracted.
Finally, valuing water means to foster partnerships, such as 50L Home or the Mobilizing Hand Hygiene for All Initiative. This includes engaging local communities that sit at the source of water, following policy guidelines and collaborating with other private-sector companies.
In a nutshell, if individuals, governments and companies want to tackle our biggest global challenges, we should start by taking concrete actions to value water.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.
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It's therefore no surprise that Nature-based Solutions (NbS) – actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems, for the benefit of people and nature – are being widely discussed by NGOs, multi-stakeholder platforms and coalitions of countries as "win-win" solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises. But implementing NbS alone is not enough. Their success or failure ultimately depends on the extent to which the world transitions to healthier, more sustainable planet-based diets.
The connection between NbS and dietary patterns comes down to land. Land-use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance and may be the single most pressing environmental issue of our day. Nature-positive farming methods are often promoted as a way to feed humanity while reducing the environmental impact of food production. This includes sequestering more carbon in the soils and above-ground biomass such as trees, supporting biodiversity through wildlife corridors or riparian buffers, and reducing inputs such as nitrogen or pesticides. Yet even these types of NbS will drive an increase in demand for land if trends in food consumption patterns continue.
Food for Thought
The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook estimates that rising national GDPs will drive an increase in global meat consumption of 12% by 2030, with continued growth until 2050. Such increased demand would nearly double food-related greenhouse gas emissions and preclude any chance of keeping the global temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. This increase in demand for meat will also continue to drive deforestation in the tropics, with devastating consequences for biodiversity.
We also need land to plant trees – and we need to plant lots of them. Tree planting has been promoted as another important NbS because trees can absorb and store greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, which is critical in our fight against climate change. In several studies, reforestation is offered as the most promising solution for storing carbon, including the potential to store up to 200 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon – two-thirds of all the carbon released into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution – but only if a trillion trees are planted. This sounds great; however, feeding 10 billion people by 2050 requires that we figure out where we can expand the land needed to sequester carbon and reverse biodiversity loss, while guaranteeing food security.
Despite the global call for reforestation, we continue to deforest our planet. Between 2004 and 2017, an area of forest roughly the size of Morocco was lost, primarily in the tropics and sub-tropics. The biggest cause is agricultural expansion, in particular for cattle ranching in areas like the Amazon, Gran Chaco, Cerrado and Eastern Australia. There will only be enough land for reforestation at scale if we halt agricultural expansion and reduce the amount of land currently used to produce food. Again, this is largely dependent on changing what we eat.
A global shift to diets that contain a larger proportion of plant-based foods relative to animal-source foods could release enough agricultural land to sequester 5 Gt to 10 Gt of CO2-equivalent per year if this land was restored to native vegetation. This finding is consistent with several studies, including one that determined that a shift to plant-based diets has the potential to sequester 332 Gt to 574 Gt CO2, an amount equivalent to 99-163% of the CO2 emissions budget consistent with a 55% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Global carbon sequestration potential for current diets, those recommended by National Dietary Guidelines and others. WWF
No Magic Fix
There are already many efforts underway to implement NbS. For instance, the Global Future Council on Nature-Based Solutions is building support to "unlock more finance and catalyze meaningful action to enable a nature-positive economy." The WWF Global Grasslands and Savannahs Initiative is elevating the importance of these often overlooked biomes to ensure that the pursuit of NbS and other activities doesn't drive more loss of grassland ecosystems, while the 1t.org initiative aims to plant a trillion trees. These are but a few examples of important global efforts to implement NbS. However, these efforts must also be accompanied with a renewed emphasis on dietary change to ensure a significant reduction in overall demand for land for food production.
There is no magic "fix" to widespread adoption of healthy and sustainable diets. It requires hard work, political will and resources. There are some lessons, however, that can be drawn from past global transformations.
