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On Climate A special feature
The untold impact of a single, subconscious click
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Harrison Newsham
At the beginning of the first lockdown, our Instagram feeds were graced with stories of dolphins returning to Venetian canals. The narrative went that fewer people travelling allowed the waterways a break from pollution, and Mother Nature could reclaim what humanity had seized from her.
We retreated into our comfy clothes, content with the thought that our isolation was creating some good out of the bad. But though stories like this offered some respite from the daunting weeks of lockdown, they were completely false.
Bored and restless at home, we began to engage in behaviours that were much more destructive to our environment than dropping litter into a Venetian canal could ever be.
Online shopping has been a consumerist revolution. Its massive environmental impact is the last thing on our minds when the convenience of a click seems to eclipse all anxieties.
It’s true: Amazonordering and fast fashion did not begin with Covid-19. We’ve been regularly scrolling, clicking, and answering the doorbell for the best part of a decade. However, with the world in lockdown, many of us began to shop online at an alarming rate. Amazon hired 250,000 new couriers and warehouse assistants between July and September 2020, pushing their global workforce past one million people. Parcels now make up 60% of Royal Mail’s revenue – up from 47% before the pandemic.
So, what’s wrong with that? Surely saving a trip into town to buy that pair of trainers reduces our carbon emissions?
Unfortunately, online shopping commits greater crimes than simply burning the petrol that powers most vehicles. Our orders come packaged in cardboard, Styrofoam, plastic bags, and bubble wrap (made from our convenient friend, crude oil), which is inevitably binned
Remember when Christmas shopping looked like this? (TheOtherKev) and dumped in landfill. It then lays there for years, toxifying the earth.
Our desire for dopamine – call it addiction – makes fast fashion irresistible. But as we bulk buy kilo after kilo of clothing with the intention of sending back items which just don’t fit, we forget that 20% of online returns are sent to landfill because the retailer can no longer sell them. That’s not to mention the extra delivery trips to and from the warehouse.
Online ordering is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It appears harmless, but actually does serious damage to our already crippled environment. To combat this, we need to become more self-aware, to resist over-buying.
I may seem cynical, or preachy. But I can’t deny that I have shopped online, fallen for adverts, and smiled when I found a parcel placed neatly at my door (or shoved in a nearby bush) with my prized purchase inside. I’ve then forgotten about that purchase a few weeks later. No one’s infallible.
I also cannot deny that online shopping has been a lifesaver for some people during lockdown. Without supermarkets’ online order systems, many vulnerable people would have struggled to feed themselves during these months.
20% of returns are sent to landfill, not resold
But as the light at the end of this pandemic-shaped tunnel brightens, what we need to do is shop more consciously. We n e e d to shop local, buy clothes only when necessary, and reduce the amount we return, even when it is more convenient to do otherwise. Covid-19 is just one hurdle we humans will face in the coming decades. In the marathon against climate change, the hurdles are predicted to get bigger and bigger.
What on Earth is going on?
Climate change makes the news more often than it did a decade ago, but it still does not dominate the news cycle.
That’s a problem. Climate change is not a ‘woke’ issue for the hippies and the young. Nor is it a policy conundrum that can be solved by making a loophole of ambiguous phrasing.
Climate change is the state of being that our generation, and the ones that come next, will have to grapple with for our entire lives.
We need to pay attention to climate change because we need to breathe clean air. 8.3% of premature deaths in the UK are linked to diseases (asthma, lung disease, stroke) which are themselves linked to air pollution.
We need to pay attention to climate change because we love seeing polar bears in nature documentaries. But scientists expect a 30% decline in polar bear numbers over the next 30 years.
Even our beloved coffee dates at Flat White are in danger. Half of land currently used to grow coffee could be unproductive by 2050.
We urgently need to educate ourselves on the impacts of climate change. That’s why the SciTech section has given over this edition to a collection of articles on the theme. Reading through the submissions, I have been shocked by some of the facts.
If you want to go further, I recommend listening to the podcast ‘How to Save a Planet’. The New York Times’ newsletter ‘Climate fwd’ is also excellent. But after reading ‘The Case for CDs’ on page 14, you might think twice before signing up to any more email newsletters!
Faye Saulsbury Science and Technology Editor
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SciTech Climate pledges are meaningless without foreign aid
Faye Saulsbury
Science & Technology Editor
The shea nuts that go into your Body Shop ‘shea body butter for very dry skin’ come from the savannah belt of West Africa. This is a semi-arid ecosystem that spans the width of the continent, below the Sahara desert. Here grows the shea tree.
Shea trees provide shea butter, which is used not only in cosmetics, but also in cooking, soaps, and as a wood protector.
But harvesting shea nuts is slow, manual work, and many areas of forest are being cleared to make way for intensive, modern agricultural practices. Shea trees are also cut down and
Eve Kirman
In the midst of today’s climate crisis, good news concerning the state of our planet is rare. Yet recently, a notable coral discovery has signalled hope for the future of our currently declining marine ecosystem.
