# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
here is a "Martian guitar" manufactured out of recycled pieces of wood and metal with an amp fashioned from a coffee pot. A surprisingly comfortable chair, plus rug and curtains, have been created out of the sort of parachute material a Mars landing craft may have used.

The bedding in the sleeping pods has been decorated with dyes from plants, while a "mist shower" has been made using bits of hose and garden irrigation sprays.

Over the last 10 weeks, the people of Bristol have been taking part in an other-worldly art project - to furnish a "Martian house" that materialised, golden and gleaming, on the harbour-side in Bristol during the summer only using recycled and repurposed objects.

The house was seven years in the planning, involving space scientists, architects, engineers, designers and schoolchildren. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt

The idea is to give a glimpse of what life might be like if a human colony was established on Mars, with limited living space, possessions and equipment - and perhaps encourage people to think again about how to use finite resources on Earth.

"It's an art project that uses real science and a place for people to be imaginative about how to live resourcefully, differently, hopefully," said Nicki Kent, one of the two artists behind the project.

The second, Ella Good, added: "The context of Mars makes people imaginative but also limits what you can actually do. If you are limited, what things do you value, what do you invent, what do you make?"

The house itself was seven years in the planning and construction, a painstaking process that has involved space scientists, architects, engineers, designers and schoolchildren, whose input helped shape the basic two-storey shell.

It is powered by solar panels and designed to be capable of withstanding the environmental challenges faced on Mars, such as temperatures of -63C and exposure to radiation.

The project asked people to think about how they would work with limited equipment, encouraging them to think again about how to use resources on Earth. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt

An upper level is made from pressurised inflatable gold-coated foil which on Mars might be packed with Martian regolith (soil). The lower level - a pair of shipping containers - would be buried underground and includes two compact bedroom pods along with a shower and a "Martian loo".

Since August Bristolians have been invited to make objects to fill these tiny spaces.

A retired engineer and music lover made the guitar. "He used things he found around his own house," said Good. "Bits of old cupboard, the coffee pot, things like that."

If this musician ended up on Mars, there is a fair chance he would be able to repeat the exercise using discarded Mars mission paraphernalia.

One participant learned to recycle paper and produced a set of playing cards; another made clay (using soil from Watchet on the Somerset coast where the geology has some parallels with Mars) and modelled a pot.

Someone else made a bike that powered a dynamo linked to a light and with a fan to create a breeze to remind the user of Earth winds.

A pillow in one of the bedroom pods has been stuffed with lavender and mustard seeds that could be grown in the house and may remind the sleeper of lovely scents from the Earth.

A second has, perhaps less romantically, been stuffed with human hair. "Some people were really interested in what we have ourselves as a resource," said Kent.

Another artist helped design outfits that could be worn in the pod. "She thought they didn't just have to be functional boiler suits," said Good.

So an adult suit - that also converts into a sleeping bag - has been created out of beautiful fabric and children's ones are decorated with favourite toys, a bear, a plastic dinosaur and a picture of Superman.

Visitors had one last chance to go inside the house this weekend before it is taken down. The artists, who are residents of Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio, are hoping to tour the top part around the UK while, appropriately, the bottom section will be recycled.

It will be transported to Scotland and turned into children's living quarters for a family who needs more room. "They have said they will use every last screw," said Kent. "It's good to think it will continue to serve a really useful purpose."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An other-worldly art project: the artists furnishing a Martian house

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
here is a "Martian guitar" manufactured out of recycled pieces of wood and metal with an amp fashioned from a coffee pot. A surprisingly comfortable chair, plus rug and curtains, have been created out of the sort of parachute material a Mars landing craft may have used.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/17/untold-inside-the-shein-machine-review-the-brand-that-knows-what-youre-going-to-buy-before-you-do?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
mong the interviewees in Untold: Inside the Shein Machine (All4) is Fern Davey, an independent underwear designer from Bournemouth, who hand-stitches her pieces using sustainable materials. In 2020, the Chinese "fast fashion" brand Shein started selling a lingerie set that looked identical to one of Davey's designs, with one clear difference: instead of costing £65, the imitation was £4. (Shein subsequently removed it from sale when Davey drew attention to the similarity.)

Fast fashion has done away with seasonal collections and high-street store displays, replacing them with websites offering styles that piggyback on social media trends and are sold in short bursts, until the next thing catches the crowd's eye online and the brand starts flogging that instead. Fast fashion firms turn over high numbers of low-cost items quickly, a process that has now been turbo-charged by Shein: its clothes are priced so competitively, customers don't mind if they only wear them once or not at all. Browse the app, choose some stuff, enjoy opening it and trying it on when it arrives. Maybe post your #sheinhaul on Instagram or TikTok if you like it, but if you don't, chuck it away and forget it. It only cost a few quid. It doesn't matter.

The programme's headline scoop involves factory working practices, but the most valuable insights teased out by the reporter, Iman Amrani, are focused on the consumer. We learn here how the Shein app and website are precisely engineered to create an "infinite scroll" that is colourful and addictively friendly but loaded with "dark patterns", the marketing term for techniques designed to make people buy on impulse: free shipping for a certain total spend, or discounts with a countdown clock to emphasise limited availability. The algorithm knows what you're going to buy before you do. Shein established itself during Covid, when shoppers were even more liable to make impulse online purchases.

Amrani also meets the "micro-influencers", in other words TikTok users with a small to medium-sized audiences, who are a crucial part of the Shein ecosystem. More famous content creators, those with follower counts running into six or seven figures, command high fees for promotional videos; these fresh wannabes are happy to get paid in free clothes, which cost pennies to make, and their recommendations often come across as more reliable to viewers because they are less obviously corporate shills.

So Shein has marshalled the internet's newest shadowy forces to boost sales to the max - its revenues for last year are estimated at £14.5bn - while spending next to nothing on advertising. It also pays out less than it ought to on production, by manufacturing clothes in a network of factories in Guangzhou province, China. Untold does some good, hard legwork in sequences that nevertheless do not make for arresting television because all sweatshop exposés are the same: the company says it has strict policies on welfare; a journalist gets a job in one of the factories, turning up for work wearing a hidden camera; footage of worker rights and safety being trampled on is obtained. Then the company issues a statement promising to investigate. In this case, it says: "Shein engages industry-leading third-party agencies to conduct regular audits of suppliers' facilities to ensure compliance. Suppliers are given a specific timeframe in which to remediate violations, failing which, Shein takes immediate action." We are left with the feeling that what we are watching has happened before and will again, without anything really changing.

Amrani does make the point that the conditions documented by Untold's undercover reporters - exhausted people working for up to 18 hours a day, often seven days a week, to meet strict quotas, being paid 2-3p per piece sewn and incurring heavy penalties for mistakes - cannot be a revelation. One look at Shein's prices tells you something is up with how the product is made. The sheer volume of clothing it sells - one study found it launched more than 300,000 separate designs in the US last year, compared with less than 20,000 from its rival Boohoo - indicates the business cannot possibly be environmentally sustainable. (Shein counters this by pointing to its reduced wastage: "The average unsold inventory level of the industry is between 25 to 40%, whereas Shein has reduced it to a single digit.")

The problem is not that people don't know what they are buying. The problem is that they don't care. A few years ago, fast fashion was under fire from documentaries much like this one; accusations were made about ethics and sustainability that several big brands felt forced to take on board. Then Shein arrived, pricing its garments even more aggressively, making them even more disposable, gambling that not many people are willing or able to pay £65 for the good stuff when they can get a quick hit for £4. Shein was right.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Untold: Inside the Shein Machine review - the brand that knows what you're going to buy before you do

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
mong the interviewees in Untold: Inside the Shein Machine (All4) is Fern Davey, an independent underwear designer from Bournemouth, who hand-stitches her pieces using sustainable materials. In 2020, the Chinese "fast fashion" brand Shein started selling a lingerie set that looked identical to one of Davey's designs, with one clear difference: instead of costing £65, the imitation was £4.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The time for denial is over. It’s time to ACT.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Maria Vasco knew from a young age that she was going to have a career fighting the climate crisis. She fulfilled her dream, but not the way she originally imagined.

As a student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, working toward her goal of becoming an environmental lawyer, Vasco spent some time studying in Spain. It was there,in the summer of 2019, that she stumbled upon a shop specializing in environmentally sustainable goods such as bamboo toothbrushes and plastic-free shampoo refills. At the time, Boston didn't have any zero-waste stores - retailers that eliminate unsustainable packaging and only sell products that are plastic-free - and Vasco realized that she could fill an important gap in her hometown market.

As climate-conscious shopping grows in the wake of hotter summers and more volatile natural disasters, consumers have called out the environmental impacts of companies offering fast fashion and overnight shipping. Corporations like Walmart and REI have touted new sustainability initiatives, and a wave of zero-waste shops have opened in recent years. Celia Ristow, founder of Litterless, a blog tracking sustainable bulk shopping options across the country, estimates that more than 350 zero-waste stores currently operate in the US.

When Vasco returned to school after her time abroad, she won a university-sponsored entrepreneurship scholarship - which offered $5,000 plus mentoring. She launched Uvida, a zero-waste online shop, during her last year of college. After graduation, she continued running it from her bedroom in her family home in Boston, and set up pop-up stores acrossthe East coast. In December 2020, Vasco, whose family emigrated from Colombia when she was a child, opened Uvida's first permanent bricks-and-mortar location, becoming Boston's first zero-waste store. The shop sells household items ranging from cleaning supplies to beauty products, as well aspet bowls and candles packagedin upcycled craft beer cans. In addition toits pop-up shops at local markets and events, Uvida also regularly hosts clothing and plant swaps.

Vasco said she struggled at first to build local foot traffic, especially in the midst of a pandemic. But business has grown so much since then that the 24-year-old recently opened her second storefront in the neighboring town of Brookline.
How did you get your idea off the ground at first?
I started with three products, and I asked my university if I could start doing pop-ups on campus. That was so impactful for me because I was able to talk to students and faculty members in person, explaining to them that this is a bamboo toothbrush, this is what it looks like, this is what it feels like. People were so intrigued by products like bamboo straws, bamboo hairbrushes, bamboo combs, toothpaste tablets, deodorant bars. I was an environmental studies major, so I was just learning about climate change every day. And this business was a wayfor me to cope with climate anxiety.

Where do you source your products from?
I'm always doing research and talking to entrepreneurs. We get so many samples from zero-waste small businesses all over the country, and then my team tries them and then we use our experience to decide if we should bring the product in. A lot of our products are zero-waste brands that are very small and that focus on one or two products.
What's the importance of zero-waste stores?
It's very important to educate people and give people these products and make it accessible to them, since they're not always easy to find in person, at chain stores or discussed in mainstream media. So the moment people get exposure to this, they're just like, "Oh, wow, this is actually so convenient." For example, bamboo is naturally antibacterial. So this had a growth spurt during the pandemic where people were naturally more afraid of germs because of Covid.

Bamboo products are sustainable because bamboo grows really fast and it doesn't require a lot of water or pesticides. A tree can take 100 years to get to the same height a bamboo tree would reach in five years.
Are there any misconceptions that people tend to have about a zero-waste lifestyle?
A lot of times people think that it's more expensive, which in some cases it is, but in other cases it's not. We have a very large refill station in both of our stores and a customer can come in with their own shampoo or dish soap bottle. Sometimes they've spent $8 to $9 at another store, but our refill station ends up being $4 to $5 to $6 and people are like, "Well, how did that come out cheaper than the plastic one-time bottles that I'm buying?" It's because the more customers support us, we're able to order these gallons in larger quantities, which overall lowers the price.
As a young Latina business owner, what does it mean that you have a store in East Boston, which has the biggest Latino community in the city?
The best part is that I speak English and Spanish, so whenever there are tourists and they don't speak English, they immediately feel so welcomed that I can talk to them in their language. And I can talk to them about climate change. I can educate them about the plastic pollution problem, and a lot of the feedback that I get from Latinos is that they're just like, "Wow, I do have these concerns also, but no one talks to me about it. I don't even know how to talk about it, or with whom, so to see someone like you doing this career and creating this environment for your locals is so inspiring." And the fact that I can explain this concept to them in their language makes them feel very included in the community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Business was a way for me to cope with climate anxiety': how opening a zero-waste store helped a college student

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maria Vasco knew from a young age that she was going to have a career fighting the climate crisis. She fulfilled her dream, but not the way she originally imagined. As a student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, working toward her goal of becoming an environmental lawyer, Vasco spent some time studying in Spain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Art x Climate: A Project of the Fifth National Climate Assessment

The U.S. Global Change Research Program, in collaboration with Smithsonian Institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, invites artists to engage in the development of the Fifth National Climate Assessment by creatively visualizing climate change in the United States: its causes, impacts, and manifestations; our shared vulnerabilities; and the strength of our collective response.

Art x Climate seeks to strengthen partnerships between science and art and demonstrate the power of art to advance the national conversation around climate change. Selected art submissions will be featured in the Fifth National Climate Assessment as chapter covers and within the chapters. Selected artworks may also be used in case studies, in public events, or in communication materials.

There are two calls, one for artists ages 13-17, and one for artists 18 and up (more details below). Artists who wish to submit their works must do so via the appropriate portal by 11:59 PM ET on January 27, 2023.

We are looking for students to submit artwork related to the topic of climate, people, and nature. This art will help readers of the Fifth National Climate Assessment see how the climate is changing and what that means for the people, places, and activities they love. Artists must be 13-17 years old and have parental or legal guardian permission to submit. All artists must be living in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Entries can be produced by individuals or by teams.

To find out more about how to submit art, please visit the .

The contest is open to all visual artists, whether professionals or nonprofessionals. Artists must be at least 18 years old at the time of submission in order to participate in this call. All artists must be living and working in the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Entries can be produced by individuals or by teams.

To learn more about this call for art, including submission requirements and judging criteria, please visit the .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Art x Climate: A Project of the Fifth National Climate Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Art x Climate: A Project of the Fifth National Climate Assessment The U.S. Global Change Research Program, in collaboration with Smithsonian Institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, invites artists to engage in the development of the Fifth National Climate Assessment by creatively visualizing climate change in the United States: its causes, impacts, and manifestations; our shared vulnerabilities; and the strength of our collective response.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Used corn cobs are full of flavour, so don't put them in the food waste - instead, turn them into a rich, nutritious stock with all kinds of uses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brave New World Dept.

How a landscape architect is enlisting nature to defend our coastal cities against climate change-and doing it on the cheap.

On a windy afternoon in April, the landscape architect Kate Orff stood on the open walkway of a container crane, some eighty feet above the Red Hook Terminal, in Brooklyn, and the Buttermilk Channel, a tidal strait on the southeast side of Governors Island. Most places in New York City make it easy to avoid thinking about the rivers, canals, and ocean waters that form an aquatic thoroughfare for the global economy and surround the industrial corridors, office towers, and densely populated neighborhoods where millions of people have settled. This place is not one of them.

Orff, who is forty-nine, pushed back strands of ash-brown hair that had blown loose from her ponytail, and pointed out the busy navigation channels, which, for more than two centuries, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has dredged in order to keep them deep and fast. Then she pointed toward the steel-and-concrete barriers that separate the city from the harbor but that, in 2012, proved no match for Superstorm Sandy.

"I'm interested in reworking the edges," Orff told me, squinting into the breeze. Farther west, along the Hudson River, we could make out the ports and cities in New Jersey where the risk of tidal flooding has more than doubled over the past generation, as sea levels have risen. Behind us were the Red Hook Houses, the largest public-housing complex in Brooklyn, with some twenty-five hundred units set on a peninsula, a former tidal marsh that will take on more and more water as the planet continues to warm.

"Before Buttermilk Channel was dredged, people used to walk from here to Governors Island at low tide," she said. "There were oysters, tide pools, grasses, lots of colorful marine life, and they were a big part of New York's coastal-protection system. They acted like breakwaters, absorbing wave energy and slowing the water before it hit the shore. We've spent the past one hundred years dredging out everything for shipping and hardening the edges. Now we have a different climate, and we need a different approach."

A great deal of Orff's work addresses the inescapable fact that the Atlantic Ocean is rising, and coming for the land. She's the founder of the design firm SCAPE, the director of the Urban Design Program at Columbia University, and the first landscape architect to win a MacArthur "genius" grant. She's also at the forefront of an emerging approach to climate resilience that argues we should be building with nature, not just in nature. Its guiding principle is that "gray infrastructure"-the dikes, dams, and seawalls that modern societies use to contain and control water-is often insufficient, and sometimes destructive. Green infrastructure, by contrast, involves strategically deploying wetlands, dunes, mangrove forests, and reefs to reduce threats of catastrophic flooding and coastal erosion, while also revitalizing the land. This carefully designed "second nature," the thinking goes, could be our second chance.

It won't be the same as the now disappeared natural world. Some conservationists advocate "rewilding," returning developed land to indigenous flora and fauna, but in places like New York City that's not an option. "I know people who have this romantic view that we should just let nature take its course," Orff said, eying the factories and tall buildings that line the riverfront. "But that doesn't take into account the damage we've already done."

That afternoon at the Red Hook Terminal, Orff, in a long black jacket and sneakers with fluorescent yellow laces, was inspecting a mollusk setting tank belonging to the Billion Oyster Project, a nonprofit that aims to reintroduce the bivalve, in vast quantities, to the waterways of New York City-oysters being a critical part of her coastal-infrastructure plans. Correctly deployed, oysters can form dense reefs that slow the movement of water and mitigate the impact of storm surges. The Red Hook terminal is situated where the East River feeds into the Upper Bay, which was once a prime habitat for oysters; they could grow to weigh more than a pound apiece and fill an entire dinner plate. But, in the past century and a half, extensive river excavation, industrial pollution, and overharvesting have destroyed nearly every oyster colony in the New York Harbor region.

The Billion Oyster Project has retrofitted four beige nine-thousand-gallon shipping containers into oyster tanks. They look a little like back-yard aboveground swimming pools, complete with blue plastic interiors, and are connected to the harbor through PVC hoses and powerful water pumps. On Governors Island, several hundred yards away, project staffers and volunteers build wire cages, or gabions, filled with cleaned oyster shells. Then, in a cavernous warehouse at the Red Hook Terminal, the gabions are loaded into the salt-water-filled tanks. Next, oyster larvae are released into each tank, starting a process called "setting." After about a week, the shell-anchored larvae, or "spat," are transported to the restoration site and placed underwater, where they will spend their adult lives.

Much of Orff's work involves translating arcane topics-from ecology, marine biology, climate science, and architecture-into concepts that resonate with nonexperts. When she explains a project, Orff holds her interlocutor's gaze; you can sense her mind racing to calibrate the right language for the occasion, and you hear it as she punctuates her key ideas, her voice rising and then resting so that her words can sink in. "We're essentially mimicking the activity that would be happening naturally in a healthier body of water," Orff told me. "We have to hit the reset button if we want nature to come back. There's no more natural nature. Now it's a matter of design."