The first lesson is that no single actor or breakthrough is likely to catalyze systems change. Systems change will require actors at all scales and sectors engaged and working toward a shared set of goals. Secondly, science and evidence-gathering are keys to change, but lack of evidence must not be an excuse to delay action. The third lesson is that the full range of policy levers will be needed. It won't be enough to rely mainly on soft policy approaches, such as education campaigns or behavioral change initiatives. This must also be accompanied by regulatory or fiscal measures to ensure widespread adoption of healthy and sustainable diets.
It has been recently noted that achieving success in the climate crisis is like playing chess and requires "seeing the whole board." The same analogy works for the food system. Too often, and by far too many, diets are considered as pawns in the global game of food system transformation – the least significant pieces on the board. But in fact, pawns are the soul of the game and how they are arranged depends whether the game is won or lost.
The same holds true for diets. Without changing what we eat, we can't deliver a thriving future for people and planet. We ignore this strategy at our peril. It's time to realize the power of planet-based diets.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
It can start with a barely noticeable change to your breathing. Perhaps a little lightheadedness, too. Your eyes start to moisten and your skin tingles. Soon, your synapses will trigger behaviors you cannot control. And there it is – you've sneezed.
When you sneeze, at speeds approaching 160km/h, your mouth and nose expel air, mucus, and germs as far as eight meters away.
During allergy season, some unfortunate souls spend a disproportionate part of their time experiencing some or all of the above. In the US alone, more than 50 million people are allergy sufferers.
Now scientists say climate change could be causing allergy season to start earlier and last longer.
More Pollen for Longer
A team of researchers from institutions across the US has reviewed data relating to pollen trends from 1990 to 2018. The conclusions they came to were that pollen is present in the air 20 days sooner than it used to be and at significantly higher concentrations – as much as 21% up.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS), the report's authors write: "Airborne pollen has major respiratory health impacts and anthropogenic climate change may increase pollen concentrations and extend pollen seasons."
Tracking pollen across the US: Warm colors indicate increasing annual pollen integrals. PNAS / William R. L. Anderegg et al
Furthermore, their results strongly suggest that "human-caused climate change has already worsened North American pollen seasons." The situation is only likely to get worse, they believe, which could have serious consequences for some people's respiratory health.
Increasing Air Quality Pressures
Researchers are also studying how air quality, more broadly, can affect and be impacted by climate change.
Changes in the climate can affect local air quality, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. These impacts include atmospheric warming's potential to increase ground-level ozone, which can be harmful to health. Experts are also investigating the influence of climate change on fine particulate matter and other air pollutants.
How clean is the air in your country? Visual Capitalist
Historically, burning fossil fuels has been one of the main contributors to the problem of poor air quality. More than 8 million people around the world die each year as a result of breathing poor-quality air, according to research from Harvard University, University College London, the University of Birmingham and the University of Leicester. Mostly, that means air containing dangerous particles from coal, petrol and diesel. Among the causes of death are heart disease, lung cancer, and strokes.
"Allergies and asthma are responsible for substantial morbidity burdens and associated medical costs in the US," the report in PNAS goes on to say.
By connecting the challenges of poor air quality, respiratory health and climate change, the study indicates the potential for serious, ongoing public health crises and warns the situation could worsen as average global temperatures continue to climb.
Doing Something About It
Climate change and the efforts to prevent it remains a major global challenge and as the World Economic Forum's latest Global Risks Report highlights, failure to do so presents a serious threat.
But, from global action, like the Paris Agreement or the Misson Possible Partnership, to more targeted initiatives, like the 1t.org (trillion trees) United States Chapter, businesses, governments and civil society are working together to bring about rapid change.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
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Now laser technology reveals the true scale of the giant Redwoods of North America — and it's bigger than we imagined.
As well as being the grandest, California's Sequoias are among the oldest trees on the planet, living for up to 2,000 years. Measuring their size is much more than a matter of cultural curiosity since their bulk determines how much carbon dioxide they've sequestered over the centuries — a factor that's rising up the agenda in the fight against climate change.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.
