A Scary Year For Climate Change

Scientific American - Cristine Russell

Scientists’ warnings about climate change have intensified over the past 12 months. Will world leaders finally listen?

Greta Thunberg outside the Swedish Parliament. Credit: Anders Hellberg Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

One year ago, the international scientific community could hardly have expected that Greta Thunberg, a teenager from Sweden, would become one of its greatest allies. Since beginning her weekly “School Strike for the Climate,” the petite 16-year-old has skillfully used her public appearances and powerful social media presence to push for bolder global action to reduce carbon emissions.

“Again and again, the same message,” she tweeted recently. “Listen to the scientists, listen to the scientists. Listen to the scientists!”

Well, what are the scientists saying? The answer, of course, is that they have been warning about severe global impacts from climate change for more than three decades. But over the past 12 months those warnings have intensified. Reports detailing the massive environmental, economic, and human consequences of unfettered global warming have come at a fast and furious pace. And, collectively, they are far scarier than the sum of their parts. (Click here to see a rundown.)

The deluge began last October, with the release of a special report from the United Nations’ global climate science authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the potential impacts of a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius or more. Three international IPCC working groups with 91 authors and editors from 40 countries examined 6,000-plus scientific studies and called for “global carbon dioxide emissions (to) start to decline well before 2030” to avoid the most severe consequences of global warming. It said “global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.”

The release of the report provided a “breakthrough” moment in public consciousness and press coverage, with countless soundbites, headlines, and images warning of a “12-year” deadline to head off “climate change catastrophe.” The “12-year” catchphrase was even more alarming than the IPCC’s already strong admonitions. The planet won’t implode in 2030, but further delays in major global actions will make it increasingly difficult to move to a low-carbon world.

In November, the United States’ Fourth National Climate Assessment, produced by government and outside experts, reinforced the gloom-and-doom message of the October IPCC report. “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth,” it warned. The Trump administration’s attempt to minimize media coverage of America’s climate report card by releasing it on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, backfired: The congressionally mandated report got double coverage as both an environmental and a political story.

The dire news didn’t abate as 2018 drew to a close. A December report from the World Health Organization (WHO) said that emissions from fossil fuel-powered electricity, transportation, and other sources are “a major contributor to health-damaging air pollution, which every year kills over seven million people.” It called extreme weather events linked to human-caused climate change “a clear and present danger to health security” and concluded the health benefits of addressing climate change “far outweigh the costs of meeting climate change goals.”

Just as the disastrous future impacts of climate change were coming into clearer focus, we also received sobering news about the present. Last December, the Global Carbon Project projected that carbon dioxide emissions worldwide reached an all-time high in 2018, up more than two percent after three years of almost no growth. A January 2019 U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report estimated an increase of nearly 3 percent in 2018 energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the largest jump since 2010 — reversing a trend that had seen three consecutive years of decline. The EIA estimated that total U.S. emissions would fall in 2019, and that prediction appears to be bearing out, due to a drop in coal consumption. However, total global carbon dioxide emissions will see a rise again for 2019, says Stanford University’s Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project’s Scientific Steering Committee.

Alarm bells about climate change impacts in the Arctic sounded throughout the year. In April, a NASA-funded study of the Greenland ice sheet, published online on Earth Day, found the mass loss of ice discharged into the ocean from glaciers on the world’s largest island had increased six-fold since the 1980s. Meanwhile, sea level had risen nearly 14 millimeters since 1972, with half of that in the last eight years. (Later, a severe mid-summer Arctic heat wave contributed to historic melting of the Greenland ice sheet, with 12.5 billion tons of ice melting into the ocean on a single day — the “biggest single-day volume loss on record,” according to the Washington Post).

A little-publicized Stanford University study, also released on Earth Day, found that global warming from fossil fuel use “very likely exacerbated global economic inequality” over the past 50 years. The study’s authors found that warming has likely enhanced economic growth in cooler, wealthier countries while dampening economic growth in hotter, poorer countries.

In May, a landmark U.N. biodiversity report provided another stark statistic: One million animal and plant species on Earth are threatened with extinction, and rates of extinction are “accelerating.” The report gave a devastating assessment of how climate change and global economic development over the past 50 years have impacted nature and threatened the health of ecosystems important to humans and all other species. The report’s research underpinnings are strong: a systematic review of some 15,000 scientific and government sources that also includes indigenous and local knowledge.