To the south, behind the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, Staten Island was a greenish mound on the horizon. There, almost half a million people live near a triangular indentation of coastline and ocean known as the New York Bight, which funnels storm water directly onto the land. During Sandy, a sixteen-foot storm surge slammed into residential neighborhoods on the South Shore, tearing entire houses off their foundations. Twenty-four people died on the island. After the disaster, local leaders called for the government to safeguard coastal communities with a seawall. But blocking off the vulnerable parts of New York City would have been extraordinarily expensive, and the ecological costs of cutting off the flow of water into the Hudson River and its tributaries-or of locking it into places that experience heavy rainfall-were equally daunting. We can't live without water; the challenge is learning how to live with it.

When Orff looked into Staten Island's predicament, she couldn't help but notice how much it resembled the situation in other parts of New York City and, for that matter, in coastal cities throughout the world. At SCAPE, she put together a plan, called Living Breakwaters, for protecting and reanimating Staten Island's coastline. In 2014, the proposal earned the highest score in the billion-dollar Rebuild by Design competition, an Obama Administration initiative that invited designers, engineers, scientists, and planners to build systems for a wetter, warmer world. Orff designed a necklace of sloped rock formations and "reef streets" to be submerged in Raritan Bay, where they would attenuate the energy of waves crashing into the South Shore of Staten Island and serve as habitats for oysters, lobsters, and juvenile fish. The system, which would be largely invisible to the area's residents, wouldn't prevent storm water from reaching their sidewalks and streets. But it would lessen the impact, lowering the risk of major damage in future hurricanes while helping people connect with one another and with the ecosystems that sustain them.

The project, which will cost sixty million dollars in federal funding-a modest sum for a flood-protection system that protects a long urban shoreline-includes nine separate breakwater segments, spanning twenty-four hundred linear feet across the bay; a floating oyster nursery; an environmental-education hub; and a set of man-made tide pools, shallow rocky basins built in the zones where water and land mingle at high tide. "A lot of coastal infrastructure lacks surface complexity," Pippa Brashear, one of Orff's colleagues at SCAPE, told me. "It's mostly hard walls." The SCAPE project will be the opposite. "If you put on a scuba suit and swim around Living Breakwaters, you'll see something that looks like an oyster reef, with lots of nooks and crannies," she said. "It's designed to be messy, with lots of little critters, invertebrates like tunicates, really colorful sponges, young sea bass and striped bass and silversides darting around and finding places to hide. Then we'll have the oysters, hopefully tons of them. It'll be teeming with life."

"It's not easy," Orff said of the project's ambitions, which are both social and ecological. "But the oysters do a lot of the work."

Orff grew up in suburban Maryland and describes herself as "a classic latchkey kid." Her father, an engineer and an avid birder, was a civil servant who worked at NASA and the N.S.A.; her mother worked as a secretary for the county executive. "I had a lot of time to explore things and basically do whatever seemed interesting," Orff told me with a slightly mischievous smile. "For me, that wound up being a pretty weird mix of things." In high school, most kids get sorted into specific roles and identities: freaks and geeks, jocks and goths. Orff refused to be limited. She was an artist, the captain of her lacrosse team, a feminist, and a budding environmentalist.

At the University of Virginia, she studied with the late pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty and wrote an undergraduate thesis on ecofeminism; at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, another eminence, the architect Rem Koolhaas, selected her to join his six-person urban-design seminar and research team. "I wasn't even supposed to apply, because I was still so early in the program," Orff recalled. "One day, I saw my name posted on his board, and when I walked into his office he said, 'O.K., Kate. You are landscape.' "

Orff's first design job after her graduate training was at a traditional corporate design firm in Sausalito. One day, Koolhaas called and asked if the projects she was doing were "beautiful." "I was working on a courtyard at Stanford, a tourism complex in Egypt, a gated community in Myanmar," Orff told me. "I'm not even sure that one was legal. I said, 'No, they're not beautiful.' And he said, 'Well, why aren't you working with me?' " She went home, posted an ad to sell all her furniture, and then pulled up stakes. In 2000, Orff helped open a new Manhattan office for Koolhaas's firm, O.M.A. (Office for Metropolitan Architecture). She rented a small studio apartment on Fifteenth Street, and, like a typical New Yorker, she quickly discovered how much she needed to escape it.

Her friends recommended that she take advantage of Central Park. "But by then I had already spent all this time studying it in graduate school, and I was basically uninterested," Orff recalled. Instead, she volunteered with the National Audubon Society and started spending time at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a sprawling oasis in Queens, between Kennedy Airport and Rockaway Beach. It has more than twelve thousand acres of wetlands, dunes, salt marshes, forests, and beaches, along with some three hundred species of birds. For Orff, it became a source of inspiration.

"You could tell the whole history of New York in, like, one square metre of Jamaica Bay," Orff explained. "It was full of Lenape settlements, with shell mounds and hunting grounds. People lived between the water and the land. They caught every kind of fish." European settlers appreciated the area's flora and fauna, but they also liked its beaches, where they disposed of waste. "The entire bay is ringed with the detritus of modern society," Orff said. "It's where we put everything that we didn't value. Including horses. There's actually a place here called Dead Horse Bay, where horses who worked the streets of New York City-including the ones who lugged the soil they used to make Central Park-got shipped out and dumped. You can still find bones there, and some of them are big."

In Jamaica Bay, Orff met ecologists and environmental activists who were warning about the dangers of rising sea levels but struggling to gain traction in a city fixated on post-9/11 security concerns. "They understood that the marshes, and a lot of the life they nurtured, were going to disappear unless there was major intervention," she recalled. "And I started thinking about what that intervention would look like. I mean, what would it mean to design Jamaica Bay? You would need to garden it. You would plant oysters, plant marsh grass, renature the ecosystem. But where? And how?"

Orff took these questions to Kenneth Frampton, a renowned scholar of architecture at Columbia whose essay "Toward an Urban Landscape" was a formative influence, and they chatted in his office in Morningside Heights. At the end of the conversation, he said, "Kate, why aren't you teaching here?" Orff worked up a proposal for a new seminar called "Landscape, Infrastructure, Intervention," and the following year she joined the faculty of Columbia's graduate program. The course attracted students from different departments and created buzz around campus. "It was exciting to see so much interest in wetlands, coastlines, and urban infrastructure," she said.

In 2005, she launched SCAPE, where, by all accounts, she has cultivated a role more like a coach and a choreographer than a dictator who demands that the staff build their napkin sketches at scale. But her professional breakthrough came four years later, when she was invited to participate in "Rising Currents," a Museum of Modern Art exhibition that showcased new ideas for combatting global warming in the urban environment. Orff, the sole landscape designer leading a team for the show, was asked to develop a plan for Liberty State Park in New Jersey. But the site didn't work for her, because there wasn't enough daily social life to support the cultural connections she'd envisaged between people and place. "I didn't know what to do," she said. "So I told them I had a conflict of interest because of a client in Jersey. Bit of a stretch!"

Instead, she put in for the Gowanus Canal, a 1.8-mile-long, hundred-foot-wide waterway in Brooklyn that runs from Boerum Hill through Red Hook and into New York Harbor. Although it once nourished an abundant supply of oysters, it's now better known for holding enough "black mayonnaise"-a toxic mixture of raw sewage, oil, coal, chemicals, and heavy metals-to fill twenty-two Olympic-size swimming pools. A few years earlier, in 2007, a young minke whale was spotted swimming near the mouth of the canal after a historic rainstorm. The Daily News nicknamed it Sludgie the Whale (a play on the popular Carvel ice-cream cake Fudgie the Whale), and New Yorkers rushed to see it. But the Gowanus, which receives about three hundred and sixty million gallons of untreated wastewater each year, was no place for a young whale to visit. Sludgie, injured and disoriented, promptly beached herself on some rocks and died. In March, 2010, just as Orff's exhibit was going up at MoMA, the E.P.A. designated the Gowanus a Superfund site, spurring a $1.5 billion dredging-and-cleaning project. (It finally began last year.)

Orff's submission, called "Oyster-Tecture," imagined a living reef in the canal made of tangles and webs of fuzzy rope that, by harnessing the filtration powers of shellfish and eelgrass, would help support a resurgence of aquatic biodiversity. On the banks of the canal, she designed a water park for families, with lots of places to sit and to stroll, and new channels that could flow out of the canal and feed into Brooklyn's residential communities; the waterfront, treated as a dumping ground for decades, would become a gathering place.

It was a utopian-sounding vision, and some people dismissed it. In the Times, the critic Nicolai Ouroussoff belittled what he called Orff's "effort to turn back the clock to a time when New York was an oyster capital of the world"; he found it "slightly hokey," which he ascribed to her being one of the show's "young and relatively untested" contributors.

"I was so riled up when that came out!" Orff recalled. "He didn't get it." Other influential people in the design profession did, however, and the Army Corps of Engineers asked for a meeting. "It's a beautiful idea," said Guy Nordenson, a Princeton University engineering and architecture professor whose research helped inspire the "Rising Currents" exhibition. "It connects with things Europeans are doing, making room for the river instead of walling it off." Orff delights in the popular appeal of Oyster-Tecture, convinced that ecological design should be an enticement to those who see climate change as cause for building a better world.

"The way we talk about global warming is usually dark and pessimistic," she told me. "It can be stifling. Part of my job is showing people new ways to see things, to offer a vision of places we can live in, responsibly, and also enjoy."

On a cold day this spring, Orff met me at Plumb Beach, a short, narrow stretch of shoreline at the southern edge of Brooklyn, and a nesting-and-breeding ground for horseshoe crabs. Right off the Belt Parkway, near Sheepshead Bay, the beach looks across to the Rockaway Peninsula, a natural barrier between it and the open ocean. It's sometimes referred to as New York City's "hidden beach," accessible only via an eastbound exit, and invisible until you step out of the parking lot and onto the sand. Giving me directions on the phone, Orff warned that the beach was like the seventh-and-a-half floor in the movie "Being John Malkovich." "It's after Exit 9 and before Exit 11, but there is no Exit 10," she told me. "It's a warp in time and space. Just trust that it's there."

Plumb Beach, the site of a federally funded ecological restoration project, provided an early test case of whether Orff-style natural infrastructure projects can succeed. The push for this approach in the United States came after Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, when some studies indicated that the disappearance of marshes and wetlands around the Gulf of Mexico had allowed storm waters to pick up force as they approached New Orleans, adding pressure on levees and seawalls. Calls to restore these ecological systems gained support from Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers. Today, the Corps has a team of nearly two hundred scientists, engineers, and resource managers, who are developing guidelines for the task. In the past dozen or so years, they have done small-scale wetland restoration in Lower Township, New Jersey; on beaches and dunes in Encinitas, California; and at Shoalwater Bay, in Washington. But, for Orff, the Corps's work at Plumb Beach was particularly significant.

On the day I visited, the forecast was baffling: frigid conditions at the start of the day, howling winds later in the morning, and, by afternoon, record-high temperatures. The beach was desolate, with a lone dog walker, a young couple snuggling, and a long line of flowers that local residents had left near the water, seemingly as some kind of religious offering. The beach was sheltered by sloping dunes, covered in thick grasses and plants.

It hadn't always been that way. When a powerful storm hit Plumb Beach in 2009, Orff explained, "this was basically flat landscape, and the bay came close to washing away the Belt Parkway." The Corps built a beach berm, two jetties made of large rocks, and a substantial breakwater, to thicken the edge of the land and to shield developed areas inland from future storms.

In 2012, soon after the government had completed the first phase of the project-building the berm, with more than a hundred thousand cubic yards of sand from harbor-dredging work-Superstorm Sandy hit. Orff was living in Forest Hills at the time, with her husband and two young children. "Like most New Yorkers, I was watching the storm in real time," she remembered. "It was like a comet on a direct path to New York and New Jersey. But I don't think a lot of people here were thinking about the risk of mass deaths or major infrastructure failures. I was mainly concerned about trees falling on our house." She experienced nothing worse than a brief power loss, and woke up the next day feeling relieved-until she realized the extent of the damage throughout the city. The East River had rushed into a Con Edison substation, plunging a quarter of a million households into darkness. Scores of large apartment buildings were inundated. "The tunnels had turned into rivers," she said. "People were wading through the streets of Chelsea. And there were many deaths in Staten Island, including the Dresch family, in Tottenville, whose house got torn off its foundations by the waves. The father and daughter drowned in that water. Their story is burned in my memory."

In Plumb Beach, however, the berm held, blocking the storm surge and largely protecting the Belt Parkway, along with the people directly behind it. For Orff, the performance of the nature-based infrastructure during Sandy was revelatory. It suggested that a scaled-up version of Oyster-Tecture could be immediately useful-not for provoking discussion but for preserving communities along the coast.

As vulnerable as New York was, Orff knew that other population centers were still more so. Back in 2010, after the BP spill dumped nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and its neighboring waterways and wetlands, Orff made her first visit to the Lower Mississippi Valley, the nation's largest floodplain, to begin a collaborative project with the photographer Richard Misrach. (It turned into the book " Petrochemical America.") She wanted to see the Mississippi Flyway, where nearly half of North America's waterfowl and sixty per cent of U.S. bird species migrate or winter, and where scores of fish and shellfish species make their home. Orff immediately took to the region, and SCAPE now runs a busy office in New Orleans. The entire city sits on one of Orff's "edges"-a site of extraordinary natural peril and promise.

On a hot, humid morning in late spring, I joined Orff and her collaborator David Muth, who directs the National Wildlife Federation's Gulf Program, on a skiff at the Pointe à la Hache Boat Harbor, elevation seven feet. We were about an hour's drive south of New Orleans. Our captain, Richie Blink, grew up shrimping on the bayous of the Mississippi River Delta; he now represents his district in the parish government, runs an ecotourism business, and, in his spare time, plants as many bald-cypress and willow trees as he can. "I've done about twenty-five thousand so far," he told me. "But we're gonna need a whole lot more."

Trees, as Blink sees it, are essential green infrastructure for shoring up one of the world's most fragile landscapes-what locals call the Bird's Foot. It's a strip of small islands, narrow canals, and murky wetlands that juts out from the mouth of the Mississippi River and extends Louisiana into the ocean; from above, the spindly stretches of land look like a young root system or, indeed, the delicate footprint of a bird. In recent decades, the foot has been retracting, with land disappearing into the sea at the staggering pace of a football field's worth every hundred minutes. If current trends continue, the remaining four-thousand-square-mile coastal area will become open water in about fifty years, leaving New Orleans and the towns around it even more vulnerable to catastrophic flooding. The land loss is not just a matter of rising sea levels; it's also driven by the way we've pumped water, oil, and gas from the ground, causing the terrain to sink, and by the way we've lined the banks of the Mississippi River with hard, flat construction material-including more than two thousand miles of federal levees. Because these levees confine the flow of the river, they increase its speed; instead of depositing sediment in marshlands along the way, the current sends it past the delta and its historic floodplain, into the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, though, Orff had been brought out on the water by a positive development. A few years earlier, new crevasses had formed in the riverbanks that hold the Mississippi River in place, and began slowing the flow of sediment out to sea. The backwaters were filling up with soil again. Gradually, but wondrously, new land was forming.

Although those crevasses were accidental, they also provided proof of principle. This year, Muth and Orff have lent their support to the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, a $1.5-billion plan to tear open a great hole in the levee that lines the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish, sending some seventy-five thousand cubic feet of water and sediment per second into the West Bank wetlands.

"It's the best chance we have to restore and protect the coast before it drowns forever," Muth told me. "We have funding for it, from the BP settlement, and about seventy per cent of the state supports it."

The main holdout is the fishing industry, for which brackish seawater breeds abundance, while the arrival of fresh river water is hostile to most shrimp and other valuable saltwater harvests. The proposal, scheduled for permitting next April, includes more than three hundred million dollars to compensate communities that suffer losses from the diversion.

"I understand why some people are worried about changes," Orff said. "But change is coming no matter what happens, and this is the way we can help."

Blink, whose round, youthful face was protected by a fraying baseball cap, steered the small, seafoam-green boat through a maze of tree-lined channels and canals. Every few minutes, Muth spotted a bird ("painted bunting!" "prothonotary warbler!" "roseate spoonbill!"), an alligator, feral cows, or, on one occasion, a pair of goats. Blink pulled the skiff up along a patch of earth that had surfaced recently, formed by sediment that would formerly have been swept out to sea. It was already thick with vegetation.

"Baby land!" Orff exclaimed, reaching her hand out to touch it from the bow.

"Careful," Muth said. "They call it cut-grass for a reason."

Orff, in orange Crocs and gray joggers, asked if it was safe to walk on.

"Sure," Blink responded. "Just look out for cottonmouths. They're all over this place."

Unfazed, Orff swung her legs out and stepped onto the soft, mucky terrain.

"Heron prints!" she called out. "And tiny willows."

Minutes later, she climbed back on board, beaming. "You may think this is silly," she said, "but I find it almost prehistoric here. There's something dangerous in the air, but also something overwhelmingly beautiful. You can feel the earth being born again."

Mother Nature's designs for the planet did not need to withstand any legal or scientific scrutiny. Orff's plans must withstand both, and Living Breakwaters, in particular, had to provide evidence that it would function as intended in order to secure its funding. Using a supercomputer that digitally modelled what happened during Superstorm Sandy, the SCAPE team was able to fine-tune its design by testing different configurations of reefs and breakwaters: Where should they be built? How many should there be? Two potentially conflicting goals had to be balanced-to weaken waves but also to prevent beach erosion. "If you slow the waves too much, you wind up starving the beach," said Joseph Marrone, who works for Arcadis, a global engineering corporation known for large-scale water-management projects, and whose expertise Orff enlisted for Living Breakwaters.

But New York State funders weren't content with digital simulations; they insisted that the project be tested with more extensive hydrodynamic wave modelling, using actual water. And for good reason. The Princeton engineering scholar Guy Nordenson cautioned me, "The dynamics in coastal ecosystems are truly complex, and although we have exciting ideas about how to protect them they're not fully validated yet. It's not like the science on what happens to tall buildings in earthquakes or windstorms. The people putting those up don't just trust computer simulations. They put structures on shake tables or in wind tunnels and test them, physically."

In 2017, Living Breakwaters was finally subjected to physical, three-dimensional testing. The trials took place at a Canadian facility the size of an Olympic swimming complex, and the event had the nervous energy of a high-stakes sports competition. An exact model of the Breakwaters project had been built inside a long, narrow flume, at a one-to-twenty scale: each rock and concrete structure was painted a different color, so that observers would be able to easily identify which were unmoored during the simulation, and which held strong. The exact contours of the Raritan Bay floor had been replicated, too; even small variations could change the movement of the waves against the model shorelines. Probes were prepared to monitor wave energy and speed; "damage cams" were mounted at regular intervals.

Then members of the SCAPE team took their positions on a catwalk above the model and, with the click of a button, the tranquil pool began its transformation into a tempest. For a moment, the waves moved slowly. "It sounded like being on a lakeshore," Brad Howe, a SCAPE designer, said. "We could hear the water lapping up on the rocks." Moments later, everything intensified, the tension in the room heightening along with the waves. "We had never tested the reef streets in a real wave environment, and we didn't know exactly what would happen," Howe went on. "Years of design work went into this. What if all those colored stones that we'd set in specific places for the breakwater wound up looking like a pile of spilled jelly beans?"