The results are striking: suggesting the trees may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested. Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, a process known as reiteration.
New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest growth could absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote in the journal Nature. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."
Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.
Carbon Capture Champions
Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.
While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of 30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Pixabay
Although the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.
That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (1t.org) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform to support the project.
That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.
"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to 1t.org. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.
Environmental issues are deeply interconnected with racial justice as Black people have historically been disproportionately impacted by pollution, climate change and lack of access to green space.
In June 2020, 25 Black environmental leaders published an open letter calling for an end to the 'systemic and pervasive racism within the environmental field.' They called for an end to negative narratives around Black people and their relationship with nature in the U.S., Europe and Africa and listed solutions to eradicate racism, from education to ensuring access to wildlife.
From environmental justice advocates to scientists and social entrepreneurs, here are just a handful of the many Black environmentalists who have contributed to our global understanding of the need to look after our planet.
1. Wangari Maathai
In 2004, Professor Maathai made history as the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her dedication to sustainable development, democracy and peace. She started the Green Belt Movement, a community-based tree planting initiative that aims to reduce poverty and encourage conservation, in 1977. More than 51 million trees have been planted helping build climate resilience and empower communities, especially women and girls. Her environmental work is celebrated every year on Wangari Maathai Day on 3 March.
2. Robert Bullard
Known as the 'father of environmental justice,' Dr Bullard has campaigned against harmful waste being dumped in predominantly Black neighborhoods in the southern states of the U.S. since the 1970s. His first book, Dumping in Dixie, highlighted the link between systemic racism and environmental oppression, showing how the descendants of slaves were exposed to higher-than-average levels of pollutants. In 1994, his work led to the signing of the Executive Order on Environmental Justice, which the Biden administration is building on.
Pollution has a race problem. Elizabethwarren.com
3. John Francis
Helping the clean-up operation after an oil spill in San Francisco Bay in January 1971 inspired Francis to stop taking motorized transport. Instead, for 22 years, he walked everywhere. He also took a vow of silence that lasted 17 years, so he could listen to others. He has walked the width of the U.S. and sailed and walked through South America, earning the nickname "Planetwalker," and raising awareness of how interconnected people are with the environment.
4. Dr. Warren Washington
A meteorology and climate pioneer, Dr. Washington was one of the first people to develop atmospheric computer models in the 1960s, which have helped scientists understand climate change. These models now also incorporate the oceans and sea ice, surface water and vegetation. In 2007, the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) and Community Earth System Model (CESM), earned Dr. Washington and his colleagues the Nobel Peace Prize, as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
5. Angelou Ezeilo
Huge trees and hikes to pick berries during her childhood in upstate New York inspired Ezeilo to become an environmentalist and set up the Greening Youth Foundation, to educate future generations about the importance of preservation. Through its schools program and Youth Conservation Corps, the social enterprise provides access to nature to disadvantaged children and young people in the U.S. and West Africa. In 2019, Ezeilo published her book Engage, Connect, Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders, co-written by her Pulitzer Prize-winning brother Nick Chiles.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
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It is easy to forget that 2050 is not that far off. Kids we see building sandcastles on the beach today might be gaining traction in their jobs and perhaps starting their own families. The possibility that our children may inherit from us such a broken and diminished ocean is hard to accept.
Such a future, however, is not yet written in stone. A healthier, more whole, and maybe even more profitable future ocean may still be within reach – at least for a little while.
Here are 10 steps that could take us towards a more desirable ocean future:
1. Freeze the warming. Stopping climate change is the hardest but most important step we can take for ocean health. It is good news to have the US back in the Paris Agreement. However, we now need ambitious national commitments to achieve carbon neutrality from all signatories of the Agreement. Recent actions by China, the EU, Japan and the UK are also positive.
