The climate refugee crisis is at our doorstep
The largest shift in human demographics since people first descended from Africa is currently underway, and we’re not acting like it. The World Bank estimated in 2019 that by 2050, there could be as many as 300 million people displaced due to climate change. To put that in perspective,...
Current in Planet
Antarctica’s seabed is leaking methane into the atmosphere
It’s a worrying sign for the climate emergency, but it does give us an unprecedented research opportunity in Antarctica. Methane leakage on the sea floor has been recorded in Antarctica for the first time ever. The seep was discovered in a 30ft deep site known as Cinder Cones in McMurdo Sound...
Road microplastics are an unprecedented nightmare
New research shows that car tires are responsible for shedding around 100,000 metric tonnes of microplastic a year, the majority of which end up in the oceans. We’ve always known that cars were an environmentally inefficient method of travel, but a new study has put an emphatic exclamation point...
Fashion’s toxic hype obsession: will it be rethought in the post-Coronavirus rebuild?
Bringing fashion to a standstill, the pandemic is posing one question: with global consumerism in crisis for the time being, will the industry be forced into a sustainable future? As an industry reliant on constantly updating lines, styles, and trends offered up every single season, fashion has always been...
Is the personal-care industry doing enough to tackle its plastic problem?
In order to reduce their plastic footprint, some personal-care brands are trying to reconsider the nature of their products, packaging, and the supply. chain itself. It’s no secret that the booming $500bn per annum personal-care industry relies heavily on plastic. So much so in fact, that there’s now seven times...
Factory farming is an atrocity our generation must solve
Most of the earth’s sentient being lives and die on a production line. It’s time to think of a better way. In 2015, the now household name Yuval Noah Harari, historian, philosopher, and author of Sapiens, called industrial farming ‘one of the worst crimes in...
Carbon emissions down to 2006 levels due to coronavirus
Carbon dioxide levels fell 17 percent in April of this year compared to 2019, though the sudden drop isn’t expected to last. It turns out that coronavirus is having more widespread effects that many of us probably imagined when early headlines started spilling from China in January. The international lockdown and social distancing measures that are currently still in place have caused many businesses to shut down or temporarily pause...
Conservation and COVID-19: how the virus could spell trouble for endangered species
As the ecotourism industry shuts down and protection projects grind to a halt, years of conservation work in the world’s most precarious environments could be undone. Conservationists the world over are warning that coronavirus could have dire consequences for the world’s endangered species and habitats. This has left many asking whether relying on tourist dollars for conservation projects is a stable economic model. In Africa, restrictions on international travel have...
‘Climate change ought to hire Coronavirus’ publicist’
A wry joke that's currently making the rounds on social media highlights the concerning irony of celebrating Earth Day's 50th anniversary amidst a global pandemic. ‘Congratulations on all your success,’ says climate. ‘Can I get the name of your publicist?’ Designed to draw attention to the global environmental crisis we’re currently facing, Earth Day 2020 has been somewhat upstaged by Coronavirus. The movement’s annual event (celebrating it’s 50th anniversary today)...
Plant-based meat soars in popularity during lockdown
COVID-19 is giving consumers the time and headspace to become more socially conscious. Recently I wrote on the atrocities of factory farming. Writing the article was, if I’m honest, an existential nightmare that painted a bleak picture of the deep hole we’ve gotten ourselves into with our insatiable appetite for meat. I came to the same conclusion that many others had come to before me: whilst...