They ran two simulations, and the breakwaters performed superbly: no jelly-bean effect in the water, no inundation of the shore. Still, a few surprises turned up. Some tidal-pool units underperformed, and SCAPE decided to move them; the spacing between a few of the concrete blocks was adjusted, too. A third test, performed in a basin the size of half a soccer field, lasted several hours, and the results were even better than the team had expected. "When the tests ended, they drained the water out of the pool and I remember being, like, 'Oh, thank God, nothing moved!' " Pippa Brashear said. Orff's team left Canada feeling even more confident about the over-all design of Living Breakwaters-and about the likelihood that it would actually be built.

Later this summer, after seven years of environmental reviews and design refinements, the first in a series of barges loaded with armor stone and rock from a quarry in upstate New York will travel down the Hudson River and anchor off the coast of Tottenville, where marine contractors will begin installing Living Breakwaters. In total, those barges will be bringing a hundred and twenty-three thousand tons of quarried material. In a year or two, after the heaviest elements of the system have settled into Raritan Bay, a crew from the Billion Oyster Project will bring spat-on-shell oysters affixed to ecologically enhanced concrete units-mollusk habitats of various dimensions-to the landward side of the breakwater. The fantastic, "slightly hokey" idea that Orff first pitched at MoMA more than a decade ago will spring to life. When it's completed, which is expected to happen in 2024, it will be Orff's largest attempt to mend the landscape. In fact, it will be among the most extensive nature-based infrastructure systems in urban America.

And its timing finally seems right. In July, the Senate voted to advance a trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure plan that includes forty-seven billion dollars for "resilience." This is a fashionable but fungible term, and can mean anything from community-education projects (which, skeptics say, cynically transfer responsibility from government agencies to ordinary people), to levees, parks, and trees. Critics worry that, without a clear strategy, these investments will be ad hoc and shortsighted, driven by defense contractors and municipal politicians pitching conventional projects, such as seawalls and floodgates, rather than by the new generation of engineers, climate scientists, and designers who, like Orff, want to revitalize ecosystems and let nature do its work. Still, demand for new, cost-effective, and sustainable models-Orff's specialty-is high.

Orff is pressing ahead with new projects meant to address the overlapping crises of global warming, racial equity, and political polarization. In Memphis, she's collaborating with the architect Jeanne Gang and the artist Theaster Gates on Tom Lee Park (named for a Black man who, in 1925, helped save some thirty people from drowning after a steamer overturned in the Mississippi River). It's a space that aims to bring together communities in a segregated city, where many Black residents lack access to parklands. In Atlanta, she's leading a "participatory design" process for remaking the Chattahoochee RiverLands, a hundred-and-twenty-five-mile trail that will link urban, suburban, and rural Georgia-access will be just a short bike ride away from Atlanta. "We all know how divided the state is," she said. "My question is, Can we do with landscape what we can't do with political ideology or the Internet? Can we mend things, ecologically, and also repair the social world?"

At the same time, she's keeping a close eye on existing projects. ( SCAPE has almost doubled its staffing in the past several years.) When Orff and I visited the Gowanus Canal during a stage of its Superfund cleansing, I noticed expensive real-estate developments featuring beautifully landscaped promenades along the canal, and fashionable bars and restaurants with prime water views. "We're still a long, long way from eating oysters grown in the Gowanus," Orff said. "But this used to be a sewage stream. Look how far we've come."

Recently, Orff and I met up in Tottenville, the town where Sandy swept George and Angela Dresch from their home. Two centuries ago, when Staten Island was farmland dotted with fishing shacks and small villages rather than an urban borough connected to Brooklyn by a highway and a suspension bridge, the community was organized around oysters. The beaches were long and expansive, the waterways shallow and slow. The South Shore was hit directly by the storms that came in off the Atlantic, but heavy reefs and wetlands buffered the coastline.

That afternoon, as we walked along the beach, Orff paused every few minutes to identify worrisome signs. There was a dead groundhog, lying face up in the sand; drainage pipes, once buried, had been unearthed by coastal erosion; tattered sandbags were evidence of previous makeshift flood-prevention efforts. Living Breakwaters, Orff expects, will offer not just natural protection but lasting restoration: in a few years, walking down the beach, she hopes to see a newly vital social landscape, with kayakers in the tamed water and bustling kiosks by the beach.

"I think of this as a blue-green infrastructure," Orff said of the waterfront. "It's engineered, but it's not a traditional engineering project. We're in a moment of crisis, and it's not enough to just make beautiful landscapes. We have to fix them, too."

She led me along the shoreline, where the waves rolled in slowly, and with each step our shoes sank deeper into the sand. The beach was calm and pleasant, the mood serene. But these days, as the climate changes and images circulate of catastrophic flooding-this summer, so far, in Germany, China, Ghana, Japan, and various places in the U.S.-there is always something ominous at the water's edge. Someday the storm winds will pick up again, and the ocean will come back for the land. There's another test coming; the only question is when. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Seas Are Rising. Could Oysters Protect Us?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brave New World Dept. How a landscape architect is enlisting nature to defend our coastal cities against climate change-and doing it on the cheap. On a windy afternoon in April, the landscape architect Kate Orff stood on the open walkway of a container crane, some eighty feet above the Red Hook Terminal, in Brooklyn, and the Buttermilk Channel, a tidal strait on the southeast side of Governors Island.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards WinnersAnnounced More More More The winners More More More More More More More More More More More More More The shortlist Shortlisted Finalists More More More More More More More More More More Frankenthaler climate Art Awards Presented by Asia Society and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
swire marine institute of marine science

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Can coral reefs be saved by Hong Kong 3D-printed tiles?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists at the University of Hong Kong experiment with laying clay tiles to restore coral colonies in Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park hit by unexplained ecological catastrophe in 2015 and 2016.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientists hope reef balls like these, in waters near Chula Vista, California, will ultimately help protect the coast from erosion made worse by climate change.

There are no pearls growing on the oyster reefs in San Diego Bay, but scientists hope they will yield an even more valuable treasure: protection against coastal erosion wrought by rising sea levels.

Thousands of the tiny mollusks have begun growing on the artificial reefs dropped in the bay as part of a plan to mitigate damage in California's far south.

"We look at numerous different ways to help combat sea-level rise, and these reef balls are one of the tools in our toolbox to do that," Eileen Maher, director of environmental conservation at the Port of San Diego, told AFP.

The port implanted 360 structures last December, along a peninsula wedged between the salt marshes of Southern California and the Coronado peninsula-home to the naval air base that inspired "Top Gun."

These hemispheres weigh 300 pounds (135 kilograms) and look like huge thimbles.

They are made from a mixture of cement, sand and crushed oyster shells -a crucial ingredient that attracts living oysters to make their home there.

After 10 months in the water, the reefs are covered with a greenish silt, which hides thousands of still-microscopic oysters, says Maher.

Eventually, the dozen scientists working on this pilot project hope to see the formation of real oyster reefs, which they believe will have a genuine impact on their local environment.

Eileen Maher, director of environmental conservation at the Port of San Diego, California, calls oysters 'one of the tools in our toolbox' to combat sea-level rise.

Miniature filters
The reefs are much more than a natural bulwark against tidal erosion; their bivalve occupants are all miniature filtration plants that are essential to the marine ecosystem.

That's because to capture the nutrients an oyster needs to survive, each one filters around 50 gallons (190 liters) of water every day, said Maher.

"They help remove that turbidity out of the water and help clean the water, which will provide additional benefits to eelgrass, the submerged aquatic vegetation," she said.

"The more eelgrass sits in the bay, the less chance there is of the shoreline eroding, because it helps-any plant will help prevent shorelines from eroding."

And like the oysters, these long-filament seagrass beds will also provide a crucial food source for the 80 species of fish and 300 varieties of birds that make their home in the area.

The reef balls seen here form the South Bay Native Oyster Living Shoreline Project near Chula Vista, California.

Flooding and erosion
By 2050, sea levels around California are expected to have risen 20 centimeters (eight inches), according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study released early this year.

This would drastically increase the frequency of flooding on the West Coast, which will also occur more often due to storms and heavy rainfall events exacerbated by human-caused climate change.

And rising seas will worsen the erosion that threatens California's coastline.

Around San Diego, this future is already apparent.

To the south, the streets of Imperial Beach are regularly flooded during high tides. An hour's drive to the north, the rail line that carries the "Pacific Surfliner" has just been closed at San Clemente, where the rocks that support it are sinking because of erosion.

In this context, "We have to make sure that we're resilient," said Jason Giffen, vice president of planning and environment for the Port of San Diego.

Oyster shells like these, seen at the Chula Vista Wildlife Refuge in California, are ground up to help form reef balls that attract live oysters.

The $1.3 million oyster reef project is being evaluated over five years. Similar schemes have been established in San Francisco and New York.

The oyster barriers work only in areas of shallow water, Giffen said.

Elsewhere, the port is exploring other solutions.

In the northern part of the bay, small hollow reinforcements have been attached to the piers.

They not only offer stability but provide refuge to algae, fish and shellfish, helping to bolster biodiversity.

Currently, about 70 percent of the shoreline around San Diego Bay has some type of artificially contructed rock protection.

"We can look at replacing in the long run that infrastructure with something that's more biologically and environmentally sensitive and actually would be a value-add in terms of environmental quality," said Giffen.

© 2022 AFP

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
To save California coasts, scientists turn to the humble oyster

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There are no pearls growing on the oyster reefs in San Diego Bay, but scientists hope they will yield an even more valuable treasure: protection against coastal erosion wrought by rising sea levels. Thousands of the tiny mollusks have begun growing on the artificial reefs dropped in the bay as part of a plan to mitigate damage in California's far south.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
According to a recently published report from researchers at Moors for the Future organization, planting sphagnum moss on mountain peaks could save communities living downstream from flooding. The researchers claim that sphagnum moss is so good at absorbing water that during a storm, it can reduce the amount of water coming into a river from an upland by 65%.

Six years ago, rainwater falling on the Kinder scout region used to flood downstream valleys, adversely affecting the lives of communities living there, but now the situation has changed. Moss spreading on a plateau. Image credits: Pok Rie/Unsplash

Moors for the Future is a partnership between private and public organizations aiming to improve the conservation and environmental protection of moorlands in the UK. In 2016, the researchers associated with the group planted 50,000 sphagnum moss plants on Kinder Scout, a hill plateau located at a height of 636 meters from sea level, in a national natural reserve called Peak District. The goal was to build an "outdoor laboratory" and observe how the moss would affect the risk of flooding. Now, the results are finally in.

The unheard superpower of sphagnum moss

A sphagnum moss plant, whether it is alive or dead, can hold up to 20 times more water than its own weight. When grown on a suitable soil (as is the case in the British moorlands), the sphagnum also acts as a protective layer for the peat (organic matter) and supports the formation of new peat layers beneath it. This not only good because it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, but it can also help regulate water runoff.

In the Lkae District, the researchers noticed that the grown moss cover on the plateau has increased the time take taken by rainwater to reach rivers downstream by a staggering 680%.

Image credits: Pixabay/Pexels

This means that the speed at which rainwater reaches the river is greatly decreased, and even in times of excessive rainfall, when floods are more likely to happen, the risk of a flash flood is greatly reduced - and even if it does happen, this gives communities living nearby the rivers have more time to prepare.

While highlighting the benefits of sphagnum plantation on Kinder Scout, research assistant at Moors for the Future, Tom Spencer told The Guardian. The sphagnum moss plants have "far-reaching benefits for communities downstream" as they have turned out to be "a powerful tool in minimising the risk and severity of flooding," the researcher says.

The researchers claim that sphagnum plantation is one of the most promising natural flood management techniques. It has the potential to mitigate the impact of climate change-driven calamities such as powerful storms and floods in catchment areas. Moreover, it could also provide benefits such as improved water quality since many previous studies have demonstrated that sphagnum moss has the ability to purify water naturally.

In 2018, researchers from Stockholm University came across a moss species that was capable of absorbing poisonous substances such as arsenic from water. The researchers claimed that the moss could purify the contaminated water and make it completely safe for drinking.

A sustainable approach for preventing floods

As compared to traditional flood prevention techniques that often involve constructing costly flood-proofing structures, planting sphagnum moss is a much easier and budget-friendlier flood management technique. Sphagnum moss can be easily grown in regions with wet climatic conditions and one can buy these super-plants from even a local nursery.

The approach highlighted by researchers at Moors for the Future seems like a great solution for communities living in catchment zones across the globe. However, we would like to point out that in the news release, the researchers did not mention if their findings were peer-reviewed or not.

The original report is published here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the humble Sphagnum moss can become our protector against floods

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
According to a recently published report from researchers at Moors for the Future organization, planting sphagnum moss on mountain peaks could save communities living downstream from flooding. The researchers claim that sphagnum moss is so good at absorbing water that during a storm, it can reduce the amount of water coming into a river from an upland by 65%.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Fino Menezes

Imagine an information superhighway that speeds up interactions between a large, diverse population of individuals, allowing individuals who may be widely separated to communicate and help each other out. When you walk in the woods, this is all happening beneath your feet. No, we're not talking about the internet, we're talking about fungi. As a result of a growing body of evidence, many biologists have started using the term "wood wide web" to describe the communications services that fungi provide to plants and other organisms.

This Win/Win Is a Mutually Beneficial Exchange.

While researching her doctoral thesis some 20+ years ago, ecologist Suzanne Simard discovered that trees communicate their needs and send each other nutrients via a network of latticed fungi buried in the soil - in other words, she found, they "talk" to each other.

Simard showed how trees use a network of soil fungi to communicate their needs and aid neighboring plants.

Since then she has pioneered further research into how trees converse, including how these fungal filigrees help trees send warning signals about environmental change, search for kin and how they transfer their nutrients to neighboring plants before they die.

All trees all over the world form a symbiotic association with below-ground fungi. These are fungi that are beneficial to the plants and explore the soil. The fungi send mycelium, a mass of thin threads, through the soil. The mycelium picks up nutrients and water, brings them back to the plant, and exchanges the nutrients and water for a sugar or other substance made by photosynthesis from the plant.

It's this network that connects one tree root system to another tree root system, so that nutrients and water can exchange between them.

The word " mycorrhiza " describes the mutually-beneficial relationships that plants have in which the fungi colonize the roots of plants. The mycorrhizae connect plants that may be widely separated.
Source: AlbertonRecord.co.za
Check Out This Example of Networking Opportunities.

Sixty-seven Douglas fir trees of various ages were found to be intricately connected below ground by ectomychorrhiza from the Rhizopogon genus. Rhizopogon, which means 'root beard' in Greek, is commonly found living in a symbiotic relationship with pine and fir trees, and thus is thought to play an important ecological role in coniferous forests. Areas occupied and trees connected by Rhizopogon vesiculosus are shaded blue, or shown with blue lines, while Rhizopogon vinicolor colonies and connections between trees are colored pink, or shown by pink lines. The most highly connected tree was linked to 47 other trees through eight colonies of R. vesiculosus and three of R. vinicolor.
Source: NewZealandGeographic
BBC News Trees talk and share resources right under our feet, using a fungal network nicknamed the Wood Wide Web. Some plants use the system to support their offspring, while others hijack it to sabotage their rivals.

The Wood Wide Web Is Earth's Natural Internet.

While mushrooms are the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of mycelium. These threads act as a kind of underground internet, now referred to as the "wood wide web" linking the roots of different plants and different species.

By linking to the fungal network they can help out their neighbors by sharing nutrients and information or by sabotaging unwelcome plants by spreading toxic chemicals through the network.

Fungal networks also boost their host plants' immune systems. Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.

Trees in forests are not really individuals. Large trees help out small, younger ones using the fungal internet. Without this help, Simard thinks many seedlings wouldn't survive. She found that seedlings in the shade, which are likely to be short of food, received carbon from other trees.

Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes with Suzanne Simard's TED Talk, below.
Reposted with permission from BrightVibes.
Related Articles From Ecowatch

Related Content Around The Web

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Discover How Trees Secretly Talk to Each Other Using the "Wood Wide Web" - EcoWatch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Fino Menezes Imagine an information superhighway that speeds up interactions between a large, diverse population of individuals, allowing individuals who may be widely separated to communicate and help each other out. When you walk in the woods, this is all happening beneath your feet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to turn veg scraps into an ancient seasoning – recipe | Waste not

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Could anything be more zero-waste than a salty sauce made of vegetable peelings that would otherwise be bound for the compost?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hidden fungal networks cover the world—and soon they’ll be mapped

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a first, the nonprofit SPUN will map global fungal networks, which support ecosystems and make for excellent carbon sinks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scientists are developing magnetically guided microscopic projectiles that can be injected into patients' blood to attack breast, prostate and other tumours.

The project - led by researchers at Sheffield University - builds on progress in two key medical fields. The first involves viruses that specifically attack tumours. The second focuses on soil bacteria that manufacture magnets which they use to align themselves in the Earth's magnetic field.

"The essence of this approach is straightforward: we are using bugs as drugs," said Dr Munitta Muthana, one of the project's leaders. "We are taking a class of viruses that naturally target tumours and are developing ways to help them reach internal tumours by exploiting bacteria that make magnets. It's a twin approach and it has a lot of promise, we believe."

The anti-cancer viruses that are being exploited by the Sheffield group - who have been funded by Cancer Research UK - are known as oncolytic viruses. They occur naturally but can also be modified to improve their efficacy and to limit the chances of them infecting healthy cells.

After infection with an oncolytic virus, a cancer cell will burst open and die. The US Food and Drug Administration has already approved the use of T-Vec, a modified herpes simplex virus that infects and kills tumour cells and is now being used to treat people with certain types of melanoma, a skin cancer.

However, the Sheffield team - whose work has just been awarded the Roger Griffin prize for cancer drug discovery - want to expand the range of tumours that can be tackled this way. In particular, they want to target breast and prostate cancers as priorities.

'We are simply using bugs as drugs,' says Dr Munitta Muthana, one of the project's leaders.

"The problem is that oncolytic viruses attract the attention of the body's immune defences and only skin-deep tumours can be tackled this way before the viruses are blocked fairly quickly by our cell defences," said Dr Faith Howard, another project leader.

A solution, the scientists say, is to coat the viruses in magnetic particles. Injected into the blood, these microscopic projectiles could then be directed quickly to a tumour - by using magnets placed over a patient's body - before their progress can be blocked by immune defences.

"It's like having a coat of armour or a shield," added Muthana. "The magnets help protect the virus but crucially they also help them to target a tumour. We place a magnet over a tumour and it will draw the virus speedily and directly to it."

An oncolytic virus had a diameter of about 180 nanometres while the magnets needed to be about 50 nanometres in size, added Howard. (A nanometre is a billionth of a metre.) "These tiny magnets could be made in the laboratory but we have found bacteria do a better job of manufacturing them than we could," she added.

Some species of soil bacteria synthesise iron oxide nanoparticles that are called magnetosomes. These are used as compasses that allow the microbes to navigate in Earth's magnetic field and help them find optimum conditions for their growth and survival. "These microscopic magnets they make are perfectly shaped and ideally suited to the microscopic packages we need to target deep cancers," Howard said.