2. Walk the talk. We need to make these carbon neutrality commitments real. This will require massive new investment in renewable energy sources, including some more experimental solutions (such as fusion), plus potentially looking with open minds into making older low-carbon energy solutions safer and more viable (such as traditional nuclear). We need to fast-track the development of sustainable next-generation batteries to store this energy intelligently across our grids. This includes major needs for marine energy infrastructure. A future, for example, with electrified ports and low-emission ships would help eliminate the epidemic of deafening ocean noise, address environmental injustices associated with pollution in ports, make oil spills a thing of the past, and significantly reduce global emissions.
A NASA model showing CO2 (the yellow/red swirls) moving across the globe.
3. Blue revolution. The "green revolution" – a massive ramping up of food production on land in the 1950s – has belatedly reached the sea. Ocean farming, or aquaculture, has increased by more than 1,000% in the ocean recently. The green revolution was sloppily executed, and the first baby steps of the blue revolution have included similar stumbles: chemical pollution, genetic pollution and habitat destruction. But the blue revolution can still clean up its act. Farming in the right places, with the right species, and the right practices could make aquaculture a win for human and environmental health. Ocean food research (into plant-based and cell-based seafood, for example) could also help us meet growing demand for seafood sustainably.
4. 30 x 30. Parks protect some of our most important chunks of nature on land – our Yellowstones and Serengetis. We are vastly behind setting up parks in the sea. We need to follow through on calls to protect 30% of our ocean by 2030. This must be as much about quality as quantity. We need to use intelligent planning algorithms and the intelligence of local and indigenous people to select the very best 30% of the sea to protect. Then the hard work begins. We must develop and deploy new technology to monitor and protect the living assets we put in these ocean savings accounts.
5. The other 70%. An ocean industrial revolution is beginning. Human industry is growing at exponential rates in the sea. Even if we succeed in protecting 30% of the ocean, we must still intelligently zone and manage this accelerated anthropogenic growth in the majority of our unprotected ocean. We largely missed that boat on land. Proactive steps to sustainably onboard an ocean industrial revolution include responsibly managing wild capture fisheries (and making more money in the process), carefully zoning what marine industries go where, eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies, and coming to grips with the fact that some new marine industries, like ocean mining, are simply too dangerous to be allowed into the ocean.
6. Big cracks in the sea. Most of the ocean belongs to us all. This includes the two-thirds of the ocean in the high seas that lies beyond all nations' ocean borders and the marine regions surrounding Antarctica. Protection of biodiversity and equitable sharing of resources has slipped through antiquated governance gaps in these international ocean spaces. But a proposed new UN Treaty for high seas biodiversity – and negotiations to sustainably manage and protect Antarctic waters could help.
7. End plastic pollution. Plastic pollution is the ocean's new cancer. We need to ban unnecessary plastics and tax other single use plastics, finally making them valuable materials we want to recover and helping to pay for the full cost of their environmental impacts. We need research and tech to prevent plastics from leaking into the sea, to overhaul our recycling systems, and to design economically viable alternatives to plastics. This progress may be accelerated by a proposed international 'Paris Agreement' for plastic pollution.
8. Land. We can help the ocean by first setting a few things right on land. We must massively increase our ambition to save our forests, thus locking up a huge chunk of carbon dioxide. We need to stop wastefully spilling megatons of costly fertilizers into rivers that are creating hundreds of marine dead zones. Precision agriculture that optimizes fertilizer use, coupled with other farming reform practices can help.
An algal bloom seen in Lake St. Clair, between Michigan and Ontario, in 2015. NASA
9. Wired ocean. We need more ocean data. This includes new tech to detect illegal fishing and connect sustainable fishers to consumers. We need tech to help endangered marine wildlife co-exist with ocean industry and fleets of environmental sensors above and below the water to better study our rapidly changing ocean.
10. Ocean equity. To build a healthy ocean, we must ensure all people have a fair stake in its success and that they are no longer unevenly harmed by ocean health risks. The fate of the ocean will affect people in all communities. Thus, we need people from all communities in ocean science, management, and policy.
