The Climate Crisis Is a Call to Action. These 5 Steps Helped Me Figure Out How to Be of Use BY KATHARINE WILKINSON JULY 19, 2021 Dr. Katharine Wilkinson is an author, teacher, co-founder of The All We Can Save Project, and co-host of the podcast A Matter of Degrees. Her books on climate include All We Can Save, The Drawdown Review, Drawdown, and Between God & Green.
Anyone who spends their days working to address the climate crisis, as I do, hears this question again and again: What can I do? On the one hand, the question brings me joy: so many people want to help, to be part of fixing the mess we’re in. On the other hand, I find myself feeling twitchy. That’s because I hear in the question a craving for simple answers to an enormously complex challenge—but even more so because I feel responsible for providing a good answer. Science tells us that wholesale transformation of society is urgent. I want all minds, hearts, and hands to be able to make their best contributions, and I understand the agony that not knowing how can brew.
I follow Dr Lertzman on twitter at @reneelertzman· Her pinned tweet, which introduces this TED talk, is “How do you feel about our planet situation? Do you feel a mix of complicated emotions? What does a pandemic do to our climate anxiety?”
Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin· What might it look like to respond to our crises with a different worldview than the one that created them? A few months ago, thanks to an invitation from Oregon State Univ. I shared some of my answers to that questions. #multisolving In this talk, Elizabeth Sawin, co-founder and co-director of Climate Interactive, presents “Multisolving Our Way Forward: COVID-19, Health, Justice, and Climate
Another eco-heroine (and I am not deliberately limiting my choice to women, it is just that they are leaders in the field we are looking at this month. You know, all that yin) is Dr Katherine Hayhoe. Her book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World is due to be published on 21 September. Her website has a link to numerous video clips of her and she tweets as @KHayhoe. She has 185k followers on twitter, where she describes herself as ‘Climate scientist, Chief Scientist @nature_org, polisci professor, knitter, pastor’s wife, @joinsciencemoms. UN Champion of the Earth’

Revive Our World has launched a petition which you might like to sign:

Nature is in crisis.Join our campaign and demand legally binding targets to Revive our World.
“In 2020 the importance of having nature in our lives has never been clearer, but the crisis facing nature is huge. So huge that our wellbeing, our economic future, and our very survival depend on the choices we make now. If everyone works together, we have time to turn it around. And when we say everyone, we mean everyone. We need politicians with the power to make big changes to help us build the world we want to live in.” They are calling for: -Laws that protect wildlife and green space for people and nature. -An economic recovery that prioritises green jobs, infrastructure and sustainability. -Global agreements committed to solving the climate and nature crisis. -Farming practices and food production that’s also good for the environment.

Have you caught up with Green New Deal yet?

The Green New Deal is our map to a future worth fighting for.
This decade is a fork in the road for humanity. We’ve been following one path for decades, guided by rules written by people who do not have our interests at heart – CEOs, politicians, and the elite defending their own wealth and power. To survive, we have to forge a new path for our economy to protect and build the things people really care about: things like health, fairness and community.
You can read their latest updates here.
Do you know the Plant Life website? “Every Flower Counts [ran from] Saturday 10th to Sunday 18th July! Simply count the number of flowers in a square metre patch of lawn and we’ll tell you how much nectar they’re producing and how many bees they’ll feed with your own Personal Nectar Score. If you did the survey last May, you’ll probably find your lawn is now home to more flowers – especially clover and selfheal – and producing more nectar at this time of year. And you’re likely to spot more pollinators such as bees and butterflies too. When it comes to providing vital nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other insects, every flower counts. And your lawn can help provide that feast. The more wild flowers you have in your lawn the more nectar will be produced. If you took part in #NoMowMay, #LetItBloomJune or haven’t mown at all this year, you’re likely to have many more wild flowers and lots more nectar. From your results, we’ll calculate a National Nectar Index to show how lawns across Britain are helping to feed our pollinators. We’ll also reveal the top ten lawn flowers and show you how to increase the number of flowers in your lawn. Find out more about No Mow May and Every Flower Counts in this webinar by Dr Trevor Dines.
And, while on the subject of Plant Life, do you know Bug Life?

Help Buglife save the planet

‘If we and the rest of the back-boned animals were to disappear overnight, the rest of the world would get on pretty well. But if the invertebrates were to disappear, the world’s ecosystems would collapse.’ Sir David Attenborough

And he did it – Bravo Jude! 103887 signatures on the petition this morning and Jude will get his debate.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/574678

Meet the schoolboy inspired by Extinction Rebellion who is walking 200 miles from Yorkshire to Westminster to lobby ministers about climate change

While most 11-year-olds will spend their summer holidays this year playing with friends and spending time with families, one schoolboy from West Yorkshire has very different plans. By Susie Beever , Yorkshire Post Sunday, 11th July 2021

Photograph courtesy of Yorkshire Post

Jude Walker is planning to walk from Hebden Bridge to Westminster to raise awareness of a petition calling for taxes on companies emitting greenhouse gases Aptly-named Jude Walker has mapped out a route to hike from the cobbles and canal towpaths of Hebden Bridge to the towering buildings of Westminster. Although only finishing his time at junior school this month, 11-year-old Jude has spent recent weeks undergoing ten-mile training walks and sending letters to dozens of MPs whose constituencies he plans to walk through on the ambitious challenge. Halifax Labour MP Holly Lynch is one of several MPs who replied to his letters, and has told him she would meet him at the start of his walk on Sunday, July 25. Jude Walker is planning to walk from Hebden Bridge to Westminster to raise awareness of a petition calling for taxes on companies emitting greenhouse gases Inspired by the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion, the youngster is carrying out the 200-mile journey, set to span over three weeks, in a bid to draw attention to a national campaign lobbying the Government to introduce harsher taxes on corporations who emit the most greenhouse gases. The so-called carbon tax would tax companies based on the amount of CO2 or other greenhouse gases emitted – with more charged for the more they emit. A petition for the tax has already garnered more than 33,000 signatures. “He just wants to see the petition reach 100,000 signatures so that it is discussed in Parliament.”

Courtesy of Yorkshire Post

Editor’s Note. This is an abbreviated version of the full article, which you can see here.

Microbes and solar power ‘could produce 10 times more food than plants’ , reported Damian Carrington in The Guardian on 21 June 2021.

All the components of the system exist, but Leger said they now need to be tested together and at scale, in particular the capturing of CO2 from the air and ensuring that used solar panels can be recycled. “For human food, there’s also a lot of regulation that needs to be overcome,” he said. Pete Iannetta, at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, said: ““It’s a really interesting concept – you are divorcing food production from land use, which would mean you could have all that land available for rewilding.” But he said food is not only composed of the main nutrients, like protein and carbohydrate: “There are an awful lot of secondary compounds that are important for your wellbeing.” Iannetta also questioned whether microbial foods would become mainstream: “For example, we have used algae for a long time as a potential food resource, but it’s still not widely accepted.”