biodiversity – Learning, Science and Society

What could be more innocent this weekend than a brisk stroll through your local shopping mall? All air-conditioned and centrally-heated, antiseptically clean, and crammed full of shops with must-have frocks and trainers and clothes and make-up and jewellery and mobile phones and shirts and trousers and computers and chocolates and more clothes and shoes and cosmetics and toys and even more clothes and accessories and skirts and furniture and even more cosmetics…..might you, have you, contributed to the tearing-down of trees in some far-away rain forest?

According to Global Canopy, you probably have.[1] They are a non-profit company that tries to monitor the role of the world’s largest corporations in the sustainability of the planet, looking at production, supply chains transport- all the aspects of a modern operating firm, in fact. What impressed us was the way that they try to work with companies by providing data and feasible strategies instead of just standing outside in the rain with placards. But they are no patsies, either. Get this from their website

The 10th edition of the Forest 500( their regular survey-LSS) reveals that almost a quarter (23%) of the companies and financial institutions that have featured in each of the 10 annual assessments have still not published a single commitment on addressing deforestation…….Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds (63%) of companies that have set commitments are failing to publish adequate evidence of their implementation

They go on to name names, which we dare not here, for lack of a proper legal department. But you’ll see them tomorrow during the course of your excursion. And that’s before you stop off in the Food Concessions on level four………

Why is all this important? Well we at LSS think that deforestation if one of the major causes of the worlds ills. It not only contributes humongously to global warming, it interferes catastrophically with hydrological cycles, driving desertification and land degradation. (ever wondered where all those migrants come from?) It may even be releasing new pathogens such as respiratory viruses into the human ecosphere, as we have alluded to before in these pages (LSS Passim) The World Counts has a nifty little website here to bring you somewhat up to speed [2].

Now we at LSS are not urging you to give up the accoutrements of civilised life today. We are Whigs, not Cistercian Monks, and certain member of the Editorial Board might find immediate changes to their lifestyles very uncomfortable indeed. But look again at the way Global Canopy work; with the grain of corporate life (weak pun intended) Can you ,should you find ways to bring pressure on companies by investing differently? By purchasing a little more slowly, and perhaps a little more judiciously? By getting just one item a week from a charity shop? If you want to donate to, or help these people in some other way, we would applaud that, too. As Tesco used to say back in the 1990s; every little helps.

Thanks to G Herbert for this story

[1]https://globalcanopy.org/press/10-years-of-data-reveals-the-major-companies-persistently-ignoring-their-role-in-driving-deforestation/

[2] https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/why-is-deforestation-a-problem

#deforestation #supply chains #palm oil #global warming #shopping malls #consumer

Every so often we receive a well-meaning, but slightly plaintive communication from people who yearn for improved methods of carbon capture, by which they mean huge industrial undertakings not unlike the filthy power stations which they are meant to replace. “Good point!” we cry “but it’s going to take years to perfect the technology. Then scale it up. By which time it will all be much too late.” What if there are far more efficient carbon capture stations already out there, cheap to develop, quickly scalable, which might in addition act as huge natural flood defences. Before you reply “too good to be true” have a look at these two stories about wetlands which have recently crossed our screens.

Mangroves in Brazil Brazil has had more than its fair share of bad ecological news recently, what with chopping down massive swathes of the Amazon and so on. But now Mr Bolsonaro has gone, we are able to report a more hopeful story, by Maurice Saverese via Apple News.[1] A new project in the Guanabara Bay, near Rio De Janeiro has planted up to 30 000 mango trees. Not only will these act as a massive flood defence, stabilising the coastline against erosion, but will provide a valuable new source of income to local fisherman as crabs and other economically valuable species return to the healthy waters.

Wetlands in Washington Since the 1780s the USA has lost about half of its wetlands. Which is a shame because although wetlands comprise just 10% of the world’s surface, they contain perhaps 25% of its soil carbon. That at least is the estimate of a team from Washington University, who are investigating the potential of vast carbon-capturing wetlands beneath the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest [2] You’ll have to get past the paywall for this one from Natalia Mesa of the Atlantic, again via Apple News. but it’s well worth it. Because the rainy north west also includes parts of California, Oregon and much of western Canada. If the Americans can only keep out Trump and his supporters, then once again they might have saved the planet, this time on a massive scale.

Sometimes the answer lies not in doing new things, but adapting old ones to new uses.

thanks to P Seymour

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/rio-de-janeiro-bay-reforestation-shows-mangroves-power-to-mitigate-climate-disasters

[2]https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/05/wetlands-forest-unmapped-carbon-washington/678513/?utm_source=apple_news

#wetlands #carbon capture #mangroves #washington state #donald trump

Tag: biodiversity

Are YOU a cause of deforestation?

Will Wetlands save the World?