In August, on the heels of record-breaking global heat waves, from South Korea to northern Norway, another major IPCC special report called attention to land-related climate change threats. It found that “climate change, including increases in frequency and intensity of extremes, has adversely impacted food security and terrestrial ecosystems as well as contributed to desertification and land degradation in many regions” of the world. The report recommended sustainable land development and adaptation practices to combat further destruction.

The highly anticipated September 23rd U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York brought additional climate reports. On September 22nd, the U.N. Summit’s Science Advisory Group released United in Science, an ambitious synthesis connecting the dots between “the very latest authoritative” science and “concrete actions” to “halt the worst effects of climate change.” The IPCC released a post-summit blockbuster report outlining profound changes underway in the Earth’s oceans and frozen regions, including glaciers and ice sheets. The report concluded that warming oceans, melting ice, and rising sea levels are already affecting everything from coral reefs to the nearly 10 percent of the global population living in low-lying coastal areas — and negative impacts will greatly worsen in the future.

The oceans report capped 12 months of overwhelming scientific evidence of global climate change hazards. The consistent message is that severe climate-change damage is already well underway; some impacts will be long-lasting or irreversible; the damage disproportionately hits vulnerable populations; and combatting climate change will require unprecedented economic, social, and technological transformation. But, crucially, the reports say it is likely not too late to prevent the worst effects of global warming by adopting meaningful adaptation and mitigation strategies.

So, where does this leave us? I’d argue that, more than anything, we’re left with a heightened sense of urgency, as well as uncertainty, about immediate and forthcoming climate dangers. For many years, coverage of climate science reports had an implicit future tense, as in, “It’s a problem for your grandchildren.” Alas, the future came faster than science had predicted, and the world is now confronted with the reality of climate change-related extreme weather events and other threats. The frightening wildfires now racing through Southern and Northern California show what this climate-related new reality looks like for the country’s most populous state.

The upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference — the 25^th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the U.N. climate treaty — will once again put pressure on delegates from nearly 200 nations to deliver concrete action on promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement. (COP25 was set to be held in Santiago in early December before the Chilean government abruptly pulled out of hosting the event.) The disappointing substantive and political outcomes of the September summit in New York, particularly the lack of stronger commitments from big carbon emitters like China, India, and the U.S., mean expectations are low. The leadership vacuum left by American President Trump, with his strident pro-fossil-fuel rhetoric and planned exit from the Paris Agreement, makes things worse.

But don’t underestimate the persistence of Greta Thunberg and the growing Fridays for Future youth movement she inspired. An estimated 7.6 million people protested worldwide during September’s U.N. Climate Week. Strike organizers are planning a major global protest on Black Friday directed at COP25 decision-makers.

In her emotional speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, Thunberg chastised world leaders for failing to act on climate change: "For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.” Her angry phrase “How Dare You?” went viral on social media, and millions viewed the video of Thunberg’s speech on YouTube. This plucky young activist is likely to deliver a similarly strong message at COP25, pushing the scientific case for significant government action now to help protect her generation and others in the future.

Will the world leaders at COP25 be listening, and what will they do?

Links

A YEAR OF DEVASTATING CLIMATE REPORTS

October 2018 – October 2019

• United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, October 2018.
• U.S. Global Change Research Program. Fourth National Climate Assessment, November 2018.
• World Health Organization. COP24 Special Report: Health and Climate Change, December 2018.
• Global Carbon Project. Carbon Budget 2018, December 2018.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration. Short-term Energy Outlook, January 2019.
• Jérémie Mouginot et al. “Forty-six years of Greenland Ice Sheet mass balance from 1972 to 2018.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2019.
• Noah S. Diffenbaugh and Marshall Burke. “Global warming has increased global economic inequality.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 2019.
• United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Summary for Policy Makers, May 2019.
• Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow. “The Greenland ice sheet poured 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic in July alone.” The Washington Post, August 2019.
• IPCC. Special Report on Climate Change and Land, August 2019.
• World Meteorological Organization and the Science Advisory Group of the UN Climate Action Summit 2019. United in Science, September 2019.
• IPCC. Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, September 2019.