Having developed the technology, the Sheffield team is now working to ensure they can manufacture sufficient supplies so that clinical trials on humans can begin soon. To date, trials have focused on animal models. "These early tests have been very encouraging and we now need to take the next steps to bring this technique to a state where it can be administered to humans - hopefully in a few years' time," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Magnets made by soil bacteria offer hope for breast and prostate cancer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists are developing magnetically guided microscopic projectiles that can be injected into patients' blood to attack breast, prostate and other tumours. The project - led by researchers at Sheffield University - builds on progress in two key medical fields. The first involves viruses that specifically attack tumours.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
hether they've been boiled, barbecued or roasted, spent corn cobs are bursting with flavour and good for all sorts of other dishes, including corn cob ice-cream and today's sweet and umami-rich stock that can be used in soups, gumbos, risottos or to cook grains such as rice, quinoa or polenta; they can also be used instead of wood chips for smoking meat.

Corn cob stock is particularly sweet, aromatic and intense, and perfect for taking all kinds of dishes to the next level. My favourite way to use it is in a Colombian-style chicken-and-potato one-pot meal called sancocho de pollo: to make a meal for four, boil four chicken thighs in a litre of stock made with cobs saved in the freezer from the last time you ate corn. Add a fresh corn cob cut into rounds, a sliced onion, two cubed sweet potatoes and some chopped coriander, and, after an hour, once everything is tender, it's ready to serve.

Spent corn cobs harbour masses of flavour that is a shame to waste. A simple stock extracts any remaining nutrients and can be served simply as a broth or upcycled into any number of delicious dishes. To reduce energy consumption, use a slow cooker or pressure cooker, which cuts the cooking time in three.

Spent corn cobs
Vegetable trimmings - celery butts, pea pods, carrot tops, peelings, herb stalks, onion skins, etc
Chicken bones (optional)

Put the spent corn cobs in a saucepan in which they fit snugly. Add any other veg trimmings and scraps you have to hand, and a few chicken bones, if using, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer and cook for an hour. Turn off the heat, leave to steep until cool, then strain and refrigerate. Use within a week. Season and serve as a broth, or use to make any number of corn-flavoured dishes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to turn spent corn cobs into stock - recipe | Waste not

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
hether they've been boiled, barbecued or roasted, spent corn cobs are bursting with flavour and good for all sorts of other dishes, including corn cob ice-cream and today's sweet and umami-rich stock that can be used in soups, gumbos, risottos or to cook grains such as rice, quinoa or polenta; they can also be used instead of wood chips for smoking meat.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alia Farid is an artist who lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She is the curator of The Space Between Classrooms, a forthcoming exhibition at the Swiss Institute in New York. Image: Marco Abarca
Ve!, 2020 Process drawing for digital platform entitled The Axis of Modern Violence Reminds (Gender Based Violence in PR Highschools), a violence landscape visualization with an overlay of a survey created by Olga Casellas and Marco Abarca on the occasion of The Space Between Classrooms
Courtesy of artist

Mariana Ordóñez Grajales, founder of Comunal, photographer Onnis Luque and Indignación A.C., will present a collaborative reflection between the research project "TYPOLOGIES. Current state of traditional housing in Mexico" and the human right to habitat and self-determination.
Photo credit: Onnis Luque

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Home - The World Around Summit 2021 - The World Around

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alia Farid is an artist who lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She is the curator of The Space Between Classrooms, a forthcoming exhibition at the Swiss Institute in New York.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brands from Lululemon to Hugo Boss to Steve Madden have rolled out their own resale programmes, touting sustainability claims like circularity and smaller environmental footprint. Experts are sceptical.

Join us for the second edition of the Vogue Business Sustainability Forum on 28 April.

As brands across the industry launch their own resale programmes, the secondhand market boom is picking up speed - but is it sustainable?

Most brands say yes. New resale launches come in step with claims of circularity and shrunken environmental impact. Lululemon touted "a major step toward a circular eco-system" with its US resale platform. Hugo Boss's resale launch included comments that secondhand purchases on average are 44 per cent lower in carbon emissions than new purchases. Target says it is testing resale with Thredup "in service to deliver on evolving guest needs, value and bold commitments to sustainability".

In fashion, resale has evolved from being a side business that many brands were afraid to touch to a golden opportunity they can't seize fast enough. Eileen Fisher, Patagonia and REI, which have welcomed and offered resale for years, have been joined more recently by a flood of brands launching their own platforms or partnering with others to establish a resale presence. The RealReal announced its first brand partnership with Stella McCartney in 2017, followed by Burberry and then Gucci, and the interest in brand partnerships has grown steadily since. ("It's constant now," says Allison Sommer, VP of public affairs and business development at The RealReal.)

Boyish, Oscar de la Renta, Rachel Comey, Mara Hoffman, Madewell, Amour Vert, Filippa K and Kut from the Kloth are among the brands that launched a resale shop in 2021, according to a recent report from Thredup, followed by Maaji, Ministry of Supply, Michael Stars and Steve Madden among others in 2022. In all, Thredup reported 275 per cent year-on-year growth in brands adopting resale from 2020 to 2021, and continued growth with 11 launches in the first three months of this year alone.

However, it's not a clear cut win for sustainability. While giving new life to old garments is one way to deal with clothing waste, for material sustainability benefits to occur brands need to explain if and how they expect resale to improve their total environmental footprint as a company (which few do) and many are particularly quiet about whether recommerce will mean they produce fewer new clothes.

"If they're not changing their business model, [adding resale] is not actually more sustainable. The consumer can be more sustainable as an individual, but if every brand is still just generating more and more new stuff every year, that's not actually changing anything," says Nicole Bassett, co-founder of The Renewal Workshop, which has worked with brands including Mara Hoffman, Carhartt, Prana and The North Face to repair and restore discarded apparel and return it to the consumer market.

While resale offers a path to extending the life of used clothing, the model doesn't inherently account for what happens to clothes when they are discarded, or guarantee that clothing is made more sustainably in the first place. Nor does it have any bearing on the volumes of new clothes made or sold on the new market. The good news is it could, and that's the goal for some resale platforms, such as luxury resale marketplace The RealReal, which reports that its consumers say they replace fast fashion purchases with secondhand resale. However, whether resale will make a dent in fashion's total impacts, say advocates, will depend on if and when brands use it to help address larger issues ingrained in the industry such as harmful manufacturing practices and industry-wide overproduction.

Even so, advocates are cautiously optimistic, applauding its potential to keep clothes in use longer and offer consumers a lower-impact way to shop. They just hope the sector works out some kinks - such as the fate of garments in need of repairs or that don't get sold - while it's still young and adaptable, and that the industry keeps its eye on the goal of long-term benefit.

"For me, it has to be: are brands changing behaviour? And, I unfortunately think we're just a little too early for it to be strategic," says Bassett.

Measuring resale's impact

When consumers shop resale instead of new, the immediate benefits are clear. "When you think about the fact that about 70 per cent of emissions come from creating and consuming an item, and then layer on how complicated it is to reinvent supply chains, resale is a proven ready-to-go, scalable solution to mitigate fashion's footprint," says Sommer of The RealReal. "If you have something that's going to take years, if not decades, in terms of looking at the production side versus something that you can do today, resale is a no-brainer."

However, calculating the overall sustainability impacts of a resale programme is nearly impossible. In addition to all the variables that contribute to a garment's individual footprint, such as how far it was shipped or how much cleaning it needed, whether consumers treat resale shopping as a direct replacement for purchases of new clothes, or the extent to which brands plan to make fewer new products if their resale channel grows strongly enough, is not readily available information. The latter might be the single biggest metric for determining the environmental benefits of resale, but that's not something anyone tracks at industry level and, if there are brands that do track it internally, they don't share it readily.

Patagonia offers a possible exception to that, saying it is "absolutely" a goal for its resale platform Worn Wear to replace future production of new products and that it's aligning the organisation and resale growth targets with that goal in mind. "The production of new apparel has real environmental impacts, and while we are working tirelessly to reduce these impacts through material and supply chain innovation, we know the best thing we can do is make less new," says Asha Agrawal, managing director of Tin Shed Ventures and Corporate Development at Patagonia, Inc.

A 2020 report by McKinsey and the Global Fashion Agenda found that for fashion to meet climate goals, resale - along with repair and recycling - needs to account for a much bigger slice of the industry. Aligning with a 1.5°C pathway depends on one in five garments globally being traded through circular business models by 2030, the report says. Resale can only be one part of the solution, experts agree. The RealReal does not encourage its brand partners, which include Gucci, Stella McCartney and Burberry, to use resale as a way to produce fewer new products, but Sommer says the hope is that consumers use The RealReal to replace purchases they would have bought from lower-tier brands - and as a result, diminish the scale of fast fashion production, which she sees as the real problem.

In the absence of more concrete research, the sustainability claims brands make about their resale programmes can be telling, including whether they're transparent about the flaws and challenges they're dealing with behind the scenes. Especially key, says Bassett, is whether a brand is looking for ways to manage the end-of-life phase for all its products and how it handles garments that can't or don't get resold.

"If a brand is doing recommerce, are they taking responsibility for everything they made, or are they only wanting access to things that are immediately resellable? I think the answer is going to be a variety of responses," she says.

Building the future of resale

Proponents see resale as one component of a broader circularity strategy, and brands that have launched their own platforms generally couch them in the same context. But they need to have solutions for products in need of repair, and that is often missing. Some brands are starting to fill the gap. Hugo Boss will launch a repair service later this year, adding to the resale programme it launched last week. Hugo Boss's goal is for eight out of 10 products to be circular by 2030. "We are working on developing solutions for technical and biological cycles and further expanding our products' own recycling potential," a brand representative said.

Most brands look at resale as a way to extend the longevity of their products. "This circularity model helps to reduce carbon, waste and water, minimising environmental impact on the planet," says Lululemon SVP of global guest innovation Maureen Erickson. The brand did not provide specifics about if or how the programme will reduce the brand's total footprint.

What's missing from the way that most brands market their resale programmes, though, is what happens to goods that cannot be resold. Often, the answer provided is that they're donated, which can have unintended consequences on communities and environments overseas - and if or how they are using resale to look for ways to improve the operations of the mainline brand. Yet, that's where independent experts see its greatest potential for impact.

The ability to both improve the initial design process, and take responsibility for its products, are a big part of resale's appeal for Eileen Fisher, which launched its resale programme Renew in 2009, the first from a major fashion brand. "I think the ultimate lesson we've learned is that you have to make good products to begin with. It's amazing to see what survives the test of time," says Lilah Horwitz, content and marketing director for Renew. "It's extremely important to the brand. Looking at the product that we produce and standing behind that product - both the beginning of its lifecycle and making sure it doesn't really have an end to its lifecycle - is something that as a brand we're very committed to."

While Renew has grown exponentially, first online and more recently expanding to physical stores, it is still a "drop in the bucket" of the brand's total revenue and only accounts for about 4 per cent of all Eileen Fisher clothes, says Horwitz.

Thredup, as well as Target, which quietly re-launched a partnership with Thredup in recent weeks, declined to comment. Lululemon, Levi's, Allbirds and Hugo Boss did not say whether they hope or plan for resale to replace any production of new products. Eileen Fisher has been exploring ways to slow down production, says Horwitz, although she says it's a separate conversation from the performance of its resale platform.

One of the biggest questions that resale companies, advocates and brands have yet to tackle is what the best growth strategy is for engagement, efficacy and environmental impact. Brands benefit from launching their own platforms or partnerships because they can control the customer relationship and can claim revenue generated by products they've already produced. That may increase the burden on consumers, though, who tend to have a range of brands in their closets and may find more convenience in selling or consigning to a third-party platform that takes everything than going to each brand individually. It's also unclear if the myriad brands operating resale individually will fragment the market or what the implications of that would be for resale's ability to reduce fashion's footprint.

Experts are raising the same questions about the industry's quest for circularity more broadly - what should the infrastructure look like to collect, sort and repair or recycle textiles, for example, and who is responsible for building it - but overall, feel optimistic about the road ahead.

"Anytime somebody is promoting resale is a good thing, because the number one issue we have is awareness. We just want people to be thinking about circulating the items that they have in their home, and we'll take all the help for that," says The RealReal's Sommer. "When I see brands engaging, that means more people are aware, more people are engaging, we're growing the circular economy and it's all good."

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author: India's garment worker abuse worsens, report says
LVMH, Fendi open the door to sustainable, plastic-free lab-grown fur
Inside LVMH's biggest sustainability plan yet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Resale sustainability: What's real and what's false

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brands from Lululemon to Hugo Boss to Steve Madden have rolled out their own resale programmes, touting sustainability claims like circularity and smaller environmental footprint. Experts are sceptical. Join us for the second edition of the Vogue Business Sustainability Forum on 28 April.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry - and the grassroots, high tech, international movement fighting to reform it.
What should I wear? It's one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. More than ever, we are told it should be something new. Today, the clothing industry churns out 80 billion garments a year and employs every sixth person on Earth. Historically, the apparel trade has exploited labour, the environment, and intellectual property - and in the last three decades, with the simultaneous unfurling of fast fashion, globalization, and the tech revolution, those abuses have multiplied exponentially - and primarily out of view. We are in dire need of an entirely new human-scale model. Bestselling journalist Dana Thomas has travelled the globe to discover the visionary designers and companies who are propelling the industry toward that more positive future by reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion.

In Fashionopolis, Thomas sees renewal in a host of developments, including printing 3-D clothes, clean denim processing, smart manufacturing, hyperlocalism, fabric recycling - even lab-grown materials. From small-town makers and Silicon Valley whizzes to household names such as Stella McCartney, Levi's and Selfridges, Thomas highlights the companies big and small that are leading the crusade.

We all have been casual about our clothes. It's time to get dressed with intention. Fashionopolis is the first comprehensive look at how to start.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
9781789546064: Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion - and the Future of Clothes - AbeBooks - Thomas, Dana: 1789546060

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An investigation into the damage wrought by the colossal clothing industry - and the grassroots, high tech, international movement fighting to reform it. What should I wear? It's one of the fundamental questions we ask ourselves every day. More than ever, we are told it should be something new.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
wovenutopia * Instagram photos and videos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
7,587 Followers, 369 Following, 229 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from @wovenutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
he fate of the Amazon rests on Brazil's national election on Sunday, according to experts, who say a continuation of the rampant destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro could push the world's biggest rainforest past an irreversible tipping point.

In contrast, a victory for the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who oversaw a sharp decline in deforestation when in power, could lead to the razing of forests falling by 90%, scientists estimate.

The Amazon rainforest plays a vital role in the global climate as a vast store of carbon dioxide, but recent research showed that fires and tree felling have left the region emitting more CO₂ than it absorbs. Researchers showed in March that the Amazon was approaching a tipping point, after which the forest would be lost, with profound implications for the global climate and biodiversity.

Bolsonaro became president at the start of 2019 and has slashed environmental protections and promoted colonisation of the forest. research shows that CO ₂ emissions doubled in 2019 and 2020 compared with the average over the previous decade, driven by soaring deforestation and fires as law enforcement collapsed.

The latest data shows that almost a million hectares of rainforest have been burned in the past year. In the month to 26 September, fires soared to their highest levels in a decade. Brazil's national space research agency, INPE, reported 36,850 fire alerts in the region, more than double than in the whole month in 2021.

The increase may be because of those illegally destroying the forest taking a final opportunity to grab land before the election, according to Amazon researchers.

"Bolsonaro has dragged Brazil back to the wild west days we thought we'd left behind," said Adriana Ramos, at Brazil's Instituto Socioambiental, which works to protect Indigenous peoples and their forest homes. "It's no exaggeration, then, to say that the Amazon's fate rests on the outcome of our election on 2 October. If Bolsonaro wins another term in office, the world's biggest rainforest could pass its tipping point. If he loses, we have the chance to bring it - and Brazil - back from the brink."

Brazilian Indigenous people protest for the demarcation of Indigenous land and over the murder of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, in São Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images

Ramos said violent conflicts and murders of Indigenous people and forest protectors by land-grabbers have risen sharply since Bolsonaro became president. She said: "Those perceived as obstacles to their activities - including [murdered activist and journalist] Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, and numerous Indigenous people, such as the forest protector Paulo Paulino Guajajara - paid the ultimate price."

Dr Erika Berenguer, an Amazon deforestation expert at the University of Oxford, UK, told New Scientist: "I don't say this lightly as a scientist, but this is the most important election ever in Brazil for the Amazon and its survival."

Luciana Gatti at INPE, whose research showed the doubling of Amazon CO ₂ emissions under Bolsonaro, said the rainforest was changing dramatically because of the collapse in law enforcement and aggressive deforestation during the president's tenure. "This is a big risk not only for Brazil but for the whole planet," she said. "The reduction in law enforcement promotes the feeling of impunity for environmental crimes."

The research by Gatti's team, under review by the journal Nature, is based on hundreds of air samples collected in small planes above the Amazon over the last decade and showed "alarming" results. CO ₂ emissions rose by 89% in 2019 and 122% in 2020, compared with the 2010-18 average.

In 2020, the rise in emissions was mainly because of a 74% increase in deforestation and a 42% rise in the area burned by fires. In the same year, the number of fines paid for environmental crimes fell by 89% and the number of offences recorded by the authorities fell by 54%, with a similar situation in 2019.

Gatti's team also produced the earlier research showing the Amazon rainforest has been transformed from a carbon sink to a source, meaning it is accelerating global heating rather than slowing it down. Most Amazon destruction is the result of beef production, with soy growing and mining also factors.

"The Amazon is getting dangerously close to a crucial tipping point, which could see large areas transform from a resilient, moist rainforest into a dry, fire-ravaged, and irreversibly degraded state," said Mike Barrett at WWF.

The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

"What we are witnessing is the end of the Amazon," said Angela Kuczach, director of Rede Pro UC - National Network for Protected Areas in Brazil. "Right here in the heart of the southern Amazon, we are exchanging forest for desert, and biodiversity for ashes. We can no longer say we're going to lose the Amazon in 20 or 30 years; we are losing it right now."

Bolsonaro told world leaders at the UN general assembly last week that Brazil was a "reference to the world" for environment and sustainable development. "Two-thirds of the Brazilian territory remains covered by native vegetation, which is found exactly as it was when Brazil was discovered in 1500 [by Spanish colonists]," he said. "In the Brazilian Amazon, more than 80% of the forest remains untouched, contrary to what is reported by the mainstream national and international media."

Brazil's justice ministry claims to have been conducting a police operation since 2021 to fight illegal forest destruction and to safeguard Indigenous areas.

Most opinion polls suggest Lula is close to securing the overall majority of votes needed in Sunday's first round to avoid a runoff against Bolsonaro in late October. Lula has said he will reverse Bolsonaro's legal changes, reform environmental agencies and drive illegal miners out of indigenous lands. Under the presidency of Lula and his Workers' party successor, Dilma Rousseff, deforestation fell by 72% from 2004 to 2016.

Nevertheless, reversing the impact of Bolsonaro will be challenging, according to Izabella Teixeira, Lula's environment adviser and Brazil's environment minister from 2010 to 2016.

"This is a huge challenge and is completely different than it was in the past," she told New Scientist.

