It is good to be back and to be able to share with you items we find to be inspiring and that renew our hope in the prospects for a brighter, greener, healthier and more humane world ahead.
Goodness knows, these days it feels as if we all could use a big dose of hope to lift and re-charge our spirits. The news headlines on offer seem to overwhelm with their steady stream of dire and alarming claims about the state of world’s climate crisis – making it challenging for even the sunniest and most optimistic among us not to lose balance and perspective some days.
Here is a smattering of the kinds of headlines that have caught our attention, and not necessarily in a good way –
“Our world needs climate action on all fronts – everything, everywhere, all at once,” says UN Secretary-General (March 20, 2023)
“Global warming set to break key 1.5C limit for first time” (May 17, 2023, Matt McGrath, BBC)
“NASA announces summer 2023 hottest on record” (https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-announces-summer-2023-hottest-on-record/)
“Human-induced climate change is heating our planet, disrupting weather patters and ocean currents, and altering marine ecosystems and the species living there.” (June 8, 2023, Secretary-General’s message on World Oceans Day 2023)
“We must end the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.” (Secretary-General’s remarks to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, September 18, 2023)
The world’s climate crisis is indeed challenging and complex, with the case for urgent action compelling.
But IS it solvable? What is to be done? And, in the near-term, how about some antidotes to counter climate anxiety and despondency and to shore up faith that indeed progress is being made toward solving some of the biggest pieces of the puzzle?
“Urgency+Optimism = Action”
Enter the “Earthshot Awards”
“The Earthshot Prize was launched by Prince William in 2020 to search for and scale the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges.”
It was inspired “by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge in 1962 to land a man on the moon within a decade….”
The Earthshot prize embodies a vision and mission of “Urgency+Optimism=Action”.
Certainly, the organizers of the Earthshot Awards recognize the seriousness of the complexity of challenges presented by the world climate crisis.
The annual awards program runs for a decade until 2030.
The Earthshot website doesn’t sugar coat things, acknowledging that… “the future of human kind is in the balance” … and, that “(c)hange is not yet happening fast enough or at the scale we need. Levels of climate anxiety and despondency are high and political interventions are happening too slowly…. We want to unleash the urgent optimism required to accelerate and scale the environmental innovations that will repair and regenerate our planet.”
Interestingly, we observe that 2030 is also the same year that 194 nations are aiming and organizing their first set of targets and plans to reduce carbon emissions, as part of the collective global effort by signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change to keep global warming at/below 1.5C.
Sir David Attenborough Inspires
Sir Attenborough’s lifework to champion the betterment of our “Blue Planet” inspires and is world-renowned. We find he inspires us anew, in these brief opening remarks on November 12, 2023, to start the Earthshot 2023 Awards ceremony held in Singapore. Worth the 55 seconds we feel to watch this clear, eloquent Youtube message of urgency, optimism and a call to action.
Clarity and Scaling Up to Solve the World’s Climate Crisis
“Clarity comes through the Award’s challenge to the world based on five Earthshots– simple but ambitious and universal goals for 2030 developed in collaboration with leading environmental experts. They are:
- Protect and Restore Nature
- Clean our Air
- Revive our Oceans
- Build a Waste-Free World
- Fix our Climate
Earthshot’s approach to change at scale is described in the following.
“Every year over the course of this critical decade, five Winners with the best chance of helping to achieve our Earthshots will be awarded £1 million each to scale their solutions, with all 15 Finalists receiving tailored support from our global alliance of partners.
By spotlighting environmental innovators and their solutions, we aim to spark the world’s collective imagination and drive the mindset of urgent optimism and action.
People everywhere can make a difference.
We need every environmental innovator, entrepreneur, activist, leader, and dreamer to believe it’s possible and be part of this movement.”
Innovators and Impacts
The stories and impacts being realized by all fifteen Finalists are all inspiring and impressive, individually and as a collection, if you have the time and inclination to delve deeper – they are all spotlighted on the Earthshot Prize website, accessible at: https://earthshotprize.org/winners-finalists-listing/?filter-year=2023
For this blog post, we will focus only on the five award winners. Excerpts are taken from and attributed to their source – the Earthshot Awards website.
We hope this brief spotlight will offer our Readers a quick Intro with enough inspiration to buoy up hope and renew belief in the power of human ingenuity to give the world a fighting chance to solve climate change in the time required.
