More wildlife has been spotted in our area since lockdown. So many local residents have reported sightings of badgers and deer, for instance.

This is a refreshing slant on the misery of lockdown.

This is fairly long, but stick with it; it explains a lot.
http://stophs2.org/news/19612-hs2-ancient-woodlands-biomass-power-stations

Radical new climate change commitments will set the UK on course to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035, the UK government has announced. (Based on 1990 CO2 emissions.)
Does anyone think the new target will be met?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56807520

The original Guardian article has been taken down.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/environment-protest-being-criminalised-around-world-say-experts/ar-BB1fOMSv

There was a big fuss last year about a shortage of the different kinds of cardboard packaging needed to sell to retail customers what would normally have been sold wholesale - egg-boxes being a notable problem.
I have lots of those, which I could tear up and compost, or use first for seedlings, but would rather get reused to hold eggs - if that's possible. Tesco say that they don't reuse them but I've pushed them to reconsider that, as it would be so easy to take the boxes back when I'm in the local shop twice or more a week.

High street chain’s farm project could put pressure on wild pollinators, warn conservationists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/16/marks-spencer-honeybee-project-threat-biodiversity-conservationists-aoe

Something more positive.

New paint reflects 98% of sunlight as well as radiating infrared heat into space, reducing need for air conditioning
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/15/whitest-ever-paint-could-help-cool-heating-earth-study-shows

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56762131.amp?fbclid=IwAR23E7GqdUKd7Q6oAXXBFVW4sJXmhxnaNXGOrW9C_G8ZDWwuJXRbK-lzgsU

Drive to plant more trees will count for little if existing woods are lost, says Woodland Trust
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/14/trees-uk-native-woodlands-reaching-crisis-point

Pristine areas in the Amazon and Siberia may expand with animal reintroductions, scientists say
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/15/just-3-of-worlds-ecosystems-remain-intact-study-suggests

https://markavery.info/2021/04/07/guest-blog-hs2-limited-and-natural-england-partners-in-crime-by-dominic-woodfield/

https://www.recyclenow.com/local-recycling

I found this guide useful.
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/shopping-sustainably/article/how-to-recycle-in-the-uk-ajwEz4p63Qs6

This is encouraging news.
https://apple.news/A99P4JWT6QP2XydgDJe6Y1w

https://tinyurl.com/ydrwjfgq

A damning report recently revealed that in the few years after the Paris Climate Agreement, high street bank Barclays handed out a massive $85 billion to companies involved in coal, fracking, tar sands and Arctic oil projects. This lands them in top spot as the worst offending bank in Europe for financing fossil fuel companies.

We can’t let Barclays continue to bankroll the destruction of our planet any longer. Barclays’ so-called climate commitments are meaningless unless they put their money where their mouth is and take immediate steps to phase out fossil fuel funding.

Will you join me and sign the petition today?
https://tinyurl.com/ydrwjfgq

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2273040-global-tree-loss-is-undermining-tactics-to-address-the-climate-crisis/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1617232094

https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/25/skybrator-bladeless-wind-turbines-could-prevent-500000-bird-deaths-14302920/amp/

Now we are into spring, some of you may be thinking about gardening. If you buy compost, don’t forget to check it is peat-free.

Our peatlands store more carbon than the forests of the UK, France and Germany combined, they provide clean drinking water and are habitats for some of our rarest species. It takes ten years to create one centimetre of peat which is being consumed 200 times faster than it forms. As a result, we have lost 94% of our lowland bogs in the UK and there are just 6,000 hectares left in good condition. Yet, every month gardeners in the UK use enough peat to fill 69 Olympic swimming pools.