50 Simple Ways To Make Your Life Greener

The Guardian - Anna Berrill | Nell Card | Jim Cable | Leah Harper | Tamsin Blanchard | Sali Hughes | Donna Ferguson

Expert tips on how to be kinder to the planet – from cooking and cleaning to fashion and finance

Photographer: Aaron Tilley. Set design: Rhea Thierstein, assisted by Isabelle Dodd

Clean up your kitchen
Love your leftovers
Look at what basics you’re binning. “Chefs talk about what to do with carrot tops or whey from cheese, but that’s not where we need to make changes,” says Feast food writer Anna Jones. “It’s the milk poured down the sink and stale bread – the items we don’t put as much value on.” Jones tears up bread to freeze for instant croutons, or whizzes it into breadcrumbs for adding to croustades, pastas and salads. If oats have already been made into porridge, follow Claire Thomson, chef and author of The Art Of The Larder (Quadrille, £25), and substitute for some of the flour and water in bread dough.
Treat “food waste” as ingredients, says Ollie Hunter, chef and author of 30 Easy Ways To Join The Food Revolution (Pavilion, £14.99). “It’s easy to turn it into something else; aquafaba (chickpea water) can be made into a vegan mayonnaise; fry squash seeds in oil and sprinkle with salt for a snack; cut courgette stalks into penne shapes and cook like pasta. You need to find creative ways to use everything up; wasting food is down to a lack of imagination.”

Use tech for good
Apps are taking the fight to food waste. Olio connects neighbours and local retailers so surplus food can be shared; Too Good To Go enables cafes and restaurants to sell uneaten meals at reduced rates; while Farmdrop connects you with sustainable local farmers. To recycle kitchen scraps, find neighbours with a compost bin (or chickens) at sharewaste.com.

Shop little and often

A lot of waste comes from doing big shops, putting two-for-one “bargains” in the trolley and buying on repeat rather than planning meals. “I’m always clear about what we will eat at home and when,” says Skye Gyngell, chef and founder of Spring in London, which runs a “scratch menu” using waste. She shops little and often, supported by a store cupboard of wholegrains, olive oil, vinegars and mustards to bolster meals. “Working out what kind of cook you are is also useful,” says Jones, “then reverse engineer how you shop. There is no point doing a weekly shop if you like to decide what you’re going to make for dinner at 6pm, like me. I shop in small increments, and I find I waste less this way, too.”

Buy half your food locally

The shorter the food chain, the less waste created before it reaches your kitchen. Hunter subscribes to buying 50% of food grown within 30 miles of where you live. “It’s an achievable figure,” he says, especially when producers, such as Hodmedod’s in Suffolk, are reviving homegrown pulses including British lentils, quinoa, carlin peas and fava beans (which Hunter ferments to turn into miso and soy sauce). The nutritional value of fruit and veg lasts for only a short time, adds Gyngell, so how far your food has travelled matters.

Pick your own
“Foraging solves many problems,” Hunter says. “You’re getting into the countryside, engaging with nature and the community, and finding food that has a different flavour.” Start with herbs, grasses, berries, wild garlic and, a favourite of Hunter’s, nettles (“They’re so underrated”). Use to garnish pies, in risottos and soups; wear gloves to avoid stings and wash thoroughly in salted water. Ensure foraged ingredients are identifiable before eating – check woodlandtrust.org or wildfooduk.com.

Switch your flours
Crops can’t be grown every year in the same soil without replacing nutrients taken by the plants, and switching the flour you use can help. “Spelt or wheat is often grown in rotation with rye and clover to replace lost nitrogen,” says Hunter. “Eating rye supports the farmers’ rotation; I use spelt and emmer flour as an alternative to wheat because they have similar baking properties, while being beneficial to the soil.”

Befriend a butcher
“There is no way around it, eating meat sustainably requires a little more effort on our part,” says Fergus Henderson, chef and godfather of nose-to-tail eating. His first rule is to “hug” your butcher: “Support them and ask questions – they are your way in to a positive supply chain. They will also give you access to the insides and extremities, such as kidneys, shanks, feet and glands, which offer so much more possibility and flavour than the fillet.” Whole-animal eating is not about blood and guts, but “respecting the animal enough to realise that, if it has died for you, the least you can do is make use of every part”.

Compost on the go
Compost isn’t just for the garden – think about reducing your food waste when you’re on the go, too, says Lindsay Miles, whose book Less Waste, No Fuss Kitchen: Simple Steps To Shop, Cook And Eat Sustainably (Hardie Grant, £12.99) is out in June. “A reusable coffee cup makes a great impromptu container for your lunch scraps – take apple cores or bread crusts home to compost.”

Plan ahead
Make the most of seasonal gluts and preserve vegetables in oils, vinegars, chutneys, ketchup and marinades, or freeze them. “Blitz and freeze tomatoes in containers for passata all year round; make kimchi from cauliflower stalks and leaves; use beetroot in jams, vinegars and oil, then chop stalks and leaves to top pastas, pizzas, curries and dal,” says Hunter.