Prince William announced the five Earthshot 2023 winners at the November 12, 2023 Awards ceremony in Singapore —
GRST,
S4S Technologies, and
PROTECT AND RESTORE NATURE –ACCIÓN ANDINA
ACCIÓN ANDINA IS A GRASSROOTS, COMMUNITY-BASED INITIATIVE WORKING ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA TO PROTECT NATIVE HIGH ANDEAN FOREST ECOSYSTEMS FOR THEIR INVALUABLE BENEFITS TO NATURE AND MILLIONS OF PEOPLE IN THE REGION.
“Their approach unites tens of thousands of people in local and indigenous communities to protect and restore the native forests and ecosystems. Work that is vital for the region’s climate resilience, water security, biodiversity, community livelihoods and indigenous culture.
Acción Andina’s activities are already helping thousands of people by increasing food and water security, providing new income opportunities, and contributing to more sustainable management of natural resources. Since 2018, almost 10 million native trees have been planted by Acción Andina across five countries – restoring over 4,000 hectares of Andean forests and protecting more than 11,000 hectares of native forest.”
“While their impact to date is significant, Acción Andina is just getting started. By 2045, they aim to protect and restore one million hectares of high Andean, native forest ecosystems across Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Such is their success so far, Global Forest Generation, which develops large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives, has plans to replicate the Acción Andina model around the world to restore our most critically endangered and neglected ecosystems.”
https://earthshotprize.org/winners-finalists/accion-andina/
CLEAN OUR AIR – GRST
WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW WAY TO BUILD AND RECYCLE VITAL LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES, GRST‘S SOLUTION OFFERS A PATHWAY TO MAKE THE ELECTRIC CARS OF THE FUTURE EVEN CLEANER.
“The electric vehicle market is growing fast and is projected to soar as governments and consumers move away from vehicles that run on planet-warming fossil fuels…Unsurprisingly, demand for batteries is expected to increase 30% each year until 2030.
A greater need for batteries to power more of these vehicles means increased demand for metals like lithium, a finite resource whose extraction has raised ecological and human rights issues. The lithium mining required to meet the demand takes a heavy toll. Trees are often cut down to make room for mines, while chemicals used in the process can poison waterways. In some countries, worker protections for miners are limited, raising human rights concerns. Meanwhile, millions of tonnes of batteries are expected to be decommissioned over the coming decades, creating hazardous waste.
Enter GRST, a cleaner, safer and cheaper way to make and recycle lithium-ion batteries.
Co-founded by Justin Hung, GRST (which stands for Green, Renewable, Sustainable Technology) has come up with a cleaner process to make batteries that pollutes less and uses components that can be more easily recycled. Instead of using toxic solvents and hard-to-recycle materials, GRST has created a way to build the battery using a water-soluble binding composite, so that at the end of the battery’s life, the lithium, cobalt and nickel can be more economically recovered and reused again in another battery, reducing demand for further extraction.”
Impact
“GRST’s method not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions from production by 40%, but also produces a battery that lasts up to 10% longer than average – characteristics that will accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and enable more people to breathe cleaner air.
GRST batteries are already being sold in multiple countries. Following the recent completion of a new factory, GRST is ready to scale the battery technology. They are targeting a five percent share of the global green battery market by 2030 and aim to establish several circular supply chains over the next few years. GRST’s efforts are key to enabling the electric vehicle revolution to drive forward sustainably.”
REVIVE OUR OCEANS – WILDAID
GLOBAL NON-PROFIT ORGANISATION WILDAID SCALES MARINE ENFORCEMENT TO END ILLEGAL FISHING AND STRENGTHEN OCEAN CONSERVATION.
“Meeting the global ‘30 by 30’ target of safeguarding 30% of oceans by 2030 is crucial to protecting our environment and will not occur without effective enforcement of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). However, nearly 60% of these MPAs have been unable to fully protect the ecosystems under their control due to enforcement challenges. WildAid is leading a bold initiative to ensure these zones and the sustainable fisheries within them deliver on their conservation promise.
Oceans cover more than 70% of the planet and are home to an enormous range of biodiversity. They also support many millions of people who rely upon fishing for their livelihoods. However, unsustainable overfishing threatens both ocean life and the people who rely on it, and $23 billion is lost annually to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Due to a dramatic increase in unsustainable fishing over the past half century, the UN estimates one-third of the world’s fisheries have been pushed beyond their biological limits.”