If Lula wins the presidency and recreates the successful reduction in deforestation in his previous term, forest destruction would fall by 90% over the next decade, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief. More than 75,000km ² of Amazon rainforest would be saved, researchers estimated.

Gatti said countries and consumers outside Brazil could also help. "We need to have an international commitment with countries, that they don't buy the products that result in the destruction of nature," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fate of Amazon rests on Brazil election, say experts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
he fate of the Amazon rests on Brazil's national election on Sunday, according to experts, who say a continuation of the rampant destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro could push the world's biggest rainforest past an irreversible tipping point.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Anthony Leiserowitz

Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

Q: What should people understand about climate change?
It depends on who you are. If you are someone making big financial investments in energy, well, then you need a deep understanding and access to a lot of specialized information.

If we're talking about a common baseline for the eight billion of us living on the planet, there are five key facts. And moreover, we boiled them down to just 11 words. Scientists agree, it's real, it's us, it's bad, but there's hope. It's deceptively simple because each phrase is a meta idea backed up with data and dozens to thousands of examples, but it's a good shared starting point for understanding climate change.
Q: Those 11 words start with "Scientists agree." Do we have enough scientific knowledge to move forward?
We've had enough knowledge of the science since about the 1950s. The seriousness of climate change may be new to many people in the public, but it is not new to the scientific community.

"The main source of uncertainty about future climate change isn't climate science; it's human behavior. What will we decide to do?"

There's always more we can do to refine our understanding of climate science, but there's scientific consensus that climate change is happening and it's human caused. The main source of uncertainty about future climate change isn't climate science; it's human behavior. What will we decide to do?
Q: What do we need to do?
Here's one way to think about it. Over the next 30 years, a billion machines that currently run on fossil fuels need to be electrified. Similar systems-level changes need to be taking place in how we source our energy, how we grow our food, how we heat and cool our homes, how we design communities, and how we move around them. Addressing climate change is a systems problem, and it will reshape almost every aspect of our lives.

The global goal is net zero by 2050. Net zero means we emit no more carbon pollution than is absorbed by our natural systems. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a big deal because it's a very significant investment in starting to move the United States towards a net-zero future.

The IRA also helps keep the U.S. at the forefront of the international effort. It was going to be very difficult to go to the rest of the world and say, "We're not actually going to do anything, but you need to act." The IRA will supercharge the conversations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Q: Who will do the systems change work?
Broadly, addressing climate change is going to require government, business, and people everywhere all working together. Government can provide incentives and disincentives for individual and corporate action. But governments can't do everything; they simply can't. Business is going to be essential to actually implementing the changes that are needed.

The good news is that most of the new technologies, new products, new services-even the new lifestyles-already exist. In many cases, they're already cheaper than the old systems. And they provide not only climate benefits, but a whole host of co-benefits-quality, comfort, economic and health benefits, and so on.

We're not lacking climate solutions. We're lacking demand for those solutions. The public and political will isn't yet there to force the systems changes that are required.
Q: Where does that demand come from?
This is an area where there's enormous potential for the climate movement. In our research, we find that there are nearly 100 million Americans who are alarmed about climate change. Of that group, at least 20 million are willing to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action on climate change. They represent a really big potential issue public, which is the segment of the population that is passionate about an issue.

The NRA provides an example of what an organized issue public can do. They have an estimated four million members. There are 330 million Americans. A majority of the American public supports gun reform, but what the political system is willing to do doesn't align with the public sentiment because the NRA punches way above its weight. They're organized and they're organized for power.

The pro-climate action community has invested relatively little in building an issue public compared to the fossil fuel industry, which has built a really powerful system of think tanks, political groups, and media organizations.

"Organizing for action and for power is one of the big opportunities and frankly one of the biggest needs of the climate community."

An organized issue public focused on climate change would pressure political and private sector leaders to actually lead. It could also be important as social signaling. We're always paying attention to what others around us are doing. One of the major ways that we learn is by seeing what other people think, say, and do, and then adjusting our behavior accordingly.

Organizing for action and for power is one of the big opportunities and frankly one of the biggest needs of the climate community. It could also help mobilize public demand for the solutions that exist.
Q: Your research has looked at how Americans understand climate change. The framework you developed is called Six Americas. Would you explain it?
For the past 15 years, we and our partners at George Mason University have been studying Americans' viewpoint on climate change. When we started, many people just divided the public into two groups-believers and deniers. We realized that was far too simplistic.

Through a segmentation analysis, which is similar to the market segmentations that many companies do, we identified six different audiences that each respond to climate change in very different ways. We call them the Six Americas. They are the Alarmed, the Concerned, the Cautious, the Disengaged, the Doubtful, and the Dismissive.

When we last did the survey in 2021, the Alarmed were 33% of the adults in the U.S., up from 18% in 2017. The Alarmed are fully convinced that climate change is happening. It's human caused. It's urgent. They are very worried about it. They strongly support action. There's a huge hunger among this third of the American public for information about solutions and how to be part of them.

The next group, the Concerned, represent 25% of the country. They think climate change is happening, human-caused, and serious, but they think of the impacts as distant in time and space. It's about future generations and polar bears, not the United States, my state, my friends or family, not me, and not now. They support action in general but don't yet understand why it is so urgent.

The third group is what we call the Cautious. They're the 17% of the public still on the fence. Is it happening? Is it not? Is it human-caused? Is it natural? Is it serious or is it exaggerated? They're paying attention but are still uncertain.

The Disengaged are about 5%. These are people who say, "I've heard the term global warming, but I don't know anything about it." They never hear about it in the media they pay attention to or from their friends, family, or coworkers, so basic awareness is the key factor for them.

The Doubtful are 10%. They say, "I don't think it's real, but if it is, it's just a natural cycle. There's nothing we can do." So they don't pay much attention to it.

The last group, the Dismissive, are firmly convinced climate change is not real. Many of them basically tell us that they're conspiracy theorists. They say climate change is a hoax. It's scientists making up data. It's a UN plot to take away American sovereignty and other such conspiracy-minded narratives.

The Dismissive are only 9% of the public, but they're a really loud 9%. They've tended to dominate the public square, and, in many ways, intimidated the other 91% of Americans who are at least willing to have a constructive conversation about climate change.

The Dismissive are largely responsible for what we call climate silence where people are reluctant to even bring it up because they're afraid that they're going to get attacked. The result is that many people feel, "I'm not a climate scientist. I don't know enough of the details, so I can't talk about it," which is unfortunate. We can all talk about climate change. We can talk about the impacts that we're already experiencing or the solutions that are at hand. There are countless ways to have conversations that don't require a PhD in climate science.
Q: What can business learn from the Six Americas framework?
From a business perspective, the groups can be seen as market segments. The Alarmed are looking for ways to act on their concerns. When we ask people in the Alarmed group, "Why don't you reward or punish companies for their behavior?" a large majority say that they simply don't know which companies to reward or punish. That's a huge communication opportunity and risk for companies. Companies can be leaders on climate change, or they can be vulnerable to a communication campaign calling out bad actors.

Another way businesses can think about this is in terms of the diffusion of innovations, the S-Curve of adoption we see with a new product or technology. There are pioneers, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

The Six Americas maps onto that very well. We've seen the different motivations of the segments with solar panels. The early adopters knew that they were spending more for clean energy, but many wanted to do something to address climate change. Many of the Alarmed are willing to spend more for a greener product.

The pioneers and early adopters helped bring the price of solar down to the point where the Cautious or even the Disengaged might say, "I'm going solar, not because it's great for the climate, but because it's going to save me money on my electric bill." Later groups, especially the late majority, are driven more by price consideration.

Each of these groups-these audiences, these market segments-are very different from one another. They need a different communication strategy. The biggest group, the Alarmed, represent 33% of the country's adult population; that's approaching 100 million people. They are looking for ways to make choices in alignment with their concerns about the future of the planet. That opens up all kinds of market opportunities.
Q: Would you explain the power of social norms in this context?
Social norms turn out to be incredibly important. My colleague Ken Gillingham here at the Yale School of the Environment has done studies showing that as soon as one household in a neighborhood puts solar panels on the roof, it increases the odds that another household puts up solar panels, which increases the odds that some other household puts solar panels on their roof.

Sometimes they learn via direct conversation that their neighbor likes their solar panels and likes not paying an electricity bill, but in many cases it's more about social signaling. "Someone just like me is putting solar panels on their roof. Maybe I should too."

Similarly, if you park a new electric vehicle in your driveway, people see it and think, "What is that? Oh, it's another electric car. Suddenly they're everywhere." When it's no longer just the Nissan Leaf, no longer even Teslas, but the Ford F-150, the biggest selling truck in America, that has a hugely popular electric version, electric vehicles are becoming part of the norm. Unconsciously, all of us register that this new thing is here; it's a real option. The next time I'm in the market for a car, I'll check them out.
Q: Given that human behavior is the key uncertainty and the limited demand for the solutions we already have for climate change, would you give a sense of the range of possible futures we're choosing among?
We're in an historic, civilizational-scale transition from an old energy system to a new one. And from an old way of using the planet and its resources to a new one. It's not at all clear yet how successful we're going to be.

So far, we've warmed a little over one degree Celsius from pre-industrial times. The absolute best-case scenario is that we don't go beyond 1.5 degrees warming. That has been a key target that many in the international community have been focused on. We haven't done what's required to stop warming at 1.5 degrees.

Under current policies, we're probably headed for about 2.6 degrees. If the pledges made last year at the international climate conferences in Glasgow are fully implemented, and that's a big if, we might limit warming to 1.9 degrees. That's almost a doubling of the suffering that we're already experiencing right now.

We're moving too slowly and too fitfully. However, 10 years ago most projections were that we were heading towards four or even five degrees of warming. That was so beyond catastrophic, it's not even worth trying to imagine how devastating it would've been to human civilization and every other species on the planet.

So in the grand sweep of things, we're already in a much better position than we were a decade ago. That trend is important to pay attention to.

So is the fact that people are hungry to know the solutions for the climate crisis. Systems change isn't easy, but we have an adequate supply of solutions. We just haven't yet done a good enough job communicating what those solutions are.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We've Got Climate Solutions. Now We Need a Movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Anthony Leiserowitz Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication Q: What should people understand about climate change? It depends on who you are. If you are someone making big financial investments in energy, well, then you need a deep understanding and access to a lot of specialized information.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Guardians of the Amazon are a group of incredibly brave, inspiring Indians in Brazil who are putting their lives on the line to save the Amazon from destruction. Email the authorities in Brazil and urge them to help the Guardians.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
African climate activists from some of the countries most affected by global heating say they are struggling to get access to the UN climate talks in Egypt in November.

Cop27, which has been termed "the African Cop", threatens to take place without African activists advocating for communities devastated by drought, floods and fossil fuel projects in the negotiations when life-or-death decisions about climate finance will be made.

Africa is the continent most affected by the climate breakdown. So far this year, hundreds of people have died from floods and landslides in Nigeria and Uganda while as many as 37 million face starvation after four consecutive droughts in the greater Horn of Africa. It's also the continent which has contributed least to the climate crisis.

Yet just over 20% of grassroots activists have secured accreditation, and only a handful have funding to cover expenses such as travel, accommodation and visas, according to a coalition of African youth climate leaders. With just over a month to go before negotiations open and affordable hotels in short supply, the coalition, which includes the youth groups Fridays for Futures and Riseup in Africa, conducted the survey to review progress.

Despite reaching out to hundreds of non-profits and foundations for help securing badges - which are required for people to enter the negotiating rooms - not a single young activist from countries including Egypt, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Tanzania, Morocco, Chad, South Africa, Benin and Somalia has so far secured a place at Cop27.

Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africans under the age of 30.

"I have a voice, I want the privilege to speak," said Goodness Dickson, 29, from Abuja, Nigeria, who carried out the survey. "Despite Egypt being called an African Cop, we're having a very serious challenge and many countries most affected by the climate crisis won't be represented."

According to Dickson, organisations which promised youth leaders conference badges now say they did not receive enough of them to share. Others simply haven't responded.

"Everyone I reached out to said there are no more slots. I've been invited to speak at three different events and they all say they have no funding for travel ... I gave up," said Jennifer Olachi Uchendu, founder of the Nigerian sustainability organisation SustyVibes.

"This is the African Cop, they say, but it seems to be even worse to access ... and voices like mine who advocate for climate justice, loss and damage finance may be seen as threats. Is there really a point to all of this? The multiple conversations?" added Uchendu, who also runs a project supporting Africans suffering from climate anxiety.

Activists engage in a protest at last year's Cop26 in Glasgow, Scotland. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

Last year at Cop26 in Glasgow, Uchendu was among the few African activists able to attend due to similar challenges with accreditation, funding and Covid vaccinations - which at the time were available to less than 5% of people across the African continent. Dickson was stopped from boarding his flight as he was not fully vaccinated.

In the end, concrete pledges on loss and damage for developing nations which have contributed least to global heating but are affected most by it were once again shelved at the behest of rich polluting nations. The 54 countries in Africa combined account for 15% of the world's population but contribute less than 4% of global greenhouse emissions - in contrast to 23% by China, 19% by the US and 13% from the European Union.

Egypt, which holds the presidency for Cop27, has boasted that the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh is on track to be one of the most attended with more than 35,000 people registered to take part.

But registration is not accreditation - the all-important badge gives access to the main events and negotiation areas, which are where decisions on climate financing, agriculture, water scarcity and biodiversity are discussed. Even then, only a handful of civil society representatives are permitted inside each meeting room, with no guarantee of addressing the country delegates and negotiators.

Those who have secured badges still face multiple challenges. Egypt's confusing visa system requires people from dozens of African and Asian countries to apply for pre-approval, with no exceptions for Cop27 participants, a process that can take weeks.

Mana Omar, 27, is a climate justice activist in Kenya's arid Kajiado county where pastoral Indigenous communities have been extremely hard hit by the prolonged drought. Omar got her badge through UN Women, but is struggling to finance the trip. "It's still 50:50," she said. "It's very, very hard to get the funding and the hotel costs are too high.

"I need to be there to advocate for communities like mine to be prioritised in loss and damage finance. We are at the frontline of the climate crisis, facing the risk of extinction," said Omar, founder and CEO of Spring of the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands and member of Fridays for Future.

Travel and accommodation costs are extortionate, with no sanctions for price gouging or cancellations - leaving many non-profits that booked rooms early scrambling to find alternatives, according to Dharini Parthasarathy, global communications lead for the Climate Action Network. "It's a free-for-all. The logistics are serious barriers."

Amid pressure from civil society groups, Egyptian authorities recently promised to subsidise 400 rooms for young people, though few details are available. Egypt, where water scarcity is approaching crisis levels, also announced Coca-Cola as its sponsor, despite the company's large water guzzling and pollution footprint across the continent.

"Indigenous lives matter. If Coca-Cola is going, our voices have to be heard. I have to get there," said Ina-Maria Shikongo, 43, a climate activist and artist from Namibia looking for funding. "We have to be there pushing political leaders for loss and damage financing and a fossil fuels non-proliferation treaty."

After months of hard work and hundreds of emails, Grace Kimaru, 23, founder of the conservation group Foster Green in Nairobi, Kenya, secured a badge and funding. "It was a struggle, but I will be at Cop27 and try my level best to be heard. African activists and environmentalists should be at the table and taken seriously. Young people have to be involved to safeguard the future and the planet. I hope this will be the Cop of action when pledges are implemented, not more blah blah blah."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'I have a voice': African activists struggle to attend UN climate talks in Egypt

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
African climate activists from some of the countries most affected by global heating say they are struggling to get access to the UN climate talks in Egypt in November. Cop27, which has been termed "the African Cop", threatens to take place without African activists advocating for communities devastated by drought, floods and fossil fuel projects in the negotiations when life-or-death decisions about climate finance will be made.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Toxic air pollution particles have been found in the lungs, livers and brains of unborn babies, long before they have taken their first breath. Researchers said their "groundbreaking"discovery was "very worrying", as the gestation period of foetuses is the most vulnerable stage of human development.

Thousands of black carbon particles were found in each cubic millimetre of tissue, which were breathed in by the mother during pregnancy and then passed through the bloodstream and placenta to the foetus.

Dirty air was already known to strongly correlate with increased miscarriages, premature births, low birth weights and disturbed brain development. But the new study provides direct evidence of how that harm may be caused. The scientists said the pollution could cause lifelong health effects.

The particles are made of soot from the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, homes and factories and cause inflammation in the body, as well as carrying toxic chemicals. The study was conducted with non-smoking mothers in Scotland and Belgium, in places with relatively low air pollution.

"We have shown for the first time that black carbon nanoparticles not only get into the first and second trimester placenta, but then also find their way into the organs of the developing foetus," said Prof Paul Fowler, at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

"What is even more worrying is that these particles also get into the developing human brain," he said. "This means that it is possible for these nanoparticles to directly interact with control systems within human foetal organs and cells."

Prof Tim Nawrot at Hasselt University in Belgium, who co-led the study, said: "Air quality regulation should recognise this [air pollution] transfer during gestation and act to protect the most susceptible stages of human development."

He said governments are responsible for cutting air pollution, but that people should avoid busy roads when possible.

Air pollution particles were first detected in placentas in 2018 by Prof Jonathan Grigg at Queen Mary University of London and colleagues. He said: "The new study is very good - they have shown convincingly that the particles then get into the foetuses.

"Seeing particles getting into the brain of foetuses raises the stakes, because this potentially has lifelong consequences for the child," Grigg said. "It's worrying, but we don't yet know what happens when the particles lodge in various sites and slowly leach off their chemicals," meaning further research is needed.

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

A comprehensive global review in 2019 concluded that air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body. Tiny particles have also been found to cross the blood-brain barrier and billions have been found in the hearts of young city dwellers. More than 90% of the world's population live in places where air pollution is above World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, causing millions of early deaths each year.

The new research, published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, found air pollution particles in every sample of lung, liver and brain tissue examined, as well as in umbilical cord blood and placentas. The concentration of particles was higher when the mother lived with higher levels of air pollution compared with others in the study.

The 36 foetuses examined in the Scottish part of the study were from voluntary terminations of normally progressing pregnancies between seven and 20 weeks of gestation. "The findings are especially concerning because this window of exposure is key to organ development," the scientists said. In Belgium, cord blood samples were taken after 60 healthy births.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Toxic air pollution particles found in lungs and brains of unborn babies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Toxic air pollution particles have been found in the lungs, livers and brains of unborn babies, long before they have taken their first breath. Researchers said their "groundbreaking"discovery was "very worrying", as the gestation period of foetuses is the most vulnerable stage of human development.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Daniel Zhao, Senior Photographer

Plastic's use has been cemented in scientific research by promises of accuracy and standardized replication. Yet researchers are still weighing the impacts of labs producing an estimated five and a half tons of plastic waste yearly, balancing necessity with efficiency.

With over 1200 labs spanning across disciplines, Yale is not new to the plastic discourse. The imagery of waste bins brimming with discarded single-use plastic and scientists replacing plastic equipment at incredible speed has incited concern from both an internal and external perspective.

But environmentalists, researchers and students alike are urging people to take a step back, weighing in on the paradoxical complexity of the "plastic problem" in science.