Fulfilling the apocalyptic predictions for a 2050 ocean will be all too easy. Altering that ocean future may be one of the hardest things we've ever collectively achieved. But the consequences of inaction will be even harder to shoulder – for us and our ocean.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
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At the root of the problem is cheap food. While cut-priced comestibles may seem like a good thing, especially for low-income households, market pressure to continually reduce food production costs forces many farmers to adopt unsustainable, intensive methods that harm the land and overuse valuable resources like energy, land and water.
The study by researchers at UK think tank Chatham House, supported by the United Nations (UN) Environment Programme, notes that the race to lower prices increases food waste and degrades soils and ecosystems, making available land less productive.
As more forests and wild lands are cleared to grow crops and raise livestock, the feeding, breeding and living habitats of numerous species also disappear. Unless we change what we eat and how it is produced, the report says, the planet's ability to support humans could come under threat.
New @UNEP, @ChathamHouse & @ciwf report on #food systems impacts on #biodiversity loss proposes 3 actions… https://t.co/T80QkoPdak— ipbes (@ipbes)1612804080.0
Gut Instinct
During the past half century, conversion of natural wild land for crop production or animal pasture has been the principle cause of habitat and biodiversity loss, the report, called Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss, says. Agriculture poses a threat to 24,000 of the 28,000 species documented as at risk of extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
But what happens next to the world's endangered wildlife populations rests in human hands, and the rise in popularity of plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products offers hope for the future.
Rearing crops in place of animals uses land and other scarce resources more efficiently, the report notes. While raising livestock adds to greenhouse gas emissions, switching to plant-based foods would free up grazing land that could be used for other purposes. A global switch to a predominantly plant-based diet would boost dietary health, help reduce food waste and eliminate the need to keep clearing new land for grazing. Switching the global population's diet to plant-based foods, for example, would free up 75% of the world's cropland for other uses.
Alongside changing dietary behavior, the report recommends protecting and setting aside more land for nature, avoiding converting it for agriculture. As well as preserving wildlife habitats from being destroyed, forests and wilded land serve as a natural carbon store absorbing pollution from the atmosphere, which helps counter the impact of the climate crisis.
Today's high-intensity chemical-reliant farming methods must be replaced by nature-friendly practices that support biodiversity and value sustainability over ever lower farm door prices.
It's important to note that the report is advocating a dramatic reduction in meat intake rather than replacing meat with plant-based foods. And, as the World Bank says, livestock farming supports the livelihoods and food security of almost 1.3 billion people. The Chatham House report says incentivizing more diverse agriculture could lead to more resilient farmer livelihoods.
Planting the Seeds of Change
Despite the compelling arguments for moving to plant-heavy diets, persuading the global population to abandon its love of meat will be no easy task. Around 80 billion animals are killed for their meat each year, UN figures show.
In 2018, almost 70 billion chickens, 1.5 billion pigs and more than 300 million cattle were slaughtered to serve our love of meat.
In general, meat consumption increases as incomes rise – so the richer the country, the more meat is consumed, according to figures from the UN and the World Bank.
But for some the role of meat is beginning to change as awareness grows of the health benefits of plant-based foods and the impact of business-as-usual farming on the environment.
The U.S. plant-based food market was worth more than $5 billion in 2019, up 11% on the previous year and 29% over two years. Sales of plant-based meat substitutes increased by 18% year-on-year.
Demand for plant-based foods could see annual growth of almost 12%, reaching a market value of more than $74 billion by 2027, according to a Meticulous Research forecast. While plant-based demand is increasing in most global markets, takeup in Asia-Pacific is expected to outstrip other regional markets.
Changing consumer aspirations and a growing appetite among investors to back plant-based ventures are among the drivers of global plant-based market growth, the research showed. How far, how fast and how much demand for plant-based foods increases in the coming years remains to be seen, but the future of myriad species depends on it happening quick enough.
Reposted with permission from World Economic Forum.
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