Minimise packaging
Look for loose fruit and vegetables, and take your own containers to shops and markets. “If you are buying packaged food,” says Miles, “look at where the product comes from and try to choose the more local option – oat milk from Scotland will have a lower carbon footprint than almond milk from California, even if they have the same packaging.” The most recyclable plastics are PET, found in drinks bottles and fruit punnets, and HDPE, in milk bottles and cereal box liners; so if you can’t avoid it, go for these, then reuse or recycle what you can.

All green on the home front
Reduce your washing

Erin Rhoads’ Waste Not Everyday (Hardie Grant Books, £10) points out that “the majority of the environmental burden caused by fashion happens after we take the clothing home: 82% of the energy a garment will use is in the washing and drying we do each week”.
Rhoads suggests spot-cleaning, and neutralising smells with a spritz of diluted vodka or lemon juice.


Clean with castile
By making cleaning products (from polish to detergent) you can reduce the amount of plastic entering your home and the level of harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds), such as formaldehyde, that are released. “Of all the green cleaning ingredients I use, liquid castile soap is by far my favourite,” writes Jen Chillingsworth in Clean Green (Quadrille, £7.55). “Originating from Spain, castile soap was traditionally made with pure olive oil, but is now more commonly produced by mixing vegetable oils such as hemp, avocado, jojoba and coconut.” For a simple, multipurpose kitchen spray, add 50ml of castile soap to 800ml tap water in a spray bottle. Add a few drops of essential oils (tea tree is antibacterial). Spray and wipe with a clean cloth.

Go for plastic-free personal care
There is a world of waste-free sanitary protection to explore, and Chillingsworth suggests buying a reusable tampon applicator.
 “The reusable version fits every size of tampon, is antimicrobial and easy to insert.
After use, give it a wipe, rinse and return to the storage box that fits in your handbag. Sterilise in hot water between periods.”


Recycle as much as you can
“Most major supermarkets provide plastic recycling collection points in store for stretchy plastic (such as frozen food bags, carrier bags and bread bags) which normally can’t be recycled from home,” says Helen Bird, plastics expert at government waste advisory body Wrap.
TerraCycle rescues hard-to-recycle waste that is not processed by councils. It has free national recycling programmes and also sells zero-waste boxes, which you can fill with most non-hazardous, non-recyclable and non-organic waste, and return for recycling. Search its website for a scheme near you, or set one up.

Look after your electrical appliances
The Restart Project is a social enterprise that aims to fix our relationship with electricals and electronics. Cofounder Janet Gunter says the first step in keeping household appliances for longer is regular cleaning. “By simply cleaning and maintaining your white goods, laptop or mobile, you will prolong its life.” Restart runs a nationwide network of skill-sharing workshops as well as promoting a directory of commercial repair options in London. (See also repaircafe.org for events in your area.) “If we don’t have access to spare parts,” says Gunter, “these appliances will be thrown away, which has a huge carbon impact.”
If your electrical appliance really is beyond repair, Rhoads suggests you “call the manufacturer or company of purchase to see if they will take back items or packaging for reuse or recycling”. Not all charity shops accept electrical items, but the homelessness charity Emmaus accepts working items. These are tested before being resold, which makes it a good place to purchase secondhand electrical goods, too.

Create clean air
“You can never have enough house plants,” says Oliver Heath, who runs a sustainable architecture practice. Certain plants are best for certain rooms: “Mother-in-law’s tongue gives off oxygen at night, which makes it best suited to the bedroom.” According to Chillingsworth, peace lilies and boston ferns thrive in rooms with high humidity and can reduce the mould spores in the air, making them ideal for bathrooms; weeping figs have been found to be the best plant for removing formaldehyde released from carpets and furniture, making them good for living areas.

Change your shower head
“Investing in an aerated shower head will make a significant difference to energy and water consumption,” says Brian Horne at the Energy Saving Trust (EST). They inject air into the water stream, limiting water usage. “A water-efficient shower head could save a four-person household £70 a year on gas for water heating, and a further £115 on water bills if they have a meter,” says Horne.

Opt for green energy suppliers
There are “shades of green” when it comes to choosing an energy supplier, says Horne. The EST identified four suppliers who clearly listed the renewable sources of their energy on their websites last year: Green Energy UK, Good Energy, Ecotricity and Octopus Energy. “But just because you’re on a green tariff, it doesn’t mean you should stop worrying about how much energy you use,” says Horne.