This video shows just how many brands of compost contain peat. You may be buying peat without being aware of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saPh5-Z5VNM

Take the peat-free pledge. https://seedball.co.uk/conservation/peat-free-pledge/

Call on the Government to ban the use of peat in horticulture and all growing media by 2023.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562054

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-56536679

Pressure is mounting over shocking human rights abuses in the Uyghur region of China. [1] It is even being called a “genocide”. [2] Governments across the world - including our own - are starting to take a stand, and high-street retailers are facing increasing scrutiny over whether their supply chains are implicated in forced labour. [3]

There is horrific evidence that Uyghurs are being sent to forced labour camps to produce, amongst other things, cotton. Now a huge coalition of hundreds of organisations from across the world are calling on clothes shops to make sure that they aren’t complicit in this atrocity. [4]

Already, major retail brands like Marks and Spencers and ASOS have made public commitments to prevent their supply chains being linked to the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. But others are dragging their feet. [5]

In November, representatives from Zara denied any ties to the Uyghur region, but links between their parent company and suppliers in the area have since been exposed. [6] Lonicera, that’s where we come in.


If you believe that the clothes we wear shouldn’t be contributing to human rights abuses and genocide, send a message to Zara now and demand they take action:

MESSAGE ZARA NOW

Ps added: sorry link does not work, if interested you have to search Muna, Ashley and the 38 Degrees team .

https://theecologist.org/2021/mar/24/boris-loses-his-bottle-recycling

https://action.wildlifetrusts.org/page/77618/action/1?

Hopefully it will catch on.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/on-a-retro-style-milk-truck-london-entrepreneur-chases-a-zero-waste-future?

More microplastics are contaminating agricultural lands than oceans, impacting plant development and ending up in produce and people.

https://civileats.com/2021/01/27/there-is-an-alarming-amount-of-microplastics-in-farm-soil-and-our-food-supply/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-56254309

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-water-day-indonesia-trees/once-called-crazy-indonesian-eco-warrior-turns-arid-hills-green-idUSKBN2BB0IO

In the current year: March 20, 2021

International Day Without MeatInternational Day Without Meat is annually celebrated on March 20. This holiday was observed for the first time in 1985 in the USA as Great American Meatout.
Great American Meatout was started by Farm Animal Rights Movement, that raises awareness of the health, environmental and ethical benefits of living without meat and cruelty to farm animals. The organizers of the movement encourage people to live just for two days without meat. This will save 28 animals and 190,000 gallons of water per year. Complete elimination of animal products from diet of only one person saves 200 animals, 1,3 million gallons of water and 53,000 square feet of rain forests annually.

There are different motives to participate in the movement. People, who are concerned about their health, should remember, that excessive consumption of meat can have a negative effect on the cardiovascular system. The others are concerned about the fact that more than 60 billion animals are killed annually to use for food. The other motivation to participate in the movement is that farming leads to the development of the greenhouse effect.

https://www.earthday.org/the-benefits-of-environmental-education-for-toddlers/

https://www.ailuna.com/world-rewilding-day/

https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/cpre-welcomes-news-that-oxcam-expressway-scrapped/

Today is Global Recycling Day - an initiative dedicated to celebrating the importance of recycling and to making the world think resource, not waste.

'The mission of Global Recycling Day, as set out by the Global Recycling Foundation, is twofold:

1. To tell world leaders that recycling is simply too important not to be a global issue, and that a common, joined up approach to recycling is urgently needed.

2. To ask people across the planet to think resource, not waste, when it comes to the goods around us – until this happens, we simply won’t award recycled goods the true value and repurpose they deserve.'
You can read more on official website: https://www.globalrecyclingday.com/

Bottom trawling releases as much carbon as air travel, landmark study finds.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/17/trawling-for-fish-releases-as-much-carbon-as-air-travel-report-finds-climate-crisis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZyRS84IbA0

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nature-studies-gcse-compulsory-david-attenborough-dasgupta-b1816508.html#comments-area

Some of you signed the petition.



The Government has just U-turned and decided to call a public inquiry into the plans for the first new deep coal mine in the UK for decades. [1]

This is great news Lonicera, as it delays the application and gives us another chance to explain why this coal mine must never go ahead, but it wouldn’t have happened without the thousands of people, like you, who have signed petitions and sent messages to the local council. [2] Together - with other campaigners from all across the country - we’ve really piled on the pressure.

