Be Wild About Loving The World You're On Pg 1
The “Eco – Be Wild & Love The World You’re On” Alltheus collection encourages us to be more active in doing and agitating for real action to preserve biodiversity and the Earth’s ecosystems, including that most basic of requirements - the air that we breath and rely upon for a habitable planet.
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It has been said that the science of climate change is not a belief, a religion nor a political ideology. It presents facts that are measurable and verifiable. We also need more information about what’s going on in the tails of the statistical distributions because, as one commentator has said ,“It’s not the median values that are gonna kill us.” The big unknown risk is that “We are doing an uncontrolled experiment … in the fullness of time we’ll know what happens next”, Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe. As an example the extraordinarily hot weather across Pacific North-West Americas highlights the need for more research of the systems driving these extremes. A 2022 paper by Emily Neal et al provides a sobering research update of the fluid dynamics and hydrology behind large-scale atmospheric events.
Irrespective of whether you have read the IPCC report on Climate Change and agree with it or not it still makes good sense to reduce our extraction and use of buried sunshine (oil and gas) and move to a more sustainable future for us, our children and all our companions on Spaceship Earth as we hurtle around our Milky Way galaxy. Moreover the technology is now increasing available or feasible, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment principles increasingly impact investment decisions and the returns that can be made from green tech is increasingly seen as attractive. A 2021 court case against Shell in the Netherlands introduced a new requirement for the carbon extractive industry particularly but that is better practice for sustainable commerce generally.
“Climate change: don’t undermine the science just because you don’t like the economics”
Professor Brian Cox
We have wasted so much time, treasure and energy in not preventing habitat destruction and pollution of the commons (including pumping billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane - and other nitrous and sulfurous gases into the air) that we now need tonnes of urgent cure rather than grams of prevention. Intriguingly a simple food additive derived from seaweed suggests we may be able to dramatically reduce the methane emitted from our livestock herds used for meat and wool whilst cellular agriculture and aquaculture may also help reduce the pressure on land and water.
Greta Thunberg and many other similar people are symptomatic of the urgent need to focus the frustrations with talkfests and the inane political performance art that has paralysed global political will and delayed needed regulatory actions for too long. Would Chief Seattle say the adults fulfilled their responsibilities in returning a borrowed, scorched Earth to our children? We don’t think so!
To paraphrase one EU leader – we know what we need to do but we don’t know how to do it and get re-elected. Now, as the investing community increasingly recognizes the need for ESG principles and practices to be embraced in its decisions, the global community has a chance to flatten a curve – not of a pandemic-causing virus - but pollution and ecosystem destruction.
The coin of the Anthropocene - our annual GDP and monetary global capital stock value – does not include the cost of biodiversity loss nor ecosystem damage despite years of debate to include 5 more measures of capital. Kate Raworth’s “doughnut economy” book is part of the recognition that unchecked monetary GDP growth built primarily on extractive industry is a false nirvana. Being rich on a desolated planet that is unable sustain us or being at perpetual war with hordes of an excluded poor underclass is not an attractive future (not to mention the loss of intellectual capital – how many Einsteins or Noethers have we failed to historically enable that would have enabled – perhaps – cancer cures, nuclear fusion or faster-than-light travel?)
How do we make going wild productive and love the world we’re on? So many of us are just tired after work and/or parenting and all life’s activities that we leave it to others. We must all try to consume responsibly, be more active recyclers or repairers and let our suppliers, politicians and fund managers know that you want climate change, equity and the environment to be real factors in decision-making. Become more active with others in the arcane ways of the political process to seek out and support genuine actors at local, regional, national and international levels to drive change.
As just five examples –
- read and discuss books like “How To Talk About Climate Change In A Way that Makes A Difference” by Rebecca Huntley and “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World” by Katherine Hayhoe
- if we want to recycle more plastic how do we ensure that the types of plastic used in products is regulated so that it is realistically biodegradable and recognised in recycling chains? Have a listen to Mark Miodownik (see below for links)
- encourage the degree to which recycling regulation is not balkanized - slightly different standards and requirements depending upon which borough, state or nation the waste is in.
- check that the paper you or people you buy from is responsible forestry certified.
- Change your garden to be more insect and environmentally friendly with Professor Dave Goulson of Sussex University - watch his youtube video channel here and / or read his book here.
And after the abject failure of the UN Decade on Biodiversity between 2011 - 2020 lets be wild about ensuring a successful UN Decade of Ocean Science For Sustainable Development from 2021 to 2030.
Per Michael Mann’s work we also need to guard against the tricks of deception, deflection, distraction and delay or doomsayers telling us that it is too late to do anything (see our related design here). Don’t let perfection get in the way of being better. Rebel against the threat to our own extinction and help the Earth help us survive – Be Wild and Be livid - hope is a valuable resource to drive action.
Some Related Quotes about the Earth:
“No fungi, no forests, no forests no future” Emeritus Professor Tony Whalley
The good Earth—we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.” Kurt Vonnegut
‘It’s been a shitty, exhausting day on the #GreatBarrierReef. I feel like an art lover wandering through the Louvre...as it burns to the ground.’ Marine biologist Terry Hughes, a tweet accompanying a 22 sec film clip, an ecological version of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned!
“Look again at that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization,, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Carl Sagan
"We emerge from nature and we are entangled with nature and the future of us as humans is entangled with the future of the planet… We are learning that also in the lab when we are trying to do new medicines, trying to do new materials." Dr Sonia Contera
"Technology created climate change in the first place, through the industrial revolution. But if we continue to also use technology to our advantage, maybe we can fix some of the stuff that we have broken." Martijn Lukaart
“The essence of the ruling is that if you dig it up and sell it and profit from it, you’re responsible for it” with regard to a Dutch court ruling by Kathy Mulvey, Union Of Concerned Scientists - simple but long avoided.