Practise eco-driving
Research by the RAC Foundation has found that eco-driving leads to safer, cleaner and more affordable journeys. Regular vehicle maintenance improves fuel efficiency by as much as 10%. Before a long journey, check tyre pressures (tyres underinflated by a quarter can cause a 2% increase in fuel consumption), remove unused roof racks and boxes, and don’t overload the car (every additional 45kg reduces fuel economy by 2%). At less than 40mph, it’s more fuel-efficient to open a window than use air conditioning. Turn off engines for waits of more than one minute (5-8% of fuel is consumed while idling), and avoid sharp acceleration and heavy braking: aggressive driving can significantly raise fuel consumption.

Draught-proof your home
One of the cheapest, most effective ways to save energy and money at home is to draught-proof windows, doors, letterbox, fireplaces and loft hatches, says Dr Sarah Price, head of building physics at Enhabit, a consultancy specialising in low-energy design. Done professionally, it costs about £200, or do it yourself with products such as Gap Seal.

Buy vintage furniture
“Reusing furniture is the best thing to do, and so much more fun than buying new,” says Nicola Harding, founder of interior design studio Harding and Read. “Secondhand items come with interesting stories and force you to think creatively, and give you have something far more unique.” To keep mileage down, start at your local auction houses and charity shops (the British Heart Foundation has dedicated home stores and a free collection service), followed by a targeted trawl through Freecycle and Facebook Marketplace.

Optimise your white goods
According to independent energy comparison service U Switch, the cost of running your fridge and freezer equates to about 7% of your total energy bill (they are one of the few household energy devices that are on all the time). U Switch recommends replacing your fridge and/or freezer if it is over 10 years old. Even if it’s working, the cost of a new model will be made up for in energy savings over the years. Keep your fridge at 5C or less (most are kept at about 7C, which means food will go off sooner) and ensure there is a 10cm gap behind your fridge to let heat flow away easily. Make sure the seal is strong – if it can’t hold a piece of paper when shut, it could be letting in warm air, making it work harder.

Let the garden grow

Photographer: Aaron Tilley. Set design: Rhea Thierstein, assisted by Isabelle Dodd

Buy local flowers – or grow your own
About 90% of the flowers sold through UK florists, supermarkets and wholesalers are imported, mainly from the Netherlands, but they are also flown in from countries as far away as Ecuador, Colombia, Kenya and Ethiopia. Reduce your floral air miles and find a local supplier through flowersfromthefarm.co.uk, a co-operative of small independent flower growers.
Alternatively, grow your own flowers to bring indoors. Gardener Sarah Raven suggests going for “annuals which are cut and come again: pick above a pair of leaves and the plant will spring back and produce more flowers – and keep on doing so as long as you keep picking”. Sow cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias and rudbeckias on a sunny window ledge in March, pot on and plant out after the last frosts.

Encourage bees
Honeybees visit only one type of flower in any one foraging trip, says Sarah Wyndham Lewis, author of Planting For Honeybees: The Grower’s Guide To Creating A Buzz. “This is called ‘flower fidelity’ and is what makes them such effective pollinators. So plant large clumps or ‘drifts’ of single species and optimise each of the bees’ trips.” Think swathes of catmint, field scabious and hyssop. “March to September are the key months for honeybees – they will fly whenever the temperature is above 10C, even in winter, so early- and late-flowering plants are especially valuable,” she says.

Spend less, propagate more
Your own plot is the best garden centre there is: collect seed, learn to take cuttings and divide plants to stock your own backup nursery. Gaps can then be filled with home‑propagated stock plants. Increase what does well in your garden to build a healthy community of plants. If you do go shopping, research a plant’s natural habitat to reduce failures.

Lock up carbon
In The Garden Jungle, Or Gardening To Save The Planet (out in paperback 2 April, Vintage, £9.99), Dave Goulson explains that although many gardeners don’t have room for large trees, “The basic rule is that the more vegetation you have, the more carbon you are storing.” So the fuller the planting in your garden, the better, even if it verges on overgrown. Don’t be too tidy, either. “Log piles also lock up carbon for as long as it takes them to decay, which can be many years.”

Let the grass grow

Letting your grass grow longer between cuts not only saves petrol or electricity, and therefore reduces carbon dioxide emissions, but also encourages more wildlife into your garden.
Longer grass is more drought-resistant, too. Try cutting every three or four weeks and let dandelions, daisies and violets bloom in spring, followed by buttercups, clovers and selfheal in summer.



Encourage hedgehogs
Hedgehogs have a voracious appetite for pests such as caterpillars, slugs and snails. They need easy access in and out of gardens, say Helen Bostock and Sophie Collins, authors of How Can I Help Hedgehogs? (Octopus, £14.99). They recommend that neighbours get together to arrange hedgehog holes between gardens. “This is simply a hole cut into the bottom of a fence – it should be around 13cm high and at least as wide, preferably in a sheltered corner.”