"I believe that medical research is a very justified use of discardable plastic," Ellen Foxman, an associate professor of laboratory medicine and immunobiology at the Yale School of Medicine and the principal investigator of the Foxman Lab, said. "We live in a time when many people worry about sustainability, and I do, too, but there are good uses for plastic as opposed to bad uses."

Foxaman's lab works with human pathogens, using disposable plastics to prevent cross contamination and to contain infections. She mentioned that what the public considers to be more "sustainable" forms of plastic may not be suitable for a laboratory setting due to experimental parameters for durability.

Different types of plastics have different polymer makeups and structure, affecting the way it can interact with different substances at various heats and pressures demanded of laboratory work, according to Foxman. Thus, many lab exercises are designed with a specific plastic in mind.

Moreover, some plasticware used in Foxman's pathogenic experiments undergo corrosive bleaching and disinfecting procedures afterwards, making them "unsuitable" for a subsequent experiment or trial.

"At Yale, we have labs performing research with a wide variety of hazardous materials, all having different degrees of risk," Kevin Charbonneau, the executive director of Yale Environmental Health and Safety (EHS), wrote to the News. "Safety is the first and most important hurdle to overcome. We have to consider what we are asking people to do and determine whether or not the benefit outweighs the risk to them as well as the workers downstream. Once the safety and regulatory hurdles are taken into account, one also needs to assess the feasibility and economics of implementing such a change."

According to EHS, which oversees the waste management of lab supplies and equipment at the University's undergraduate and professional programs, any plastic that has come into contact with biochemical substances is considered a biohazard. Any plastic containing any form of cell culture is then considered Biosafety Level 2 , requiring additional care in disposal and transportation to curb contamination and infection.

The classification excludes discarded single-use plastic with biochemical exposure from the list of laboratory materials that can be recycled with official permission, as per a list of guidelines designed by EHS, Yale Sustainability and Yale Recycling .

Used pipette tips fall under this category, making them one of the greatest sources of plastic waste in labs and stymying the effort to curb plastic consumption overall.

Daniel Mendoza '25, a student researcher at Yale, said that he goes through about 100 plastic pipette tips daily - sometimes even 200 to 300 during a busy day.

Miles Yamner '25, who also has laboratory experience at Yale, added that much of the disposable plastic pipette tips used in his lab are designed to "degrade faster," and thus are not meant for reusing. In fact, reuse can be more harmful than helpful.

Compared to shifting to non-plastic labware, recycling single-use plastic can sometimes be environmentally counterproductive in terms of associated greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs, according to Reid Lifset - a research scholar at the Yale School of the Environment.

This paradox contradicts the common "public perception" of plastic as purely an enemy, he said, and of our tendency to ethically default to either recycling or finding alternatives without additional research. While this perspective sometimes holds true and plays a role in creating environmental consciousness, Lifset mentioned that it is important to consider context, urging people to approach the plastic problem from a "lifecycle perspective."

Rather than limiting our attention to the last stage of single-use plastic's life cycle - discardment - Lifset suggested that those concerned about the environmental impact of different materials consider the entirety of their life cycles. First, substances are extracted from the natural environment, then processed and turned into products before finally being thrown away.

Some materials that are traditionally viewed as greener than plastic, such as glass and metal, may actually have greenhouse gas and energy expenditures throughout their entire life cycles that exceed those of single-use plastic, according to Lifset.

Lifset described this in the context of bags. One single-use plastic bag requires less emissions to make than one cotton tote bag. But the continual use of the tote bag replacing many plastic bags makes it more sustainable in the long term.

Thus, Lifset contended, continual use of products is key. Since the reusable product will leave a more significant environmental dent during production, it will only benefit the environment if it is used many times in place of a single-use product.

Despite acknowledging the advantages of plastic in experimental science, some students are speaking out in favor of streamlining or improving lab practices to be more environmentally favorable. Hyerim Bianca Nam '24, who is familiar with laboratory settings both at Yale and overseas in Germany, paid close attention to the differences in plastic protocol between the two countries. Nam is also a staff columnist for the News.

"I n the German ecological lab where I was working with chemicals and RNA, we would put tips and even gloves into the autoclave bin, where they would be autoclaved for reuse in certain circumstances," Nam said. "The two labs were in different disciplines, so they're not perfectly comparable, but ... it was interesting that in the lab here [at Yale], people were a lot more careless about throwing away tips that could maybe be reused.

"If they missed with the pipette, [if a] tip fell or was crooked in the box ... [and sometimes even if pipette tips were] in the same [liquid] medium, we would just throw it away," Nam said.

EHS currently does not enlist any formal policies for the aforementioned situations, but Charbonneau noted that while there has not been a "monumental change" to wet lab practices that has reversed this policy, the University has been working to engineer a more individualized approach to creating sustainable science over the past decade.

In 2011, Yale launched the Green Lab Initiative, urging scientists to cultivate a socioemotional consciousness of their environmental footprint - even if it's just "the basics," he said. Labs would check off small action items like printing double-sided pages and recycling sterile pipette boxes, ultimately working toward four different levels of certification.

As of this year, nearly 363 principal investigators have participated in the program according to EHS records, though Charbonneau described the effort as " more reserved and complicated [when it comes to plastic recycling] due to waste regulations and health and safety risks. "

Virginia Chapman, director of Yale Sustainability, added that Chris Incarvito, associate provost for science initiatives, actively serves on the board for the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories, which will soon be releasing "recommendations" that her team looks forward to incorporating "as possible," she said.

Chapman also looks forward to expanding outreach to more intimately engage the broader community in conversations about environmental waste, as well as educating them about what exactly the "best practices" are when it comes to plastic in science.

Meanwhile, on a more localized level, some principal investigators and lab personnel are committing to developing laboratory cultures that "work smarter," and not just harder, to improve sustainability efforts.

Foxman, for example, keeps efficiency at the forefront of her research, "always thinking" about ways to be resourceful by "carefully planning" out experiments to prioritize "high impact experiments." Equipment is not the only valuable resource, she said. Her lab is also handling "precious" clinical samples and primary human cells that, like plastic, are not always feasibly recyclable.

"Biomedical research may be one of the last areas where you can get rid of consumables, but we want to get the maximum amount of science done with the minimum amount of cost," Foxman said.

This year, Yale Sustainability Week took place from Oct. 3 to Oct. 7.

BRIAN ZHANG

Brian Zhang covers student life for the University desk, and previously housing and homelessness for the City desk. He is a sophomore in Davenport College.

KAYLA YUP

Kayla Yup covers the Yale New Haven Health system and Science & Social Justice for the SciTech desk. For the Arts desk, she is covering the Humanities. With an interest in the intersections of the humanities and STEM, she is majoring in Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology and History of Science, Medicine & Public Health.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yale's research labs contend with environmental impacts of plastic use - Yale Daily News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Daniel Zhao, Senior Photographer Plastic's use has been cemented in scientific research by promises of accuracy and standardized replication. Yet researchers are still weighing the impacts of labs producing an estimated five and a half tons of plastic waste yearly, balancing necessity with efficiency.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
hiva Rajbhandari wasn't even of legal voting age when he decided to take on a 47-year-old incumbent on the Boise school board. The high school senior turned 18 days before election day last month - and won.

The young climate activist ran against Steve Schmidt, who was endorsed by the far-right Idaho Liberty Dogs, a local group agitating to ban books from the public library that contained LGBTQ+ themes. The group also planned an armed protest at Rajbhandari's high school after a student was suspended for bringing a gun near campus.

Rajbhandari's victory bucks a national trend. Across the US, school boards have become one of the most active fronts in America's culture wars. Once mundane public meetings on facilities upgrades and textbook budgets have become highly politicized, as conservative parents, bolstered by local and national rightwing organizations, fight to reshape school curriculums, restrict the rights of transgender students and remove Covid-19 mask and vaccination mandates. Over the last two years, hundreds of school board officials have been targeted by conservative and rightwing recall efforts.

Rajbhandari - who appears to be the first student ever elected to a school board in Idaho - hopes that he and his fellow students can start to fight back against those forces.

As students, we are the primary stakeholders here - this is our education. But we were being told we didn't belong

In an interview with the Guardian, he discussed his goals as a school board trustee - and how climate will be his vehicle for change and student empowerment.
Why did you decide to run for the school board?
I definitely did not expect I would be running for office at this age. But I just came to realize how important it was to try to establish a student voice on the school board. We don't always get taken seriously as students. So then it's on us to take that responsibility on, to fight for our futures.

Shiva Rajbhandari, center, stands with his classmates. Rajbhandari's platform focuses on the climate crisis. Photograph: Shiva Rajbhandari

How did your activism start?
In seventh grade, I learned about climate change. And I was super lucky to attend a school where it was taught because at the time, in Idaho K-12 schools, climate change was not part of our science curriculum standards. But at the same time, I really felt this anxiety and isolation.

Then in ninth grade, I attended a climate strike that was organized by local students. That's when my sense of isolation turned into a sense of empowerment. I started an Extinction Rebellion youth chapter. I joined the Idaho Climate Justice League, and we delivered the largest petition the school district had ever received, asking the district to make a 10-year sustainability plan.
Did you feel like you and your peers were being taken seriously?
It was frustrating because it just felt like we weren't getting the time of day from our school board members. In the fall last year, I sent a letter to our school board president detailing our efforts and asking him for a meeting. And I didn't get a response. But I knew that he had read the letter because about a week later, I was called into my school principal's office and reprimanded for reaching out directly to the trustees.

As students, we are the primary stakeholders here - this is our education. But we were being told we didn't belong in places where decisions about our education were being made. And so by the end of that meeting, I knew I wanted to run for the school board.
You had also been protesting the Idaho legislature's efforts to ban certain curriculums and books in school.
Idaho is really a testing ground for extremism nationwide. After the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, we saw this white backlash. And Idaho's legislature became one of the first to ban the teaching of critical race theory.

I mean, critical race theory is not taught in our schools. It's not even a subject, it's more of a lens through which we can look at history and institutions - and it's something that's really more relevant at the university level. But still, the bill, H 377, was passed - and my friends and I organized against that bill, because it was clearly an attempt at undermining our teachers and undermining our public schools.

My top priority is mental health. We're facing a mental health crisis

I remember one time, I walked into English class and half of our assignment was blacked out in Sharpie. And it wasn't because the assignment had anything to do with critical race theory. It was because our teacher had been intimidated by the rhetoric coming from the highest levels of our government. The assignment was about the civil rights movement.

In a neighboring school district, four books were banned from school libraries, including three books that were on the advanced placement literature and composition curriculum.

Shiva Rajbhandari, left, says he hopes more students nationwide run for seats on school boards. 'Our perspective is so valuable, and we really do have a lot to bring to the table.' Photograph: Shiva Rajbhandari

When you were 16, you and your fellow students also directly confronted Idaho's lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, about the taskforce she had set up to "examine indoctrination in Idaho A pivotal moment in your election was when your opponent was endorsed by the far-right Idaho Liberty Dogs. education". Tell us more about that.

In recent years, American school boards have become increasingly politicized battlegrounds to tussle on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and race relations. Photograph: Hill Street Studios/Getty Images

What's first on your agenda as a newly elected school board trustee?
Everyone knew the taskforce's allegations were just made up. And they never allowed public comment until the last taskforce meeting, which took place once school was in session.

So we had to miss a little school to show up. It felt really empowering to have my peers there with me and to kind of be this representative for students across the state, standing up to what was happening. But it was really frustrating because you could tell that these people really had a lot of contempt for public schools as a whole.

That group planned an armed protest at our school. I'm familiar with them because they had attended several climate rallies that I organized or helped organize, and brought their AR-15s. These are literally grown adults bringing guns to intimidate us.

When my opponent refused numerous times to disavow this group's endorsement, I think that's what the majority of Boise voters really took issue with. Because to see this far-right, hate-filled organization try to infiltrate or influence our school district, it's a very real threat to our teachers and students.

My top priority is mental health. We're facing a mental health crisis. So we need more counseling resources, and need to destigmatize mental health in the classroom.

And then, supporting teachers against these extremist attacks, and making sure they have freedom to teach as they think is best, and feel respected. My teachers have really given me the world - they are the reason I felt so empowered.

And finally climate action. This is one of the most important issues for students and for young people worldwide.

I was elected to a two-year term, but I plan to step down after a year and pass the seat on to another student on our newly formed student advisory committee.

More than anything, I hope my election sets a precedent, and that I won't be the last student on the school board here in Boise. I hope more students run for school boards elsewhere too. Our perspective is so valuable, and we really do have a lot to bring to the table.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'It's on us to fight': the student climate activist energizing a US school board

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
hiva Rajbhandari wasn't even of legal voting age when he decided to take on a 47-year-old incumbent on the Boise school board. The high school senior turned 18 days before election day last month - and won.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This year has seen one of the driest summers on record, with most of the country still officially in drought. Millions of people in England are under hosepipe bans because of water shortages, and reservoir and river levels remain low.

The solution to this? People should flood their gardens and create bogs in order to stop the effects of drought and reverse biodiversity loss, according to the head of Natural England.

Tony Juniper, who leads the government quango, said that concreted-over front gardens, and backyards which do not hold much water, could contribute to sewage spills into waterways as surface water runs off the hard or dry surfaces.

He recommended that people turn their gardens into wetlands, which can hold water and prevent run-off. This would also create habitats for many creatures.

"I was in a conversation the other day with a couple of colleagues in the water industry," he told the Gathering nature festival at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk. "Everyone knows about combined sewage outfalls, with sewage going into the rivers. Part of the problem there is rapid runoff coming off hard surfaces, where you've got a lot of water being put into the drains, which also get the sewage, and they overflow."

He said that one of the measures water companies are now thinking about is catching water in gardens, and part of this could be about creating a miniature wetland in our backyards.

"It's looking at the extent to which you might be able to interrupt water flow before it gets to the sewage and into the rivers," said Juniper.

"And that's an interesting way of engaging people who actually don't see a connection between their house and the river - by going down this route of making gardens wilder to hold more water."

Nature organisations agree, recommending that people create "bog gardens" which can help wildlife and store water. This could be a small, flooded corner of a garden in which insects thrive.

Ali Morse, water policy manager at the Wildlife Trusts, told the Observer: "There are 400,000 hectares of domestic gardens in the UK - a vast area covering much more than all the nation's major nature reserves put together - and they have huge potential to help us tackle the interlinked climate and nature crises.

"Making your garden wilder and wetter will help wildlife and also play an important role in making your garden less prone to drought and in reducing pollution in local rivers."

The loss or degradation of natural wetlands, she said, is linked to a huge decline in wildlife, from frogs and toads to water voles and insects.

"If you've no space for a traditional pond, consider a bird bath, a low-level water dish for hedgehogs and other mammals to drink from, a bog garden or a bucket pond, which can be a lifeline for insects such as butterflies and bees. Everything needs water. People are often amazed to discover the huge variety of aquatic wildlife that finds its way to ponds: dragonflies and damselflies, grass snakes, hedgehogs, foxes and birds all need water to survive."

skip past newsletter promotion
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
after newsletter promotion

A spokesperson for the Rivers Trust agreed, adding that England has lost almost all of its wetlands as a result of farming and development.

"Groundwater from aquifers is critical during droughts and will be more so during climate extremes. Many aquifers have their recharge cut-off by impermeable, hard surfaces like roads, driveways and buildings. This means rainwater is diverted into storm water and can cause sewage overspills during heavy downpours. We need to rebuild local water cycles and allow this water to infiltrate and follow its natural path."

Remove hard landscaping to let rain soak away into the soil

Ponds and bog or rain gardens will retain water in times of heavy rain, helping to prevent flooding elsewhere; they also store water in times of drought

Install a water butt for capturing rain to prevent it from adding to the overloaded sewage system. You can also use this to top up your water features

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Flood gardens to combat drought and biodiversity loss, says Natural England

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This year has seen one of the driest summers on record, with most of the country still officially in drought. Millions of people in England are under hosepipe bans because of water shortages, and reservoir and river levels remain low. The solution to this?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
hen the first spindly, armour-clad carcass was spotted in the fast-flowing Nechako River in early September, Nikolaus Gantner and two colleagues scrambled out on a jet boat, braving strong currents to investigate the grim discovery.

Days later, the remains of 10 others were spotted floating along a 100km stretch of the river in western Canada.

In total, 11 endangered white sturgeon have mysteriously died in a short period of time, blindsiding biologists, who are trying to save a fish teetering towards extinction.

The species has remained relatively unchanged in 200m years: toothless apex hunters that glide gracefully in a handful of British Columbia's rivers. To navigate the murky waters, sturgeon gently brush whisker-like barbels that hang from their snout along the gravelly bottom.

White sturgeon, with a torso clad in five distinct bony plates called scutes, look every inch a prehistoric fish. The largest ever recorded reached 20ft long and another, believed to be 104 years old, weighed nearly 1,800 lbs.

The Nechako River, where the sturgeon population has dropped from 5,000 to 500 in the past century. Photograph: Fernando Lessa/Alamy

"When you see a massive head appearing through the murky water and the eyes look at you, it's just incredible to see this majestic animal alive," said Gantner, a senior fisheries biologist with the British Columbia government. "And you gain respect for it, knowing that most fish we see are older than us."

The rapid succession of deaths has taken an unexpected emotional toll on Gantner and his colleagues.

"I'm deeply saddened. These last couple of weeks, I feel like I'm going through grief," he said. Each time he and colleagues tenderly move the hulking carcasses of the fish from the shore to the freezer and on to the necropsy table, he feels a pang of sorrow. "I don't think I felt like that from other fish that I've worked with."

So far, there are no obvious answers. The team hasn't found any sign of trauma nor evidence of chemical exposure, disease, or angling-induced death.

"Whatever it is, it affects larger sturgeon, not other species. It's constrained to a place in time and space. So that gives us some clues," said Steve McAdam, a biologist with the province's ministry of land, water and resource stewardship. "In a way, it's easier to rule a bunch of stuff out than to rule some things in."

The deaths in the Nechako are particularly painful for McAdam, who studied a similar die-off in the lower Fraser River in 1993 and 1994, when the region lost 36 fish in two years.

A battery of tests that followed that die-off was inconclusive, said McAdam; the events occurred in differing ecosystems, hundreds of kilometres apart, offering limited clues to investigators.

Because the team investigating the current episode has a narrow window of time to recover dead sturgeon before decomposition sets in and destroys valuable clues, they have appealed to the public for help. In a region where the fish have deep cultural ties to First Nations and are part of the curriculum in local schools, residents have paid close attention to the phenomenon.

A range of theories have been suggested, including a belief that elevated water temperatures are to blame. But McAdam said previous hot summers had not triggered similar die-offs.

"There's no end to the ideas. There are some partial explanations, but we're really trying to keep an open mind and not veer too far down one path," he said.

To navigate in murky waters, sturgeon gently brush whisker-like barbels that hang from their snouts along the gravelly bottom. Photograph: Minden Pictures/Alamy

Before the mysterious die-offs, white sturgeon, which are listed as a federal species at risk, were already in trouble.

Over the last century, the numbers in the Nechako River have dropped from more than 5,000 to only 500. Soon after a dam was built on the Nechako River in 1957, the species experienced what biologists call "recruitment failure" - new fish weren't being added to the population.