In October 2020, Australian scientists from James Cook University (JCU) discovered a 500m tall “blade-like” coral reef during a seabed mapping expedition. The habitat, situated within Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, is thought to be 1500m wide at the base, and rises up to just 40m below the water’s surface. landmark
The giant reef could easily tower over London’s tallest landmark, the Shard. In fact, it’s almost 200m taller. It’s a shock to scientists that the underwater reef wasn’t discovered sooner.
This discovery thus highlights the lack of knowledge we have regarding our oceans. Wendy Schmidt, of Schmidt Ocean Institute, said, “The state of our knowledge about what’s in the ocean has long been so limited.” Could this finding be a sign that there are many other thriving corals still undiscovered?
Dr. Bridge, of JCU, has said the newly-found area has an “incredible abundance” of sea creatures and organisms – some of which could be entirely used for fuel. And if the human pressures weren’t enough, climate change means this region will only become drier in the years to come. The impacts of this deforestation will affect more than just your skincare routine.
Shea forests are carbon sinks which means they take carbon dioxide from the air and store it for long periods of time. They also protect countries to the south of the Sahara desert, such as Ghana, from soil erosion.
The health of this ecosystem, therefore, is critical to agricultural productivity. And agricultural productivity is in turn critical to female empowerment in the region. 70% of Ghana’s agricultural activities are carried out by women, so they will be disproportionately affected by any decline in the sector.
Because of the environmental, social and economic importance of its shea forests, Ghana will receive $54.5 million over the next undocumented species.
Coral reefs play an integral role in marine life. Thought to be the most diverse ecosystems on the globe, they provide protection for coastlines, a habitat for various organisms, and are an essential source of nutrients in the marine five years from the Green Climate Fund. This is a UN programme to help poorer countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. The Green Climate Fund is currently financing 159 projects around the world. In northern Ghana, funding will go towards restoring degraded land through re-forestation, and empowering women through better access to financial channels such as loans and access to banks.
It is estimated that the Green Climate Fund will avoid the release of 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, and increase the resilience of 407.8 million people to changes in their environment.
But where does the UK fit into this story?
Well, the relatively high standards of life enjoyed by those living in the UK are a result of this country’s early industrialisation. That same industrialisation has also exacerbated climate change in other countries, many of them ex-British colonies like Ghana.
The UK has a responsibility to help countries which are now feeling the delayed effects of our fossil fuel-powered industrialisation.
Slashing our foreign aid spending from an already ungenerous 0.7% of GNI to 0.5% not only undermines our climate change promises – it undermines our moral integrity, too.
Sending money overseas is never popular with voters. But we have to remember that climate change is not a domestic problem, or a problem that can be addressed country-bycountry. In our interconnected world, how we live here in the UK has a complex impact on other countries. That’s why we need to keep spending on overseas aid, some of which goes towards the Green Climate Fund.
Slashing foreign aid spending diminishes the UK’s credibility in the run up to the 2021 UN Climate Ambition Summit
No fewer than five former Prime Ministers objected to the overseas aid cut. They knew that it would diminish the UK’s credibility in the lead up to the UN Climate Ambition Summit – which we are hosting in 2021.
If countries like the UK, which bear globally-reaching responsibility for climate change won’t make meaningful commitments to its mitigation, how can we possibly convince other countries to make their
It’s not all bad: “landmark” coral reef found thriving
own pledges? Will this reef, too, one day succumb to bleaching? (Adeline Zhao) food chain. and recreation.
Furthermore, the human Sadly, the abundance of benefit from reefs cannot be diversity in this skyscraper-like understated. The Great Barrier reef is not representative of the Reef Foundation has valued the whole story. Barrier Reef to be worth just Today, our reefs face over £40 billion, as it supports bleaching from increasing ocean 64,000 jobs in tourism, fishing temperatures as well as the prospect of total destruction from oceanic acidification. The impact of these dual threats are now being seen globally, spelling bad news for both marine life and mankind. Last month, The Guardian reported that 50% of our coral reefs have been lost in the last two decades, and 90% more are expected to perish by 2050.
The Great Barrier Reef is valued at £40 billion, as it supports 64,000 jobs
So, how could this coral structure sustain life so well when countless reef systems around it wither?
Falkor, the ship that discovered the reef while surveying the northern Barrier Reef floor, is now coming to an end of its 12-month voyage; and in retrospect, it appears that this new-found, biodiverse reef is anomalous. Atypical to the “coral graveyards” charted by Falkor at the beginning of 2020, the thriving coral structure may just be a survivor doomed to the same fate.
However, in our ever-changing climate, this discovery gives hope that we haven’t yet reached a state beyond recovery. There is plenty more we can do to protect our oceans. Dr. Bridge said, “We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about what lies in the depths beyond our coastlines.” Who knows what more we will discover as we research how best to protect the future of marine life.