Reboot your wardrobe
Set a bar
If a year without buying anything new seems too big a challenge, try a month, or buy only secondhand. Livia Firth, founder of sustainability consultancy Eco-Age, follows the “30 wears rule”: ask, “Will I wear it at least 30 times?” before buying.

Find a secondhand that works for you
Opting for vintage or secondhand is one of the easiest ways to shop sustainably, but while some fans will extol the virtues of rifling through giant warehouses, this approach is not for everyone. Thankfully, there are other ways. Smaller stores with a curated selection may not offer quite the same bargains as a car boot sale, but they can be less intimidating. Many, such as Paper Dress Vintage or Cow, also have websites.

Shop in person – and alone
That said, shopping in person – especially if you walk there – is usually greener than online. Clothes shipped across the world have a significant carbon footprint, and often come packaged in plastic. You are also less likely to return things you have tried on. It can help to ditch your friends. “When you ask a friend if you should buy something, you already know the answer will be yes,” writes Lauren Bravo in How To Break Up With Fast Fashion (Headline, £12.99). “It’s an unwritten rule of sisterhood.” Think of it as the new version of not going supermarket shopping when you’re hungry.

Choose materials wisely
Some fabrics age better than others; the Guardian’s styling editor, Melanie Wilkinson, recommends looking for leather when shopping secondhand. Leather jackets, shoes and belts last for years and often look and feel better once they have been worn in. 
The environmental impact of denim – another durable fabric – means jeans are also best bought secondhand.



Unsubscribe and unfollow
“If someone wants to quit fast fashion, I recommend unsubscribing from all the emails,” says writer and fashion consultant Aja Barber. “A brand that is constantly introducing new products might be sustainable in name only. Sending emails and pressuring consumers to buy, buy, buy is not sustainability – that’s fast fashion.” The same goes for influencers and brands on social platforms such as Instagram. Deleting fast-fashion shopping apps can help, too.

Get swishing
Clothes swaps – known as swishing – are one of the greenest ways to refresh your wardrobe. They offer credits based on the value of the items you bring, which can be swapped for items brought by others. Avoid trends and hunt for quality pieces you’ll wear for years. Find one near you at swishing.com.

Learn to mend
Make your clothes fit
Layla Sargent, founder of The Seam, a website to connect you with local tailors, seamstresses and embroidery artists, says: “If it doesn’t fit well, you’re never going to wear it. Even by making trousers just the right length, or altering a waistband slightly, we will be inclined to wear them more.” The service is currently only in the London area, but coming to Manchester and Birmingham this year. Meanwhile, start with your local dry cleaner.


Learn how to sew on a button
How many shirts and jackets do you keep unworn at the back of your wardrobe because they are missing a button? Sewing on a button is a simple skill that everyone should have. There are lots of online tutorials; try one by the environmental activist Wilson Oryema for Fashion Revolution.

Make your own apron from a pair of old jeans
Turn a pair of old jeans into a denim work apron by unpicking the inside leg seams and stitching them together. This is one of many hacks from The Great British Sewing Bee’s book on Sustainable Style (Quadrille, £27, published on 26 March).

Darn your socks
“Once a life skill, darning has skipped a generation (or two),” says Emma Mathews of Socko (socko.shop), which makes socks from repurposed yarn. “But we can learn a lot from the way things were done in the past.” Sew small running stitches up and down the area around the hole and then turn the repair around and stitch perpendicular to them, weaving the thread together until you have covered the hole. Highly therapeutic.

Primp your trainers
This is a growing service industry. Gråel in Liverpool is a small business that specialises in cleaning “coveted footwear”, offering laces cleaning (£3), a deep clean (£15) and the meticulous premium package from undersole to insole (£35). Meanwhile, Jason Markk offers premium shoe care from branches in LA and Carnaby Street in London, where your trainers will be brought back to life by the brand’s sneaker-care technicians.

Give the bathroom a makeover
Recycle in there
While 90% of us recycle our kitchen waste, we recycle only 50% of our beauty packaging – probably because our recycling bins are in the kitchen. Joseph Joseph makes an attractive split-waste bathroom bin for £20. You can reduce what ends up inside further by switching to bar soaps and shampoos (I love social enterprise Beco, from £2.50 at Co-op, Boots and supermarkets) and plastic-free handwash such as Soap Co (£19, 300ml, or £110 for a whopping 5l biodegradable container that should last a year).