It is from within that ageing population, already missing an entire generation of fish, that the 11 have died.

Overfishing, drainage projects and dam construction have all contributed to the collapse. On all the rivers in the province where sturgeon once thrived, dams have crushed their populations. Only the Fraser River, the largest without a dam, has a relatively healthy sturgeon population in the tens of thousands.

British Columbia has worked since 2001 to help the species recover, drawing teams of provincial and federal biologists, First Nations groups and the industries tied to sturgeon habitat loss, like hydroelectric dam operators.

Efforts include using hatcheries, a "stopgap measure" to help the population recover, as well a longer-term goal of restoring habitat.

But the sudden death of 11 members of a species already spiralling towards demise mirrors a trend all over the world: sturgeon have become the most threatened genus of fish.

All of the 26 remaining species of sturgeon are now at risk of extinction. They are the victims of overfishing; in some species, like beluga sturgeon, the roe is prized as caviar. And the habitats they have persisted in are disappearing.

"They are a quite a charismatic species and it's a fish that has been around for millions of years. So you don't take it lightly when it's in danger," McAdam said.

The abruptness with which the fish have died has puzzled biologists in part because white sturgeon have been closely studied and monitored for the last three decades, precisely because of their precarious situation.

"And then within a week, this happens. We have a new huge question mark," said Gantner. "It's really blindsided us."

Both Gantner and McAdam were hopeful that the deaths will serve a broader end, providing valuable insight to biologists into what might have happened - and how a similar outcome can be prevented in the future.

Because the other option - that they have already reached some kind of a tipping point - is too bleak to consider.

"We've never done the experiment of eliminating them fully and seeing how truly important sturgeon are to an ecosystem," said McAdam. "And personally, I don't think we ever want to."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sudden die-off of endangered sturgeon alarms Canadian biologists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
hen the first spindly, armour-clad carcass was spotted in the fast-flowing Nechako River in early September, Nikolaus Gantner and two colleagues scrambled out on a jet boat, braving strong currents to investigate the grim discovery. Days later, the remains of 10 others were spotted floating along a 100km stretch of the river in western Canada.

# data[].attributes.headline
Brazillian collective  protests in animal costumes

# data[].attributes.subject
Brazillian collective  protests in animal costumes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ne Saturday last October, between the skyscrapers of São Paulo's main avenue, surrounded by thousands turned out for yet another protest against Brazil's far right president, a hog danced with a leopard.

They were joined by a six-legged beetle, a parrot, a pink dolphin and over a dozen other people in similarly elaborate animal costumes, each brandishing banners proclaiming, in Portuguese, gnomic phrases such as "Cosmic Dancer", "Defend Happiness" and "Gaia's Return". Some danced, others blew bubbles or burned incense.

'Pela vida' ('for life') ... two of Rivane Neuenschwander and Mariana Lacerda's protesters. Photograph: Eduardo Ortega

A few weeks later, at another protest, this time smaller and organised by the homeless movement, this strange menagerie was present again. They were, they told me, the Crystal Forest. Further investigation revealed that the strange theatrical group, which appeared at eight protests and demonstrations around the city, was founded by artist Rivane Neuenschwander and film-maker Mariana Lacerda.

Sat in Neuenschwander's studio in the west of São Paulo, the costumes and masks piled up on a table, the protest banners with their strange proclamations stacked to the side, the artist explains, "We had the idea of interfering with the demonstrations. We were interested in changing the language of the left in protests, because they are always articulated in the same way, with the same social grammar."

Working together, the pair made I Am a Macaw, a new 30-minute film that documents this year of interventions, and which will be premiered in Porto, Portugal, as Brazil goes to the polls in the presidential election this Sunday. In 2018, the sizeable Brazilian expat community in Portugal overwhelmingly supported Jair Bolsonaro, now fighting for a second term.

The film is a devastating and mournful document of the country's left wing at the end of its tether. Mixing with the environmental sounds of protest - shouts and chants, political speeches - is a strange instrumental soundtrack by O Grivo, a duo of musicians from Belo Horizonte. Screeching violins break against booming gongs and clanging glockenspiels; São Paulo's streets seem eerie, for all the people and political activity depicted.

"We didn't know what to expect," Neuenschwander says. "At the first protest it caused a stir and seemed a big success. We attended between seven to eight protests, with up to 50 people in costume. We want to contaminate the street, with the utopian idea that maybe everyone will come dressed up in the end.

"When Dom and Bruno were murdered there was a demonstration organised on a Saturday morning at Masp," Neuenschwander recalls, referring to Bruno Pereira, the former Amazon protection officer murdered alongside British journalist Dom Phillips in June. "It was a small gathering, just a group of Guarani people present. It was raining, it was special." In the film, mingling outside São Paulo's biggest art museum, the Indigenous protesters chant and paint each other's faces with ceremonial markings.

I Wish Your Wish by Rivane Neuenschwander displayed at Tate Saint Ives. Photograph: Cecilia Colussi Stock/Alamy

The work finds precedent in previous projects by Neuenschwander. In 2015 she collaborated with groups of London schoolchildren to present a series of intricately designed capes, shown at the Whitechapel Gallery, representing each child's greatest fear. Conversely I Wish Your Wish(2003) mimicked Brazilian pilgrimage sites by displaying thousands of ribbons printed with visitors' greatest wishes.

The artist says the immediate impetus for I Am a Macaw came amid a court battle against a rule that only land occupied by Indigenous groups on the date the Brazilian constitution was signed in 1988 could be the subject of protection. Yet it is not just this specific scandal they are fighting, as urgent as it is, but rather arguing for a fundamental resetting of humanity's relationship with the natural world. Many of their protest banners suggest as much: "Legal animism", "insurgent corals", "the future is ancestral".

"We wanted to push the discussion of the rights of nature, which happens in Ecuador and was in the proposed constitution of Chile, but which people aren't really discussing in mainstream Brazil," she says.

In 2008 Ecuador was the first country in the world to enshrine personhood on natural entities such as rivers and mountains. In doing so it recognised the unique relationship between Indigenous communities and their environment, in which land is often entwined in spiritual beliefs and therefore protected.

In Lacerda's film, we see Neuenschwander's animals away from protests, individually handing out leaflets in downtown São Paulo or flyposting the city's walls. Some show images of devastating arson attacks on the rainforest or Indigenous villages under assault, others detail lines from the Ecuadorian constitution: "Nature has the right to full respect for its existence" reads one poster, another says "Nature has the right to be restored".

"We are trying to bring a richer vocabulary to the protests, away from the usual buzzwords of the left," Neuenschwander says. "There is a philosopher from Rio called António Carvalho who spoke of bringing enchantment to the streets, and we listened to Indigenous leaders like Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and ideas of decolonialism and how everything is interconnected."

In a 2016 paper Carvalho writes of suspending "the modern dualism between body and mind, nature and culture, human and non-human. Recognising that the impetus of modernity is essentially extractive."

Does Neuenschwander still believe in the power of protest, though? In 2013 Brazil experienced era-defining demonstrations against the country's myriad injustices, which some argue unintentionally created the environment for leftwing president Dilma Roussef's 2016 impeachment and today's far-right government.

'I still see protest as a positive thing' ... a still from I Am a Macaw by Rivane Neuenschwander and Mariana Lacerda. Photograph: Eduardo Ortega

"I still see protest as a positive thing," Neuenschwander says. "There's a lot of discussion of what happened in 2013 and how 2016 came about, how that energy got manipulated, how the right wing captured the energy. The film is pretty melancholic, yes; a reflection of how melancholic Brazil has been, a reflection of going to so many demonstrations."

She concludes: "As Bolsonaro destroyed everything, we suffered mentally. I suffered, my friends suffered. We got depressed, so this film was a way of getting together too, dressing up, having a beer. The film reflects those highs and lows: of feeling so down, but then also waking up the next day and thinking, 'Let's fight again!'"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'We want to contaminate the street!': the artist fighting Bolsonaro - with animal costumes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ne Saturday last October, between the skyscrapers of São Paulo's main avenue, surrounded by thousands turned out for yet another protest against Brazil's far right president, a hog danced with a leopard.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Strike participants marching. Abiba Biao Photos.

A voice rang out on the steps of City Hall as hundreds of New Haveners gathered shoulder-to-shoulder. All ears turned towards Dave John Cruz-Bustamante.

"Become the climate revolution you want to see today, tomorrow, and forever," they began. "Become the climate revolution at your homes, at your schools, at your workplaces, at your churches, on your blocks. Talk about it and embody it so much that it's no longer comfortable for others to stay silent and do nothing."

A climate revolution took downtown New Haven by storm last Friday afternoon, as 100 protesters gathered on the New Haven Green for "Stop Climate Freefall," an hours-long strike, rally, and "die-in" from members of the New Haven Climate Movement (NHCM). The day marked a Global Climate Strike , meaning that towns and cities across the world participated in similar actions.

NHCM holds these climate strikes annually in alignment with #FridaysForFuture , a climate movement that sets worldwide days of climate action demonstrations in March and September.

"The youth are raising their voices and demanding climate justice, yet adults in power refuse to listen," said Young In Kim, a member of the NHCM who is a senior at Wilbur Cross High School. "They turn a blind eye and abandon all accountability. How sad is a world where teenagers must scream and shout for their futures, yet no one listens? Adults insist that student voices matter to them, yet we are left fending for our very own planet."

While climate activism reaches back centuries-and has long been a cause taken up by Black people, non-Black people of color, mothers, and poor workers-the #FridaysForFuture movement originated from Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who at 15 years old began her weeks-long protests outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018. Images of her endeavor quickly went viral on social media and motivated young people all across the world to partake in civil disobedience to hold their government responsible for climate change.

In New Haven, Friday's march began at Church and Chapel Street, moved to Phelps Gate on Yale University's campus, went on to Center Church on the Green, and then ended at New Haven City Hall. The strike featured speakers from Save the Sound, Yale Student Environmental Coalition, Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, New Haven Board of Education student representative Cruz-Bustamante, and New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.

Throughout the rally, members of NHCM reiterated the group's four demands. They include improved public transportation infrastructure, electrification of buildings and vehicles, government accountability on state and municipal levels, and increased climate education in public schools.

Save the Sound Environmental Justice Specialist, and Connecticut Equity and Environmental Justice Advisory Council member, Alex Rodriguez.

Alex Rodriguez, environmental justice specialist for Save the Sound and member of the Connecticut Equity and Environmental Justice Advisory Council, pointed to a list of breakthroughs on state environmental policy. They include S.B 10 , an act that requires Connecticut to procure 100 percent from clean energy resources by 2040; the passage of the Connecticut Clean Air Act which mandates the state to have a 100 percent electric vehicle fleet by 2035; and the passage of a law that will require all Connecticut public schools to teach students about climate change by July 2023.

The sound of noisemakers and cheers followed each time he listed an achievement.

Rodriguez emphasized the importance of amplifying historically marginalized voices in climate advocacy. He stressed that "youth and BIPOC communities are the most disproportionately impacted by climate change and environmental pollution."

"I want you to keep doing everything in your power to support the capacity of youth activists in Connecticut and BIPOC activists because this is our future on the line," Rodriguez said to the crowd. "I see many young faces here in the crowd and I want you to keep up with the fight because there is no planet B."

Common Ground freshman Layla Wilkins, Miliangelis Diaz, Kishara Heath, and Aaliyah Jones.

In search of a platform to voice their environmental concerns and demand for climate action, a group of freshman Common Ground High School attended the event. In high spirits, they waved their signs while making noise with party horns and noisemakers after each speech and chant.

Jennifer Lopez, a freshman at Common Ground, said she joined the strike to go out to help the local New Haven community.

"We want to help out the community and we know that everything we need to say we need to say directly to the mayor," she said. Jennifer's personal environmental concern lies with emitters of air pollution such as incinerators, and finding more sustainable ways to dispose of trash.

"Don't send out all our stuff to the incinerator," she said. " It's affecting everyone who lives near the incinerator, and it's causing more ... asthma and more illnesses."

Miliangelis Diaz focused on climate action on an individual level, including the cleanliness of New Haven's collective environment and reduction of plastic containers and packaging, single use or otherwise.

"We need to clean up our parks. We need to stop using plastic things," she said.

NHCM member Kiana Flores playing 40 drum beats, alongside NHCM member Patrica Joseph broadcasting the sound through a megaphone.

The strike ended with a moment of silence and die-in in front of New Haven City Hall. Lining the steps up to the building, climate activists turned musicians took their place at overturned orange buckets, transforming them into a percussion section. As the steady sound of 40 drum beats rang out over city hall, activists decried "each year of inaction since 1982."

That year marks, among other thimgs, the first time Exxon acknowledged the precipitous and alarming rate of climate change. Four decades later, the globe is continuing to warm rapidly with the burning of fossil fuels.

"New Haven has the opportunity to be a leader in taking charge of climate action if we make these plans now. More than the opportunity-New Haven needs to be a leader in climate legislation," said NHCM member and Yale first year Elisa Cruz.

"This city is a coastal town, making the impacts of climate change more prevalent here than in others, and this city is a town with a high population of people of color, meaning the impacts of climate change will exacerbate the citizens of this city more than in others. If we wait around for neighboring legislation to start making change, it will already be too late."
Abiba Biao is a graduate of the Arts Council's Youth Arts Journalism Initiative and has stayed on with the Arts Paper as a freelance writer and photographer. She is beginning her freshman year at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) this fall.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Strike participants marching. Abiba Biao Photos. A voice rang out on the steps of City Hall as hundreds of New Haveners gathered shoulder-to-shoulder. All ears turned towards Dave John Cruz-Bustamante. "Become the climate revolution you want to see today, tomorrow, and forever," they began.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
he fate of the Amazon rests on Brazil's national election on Sunday, according to experts, who say a continuation of the rampant destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro could push the world's biggest rainforest past an irreversible tipping point.

In contrast, a victory for the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who oversaw a sharp decline in deforestation when in power, could lead to the razing of forests falling by 90%, scientists estimate.

The Amazon rainforest plays a vital role in the global climate as a vast store of carbon dioxide, but recent research showed that fires and tree felling have left the region emitting more CO₂ than it absorbs. Researchers showed in March that the Amazon was approaching a tipping point, after which the forest would be lost, with profound implications for the global climate and biodiversity.

Bolsonaro became president at the start of 2019 and has slashed environmental protections and promoted colonisation of the forest. research shows that CO ₂ emissions doubled in 2019 and 2020 compared with the average over the previous decade, driven by soaring deforestation and fires as law enforcement collapsed.

The latest data shows that almost a million hectares of rainforest have been burned in the past year. In the month to 26 September, fires soared to their highest levels in a decade. Brazil's national space research agency, INPE, reported 36,850 fire alerts in the region, more than double than in the whole month in 2021.

The increase may be because of those illegally destroying the forest taking a final opportunity to grab land before the election, according to Amazon researchers.

"Bolsonaro has dragged Brazil back to the wild west days we thought we'd left behind," said Adriana Ramos, at Brazil's Instituto Socioambiental, which works to protect Indigenous peoples and their forest homes. "It's no exaggeration, then, to say that the Amazon's fate rests on the outcome of our election on 2 October. If Bolsonaro wins another term in office, the world's biggest rainforest could pass its tipping point. If he loses, we have the chance to bring it - and Brazil - back from the brink."

Brazilian Indigenous people protest for the demarcation of Indigenous land and over the murder of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, in São Paulo, Brazil. Photograph: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images

Ramos said violent conflicts and murders of Indigenous people and forest protectors by land-grabbers have risen sharply since Bolsonaro became president. She said: "Those perceived as obstacles to their activities - including [murdered activist and journalist] Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, and numerous Indigenous people, such as the forest protector Paulo Paulino Guajajara - paid the ultimate price."

Dr Erika Berenguer, an Amazon deforestation expert at the University of Oxford, UK, told New Scientist: "I don't say this lightly as a scientist, but this is the most important election ever in Brazil for the Amazon and its survival."

Luciana Gatti at INPE, whose research showed the doubling of Amazon CO ₂ emissions under Bolsonaro, said the rainforest was changing dramatically because of the collapse in law enforcement and aggressive deforestation during the president's tenure. "This is a big risk not only for Brazil but for the whole planet," she said. "The reduction in law enforcement promotes the feeling of impunity for environmental crimes."

The research by Gatti's team, under review by the journal Nature, is based on hundreds of air samples collected in small planes above the Amazon over the last decade and showed "alarming" results. CO ₂ emissions rose by 89% in 2019 and 122% in 2020, compared with the 2010-18 average.

In 2020, the rise in emissions was mainly because of a 74% increase in deforestation and a 42% rise in the area burned by fires. In the same year, the number of fines paid for environmental crimes fell by 89% and the number of offences recorded by the authorities fell by 54%, with a similar situation in 2019.

Gatti's team also produced the earlier research showing the Amazon rainforest has been transformed from a carbon sink to a source, meaning it is accelerating global heating rather than slowing it down. Most Amazon destruction is the result of beef production, with soy growing and mining also factors.

"The Amazon is getting dangerously close to a crucial tipping point, which could see large areas transform from a resilient, moist rainforest into a dry, fire-ravaged, and irreversibly degraded state," said Mike Barrett at WWF.

The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

"What we are witnessing is the end of the Amazon," said Angela Kuczach, director of Rede Pro UC - National Network for Protected Areas in Brazil. "Right here in the heart of the southern Amazon, we are exchanging forest for desert, and biodiversity for ashes. We can no longer say we're going to lose the Amazon in 20 or 30 years; we are losing it right now."

Bolsonaro told world leaders at the UN general assembly last week that Brazil was a "reference to the world" for environment and sustainable development. "Two-thirds of the Brazilian territory remains covered by native vegetation, which is found exactly as it was when Brazil was discovered in 1500 [by Spanish colonists]," he said. "In the Brazilian Amazon, more than 80% of the forest remains untouched, contrary to what is reported by the mainstream national and international media."

Brazil's justice ministry claims to have been conducting a police operation since 2021 to fight illegal forest destruction and to safeguard Indigenous areas.

Most opinion polls suggest Lula is close to securing the overall majority of votes needed in Sunday's first round to avoid a runoff against Bolsonaro in late October. Lula has said he will reverse Bolsonaro's legal changes, reform environmental agencies and drive illegal miners out of indigenous lands. Under the presidency of Lula and his Workers' party successor, Dilma Rousseff, deforestation fell by 72% from 2004 to 2016.

Nevertheless, reversing the impact of Bolsonaro will be challenging, according to Izabella Teixeira, Lula's environment adviser and Brazil's environment minister from 2010 to 2016.

"This is a huge challenge and is completely different than it was in the past," she told New Scientist.

If Lula wins the presidency and recreates the successful reduction in deforestation in his previous term, forest destruction would fall by 90% over the next decade, according to analysis published by Carbon Brief. More than 75,000km ² of Amazon rainforest would be saved, researchers estimated.

Gatti said countries and consumers outside Brazil could also help. "We need to have an international commitment with countries, that they don't buy the products that result in the destruction of nature," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fate of Amazon rests on Brazil election, say experts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
he fate of the Amazon rests on Brazil's national election on Sunday, according to experts, who say a continuation of the rampant destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro could push the world's biggest rainforest past an irreversible tipping point.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nearly half of the planet's bird species are in decline, according to a definitive report that paints the grimmest picture yet of the destruction of avian life.