“Faced with disaster, governments have taken steps to protect marine ecosystems by promoting sustainable fishing and designating 15,000 special zones — MPAs — where human activity is strictly regulated. If these regulations are followed, scientists predict critical ocean life within the MPAs would be restored. And while these MPAs cover only 8 percent of oceans, they mark an important start. Without enforcement of these protected areas, however, many countries lack the resources required to achieve real conservation impact.”
Solution
“WildAid, a global conservation non-profit, has a plan to bolster the effectiveness of MPAs and sustainable fisheries through its Marine Programme. Led by Meaghan Brosnan, the programme unites a range of partners — from governments to charities to non-profits and academics — to exchange knowledge and tailor actions for each region. Its approach builds law enforcement capacity by making sure people have the tools, technology and resources needed to deter illegal fishing, allow wildlife to recover and improve coastal community livelihoods.”
Impact
“The programme, currently working with a significant proportion of already established MPAs and fisheries management areas, covers an estimated 1.64 million square kilometres of ocean. With operations in Palau, Zanzibar, Mexico and beyond, WildAid is championing and strengthening ocean conservation in every corner of the globe.”
BUILD A WASTE-FREE WORLD – S4S TECHNOLOGIES
S4S TECHNOLOGIES’ SOLAR-POWERED DRYERS AND PROCESSING EQUIPMENT COMBATS FOOD WASTE, ENABLING SMALL-HOLD FARMERS TO PRESERVE CROPS AND TURN PRODUCE THAT MIGHT OTHERWISE GO TO WASTE INTO VALUABLE PRODUCTS.
“Much of India’s rural population relies on smallholder farming for their income and livelihoods. But every year about 30% of agricultural produce is wasted before it leaves the farms.
This is because bumper crops and price fluctuations often force farmers to leave unsellable crops rotting in the fields. These wasted crops squander the precious energy and water used to grow them, demand additional resources for their disposal and cause income losses for small farmers, which can deepen rural poverty and exacerbate inequality.”
Solution
“Founded in 2013 by six university friends – Nidhi Pant, Vaibhav Tidke, Swapnil Kokte, Ganesh Bhere, Shital Somani, Tushar Gaware and Ashwin Pawade – S4S Technologies combats food waste, rural poverty, and gender inequality by helping smallholder female farmers preserve and market surplus produce.”
“The organisation provides rural communities with cheaper solar-powered conduction dryers and food processing equipment to prepare their crops on-site, rather than using cold storage or other more expensive methods of conventional industrial food preservation.
With a focus on supporting female farmers, S4S also supports its entrepreneurs in using the preserved waste to produce and sell valuable food products, such as ketchup. S4S creates a market, connecting commercial buyers to these products and returning most of the profits to the farmers who made them.”
Impact
“Some 300,000 women smallholder farmers supported by S4S have recorded 10- 15% increases in their profits, while the 2,000 female entrepreneurs they partner with have seen incomes double or even triple. By 2025, S4S wants to extend their reach to three million smallholder farmers and 30,000 entrepreneurs. By 2026, they predict they will have reduced food waste by 1.2 million tonnes and removed the equivalent of 10 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.”
FIX OUR CLIMATE – BOOMITRA
BOOMITRA ARE REMOVING EMISSIONS AND BOOSTING FARMER PROFITS BY INCENTIVISING SOIL RESTORATION AND THE ADOPTION OF REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE THROUGH A VERIFIED CARBON-CREDIT MARKETPLACE.
“Since 1750, burning fossil fuels has increased planet-warming CO2 in our atmosphere by 50%. At the same time, irresponsible farming practices and feeding a growing population have degraded our land and impacted its ability to store carbon, meaning there’s yet more carbon in the air. As more carbon enters the atmosphere, warming and aridification grow more vicious. The result: land unable to feed the world’s population, which continues to grow.
“Boomitra, which means “friend of the earth” in Sanskrit, is a soil carbon marketplace that rewards farmers for sustainable land management practices.
“The company works with more than 150,000 farmers, from half-acre smallholder farms to large ranchers, managing more than five million acres of land in some of the poorest parts of Africa, South America and Asia. Satellites and AI technology are used to monitor improvements farmers make to the soil, tracking its ability to store carbon over time.”