Lose the disposables
A staggering 20,000 litres of water are needed to create only 1kg of cotton – that’s enough to make just one T-shirt and a pair of jeans, so any cotton you buy should count. Replacing cotton wool is a good start. Remove the initial bulk of makeup with a reusable disc, such as Face Halo (£7), soaked in plain water. These do an astoundingly good job, even on waterproof mascara. Follow with a cleanser and a wet terry-cotton flannel; both flannel and disc should last for hundreds of washing machine cycles. For toners, exfoliants and nail polish remover, use washable bamboo pads. A pack of 18, plus washbag, costs about £10.

Pick the right package
There’s no justifiable excuse for packaging short-use, everyday beauty products in virgin plastic. There are now a large number of brands packaging in post-consumer recycled plastic (PCR), from the luxury (Aveda, REN, Biolage) to the mid-range (Soaper Duper, Lush), to the mass (all Simple and Dove bottles are now 100% PCR in Europe; L’Oréal Elvive, the world’s bestselling haircare brand, is rolling out 100% PCR bottles this summer – the caps are recyclable but not made from PCR – saving 7,000 tonnes of plastic globally a year). Alternatively, you could opt for products packaged in glass that haven’t travelled too far. Neal’s Yard mostly uses glass where safe, and distributes from Dorset.

Don’t be tempted by minis
Those pick’n’mix bars of travel-sized beauty products are so alluring, but cause a huge amount of waste for no reason and very little product. Instead, make a one-off investment in refillable travel bottles and pots from Muji (from 95p) or any high street chemist, and decant your favourite full sizes – or, even better, wash out and reuse any mini bottles you already have. Remember that active skincare such as vitamin C or retinol serums are best left in their original packaging to safeguard their stability, but anything else can be decanted for travel. And if you have so many minis left over from flights and hotel stays that you won’t use them all, take them to your nearest homeless shelter, where their clients need them.

Embrace baths
Baths have long been seen as more wasteful and less responsible than showering, but some research shows that modern, pumped power showers can use more, not less, water than bathing. It is possible to enjoy a luxurious, but environmentally considerate, bath. Use sulphate-free oils, salts or foams and relax (I’ve even been known to wash posh, delicate bras while I soak). You can save more water by washing hair over the bath before climbing in, allowing the water to fill the tub – the shampoo will create bubbles, too.

Save to save the planet
Save water and lower your bills
Consider switching to a water meter, so you pay for only the water you use. Invest the money you save into water-saving devices and plumbing, such as rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling systems. Get free water-saving products from savewatersavemoney.co.uk. If you live in England and Wales, you can get a water meter fitted for free, but you may need to pay £300 if you live in Scotland. A number of investment funds have clean water and sanitation as their dominant theme, says Becky O’Connor of Royal London. For example, Parvest Aqua and RobecoSam Sustainable Water are recommended by ethical financial website good-with-money.com.

Get a loan to improve your home’s energy efficiency
Some lenders provide cheap green mortgages and loans for energy-efficient improvements. Ecology Building Society offers discounts to customers borrowing for this. Nationwide says it will start offering low-interest loans of up to £25,000 to homeowners who want to retrofit existing properties with energy-efficiency measures.



Choose an environmentally friendly current account
Nearly £150bn has been invested in fossil fuels by UK banks since the Paris climate agreement was adopted in 2016. Ethical bank Triodos, which has the backing of Friends of the Earth, invests only in projects that create positive cultural, social and environmental outcomes. To review your bank’s track record, see lobbying organisation BankTrack, which reports on the activities that banks finance worldwide.

Invest wisely
“Look at funds with sustainability in mind,” says Alice Evans, co-head of the BMO Global Investment’s responsible investment team. “Invest in funds that are described as ‘responsible’, ‘SRI’ (socially responsible investment), ‘ethical’ or ‘dark green’. These have the strictest criteria and avoid investing in any company that may have a poor record on environmental, human rights or other ethical grounds.”


Evaluate your pension
“For many people, their workplace pension will be their largest investment,” says Rich Mayor of research and analysis company Fundscape. You have the right to know where your money is being invested. “Ask your HR department or pension provider what funds you’re invested in and whether there is a sustainable or ethical option,” says Jon Dean, head of retirement strategy for financial services consultancy Altus.