With everything going on right now it can be easy to feel powerless and alone. But we’re not. People power has shown time and time again that when we come together we’re unstoppable. And today we’ve proven just that.

But the campaign does not end here. Although the public inquiry is welcome news, we need to make sure the Government makes the only sensible decision at the end of it and rejects the plans. It's time for the UK to become a real climate leader with investment in green jobs in Cumbria for years to come. [3]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/04/polystyrene-to-be-phased-out-next-year-under-australias-plastic-waste-plan

Anyone who believed they're buying entirely renewable energy from their 'green energy' supplier should be shocked to see how few of those supply energy that's been generated from renewable sources, rather than simply compensating for its fossil fuel basis by buying REGOs.
The supposedly green supplier which I moved to over a year ago doesn't even appear in the lists of those which the Ethical Consumer report assessed. I recall not being the only member of this group who opted for Pure Planet at that time.
There's a free preview of this worrying reading, available at https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/flipbook/Issue189Preview/10/ (and successive pages).

Here's a petition you might like to sign: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/help-stop-wealden-district-council-from-forcing-pete-to-destroy-his-life-s-work

.Here's a short video: https://bit.ly/3ldD6oe

It would never have occurred to me to wonder about this but the much greater public interest in wildlife may well mean that sales of binoculars etc has become a growth area. So it's worth asking whether their manufacturers are ethical.
https://mailchi.mp/ethicalconsumer.org/event-should-we-care-who-makes-our-binoculars-with-chris-packham-1523136?e=57f084c3a9

This is a welcome initiative in an era when repairing goods is seen as non-profitable and discouraged so consumers are forced to replace.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/10/tough-new-rules-aim-to-make-electrical-goods-last-longer

I realise that it has already been possible to recycle soft plastics at many supermarkets but this should make it easier and more obvious. Lets hope it’s rolled out nationwide soon and more supermarkets follow suit. https://apple.news/AVRjPwupfSj6aVFn7iZuQhw

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/come-clean-about-the-damage-caused-by-your-farmed-salmon?share=71d84bb3-51d8-4aea-a15a-938500d23991&source=twitter-share-email-button&time=1615049334&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter

One of the reasons for signing:

"I live next to a Salmon smolt farm and watch them pour up to 1000L of FORMALDEHYDE directly onto live fish 7 days a week for 9 months a year because the fish are so diseased. I watched last year as they took thousands upon thousands of dead diseased fish away in dustbins. Our life now is horrendous because of the fumes and stench of rotten Salmon. The loch is dead of all life with no native fish left at all. This is a horrific business."

I don't think this is news to anyone.
Transferring production and therefore emissions to China doesn't amount to a reduction in our emissions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285239

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/03/britain-moths-decline-by-third-50-years-study

I've been using Ecosia for some time now and mostly found it very good, but I'm sorry to see from this Ethical Consumer report that Ecosia doesn't plant [m]any trees as a result of my searches - because I never intentionally click on the advertisements.

It's still rated as much better than Google, however, so I'll keep using it anyway - except when I need to use Google Maps or be certain of getting comprehensive results.
https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/technology/how-ethical-search-engine-ecosia?utm_source=ECRA+Monthly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=bb4b9d9665-EMAIL_newsletter_2021_03_05+nonsubs&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9856040c29-bb4b9d9665-321357508

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/04/catastrophic-uk-has-lost-90-of-seagrass-meadows-study-finds

This looks like an interesting idea. Different projects to get involved with.
https://my.earthwatch.org.uk/

https://www.scooploop.com/thread/mcdonalds-x-beyond-meat-partnership-dubbed-clearest-sign-yet-that-future-of-meat-is-plant-based

https://blog.theveteranssite.greatergood.com/camp-century/?gg_source=VET&gg_medium=house&gg_campaign=Ad-720x360_Blog_Here%27s%20Why%20Greenland%20Could%20Become%20The%20Next%20Chernobyl_VET&gg_con

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56175714