Impact
“The world’s agricultural soils have the potential to store an additional five gigatons of CO2 per year – more than all the emissions from global car travel in a year. As Boomitra aims to scale their solution across the world, they have set a target to store one gigaton of CO2 in the soil by 2030.”
To learn more about the five winners and fifteen finalists for Earthshot Prize 2023 – https://earthshotprize.org/
BBC reveals 100 Women 2023: Celebrating 28 Climate Pioneers
On November 21, 2023, the “BBC has revealed the names of the inspiring and influential women on the BBC 100 Women list for 2023. For the first time, to recognise the disproportionate impact of climate change on the lives of women and girls, this year’s BBC 100 Women list specifically highlights a group of women leading the battle against the climate crisis.”
“…In a year where extreme heat, wildfires, floods and other natural disasters have been dominating headlines, and where wars have weighed heavily, it is more important than ever that the BBC World Service continues to shine a spotlight on women globally and their fight back against climate change.” (https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/bbc-reveals-100-women-2023)
We take heart in the words of BBC Climate Pioneers, Qiyun Woo, a storyteller and environmental podcaster from Singapore, and Sarah Ott, an educator with the US National Center for Science Education:
“The climate crisis is complex, overwhelming and scary. We can approach it with fierce but gentle curiosity – instead of fear – so that we keep our heart soft to care for the world, while sharpening our tools to dismantle what doesn’t work and build what does.” (Qiyun Woo)
“Even though climate change is an ‘all hands on deck’ situation, we just can’t do it all by ourselves. Activism is like a garden. It is seasonal. It rests. Respect the season you are in.” (Sarah Ott)
We love the personal power embodied in Climate Pioneer Anna Hottunen’s work and role in launching the “world’s first app to allow citizens (of Lahti, Finland) to earn (carbon) credits by using enviro-friendly transportation.”
An aside, Lahti was recognized as the European Green Capital of 2021, and is just under two years from its goal to become a “climate-neutral city by 2025 as the first major city in Finland.” Finland as a whole country aims to be carbon-neutral by 2035. Lahti aims to get there a decade earlier! Both goals are truly inspiring, heartening and very hopeful to us!
Lahti has already cut greenhouse gas emissions by 70%, and since 2019 the city abandoned the use of coal. “Lahti is now heated with recycled fuel as well as local, certified wood” as part of the 1.5 degree lifestyle that its citizens have adopted.
To learn more about Carbon-Neutral Lahti – https://greenlahti.fi/en/facts
To learn more about Lahti’s journey – https://greenlahti.fi/en/story
Among the 28 Climate Pioneers, is 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathau, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. “The Green Belt Movement (GBM) has four main areas of activity— Tree Planting and Water Harvesting, Climate Change, Mainstream Advocacy, Gender Livelihood and Advocacy…”
“In its citation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee noted Professor Maathai’s contribution to ‘sustainable development, democracy and peace.’ The Committee further stated that Professor Maathai ‘stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women’s rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally.’ (https://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/the-nobel-peace-prize)
To learn more about the 28 Climate Pioneers and to find the full BBC 100 Women List 2023 click here: www.bbc.com/100women
BBC 100 Women at COP28: Airing December 3/23 on BBC News
“BBC 100 Women will be present at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28, from 30 November to highlight the strand’s commitment to telling the climate story. We will be holding a TV broadcast from Expo City, Dubai and from Nairobi, bringing some of our grassroot pioneers together to provide a space to share their thoughts and deeply personal experiences of living life right on the forefront of the climate crisis, amidst a growing sense of climate anxiety.”
“This programme will air on BBC News on 3 December and will also be available on The Climate Question podcast from 10 December.”
Tree Joy
In his own words, international bestselling author and forester Peter Wohlleben was inspired to write and photograph “The Hidden Life of Trees: The Illustrated Edition” as an invitation to readers to “share with me the joy trees can bring us.”
This gorgeous book is a treasure, filled with so much beauty, wonder and insight into the ‘interconnectedness of forest ecosystems”. It lifts our spirits simply to turn through its pages and inspires and educates with its fascinating details about the mysteries of forests and, as Wohlleben describes “the role they play in sustaining our world and making it the kind of place where we want to live.”
We wanted to be sure to share this ‘tree joy’ gem with you. It’s a keeper and the kind of gift that keeps on giving. (Psst, List to Santa! 🙂 )
FRIENDS4TREES4LIFE 