Get a green financial adviser
Last year, a new financial advice firm called The Path was set up to invest only in portfolios that have a positive impact on the planet. “You don’t need to be a millionaire to invest your money wisely,” says founder David MacDonald. “With very little effort you can make a significant difference, moving from harming the planet with your money to sustaining it.” Some research suggests that making sure your investments are sustainable has 27 times more impact than all the other things you could do to reduce your carbon footprint added together. “If you put the maximum annual ISA contribution of £20,000 into a positive-impact fund, it would be the carbon equivalent of taking one car off the road,” MacDonald says.

Links

• Climate Change Splits The Public Into Six Groups. Understanding Them Is Key To Future Action
• In 2020, Here's How You Can Help Address The Climate Crisis
• (AU) Some Hope Amongst The Climate Change Foolishness
• (AU) Australia Could Fall Apart Under Climate Change. But There’s A Way To Avoid It
• Earth's Rocks Can Absorb A Shocking Amount Of Carbon: Here’s How
• An Audacious Plan To Stop Climate Change: Remake The Entire Economy
• What Is Climate Change And What Can We Do About It?

Greta Thunberg Says EU Is 'Pretending' To Tackle Climate Change Crisis

ABC News - Reuters | AP

Ms Thunberg is in Brussels this week to meet EU leaders and lead a climate school strike. (AP: Olivier Matthys)

Key points The climate law would give the European Commission powers to set tougher goals for governments every five years from 2030 Greta Thunberg says the EU is ignoring reality The EU accounts for less than 10 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has accused European Union governments and institutions of only "pretending" to urgently tackle the climate crisis.EU leaders say they are spearheading some of the most ambitious climate change policies in the world, and on Wednesday the bloc's executive unveiled a planned climate law to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

"When your house is on fire, you don't wait a few more years to start putting it out," Ms Thunberg told the European Parliament's environment committee.

"And yet this is what the [European] Commission is proposing today."
The 17-year-old Swedish activist said that, by fixing its climate law around an emissions target three decades in the future, the EU was ignoring reality.

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The voice of a generation?

Greta Thunberg inspired a global movement for climate action, but some haven't welcomed her message.

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"Here you are, trying to create laws and policies once again ignoring it. Pretending that your plan or policy disregarding the united science will somehow solve the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced," she said.
"Pretending that a law that no one has to follow … is a law. Pretending that you can be a climate leader and still go on building and subsidising new fossil fuel infrastructure," Ms Thunberg said, drawing applause from European lawmakers.
The climate law would give the executive Commission powers to set tougher goals for governments every five years. But these powers would only kick in after 2030 — too late, according to environment groups.
"We will not be satisfied with anything less than a science-based pathway which gives us the best possible chance to safeguard the future living conditions for humanity and life on earth as we know it," Ms Thunberg said.
The EU accounts for less than 10 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. But Ms Thunberg said the bloc had a moral obligation to lead the way, because developed economies that have been polluting for longest should cut emissions first and fastest.

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg embraces a crying girl who joined a march during a youth climate protest in Bristol, Britain, Britain February 28, 2020. (Reuters: Dylan Martinez)

The European Parliament has banned external visitors for the next three weeks as a precaution against the fast-spreading coronavirus, but waived its own rule for Ms Thunberg's visit.
Ms Thunberg is in Brussels this week to meet EU leaders and lead a climate school strike on Friday.
"For over one-and-a-half years we have been sacrificing our education to protest against your inaction," Ms Thunberg said.
She began missing school in 2018 to sit outside the Swedish parliament in a solitary protest.
Since then, Ms Thunberg has galvanised a global movement of young people, inspiring millions to take to the streets to demand that world leaders act urgently to tackle the climate crisis.

Links

• Greta Thunberg urges patience, tells climate protesters change won't happen overnight
• Greta Thunberg got to meet her 'role model' Malala Yousafzai, and the internet is all for it 
• Greta Thunberg nominated for 2020 Nobel Peace Prize
• Greta Thunberg Clashes With US Treasury Secretary In Davos
• Greta Thunberg Tells Davos Leaders That Planting Trees Isn't Enough As Donald Trump Talks Up Economy
• Trump Blasts 'Prophets Of Doom' In Attack On Climate Activism
• Greta Thunberg: Climate Activism Has Made Her 'Very Happy', Says Father
• Greta Thunberg And Mass Protests Defined The Year In Climate Change
• A Year Of Resistance: How Youth Protests Shaped The Discussion On Climate Change
• 'How Is This Possible?': Greta Thunberg Weighs In On Australia's Bushfire Crisis
• Governments, Business 'Misleading' On Climate, Teen Activist Greta Thunberg Said
• GretaThunberg: TIME 2019 Person of the Year