The State of the World's Birds report, which is released every four years by BirdLife International, shows that the expansion and intensification of agriculture is putting pressure on 73% of species. Logging, invasive species, exploitation of natural resources and climate breakdown are the other main threats.

Globally, 49% of bird species are declining, one in eight are threatened with extinction and at least 187 species are confirmed or suspected to have gone extinct since 1500. Most of these have been endemic species living on islands, although there is an increase in birds now going extinct on larger land masses, particularly in tropical regions. In Ethiopia, for example, the conversion of grassland to farmland has caused an 80% decrease in endemic Liben larks since 2007. Just 6% of bird species globally are increasing.

Bird populations in decline around the world. Photograph: BirdLife International and Dogeatcog

Since 1970, 2.9 billion individual birds (29% of the total) have been destroyed in North America. The picture is just as bleak in other parts of the world - since 1980, 600 million birds (19%) have been destroyed in Europe, with previously abundant species such as the common swift, common snipe and rook among those slipping towards extinction. Europe's farmland birds have shown the most significant declines: 57% have disappeared as a result of increased mechanisation, use of chemicals and converting land into crops. In Australia, 43% of abundant seabird species have declined between 2000 and 2016.

Dr Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at BirdLife International, said: "We have to stop these declines and start getting on track for recovery. Our future, as well as the world's birds, depends on it. If we continue to unravel the fabric of life, we're going to continue to place our own future at threat."

Silvery-cheeked hornbills in the western Usambara mountains near Lushoto, Tanzania. Photograph: John Warburton-Lee Photography/Alamy

The report is made up of a compendium of other studies, and because birds are the best-studied group on the planet, it gives an idea of the state of nature more generally. "Birds are useful for telling us about the state of the planet. What they say is that nature is in poor condition, lots of species are in decline," said Butchart.

Birds are cornerstones of healthy ecosystems, so their disappearance is likely to have myriad negative knock-on effects. Hornbills, for example, disperse large seeds in tropical forests; turkey vultures dispose of organic waste, while seabirds help in the cycle of nutrients between sea and land, keeping coral reefs healthy.

The previous State of the World's Birds report, released in 2018, found 40% of bird species worldwide in decline.

Wildfires feature more prominently in this report than previous editions, having increased and ravaged previously unaffected habitats. The succession of heatwaves, droughts and floods in recent years will lead to widespread species extinctions if they continue, researchers warn, highlighting the importance of addressing the nature and climate crises at the same time.

A Bahama warbler. The birds' habitat was destroyed when Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas in 2019. Photograph: blickwinkel/Alamy

Growing evidence links the health of bird populations to human health. Covid-19 is a warning of what could happen if we continue to destroy the natural world, with 70% of zoonotic diseases originating in wildlife. A highly pathogenic variant of avian flu - the result of intensive farming - has driven rapid declines in some bird populations this year. More than 300 outbreaks have been reported in UK seabird colonies.

The report comes ahead of the Cop15 meeting in Montreal in December, a once-in-a-decade opportunity to create new legislation to tackle the biodiversity crisis. Butchart hopes the findings will feed into the final statement from Montreal. "The key action needed now by governments is to make sure a really ambitious and bold global biodiversity framework is adopted. We've got to bend this curve, so by 2030 we're on a mission of being nature positive," he said.

This means increasing the number and quality of protected areas, conserving remaining habitats and restoring those that have been degraded. Preventing the illegal killing of birds, managing invasive species, reducing fisheries' bycatch and preventing overexploitation of natural resources will all help.

The secretary bird is classified as endangered due to destruction of its habitat in sub-Saharan Africa. Photograph: Graham Purse/BirdLife

The report is not all gloom. According to BirdLife, between 21 and 32 bird species would have gone extinct since 1993 without conservation work. It cites the creation of a new seabird haven the size of France in the North Atlantic, estimated to protect 5 million birds.

Juliet Vickery, chief executive of the British Trust for Ornithology, who was not involved in compiling the report, said: "The fact that nearly half of all bird species are declining and one in eight is at risk of extinction reinforces the fact that we are living through a biodiversity crisis. It requires action at every level, from local to global. This carries a strong warning about the health of our natural world."

The South American harp y eagle, which stands 1 metre (3 feet) tall and feeds on monkeys and sloths, is one of the world's largest birds of prey. It was uplisted from near threatened to vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list in 2021 because of a combination of forest loss, hunting, poaching and collisions with power lines. It has declined by 50% in 60 years.

The secretary bird, a raptor from sub-Saharan Africa, went from being vulnerable to endangered in 2020 after habitat degradation driven by the burning of grasslands and intensive livestock grazing. Birds are also captured for the wildlife trade.

The lesser florican, a species endemic to the Indian subcontinent whose males perform leaping rituals to get the attention of females, has declined by 90% in 20 years, mainly because of the loss of grassland habitats and the predation of its chicks by feral dogs. There are believed to be fewer than 1,000 mature individuals left, and it is now critically endangered.

The impressive vocal abilities of the Central American yellow-naped Amazon has made it one of the most sought-after parrots in the pet trade. It has declined by more than 80% in 30 years, mainly due to poaching and the expansion of agriculture, and as of 2022 is critically endangered.

The Bahama warbler was badly affected by Hurricane Dorian in 2019, especially on Grand Bahama, where 95% of its habitat is believed to have been destroyed. It was listed as endangered in 2020.
Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Half of world's bird species in decline as destruction of avian life intensifies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nearly half of the planet's bird species are in decline, according to a definitive report that paints the grimmest picture yet of the destruction of avian life. The State of the World's Birds report, which is released every four years by BirdLife International, shows that the expansion and intensification of agriculture is putting pressure on 73% of species.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
'A powerful solution': activists push to make ecocide an international crime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
California winemaker Julia Jackson has long grasped the threats posed by the ongoing global climate change crisis, from more intense wildfires and hurricanes to rising sea levels. But for her, those ideas crossed over from the abstract to the tangible when her home was razed by the Kincade wildfire that devastated her native Sonoma county in 2019.

"I lost everything - all my belongings," Jackson said. "It shook me to my core."

But Jackson didn't just use the resources she's accumulated through her second-generation proprietorship of the US's ninth-largest wine company, Jackson Family Wines, to rebuild her life following that disaster. She's since signed on to lead the US chapter of a global movement to make the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems a prosecutable, international crime against peace known as ecocide.

Jackson and her compatriots in Stop Ecocide spent the last week in New York City, meeting with dignitaries participating in Climate Week events as well as the United Nations' General Assembly. They also marched from Foley Square to Battery Park in Manhattan in one of 450 strike demonstrations planned worldwide on 23 September as part of the Fridays for Future movement, which demands climate reparations and justice.

Among other things, they urged voters to cast ballots in the US's upcoming midterm elections in favor of candidates who are against things like deforestation and want to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which are some of the factors contributing to global warming and its effects: longer-lasting wildfires, more potent hurricanes and coastal erosion.

Yet topping the group's list of demands was for countries across the world to recognize ecocide as an offense against peace - carrying fines and even prison time - through the UN's international criminal court.

Jackson was quick to point out recently that Stop Ecocide doesn't want to see every day, working class car drivers or frequent airline passengers be charged as international criminals and hauled into the same court which prosecutes genocide and wartime atrocities. They just want an ecocide charge to be an arrow in the quiver of those trying to rein in government-level policymakers whose agendas are exacerbating the climate crisis.

As others have done over the years, Jackson - who also leads the climate-focused nonprofit Grounded - singled out the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro as an ideal candidate to be prosecuted for ecocide because of the accelerated rate at which the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed under his administration.

Bolsonaro, among other things, has eliminated environmental protection programs meant to shield the Amazon, which absorbs greenhouse gases and is an important line of defense against global warming. He has also sought to open indigenous reservations - along with other protected lands - to mining and agricultural business ventures, exacerbating harmful emissions.

"It's not chopping down one tree" that ecocide would aim to criminalize, Jackson said. "It's severe mass destruction of the earth."

There are hurdles, including procedural ones, for the movement to overcome. Two-thirds of the countries recognizing the UN's international criminal court would need to approve adding ecocide as an offense.

That translates to a total of more than 80 countries whose approval is required, and even then nations opposed to ratifying it could limit its enforcement over their territories and citizens.

Nonetheless, Jackson estimates about two dozen countries at this point have expressed a recorded interest in the concept of classifying ecocide as an international crime, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Iceland, France, Mexico and Chile.

She hopes the movement's momentum only continues building from there, especially after the last week.

As the executive director of the global Stop Ecocide movement, Jojo Mehta, put it in a statement: "We have to ... prevent mass damage and destruction of the living world ... by recognizing it as the crime we all know it to be.

"Ecocide law is a powerful solution to protect nature, climate and our future while providing a guiding legal framework for positive change."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'A powerful solution': activists push to make ecocide an international crime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California winemaker Julia Jackson has long grasped the threats posed by the ongoing global climate change crisis, from more intense wildfires and hurricanes to rising sea levels. But for her, those ideas crossed over from the abstract to the tangible when her home was razed by the Kincade wildfire that devastated her native Sonoma county in 2019.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
American-Made Challenge: Solar Prize Round 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American-Made Challenge: Solar Prize Round 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Join a brainstorming and planning session at MakeHaven to help you develop an idea to submit to the Department of Energy Solar Innovation contest. This information and ideation session will provide an overview presentation of the competition, its goals and requirements for submission.During this session we will introduce the challenges the solar industry faces, then walk you through a brainstorming and ideation exercise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
American-Made Challenge: Solar Prize Round 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American-Made Challenge: Solar Prize Round 6

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Join a brainstorming and planning session at MakeHaven to help you develop an idea to submit to the Department of Energy Solar Innovation contest. This information and ideation session will provide an overview presentation of the competition, its goals and requirements for submission.During this session we will introduce the challenges the solar industry faces, then walk you through a brainstorming and ideation exercise.

# data[].attributes.headline
Guardian bookshop is a treasure trove of interesting helpful books

# data[].attributes.subject
Guardian bookshop is a treasure trove of interesting helpful books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Books - Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning - The environment - Page 1 - The Guardian Bookshop

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We use cookies (and other similar technologies) to collect data to improve your shopping experience.By using our website, you’re agreeing to the collection of data as described in our Privacy Policy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Thousands call for ‘climate reparations and justice’ in global protests

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fridays for Future ‘strikes’ in about 450 places demanded rich countries pay for damage from global heating

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Pacific island of Vanuatu has called for a first-of-its-kind global treaty to phase out the use of fossil fuels in a bold public call at the UN general assembly.

Speaking in New York on Saturday, Nikenike Vurobaravu, the Vanuatuan president, urged countries to join his country's bid for a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty.

"We call for the development of a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty to face down coal, oil and gas production in line with 1.5C and enable a global just transition for every worker, community and nation with fossil fuel dependence," he said.

Urging others to join his call, which would make ecocide punishable by the international criminal court, he added: "We call on states to join the group of nations proposing to include the crime of ecocide in the Rome statute. Acting with the knowledge of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment can no longer be tolerated."

Vanuatu, an archipelago of about 80 islands, has tried to lead by example in its efforts to reduce fossil fuel dependency. The carbon-negative country, rated one of the most at-risk countries for natural disasters by the UN, has set itself a target to completely stop the use of fossil fuels by 2030.

The treaty, supported by the Vatican and the World Health Organization, has so far been backed by more than 65 cities and governments internationally.

Brianna Fruean, a Pacific climate activist, said the treaty is a "vital investment" in the future. "They've heard the call from our youth that there's no future for us in fossil fuels and listened," she said. "It's time for other world leaders to do the same."

Tongan Pacific climate activist Kalo Afeaki said: "We need countries to be bold because we have run out of time."

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

She added: "The future scares me ... we need countries to endorse the fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty and we need them to do so now."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Vanuatu makes bold call for global treaty to phase out fossil fuels

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Pacific island of Vanuatu has called for a first-of-its-kind global treaty to phase out the use of fossil fuels in a bold public call at the UN general assembly. Speaking in New York on Saturday, Nikenike Vurobaravu, the Vanuatuan president, urged countries to join his country's bid for a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty.

# data[].attributes.headline
Commit to Memory exhibition at Seton Gallery

# data[].attributes.subject
Commit to Memory exhibition at Seton Gallery

# data[].attributes.body
Closes oct 5th don't miss it!

# data[].attributes.body
go visit our friends at Ecoworks for all of your art material needs at great prices....

# data[].attributes.headline
Oct 29th re imagining new haven  Climathon!

# data[].attributes.subject
Oct 29th re imagining new haven  Climathon!

# data[].attributes.body
join us for a collage workshop at the climathon!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Reimagining New Haven in the Era of Climate Change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Reimagining New Haven in the Era of Climate Change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The group is planning the New Haven Climathon, through which we hope to increase awareness of the local effects of climate change, now and in the future, and engage people from all walks of life in designing intervention...

# data[].attributes.headline
october 1st for the clean up then an art show at Seton Gallery University of New Haven!

# data[].attributes.subject
october 1st for the clean up then an art show at Seton Gallery University of New Haven!

# data[].attributes.body
oct 1st waterways Clean up with artist sTO Len

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
y family have lived in our indigenous territory for generations; the Maranhão region of northern Brazil is my ancestral home. For centuries, across 400,000 hectares of land, my people - the Guajajara - have preserved our traditions and the natural world there, looking after the Amazon rainforest, the scrublands and hills. Our traditions help us sustain the environment, and in return nature provides for us: trees give us food and medicine, we hunt animals, water sustains all life.

Our community of 15,000 Indigenous people inherited our rituals and customs from those who went before us. Also passed down to us, however, was the need to fight. Since 1500, when the Portuguese arrived (uninvited, of course) to our country, our land has been under constant attack.

As a child, my grandfather explained all this to me. A warrior of the forest, he understood the grave dangers people and the planet faced. He's no longer with us, but I continue his legacy. Because in recent decades, the threat and violence has got worse.

Our environment is being destroyed for capitalist greed and gain. Around us is illegal logging, hunting and mining, the poisoning of soil and water by businesses, deforestation and local communities being displaced.

Invasions of our lands and massacres of our people are common. In 2007, one of our tribal leaders, Tomé Guajajara, was killed in his village during an armed invasion by loggers. It made us realise we needed to formalise our fight.

In 2012, we found 72 illegal entry points in our territory which needed closing. In 2013, we formalised our efforts, founding the Guardians of the Forest. Since then, six Guardians have been killed, most recently Janildo Guajajara who was shot dead last month.

We are local people taking matters into our own hands to protect ourselves and our land. For me, there was no question I would be part of this resistance. I've witnessed these murders of close relatives, friends and neighbours. Not a single killer has been put behind bars. Those who perpetrate this violence - and the authorities that are complicit - show a total disregard for our way of life.

When we see an illegal camp or identify a new incursion, we Guardians have an advantage. Our knowledge of the forest runs far deeper than theirs. Our networks coordinate, study the area, and prepare to act. We are defending ourselves and our territory, yes, but that involves fighting back. We look for the best way to approach while minimising the risks to our safety.

We agree on tactics, then surround the camps, and destroy their huts and equipment. We dismantle their trucks, and burn their tractors. They are left with no choice but to go packing.

All we want is to preserve our land and to protect ourselves. Our enemies want us dead. They have pistols and automatics, weapons far more deadly than our bows and arrows and a few hunting rifles. And they show little regard for the authorities or the law.

And who can blame them? We send so much information to the government, but they never take notice. We can't trust the environment agency, the military or the police to do anything. In our view, they're all complicit in these crimes - they have the power to act, but they refuse. And European countries send money in international aid.It's simply corrupt.

Our resistance is working. Today there are only five illegal entry points into our land.

Sign up to Inside Saturday

The only way to get a look behind the scenes of our brand new magazine, Saturday. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

We need the world to listen; to see the violence against us and say "no more". But this struggle extends beyond our territory's borders - it's about the future of our shared planet, and the natural world surviving. It's about your grandchildren and mine having a chance at a future.

The environment is being destroyed: food and water will be morescarce, disasters more frequent, temperatures rising even higher. I have no option but to act: my life - and the lives of those in my family - depend on it. But in all honesty, that's true of every person on this planet.

Survival International has been supporting the Guardians' work.
As told to Michael Segalov

Do you have an experience to share? Email experience@theguardian.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Experience: I guard the Amazon rainforest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
y family have lived in our indigenous territory for generations; the Maranhão region of northern Brazil is my ancestral home. For centuries, across 400,000 hectares of land, my people - the Guajajara - have preserved our traditions and the natural world there, looking after the Amazon rainforest, the scrublands and hills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cities are defined, by most, by their built environment: towering buildings, miles of roads and sidewalks, modes of transportation, and public utilities. But with the threats of climate change looming, researchers are looking for ways to turn vast swaths of natural areas in urban environments into tools to help offset the significant greenhouse gas emissions that cities produce.

In a recent study published in the journal One Earth, researchers from the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology conducted a multi-scale lifecycle assessment that explored methods for utilizing urban tree waste. Wide-scale adoption of more eco-friendly uses of urban tree waste could significantly reduce global warming potential in the United States, according to the researchers' findings.

"Cities have lots of trees and they will not live forever," says co-author Yuan Yao, assistant professor of industrial ecology and sustainable systems. "You also have leaves and other tree waste. We wanted to investigate different ways we could use this waste, the potential pathways and benefits, to create something of value."

According to Kai Lan, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao's lab and the lead author of the study, there are roughly 50 million hectares of urban forest in the United States. As a result, more than 45 million dry tons of urban tree waste are generated every year in the United States - waste that usually ends up in landfills to be disposed of, contributing greatly to greenhouse gas emissions.

The study outlines several different methods for creating value from urban tree waste, including turning tree trunks into wood chips or lumber for wood products, composting leaves, and turning tree residue into biochar, a carbon-rich material made from biomass. Yao specifically highlighted the numerous applications for biochar, which include agriculture, energy, wastewater treatment, and carbon storage.

This all aligns with the circular economy concept - turning waste into something of value. But it's not just traditional waste, like plastic or paper. Tree waste is very important, too."

The researchers caution that the environmental benefits of new uses for urban tree waste will vary across states and cities. Bingquan Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in Yao's lab and an author of the study, says that several major U.S. cities have developed urban tree management strategies and that those efforts should be expanded.

"I hope this paper can provide some quantitative evidence that programs like these are working in climate mitigation efforts," says Yao, who added that she also hopes this study lays the foundation for global collaboration on the topic.

"This all aligns with the circular economy concept - turning waste into something of value," says Lan. "But it's not just traditional waste, like plastic or paper. Tree waste is very important, too."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Circular Utilization of Urban Tree Waste Can Help Mitigate Climate Change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cities are defined, by most, by their built environment: towering buildings, miles of roads and sidewalks, modes of transportation, and public utilities. But with the threats of climate change looming, researchers are looking for ways to turn vast swaths of natural areas in urban environments into tools to help offset the significant greenhouse gas emissions that cities produce.