Daily Insights on Saving the Planet
Climate Change: How Did We End Up Here?
If we take our eyes off of the money and power for a moment, we are exposed to bigger issues that we have been ignoring for a long while now. Yes, we are talking about climate change. It is probably the only matter that humans, as a race, should be really concerned about. After all, […] The post Climate Change: How Did We End Up Here? appeared first on Nature Talkies - We Talk about Nature.
Top Reasons Why We Should Properly Recycle E-Waste
We live in a “futuristic” digital era, driven by innovativeness and a forward-looking approach. Each day we witness the emergence of a new technology that discards the ideas from the past. This might seem fascinating but unknowingly, technology advancement is resulting into exponential amounts of electronic trash every year. As such, proper e-waste recycling has […] The post Top Reasons Why We Should Properly Recycle E-Waste appeared first on Nature Talkies - We Talk about Nature.
Benefits of Going ‘Solar’ at Home or Business
“Solar power is the last energy resource that isn’t owned yet – nobody taxes the sun yet” ~ Bonnie Rait. And before energy resources like coal and oil get exhausted from our Mother Earth, let’s save the mankind with solar power. Keeping in view the fast-paced depletion and overutilisation of natural resources today, the benefits […] The post Benefits of Going ‘Solar’ at Home or Business appeared first on Nature Talkies - We Talk about Nature.
Potentially Harmful Environmental Factors to Keep an Eye on
“It is our collective and individual responsibility…to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live” – Dalai Lama There exists constant interactivity between humans and a wide range of environmental factors. These interactions play a major role in affecting our health and quality of life. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), […] The post Potentially Harmful Environmental Factors to Keep an Eye on appeared first on Nature Talkies - We Talk about Nature.
Starhawk, Henry Vaughan, and the Environmental Imagination
By Zane Johnson Times of widespread crisis often challenge conventional ways of being in and seeing the world. Sometimes these challenges take on a millenarian character, heralding the end of an epoch or the dawning of a new age.
Destruction of habitat is creating the perfect conditions for diseases like COVID-19 to emerge
Republished from an article by John Vidal, the Environment Editor of Ensia with permission:
As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the novel coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics.
March 17, 2020 — Mayibout 2 is not a healthy place. The 150 or so people who live in the village, which sits on the south bank of the Ivindo River, deep in the great Minkebe forest in northern Gabon, are used to occasional bouts of diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever and sleeping sickness.
Mostly they shrug them off.
But in January 1996, Ebola, a deadly virus then barely known to humans, unexpectedly spilled out of the forest in a wave of small epidemics. The disease killed 21 of 37 villagers who were reported to have been infected, including a number who had carried, skinned, chopped or eaten a chimpanzee from the nearby forest.
I traveled to Mayibout 2 in 2004 to investigate why deadly diseases new to humans were emerging from biodiversity “hot spots” like tropical rainforests and bushmeat markets in African and Asian cities.
It took a day by canoe and then many hours down degraded forest logging roads passing Baka villages and a small gold mine to reach the village. There, I found traumatized people still fearful that the deadly virus, which kills up to 90% of the people it infects, would return.
Villagers told me how children […]
GEF says the Coronavirus was a collision between human systems and natural systems… and what we can do about it.
The Global Environment Facility’s new report published on May 16th, 2020 says “The coronavirus pandemic has forced us all to confront how environmental degradation bringing wildlife and people too close together endangers economies and societies alike.”
“The coronavirus pandemic that has shuttered most of the world in 2020 has its roots in the environmental degradation that the Global Environment Facility and its partners are working to stop. It is increasingly clear that to manage this crisis and avert future ones, we need to understand the root cause of zoonotic diseases – namely, a collision between human systems and natural systems.”
“Recognizing the urgency of this moment, and the high stakes for governments and businesses who are starting to think through economic recovery plans, the GEF Secretariat has outlined a set of steps for the immediate, medium, and longer term to help address the present situation and reduce the probability of new environmental crises emerging in the foreseeable future. The response spans measures to address wildlife trading, deforestation, urban sprawl, and other pressures on ecosystems that are bringing wild animals and humans in dangerous proximity.”
“The response also includes efforts to support a green economic recovery consistent with sustainable and nature-based development. These steps focus on the acceleration of needed transformations to economic and social systems to reduce their conflict with nature – building on efforts already underway by the GEF-funded Good Growth Partnershipand the GEF Impact Programs on Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration; Sustainable Cities; and Sustainable Forest Management.”
“The […]
Prince Charles urges a green recovery after lockdown ends
An opportunity to “Build Back Better” after the Coronavirus pandemic
HRH The Prince of Wales it to launch a “Great Reset“ project on June 1st with Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Form.
A Sustainable Markets Initiative spokesman, speaking to the Daily Telegraph said “No-one could have anticipated this horrific pandemic but one unmistakable positive consequence of it is that the environmental pollution that has been so hard to slow in recent decades has virtually ground to a halt in some key areas almost overnight.”
“Before industries simply return to the old ways of doing things, this group, led by the Prince and Professor Schwab, is setting out to show we have a chance to recover by doing things differently and with a lot less negative impact on the world we live in.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Prince Charles has been working with global leaders and the WEF “to determine how Sustainable Markets can serve as a catalyst to ‘build back better’ and to create a more environmentally sustainable future”.
“The Prince believes that as countries and businesses around the world look to rebuild after this crisis, there is a unique but narrow window of opportunity to accelerate the sustainability agenda in a way that puts people and planet first,” he added.
“Today we see growing momentum around a ‘green recovery’.
Speaking at Davos, Prince Charles said “The world is in the midst of a crisis”, with “global warming, climate change, and the devastating loss of biodiversity, the greatest threats humanity has ever […]
Can Earth survive ?
“Can Earth survive ? The simple answer is a resounding “yes.” When humans are gone, as the fossil record suggests will happen eventually, Earth will clean itself up and take on yet another new look, just as it has done many times in the past. In many ways, Earth’s existence has been tested far more dramatically in the past than by anything humans have thrown at it.”
Jeremy Hsu
The perennial cry to save the earth
“The perennial cry to “Save the Earth” is odd. Planet Earth survives massive asteroid strikes — it’ll survive anything we throw at it. But life on earth will not.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson