A broad and distinguished group of people from academia, the world of campaigning, farmers and people who rescue food otherwise headed for landfill gathered at City University recently to debate what a food strategy for England should look like.

Sign up to our daily or weekly newsletter. 

We learnt how Scotland has already been through several iterations of a written food strategy, and how public interest in the strategy has grown exponentially in recent years, with 214 responses to a consultation in 2014, and 1,400 to a similar call in 2019.

We heard an inspiring account from Brighton and Hove of how a city food strategy there is making real progress in delivering “healthy, sustainable, fair food for all”. And we learnt how the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte started as a global pioneer with a food strategy in 1993, with results that continue to be admired.

Maximising profits

This all makes England – which has no such plan – apparently very late to this particular dinner.

This is one more case of where an absence of declaration of intent doesn’t mean an absence of decision-making.

We have had a food strategy for decades, just not one that has been written down.

That strategy is to let the supermarkets and multinational food manufacturers decide what we eat, what farmers grow and often how they grow it. It is a strategy with one goal: maximising profits. 

The results are terrible for the health of English people, for the state of our nature, and for the income and security of farmers. It is also terrible for 0ur food security, as the New Economics Foundation reported back in 2008 in its telling report Nine Meals from Anarchy. 

Price-squeezing

Ruth Davis, from the RSPB and Defra, summed it up well: “No one rocks up to supermarket intending to buy their child an unhealthy diet. But then they encounter the behaviour change techniques. If you buy biscuits at ‘two for the price of one’ they don’t last two weeks. This leads to poor families spending more.”

Our unwritten “food strategy” has contributed to a society that has an obesity crisis, an explosion of Type 2 diabetes, massive overconsumption of ultra-processed food, and pitiful underconsumption of fruit and vegetables.

It’s one where farmers receive only 6 percent of the value in the food chain, as the National Farmers’ Union Minette Batters reminded the City University Symposium, while many smaller, more environmentally friendly operations, like family dairy farms, are forced out of business in favour of mega-factory farms.

It’s one where the state of nature has become truly parlous, as supermarket price-squeezing pushes unsustainable practices.

We learnt that some of these impacts can be counteracted with clever, solid effort, in the case of the HENRY project in Leeds, and innovative, adventurous companies like Hodmedods, which sells beans and pulses grown in the UK as an affordable alternative to factory-farmed meat.

Policy failures

But these initiatives have to fight the government policy of “Supermarket First” every step of the way.

Insisting that there already is a food strategy, even if not written down, is not just a piece of sophistry. It makes a crucial point that the way things are now is not inevitable.

Choices have been made in the past – whether to take away any government responsibility for food security (storage warehouses were emptied and closed in the 1970s), or to end the former Labour Party policy of forcing out-of-town shopping centres to charge for parking, as do town centres where small independent shops cluster (something else to blame Tony Blair for).

An inadequate minimum wage, inadequately enforced, has left many of the one in eight workers employed in the food industry at risk of going hungry. As one speaker commented: it’s a profound policy failure that supermarket workers are having to go to food banks to feed themselves.

We ate a delicious vegan lunch at the symposium – top marks to the organisers for modelling the change to the fruit and vegetable-packed diet the nutritionists and climate-scientists tell us we need, although still with a lot of work to do on ending single-use plastics). Before that, participants were polled on what they thought was the primary barrier to  healthy food system.

I was pleased, but not surprised, that “power differentials in politics” received by far the highest number of votes (above “siloed government” and “different world views”).

Stepping stone 

People want to feed themselves and their children well, but letting the decisions about our food system be made by a handful of companies – supermarkets and manufacturers – is not allowing them that outcome. (And long working hours and distant, slow, horrible commutes are making it even more unlikely.)

A thoughtful, constructive food system – of the kind the symposium hoped to be a stepping stone towards – can only come when communities are empowered to make decisions for themselves. 

Our communities need access to the resources to implement these decisions, be it access to land, funding or forcing the supermarkets to bear the externalised costs of their model – whether that be pesticide-soaked waters and voluminous, inevitable food waste, or the disappearance of wildlife and childhood obesity and rampant diabetes.

Bearing that cost would almost certainly put the supermarkets out of business, and let small independent producers flourish. 

That’s a food strategy worth writing down.

This Author 

Natalie Bennett is a member of Sheffield Green Party and former Green Party leader.

Sign up to our daily or weekly newsletter. 

All material aspects of human society need to be symbiotically re-integrated with the rest of life.

That shift will be an intellectual, cultural and spiritual one, where anthropocentric or human-centred thinking will be replaced by ‘sumbiocentric’ thinking. 

The production and consumption of food is of utmost importance in the material transition from the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene. The revolution in symbiotic science that has taken place over the last 40 years teaches us that to eat as ‘sumbiovores’ we must produce sumbiosic food. 

Sumbiocentrism

To be sumbiocentric means that one is taking into account the centrality of the life-process of symbiosis in all of our deliberations, as opposed to being anthropocentric, or human-centered. Symbiosis, as a scientific term, is derived from the Greek, sumbios, or to ‘live together’. 

Protecting the sumbios requires us to give priority to the maintenance of symbiotic bonds within and between species and the aim of such thinking is to maximize those bonds and to allow further creative liaisons to take place. Symbiosis holds life forms together as a community or biome; it is life-glue.

Sumbiocentrism is also an ethical position which entails that maintaining symbiotic connections, diversity and unity, within complex systems, is the highest good. 

To live together with the richest diversity of life will be good for humans and will maximize the vitality and viability of interconnected life forms, including those living within us, known as our gut microbiome.

Industrialised food production has ignored symbiosis and has endangered the vitality of all life in the process. In order to become an ethical eater of food, we need to identify the key aspects of industrial agriculture that have violated symbiosis and the biodiversity dependent on it. 

Industrial agriculture

For those no longer living close to the land and primary sources of food, there has been increasing alienation from the reality of food production. It comes as a rude shock to many that the industrial system of food production, especially for meat, has inherent environmental and ethical problems.

Modern, intensive, industrial forms of agriculture (plant and animal) maximise a negative and alienating relationship to those things we eat because they ignore the symbiotic foundations of all life.

Gigantism in agriculture (get big or die) means that in order to meet the requirements of economies of scale, huge tracts of land must be cleared of virgin vegetation and soil turned into a medium for the growing of food. In doing this, untold trillions of interrelated organisms (small and big) are extinguished. 

The massive loss of native vegetation and its animal and insect biodiversity in tropical zones for palm oil and non-food crops such as tea, coffee and cacao is well documented. 

Extensive monocultures – grain, pulses, vegetables, fruit or meat – are only possible with huge inputs from the ‘cides’ or killers of life. 

Destroying symbiosis 

Herbicides, insecticides, parasitecides, fungicides are all used to maximise production and profit. These bio- and ecocides are inherently symbiosis-busting chemicals as they work against all forms of life.  

For example, some types of insecticide can kill nitrogen fixing bacteria that inhabit the root nodules of legumes such as soy. Symbiosis between the plant and the bacteria is then replaced by dysbiosis (life destroying) that leads to lower crop production and ultimately, crop failure. 

Fossil fuels are the basis of chemical fertilisers and the fuel needed to run giant machines required for clearing, farming and transport. As greenhouse gas concentrations rise, it is now well known that climate warming also breaks the symbiotic bonds between species, including those important in human food consumption.

By polluting the local environment with excess nutrients, introducing toxins and carcinogens into the food chain, using genetically modified organisms that present an irreversible risk to human and ecosystem health, removing biodiversity and being fossil fuel dependent, industrial agriculture is a successful short-term food production system but a longer-term symbiosis destroyer.

We are now being warned by bodies such as the UN that the Sixth Great Extinction event is well underway. The role of all forms of intensive agriculture in the destruction of symbiosis at all scales is now well documented and cannot be ignored any longer.

Food ethics 

The overcrowding of animals and the unnatural conditions within which they live are also features of industrial forms of agriculture. Keeping life confined in ways that violate natural instincts to move, fly, bathe in water, dust bathe and be part of a community of beings is common practice in intensive agriculture.

Killing animals after they are herded, transported long distances and placed in stress-maximising facilities (industrial abattoirs) is also a core practice in intensive agriculture.  

A ‘flexitarian’ diet in which people eat less meat might help reduce the rapidity of species extinction, climate change and animal suffering. However, even this shift will not put all food production and consumption on a path that meets the ethical requirements of the Symbiocene. 

Recent scientific research on plants has revealed that they too have sensory awareness and forms of what must be called intelligence. We now understand that plants have at least 20 different sensory capabilities, can learn, store information, use memory to react to stimuli and share resources via symbiotic fungal and root community networks.

The ‘wood-wide-web’ is an apt description of this extensive networked communication system that operates between plants of the same and different species plus fungi and bacteria species. 

Plant sentience

If plants possess a form of sentience, then they too become the subjects of our ethical concern. 

We cannot judge animal suffering to be more ‘serious’ than plant suffering because that form of speciesism would be ‘sentientism’ or the unjustified elevation of the status of animal sentience over plant sentience.

The abuse of sentient animal beings can be addressed by not killing or eating them or perhaps ameliorated by humane forms of management and death.

However, for a vegetarian, the prevention of the abuse of plant sentience is an impossibility.

Given that humans have little choice but to eat plants or animals, the ethical requirement of respecting sentience would mean that we would not be able to eat anything except life-disconnected, cell-cultured food.  

Sumbiosic eating

Eating is a necessity; it is also an emotional act, intimately connected to our feelings and moods. How can we eat ethically and in a nutritionally and emotionally satisfactory way in the Symbiocene?

In the transition to the Symbiocene, in addition to respect for the sentience of our fellow beings in considering food choices, there is the need to respect the importance of symbiosis in maintaining healthy soil, food, animals and people. 

The grazing of herbivores and their manure, compost and bioturbation at local and regional scales, all assist in building soil fertility via symbiosis between micro-organisms and invertebrates.

Predation of herbivores by carnivores to prevent over-browsing and soil erosion also has a vital role in maintaining ecosystem health. 

Humans have also played an ecosystem role as carnivores managing grazing pressure within grasslands. Some traditional African cultures (e.g., the Massai) did this as they had a meat-predominant diet based on the flesh, milk and blood from cattle herding. 

Their predation on cattle ensured that an ancient symbiosis (pre-climate warming) between soil, cattle, humans and all other rangeland biodiversity was maintained in balance.

Regenerative grazing

Contemporary versions of this natural system of grazing can be found in what is called ‘regenerative’ grazing.

Here, farmers attempt biomimicry of the natural symbiosis between plants and animals in rangelands. Their rewilding of degraded land is controversial, but at the very least they are providing new opportunities for symbiosis on a large scale. 

As all human cultures have known, to some extent, ecosystem and human health are intimately interconnected. Create the right symbiotic relationships in particular places, life will be good. 

If all people in all places create these kinds of relationships, then the totality of life on Earth will be very good. 

It is this crucial aspect of living systems that both meat and plant-based food production systems have excluded in the shift to the industrialisation of food production.

Symbiocene food

Symbiocene food will be food produced by a new generation of farmers that enhances mutual interdependence between the non-living foundations of life (biogeochemical systems) and, in particular, all species as living beings sharing a common life. 

The consumption of food from regional agriculture that fully respects symbiosis will entail a tougher standard for food than ‘organic’, as organic systems can currently be monocultures and have no necessary connection to the symbiosic foundations of biodiversity in bio-regional contexts.

Sumbioculture celebrates the interconnectedness of life (living together) and the unique characteristics of place and culture as expressed in food or wine (terroir). Being a food ‘locavore’ also helps overcome food kilometres and greenhouse gas emissions. 

Sumbioculture, in the form of permaculture, agroecology, some organic and biodynamic farming, is consistent with the health of symbiotically unified ecosystems and our need for food. 

If you eat sumbiosic food you are a sumbiovore and being a sumbiovore requires a value system that must be considered in addition to choosing to be a carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian or vegan in the Symbiocene.

This Author

Dr Glenn Albrecht is a freelance environmental philosopher and farmosopher. He has pioneered the domain of psychoterratic or psyche – earth relationships with his concept of solastalgia. He is the author of Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World and writes at Psychoterratica.

Public concern about climate change has hit new highs as the issue has risen up the agenda in recent months, a Government survey suggests.

The findings were released as a letter from more than 100 “worried parents” – including actor Jude Law, former footballer Gary Lineker and musicians Jamie Cullum and Paloma Faith – was published demanding climate action.

Polling for the Business and Energy Department (Beis) found four-fifths of people are now fairly or very concerned about climate change, the highest level since the regular survey began in 2012.

Emergency

The new highs were driven by an increase in the number of people who are very concerned about the problem – with more than a third  saying they feel that way.

Almost half said climate change was caused entirely or mainly by humans, the highest level recorded in the survey. Just seven percent thought it was an entirely natural phenomenon and only two percent said they did not think it existed.

Young people were more likely to see climate change as being mainly or entirely caused by humans, with 61 percent of 16 to 24-years-olds.

The changes in the survey, which took place from March 13 to 24, come amid increasingly hard-hitting warnings about the impacts of rising global temperatures from scientists, as well as school walkouts.

Since the survey was conducted, there have also been high-profile protests by Extinction Rebellion over the climate and environmental “emergency” which saw more than 1,000 people arrested amid huge disruption.

Technology

The poll found that seven in 10 people think climate change is already having an impact in the UK, with half  saying they had noticed rising temperatures or hotter summers in recent years.

Almost two-thirds expect higher temperatures and hotter summers over the next 15 to 20 years, while more than half expect to see rising sea levels and more flooding and extreme events such as storms.

Support for renewable energy was up to 84%, with backing for solar, offshore and onshore wind, wave and tidal sources all reaching new highs.

Two-fifths of people now oppose fracking, the highest level since the question was first asked in 2013, while just 12 percent support the process of producing natural gas.

Industry body RenewableUK said despite record levels of support for onshore wind, the technology is being excluded by ministers from competing in auctions for contracts to generate clean power, and called on them to change their policy.

Judge

RenewableUK’s deputy chief executive Emma Pinchbeck said: “In a climate emergency, we need to use every tool in the box.”

The letter from parents has been co-ordinated by the group Mothers Rise Up, and is being published ahead of International Mothers’ Day on Sunday May 12, when parent groups across the UK and Europe will be demanding climate action.

In the letter, 125 actors, writers, musicians, politicians, faith leaders and campaigners urge governments to declare a climate emergency and dramatically speed up emissions reductions “for the sake of our children and the planet”.

They write: “We are terrified at what the growing climate crisis means for our children and millions of children across the globe – many of whom are already suffering because of the extreme droughts, floods and storms that are increasingly the norm in our rapidly overheating world.”

TV presenter Lineker said: “The climate crisis is an issue for all parents – no matter what we do, or where we live. Together we need show politicians that this is something we care about, and an issue we will judge them on.”

This Author

Emily Beament is the environment correspondent for the Press Association.

A new research lab to explore radical ways of fixing the Earth’s climate is being launched by the University of Cambridge.

The Centre For Climate Repair is being established in response to concerns that current efforts to tackle climate change by reducing emissions will not be enough to halt or reverse damage to the environment.

Refreezing the Earth’s polar regions and removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere are among the bold ideas up for research.

Greening

Known as geoengineering, such theorised techniques could become a reality if scientists manage to figure out a way of implementing them.

The project is being co-ordinated by Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the government, who said time “is no longer on our side”.

“What we continue to do, what we do that is new, and what we plan to do over the next 10 to 12 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000,” he said.

One of the ideas being considered by scientists is spraying salt water high into the atmosphere to “whiten” clouds in the Arctic region in order to reflect heat back into space.

Another proposal is “re-greening” and “greening” areas of the planet with vegetation, on sea and on land, to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Solutions

In October the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that changes on an unprecedented scale would be needed by society to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The panel said countries need to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, with steep cuts in other greenhouse gases such as methane.

The IPCC said methods to take excess carbon out of the atmosphere, known as carbon capture, will also be needed.

A poll by YouGov at the time found that a majority of Britons would be happy to reduce their consumption of resources to slow or halt the negative effects of climate change.

One in three preferred an approach that relies on technological solutions to counter climate change.

This Author

Ryan Wilkinson is a reporter for the Press Association. 

Abrupt climate change some 8,000 years ago led to a dramatic decline in early South American populations, suggests new UCL research.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to demonstrate how widespread a decline was and the scale at which population decline took place.

Dr Philip Riris of the UCL Institute of Archaeology and lead author of the study, said: “We wanted to connect the dots between disparate records that span the Northern Andes, through the Amazon, to the southern tip of Patagonia and all areas in between.

Abrupt change

“Unpredictable levels of rainfall, particularly in the tropics, appear to have had a negative impact on pre-Columbian populations until 6,000 years ago, after which recovery is evident.

“This recovery appears to correlate with cultural practices surrounding tropical plant management and early crop cultivation, possibly acting as buffers when wild resources were less predictable.”

The study focused on the transition to the Middle Holocene – itself spanning 8,200 and 4,200 years ago –  a period of particularly profound change when hunter-gatherer populations were already experimenting with different domestic plants, and forming new cultural habits to suit both landscape and climate change.

While the research shows that there was a significant disruption to population, the study highlights that indigenous people of South America were thriving before and after the middle Holocene.

Co-author, Dr Manuel Arroyo-Kalin (UCL Institute of Archaeology), said: “In the years leading up to population decline, we can see that population sizes were unharmed.

“This would suggest that early Holocene populations, probably with a social memory of abrupt climate change during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, developed successful strategies to deal with climate change.”

Cultural resilience

Dr Arroyo-Kalin continued: “Abandonment of certain regions and the need to adapt quickly to new circumstances may have promoted the exploration of alternative strategies and new forms of subsistence, including the early adoption of low scale cultivation of domestic plants.

“Viewed in the context of at least 14,000 years of human presence in South America, the events of the Middle Holocene are a key part of indigenous South Americans’ cultural resilience to abrupt and unexpected change.”

In this new study, archaeologists examined data from nearly 1,400 sites consisting of more than 5,000 radiocarbon dates to understand how population changed over time, and cross-referenced this information with climate data. 

Dr Riris explained: “We studied ancient records of rainfall such as marine sediments for evidence of exceptional climate events.  Within windows of 100 years, we compared the Middle Holocene to the prevalent patterns before and after 8,200 years ago.

Historical context

“Normal patterns of rainfall suggest on average an unusually dry or wet year every 16-20 years, while under highly variable conditions this increases to every 5 years or so. This puts in perspective the challenge that indigenous communities would have faced.”

The authors believe that the research offers crucial historical context on how ancient indigenous South American populations dealt with climate change.

Dr Arroyo-Kalin concluded: “Our study brings a demographic dimension to bear on understandings of the effects of past climate change, and the challenges that were faced by indigenous South Americans in different places.

“This understanding gauges the resilience of past small-scale productive systems and can potentially help shape future strategies for communities in the present.”

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from UCL. The research cited was funded by a UCL CREDOC grant, the Sainsbury Research Unit at University of East Anglia and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCL.

Image: Peruvian rainforest. Anna and Michal, Flickr. 

The UK government declared a climate emergency a week after Extinction Rebellion (XR) chose to pack down and clean up its last London site.

XR herald this as a step toward the UK Government fulfilling its first demand – ‘Tell the Truth’.

While it can’t be denied that XR’s bold and creative fortnight of action opened the way for the government’s declaration, it stands on the shoulders of those who have lobbied, marched and locked-on before them. 

Legitimate criticisms

The group has received some legitimate criticisms for its confused public positioning on the police.

But buried deep in its FAQs page is a more sensible and inclusive stance, which recognises “the structural racism in our policing and legal system”, and that “people of colour (PoC) have been more at risk for generations in defence of the environment and their lands […] It is time to for white people to take this risk too so that PoCs, who are threatened by structural racism, don’t have to.”

This kind of language needs to resonate throughout the movement. 

Fair criticisms aside, XR have been the target of people who believe that the imagination and politics of the movement is not sufficient to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis: the pursuit of endless profits on a finite planet.

These critiques fail to recognise two things: first, the current of anti-capitalist practice and principle that runs through the movement; second, that adopting a strong anti-capitalist stance would be movement suicide.

Targeting the culprits

XR has begun to hit out at the culprits of the climate crisis, targeting oil majors, big banks and investors and the home of capitalism, Canary Wharf.

Promisingly, the Bank of England, which has the ability to print hundreds of billions of pounds for the just transition, was one of XR’s targets during its day of action in the city.

Sign up to our daily or weekly newsletter. 

As XR grows and develops, with offshoots and new affinity groups forming every day, it should be encouraged to continue to draw the media’s attention to our failing economic system. 

Instead of pulling XR apart from the outside, those with strong anti-capitalist motivations should be forming affinity groups within the movement and be organising disruptive actions that target corporations and financial actors.

There is appetite and energy inside XR for this kind of work. If you build it, they will come.

Recreating London

XR reclaimed and reimagined how our public spaces could be used during the International Rebellion.

Spaces that had been reclaimed were subsequently decommercialised, eradicating pricing systems and excluding no one based on their ability to pay up.

This beyond-money system was expressed in every single one of the thousands of free, healthy meals that were served every day by the volunteer-led guerrilla kitchens at each site. 

This value-system, newly instated across the five London sites, echoed a late stage communist society, which, according to Marx, will consist of self-organised communities, free from private property.

The ideological implications of the occupied sites were most significantly felt at Oxford Street, a symbol of consumer capitalism. 

Bypass the lobbyist

The use of the Citizen’s Assembly is a crucial plank in XR’s strategy. The Assembly is composed of a representative sample of the UK’s demographic and is skilled up in climate issues and the deliberative decision-making processes.

It is designed to overcome the UK’s failing democratic institutions, which are beset with partisan conflict and in-party splits, as well as being dogged by industry and corporate lobbyists. 

As an independent body of citizens, the Assembly is shielded from any attempts by lobbyists to shape discussion and policy.

The function of the group moving into the future will be to design solutions and keep the government on track, as they are pressed by groups like Labour for a Green New Dealto deliver an industrial strategy that is moulded on the tenants of an internationalist Green New Deal. 

Movement building

By not providing an explicit critique of capitalism, XR has opened the doors to a bipartisan coalition of citizens who feel disenfranchised by a political process that facilitates the exploitation of people and planet.

While this deviates from the approach of explicitly politicised climate groups, XR’s strategy has so far mobilised thousands of people to take part in civil disobedience over consecutive days. 

As many climate organisers on the left will know, mobilising people to actions and demos is notoriously difficult, with those turning up being drawn from the same small circle of people.

To demand that XR adopts an explicit and overarching anti-capitalist narrative, which has previously failed to move enough people to action, is to demand that the movement gives up part of what has made it successful. 

And the successes of the movement are monumental, with climate breakdown hurtling up the news agenda, politicians being forced to the table, tens of thousands of people signing up as new recruits, and radical social and political spaces being established across major London sites for well over week.

Though not explicitly anti-capitalist, XR is challenging the old economic and democratic paradigms that dragged us into this crisis, and, crucially, it is opening up the space for discussions on how we’re going to get ourselves out of it. 

This Author 

Samuel Hayward is the project officer of climate change campaigns at ShareAction. 

Sign up to our daily or weekly newsletter. 

A week, it seems, is a long time in climate politics. On the streets, in parliament and on the airwaves, the clarion call of ‘climate emergency’ is beginning to penetrate.

Even the grumpiness of John Humphrys – recently defending his ‘right’ to fly to his place in the sun on the Today programme – could not drown out Ed Miliband’s (and the cross-party Climate Justice Commission from IPPR) call for the country to put itself on a war footing to fight climate change.

However, a decade is a short time in policy development and as the IPCC has pointed out, ten years is all we have to turn the world’s financial, economic and technological resources to the task of avoiding irreversible climate change. 

Collective action

People are scared. The impacts are present and real, whether written in the growing roll call of names of violent storms or in the voids carved by retreating glaciers and shrinking ice sheets.

We need policies that can convert our individual will into collective action in terms of society, economy and finance. 

The world’s economy has been stagnant since the financial crisis (itself just over a decade ago) with the predictable consequences that pessimism about the future brings. As economists know, economies are fuelled by sentiment, and the rise in nationalistic politics is fuelled by a negative view of the future.

Fearful of such effects, the world’s central banks mobilised trillions of dollars of capital to maintain the sense of wellbeing that comes from buoyant stock markets (aka. quantitative easing). 

John Humphrys’ riposte that somehow responding to climate change might spoil his fun is not so different from those who talk about the response to climate change in terms of potential losses and costs.

Transformative effect

When the world is on the up we are willing to take risks, make investments and hope for a share of a growing pie.

When the world is on a down, we fear losing what we have and cut our costs with the inevitable consequence that we are all worse off (what Keynes called the paradox of thrift – hoarding a quantity of money undermines its value as money). 

But responding to climate change is not the end of fun. Or holidays. It is about the need to create a financial and economic system that stays within the planet’s boundaries delivering progress that benefits the greater good without costing the next generation’s future. 

Optimism fuels invention. Optimism fuels change. Optimism finds ways to solve problems.  Climate change is a cause that needs optimism.

You don’t need to take my word for it. Those same people at the world’s central banks who bailed out the financial system also see a low-carbon transition as generating net positive long-term returns in growth and economic activity. 

Optimism and pessimism

There will always be winners and losers. That is just economics. But we can make sure that this transition has a positive transformative effect on our society, focusing on the things that matter, and moving away from only seeing wealth in terms of the value we extract from the world.

As I’ve said before, we make the markets and economies we deserve and right now they are not fit for purpose. 

It isn’t ideology to want a better future for your planet, although ideology can blind you to the solutions that could realise it.

The politics of climate change are not a question of right or left but about optimism and pessimism, the desire for or denial of the need for change. So maybe Ed Miliband really will save our bacon.

This Author

Bruce Davis is managing director of Abundance Investment, which advertises with The Ecologist.

Image: Ed Milliband, Flickr. 

At least £1 billion a year needs to be spent on traditional flood and coastal defences in the face of climate change, the Environment Agency has said.

But Environment Agency chairwoman Emma Howard Boyd warned “we cannot win a war against water” by building ever-higher flood defences, and efforts are needed to make communities more resilient to flooding.

Homes hit by flooding need to be “built back better”, with improvements such as raised electrics and hard flooring, while some communities may have to be helped to move in the face of growing risks of flooding and coastal erosion.

Investment

The warning comes as the government agency publishes its long-term strategy for managing the risk of flood and coastal erosion.

It is planning for the potential of up to 4C of warming, well beyond the 1.5C or 2C limits which have been agreed internationally and are seen as thresholds beyond which dangerous climate change will occur.

The Environment Agency (EA) also predicts that climate change and population growth are set to double the number of properties built on the flood plain over the next 50 years.

Ms Howard Boyd said urgent action was needed to tackle more frequent, intense flooding and sea level rises driven by rising temperatures, and called for more resilient homes and infrastructure.

An average annual investment of £1 billion will be needed over the next 50 years in England for traditional defences such as barriers and sea walls, which could be funded by a mixture of government and private sources.

Warnings

Without increased investment, flood damage to properties and infrastructure in England will significantly increase, the EA strategy says.

Alongside traditional defences, other measures to help communities become resilient to flooding are needed.

These could include temporary barriers, natural flood management schemes such as planting trees to slow the flow of rivers and sustainable drainage systems with ponds and areas where water can soak away into the ground.

This will deliver positive benefits for the environment as well, such as creating habitat for wildlife.

There should be effective flood warnings and emergency response will be needed, alongside designing and adapting new and existing properties to help them recover quickly from a flood.

Adapt

And with only a third of people who live in areas at risk of flooding believing their property is under threat, the agency wants to build a nation of “climate champions” educating youngsters through the curriculum about the risks of floods.

Launching the strategy at Brunel University in London, Ms Howard Boyd said: “The coastline has never stayed in the same place and there have always been floods, but climate change is increasing and accelerating these threats.

“We can’t win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences.

“We need to develop consistent standards for flood and coastal resilience in England that help communities better understand their risk and give them more control about how to adapt and respond.”

She urged: “More should be done to encourage property owners to build back better and in better places after a flood, rather than just recreating what was there before.

Erotion

“This could involve home improvements, such as raised electrics, hard flooring, and flood doors.”

But she also warned: “In some places, the scale of the threat may be so significant that recovery will not always be the best long term solution. “In these instances, we will help communities to move out of harm’s way.”

Environment Minister Therese Coffey said: “Flooding and coastal erosion can have terrible consequences for people, businesses and the environment.

“That’s why we are already providing £2.6 billion over six years, delivering more than 1,500 projects to better protect 300,000 homes But the threat of climate change will mean an increasing risk and preparing the country is a priority for the Government, and the nation as a whole.”

The Government will be launching a call for evidence to inform future action towards flood and coastal erosion risks, she said.

This Author

Emily Beament is the environment correspondent for the Press Association

Economic growth is picking up steam in the European Union. Over the next five years, the European Commission wishes to “foster growth and ensure sustainable prosperity by deepening the Economic and Monetary Union”.

While the economic outlook may sound promising, the view on the ecological horizon looks bleak. This was depressingly highlighted in the latest report from the innocuously named Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which showed, among other things, that a previously inconceivable million species is threatened with extinction.

“The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever,” cautioned IPBES chair Robert Watson. “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

Wellbeing

The IPBES report demands that policy-makers steer away from the limited paradigm of economic growth, replacing it with more holistic measures looking at quality of life instead.

Similarly, a group of prominent academics and policy specialists urge the EU not to deepen economic and monetary unity but, instead, to build a deeper ecological and human union. Rather than a Stability and Growth Pact, Europe needs a Sustainability and Wellbeing Pact, they argue in a letter (pdf) released on 9 May 2019, to coincide with Europe Day.

“We have to stop sacrificing the environment and people on the altar of GDP growth,” Nick Meynen, policy officer for environmental and economic justice at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). “The current economic system is pushing people and planet to burnouts. This is unnecessary, since so many economists are showing us that well-being within planetary limits and without economic growth is possible.”

The letter is the initiative of the EEB, Europe’s largest network of environmental organisations, with around 150 members in over 30 countries.

“Nothing is more important for Europe than system change to make sustainable wellbeing our number one priority – it’s time to act and make the transition we all so badly need,” Professor of Epidemiology Kate Pickett, who is a global ambassador with the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and a signatory of the letter, told Meta.

In a bold shift away from the prevalent culture of quick fixes and partial remedies, the open letter, which garnered over 200 signatures, outlines a three-pronged strategy for boosting human welfare while safeguarding the environment upon which that welfare depends.

Three pillars of change

The first pillar of this expert vision is to replace the policy fixation on economic growth with a focus on human and ecological welfare. “Prosperity without growth is possible,” insists the open letter.

The second prong focuses on tax reforms which will make European tax systems more progressive and shift the weight of taxation regimens away from taxing labour and towards taxing wealth and polluters. This would not only narrow inequalities but would also reduce waste and wastefulness.

The final pillar rests on formulating and implementing zero-waste strategies that bolster resource efficiency. This would involve transforming the EU into a truly circular economy in which waste is minimised from the inception stage and what waste is created is mostly recycled.

The EU and its member states have committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The time is ripe to challenge both political and business leaders from the EU, a region struggling with over-consumption and excessive resource use, on their growth addiction.

“No longer can outdated economics and parochial politics trump the necessity of building an economy and institutions fit for people and planet,” concludes co-signatory Katherine Trebeck, who leads policy and knowledge at the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and is a senior visiting researcher at the University of Strathclyde. “The world needs politicians and civil servants, in the EU and beyond, to act in accordance with scientific realities – a Sustainability and Wellbeing Pact is a vital part of pioneering policy-making aligned with the needs of today.”

This Author

Khaled Diab is a senior communications officer at the European Environmental Bureau, with a particular focus on the sustainable development goals, economic transition and environmental justice. Khaled is a veteran journalist with over 20 years of experience gathered in Europe and the Middle East. He is also the author of two books.

This article first appeared on Meta – the news channel of the European Environmental Bureau.

The echo from the streets of Europe and beyond is ‘system change, not climate change’. When climate activist Greta Thunberg met European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, she told him to talk to the experts, but what should they say?

We, over 200 system change experts from academia, civil society and cities, have some answers. Last autumn, a group of 238 scientists and 90.000 citizens asked for an end to Europe’s growth dependency and at a Growth in Transition conference in Vienna we made this more concrete. We look beyond increasing GDP towards a positive plan for a post-growth economy.

Our three key leverage points on how to launch a transition towards a thriving society within planetary boundaries advise policy-makers at European, national, regional and municipal levels on ways to confront the still worsening triple crisis of climate change, mass extinction and inequality.

Let’s be honest. Neither the Paris Agreement nor the Aichi Biodiversity Targets nor the current tax regimes are capable of dealing with these existential threats. As a group of scientists just wrote in Science: “The current measures for protecting the climate and biosphere are deeply inadequate”.

Deep changes are not only needed, but also wanted. A recent and massive poll taken all over Europe showed that a majority of Europeans now consider that the environment should be a priority – even at the expense of growth.

Broad agreement was found on three major systemic changes. These three leaps are not excluding other solutions, but they all three are urgent, possible, needed, wanted and game-changing. They do require a visionary mindset and a can-do attitude. They require a mindshift away from incremental thinking, the mindset that has brought us to this point of crisis.

1) Dethrone King GDP, elect WELLBEING

People want to thrive in a living world. Policies catering to GDP growth often sacrifice people and planet alike, while policies towards well-being help us heal.

Prosperity without growth is possible. Growth by over-exploitation of resources, safety shortcuts and pollution drive both people and planet to burnouts. Examples from Bhutan to New Zealand and Barcelona show that putting social and environmental progress before GDP really works.

Demands to the European Commission:

• Turn the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) into a Sustainability and Wellbeing Pact (SWP).
• Change from “Jobs, growth and investment“ to “Wellbeing, jobs and sustainability“
• Establish a DG for Wellbeing and Future Generations led by the first vice-president

Demands to countries, regions and municipalities:

• Create a wellbeing and future generations portfolio at the heart of governance

2) From TAX HAVENS for the few to REDISTRIBUTION for the many

Tax wealth more and labour less. Tax pollution progressively and stop subsidising it.

Two post-war decades of +-90% top income tax rates in US & UK became a rate (far) under 50% now. Most EU countries followed, leaving the rich off the hook. As a result, inequality has been rising steadily and a growing feeling of (tax) injustice has spilled into social unrest and populism. The Gilets Jaunes uprising in France showed that you can’t tax pollution without a fair taxation system. Subsidies supporting pollution and resource overuse need to end immediately and pollution/carbon taxes must be used to promote welfare for the poorest.

Demands:

• Set top income tax rates above 80% for redistribution to low- & middle-income families.
• Tax air travel for redistribution to better and low to zero-cost public transport.
• Launch progressive carbon and resource taxes at the source and redistribute.
• Provide tax incentives for the use of recycled materials.

3) EFFICIENT products are good, SUFFICIENT solutions are great

Efficiency gains are important, but only the beginning of the solution.

Social and cultural exclusion can undo efficiency gains. We don’t need to sell more products, we need sufficient solutions that are long-lasting. Some companies already sell the service of having light, instead of the product of a light bulb, reversing the incentive from planned obsolescence to long lasting products. Barcelona’s zero-waste strategy includes advanced separate waste collection systems with smart waste containers to identify users and reduce residual waste as well as boost biowaste catchment – going much further than awareness raising, prevention, and support for reuse.

Demands:

• Support the development of better business models like the product-service economy.

• Implement zero waste strategies at all governance levels following the waste management hierarchy for operations and extended producers’ responsibility schemes.
• Decrease the VAT on labour-intensive services such as repairing.

• Leap from efficiency to sufficiency policies to make sustainable lifestyles the default.

These Authors

The six first signatories lead the drafting of this letter. All signatories come from academia, civil society and city governments.

Nick Meynen, Policy Officer Environmental and Economic justice, European Environmental Bureau
Maria Langsenlehner, Project Associate, EU-Umweltbüro
Kate Raworth, Author of Doughnut Economics
Patrick ten Brink, EU Policy Director, European Environmental Bureau
Toni Ribas Bravo, Ecology Group Coordinator, Barcelona en Comú
Halliki Kreinin, Research Assistant, Institute for Ecological Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Dr Jason Hickel, Anthropologist, University of London
Dr Katherine Trebeck, Policy & Knowledge Lead, Wellbeing Economy Alliance
Dr Lorenzo Fioramonti, Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Dr Federico Demaria, Ecological Economist, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Dr Dan O’Neill, Associate Professor in Ecological Economics, University of Leeds
Dr. Marta Conde, President Researc & Degowth, Researcher Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
Dr. Claudio Cattaneo Senior Researcher, Department of Environmental Studies,  Masaryk University, Brno Czech Republic
Riccardo Mastini, PhD Candidate in Ecological Economics and Political Ecology, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Dr. Christian Kerschner, Assistant Professor Modul University Vienna, AT and Masaryk University Brno CZ
Dr Giorgos Kallis, ICREA Professor, Ecological Economist,  Autonomous University of Barcelona
Dr Petter Næss, Professor of Planning in Urban Regions, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy Queen’s University Belfast
Prof. Dr. Maja Göpel, Political Economist and System Innovation scholar, University of Leuphana
Dr. Christoph Gran, Senior Economist, ZOE. Institute for Future-Fit Economies               
Jonathan Barth, Economist, ZOE. Institute for Future-Fit Economies;
Prof. Dr. Hermann Ott, University of Sustainable Development Eberswalde, Germany
Dr. Friedrich Hinterberger, SERI Sustainable Europe Research Institute and University of Applied Arts Vienna
Kate Soper, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, London Metropolitan University
Prof. Jean Gadrey, Economist, University of Lille, France
Prof. Kate Pickett, Epidemiologist and University Champion for Justice & Equality, University of York
Vincent Liegey, co-author of A Degrowth Project, engineer, consultant and interdisciplinary researcher, France / Hungary.
Dr. Miklós Antal, Ecological Economist, University of Leeds
Dr. Stefania Barca, senior researcher, Center for Social Studies – University of Coimbra
Dr. Andreas Novy, associate professor, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Mauro gallegati, prof economics, univ politecnica marche, ancona
Dr. Alexandra Köves, ecological economist, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Prof. Frank Moulaert, KU Leuven, Belgium
Julien-François Gerber, Assist. Prof. in Environment and Development, International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands
Elgars Felcis, sustainability scientist, University of Latvia and chairman of Latvian Permaculture association
Dr. Janis Brizga, NGO Green Liberty, Latvia
Prof. Tor A. Benjaminsen, human geographer, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Dr. Nadia Johanisova, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Dr. Mihnea Tanasescu, Research Fellow in Political Ecology, Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at the Free University of Brussels (VUB)
Dr Eeva Houtbeckers, postdoctoral researcher, Aalto University, Finland
Fabricio Bonilla, Happiness Economics Researcher, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Dr Paul Ariès, authors of Degrowth or barbarity, director of the International “Observatoire de la Gratuité” (OIG), France
Dr Ivo Ponocny, Full Professor at MODUL University Vienna, Austria
Timothée Parrique, PhD Candidate in Political Economy. University of Clermont Auvergne (CERDI) and Stockholm University (SRC)
Dr. Matthias Schmelzer, researcher at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and at Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie
Dr. Dennis Eversberg, Junior research group leader, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
Jan Blažek, Doctoral student in Environmental Humanities, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic
Dr. Alevgul Sorman, Ikerbasque Research Fellow, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3)
Lilian Pungas, Research Assistant and PhD candidate, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
Dr. Barry McMullin, Full Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Computing, Dublin City University, Ireland
Dr. Melanie Pichler, senior researcher, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
Dr. Manuel González de Molina, Professor. Agroecosystems History Lab, Seville, Spain
Prof. Brent Bleys, Ecological Economist, Ghent University, Belgium
Christian Dorninger, PhD-candidate, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, and Konrad-Lorenz-Institute Klosterneuburg, Austria
Dr Panos Petridis, Researcher, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria
Dr François Briens, Researcher in socio-ecological economy and prospective studies, France
Dr. Martin Fritz, Researcher at Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany
Dr. Vivian Price, Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Coordinator, Labor Studies, California State University, Dominguez Hils, California, USA
Dr Max Koch, Professor in Social Policy, Lund University, Sweden.
Logan Strenchock, Environmental and Sustainability Officer, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary
Prof. Matteo Villa, Associate Professor in Economic Sociology, University of Pisa
Ernest Aigner, PhD candidate, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Dr Lidija Živčič, Expert, Focus Association for Sustainable Development, Slovenia
Orsolya Lazányi, PhD candidate in ecological economics, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Dr. Erik Gomez-Baggethun, Professor in Environmental Governance, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway
Dr. Laura Horn, Associate Professor in Global Political Economy, Roskilde University, Denmark
Philippe Defeyt, Chairman, Institute for Sustainable Development, Belgium
Jacques Grinevald, Emeritus Professor, Graduate Institute of Development Studies (GIDS), Geneva
Dr Thomas Smith, Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Inge Røpke, Professor of Ecological Economics, Aalborg University, Denmark
Lucie Sovová, PhD candidate at the Department of Environmental Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic and Rural Sociology group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Dr. Hervé Corvellec, Professor of Management, Lund University, Sweden
Dr Hubert Buch-Hansen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Dr Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Lecturer, Lund University, Sweden
Dr Moira Nelson, Associate Professor, Lund University, Sweden
Dr György Pataki, Associate Professor, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
Dr Alexander Paulsson, Lecturer, Lund University, Sweden
Dr Timothée Duverger, Associate Professor, Sciences Po Bordeaux, France
Prof. Francesco Gonella, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Dr Christos Zografos, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Dr Fabrice Flipo, Institut Mines-Télécom BS, France
François Jarrige, Historian, University of Burgundy, France
Dr Tuula Helne, Senior researcher, Kela (The Social Insurance Institution of Finland), Helsinki
Dr Anna Heikkinen, Senior Research Fellow, Tampere University, Finland
Prof. Dr. Aram Ziai, Political scientist, University of Kassel, Germany
Dr Jens Friis Lund, professor of Political Ecology, University of Copenhagen
Dr Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, assistant professor, Roskilde University
Dr Mladen Domazet, Research director, Institute for Political Ecology, Zagreb, Croatia
Edina Vadovics, Research director, GreenDependent Institute, Hungary
Olivier Malay, Researcher in economics, University of Louvain, Belgium
Ajda Pistotnik, Independent Researcher, EnaBanda, Slovenia
Dr Fausto Gusmeroli – Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
Dr Ray Cunningham, Green House Think Tank, UK
Dr Janne I. Hukkinen, Professor of Environmental Policy, University of Helsinki, Finland
Dr Guy Julier, Professor of Design Leadership, Aalto University, Finland
Dr Lassi Linnanen, Professor of Environmental Management, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology, Finland
Piotr Barczak, Polish Zero Waste Association, Institute for Circular Economy, European Environmental Bureau, Poland
Philipp von Gehren, Researcher, Austrian Agency for Health & Food Safety
Dr Pasi Heikkurinen, Lecturer in Management, University of Helsinki, Finland; Adjunct Professor of Sustainability and Organizations, Aalto University, Helsinki; Visiting Research Fellow, University of Leeds, UK
Dr Toni Ruuska, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki, Finland
Ana Poças Ribeiro, PhD Candidate on Sustainable Consumption at Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
Kristoffer Wilén, Doctoral student, Hanken School of Economics, Finland
Dr. Jean-Louis Aillon, M.D., Phd Candidate in Anthropology and Psychology (Università di Genova, Italy)
Dr. Tuuli Hirvilammi, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Prof. Dr. Ernst Worrell, Professor Energy & Resources, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Dr Anne Chapman, Co-chair, Green House Think Tank, UK
Nigel Cohen, Economist, Inclusivity Project, UK
Dr Andrew Mearman, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Leeds, UK; and Green House Think Tank.
Sigrid Stagl, Professor of Environmental Economics & Policy, WU – Vienna University of Economics, Inst Ecol Econ, Austria
Jennifer Hinton, Researcher,, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
Madis Vasser, Board member, NGO Estonian Green Movement, Estonia
Dr Miłosława Stępień, independent researcher, Poland
Prof.Bożena Ryszawska, Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland
Marcin Popkiewicz, physycist, Warsaw University, Poland. Author of ‘World at the Crossroads’, ‘Energy Revolution. But why?’ and ’Climate Science’
Jakub Rok, PhD candidate in economics, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr Weronika Parfianowicz, Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr Łukasz Drozda, Institute of Social Prevention and Resocialisation, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr Maciej Kassner, Institute of Philosophy, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
Dr Andrzej Tarłowski, Faculty of Psychology, University of Economics and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland
Dr Michał Czepkiewicz, Post-Doc researcher, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Iceland
Dr Maciej Grodzicki, Institute of Economics, Finance and Management, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
Angelina Kussy, Predoctoral Researcher, Dep. of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Prof. Piotr Skubała, soil ecologist, University of Silesia, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, Poland
Dr hab. Wiktor Kotowski, wetland ecologist, Professor at University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Poland
Dr Zofia Prokop, evolutionary ecologist, Jagiellonian University, Faculty of Biology, Poland
Dr hab. Łukasz Michalczyk, evolutionary biologist, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Eliza Kondzior, PhD student in Biology, Mammal Research Institute Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr Barbara Pietrzak, ecologist, assistant professor, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr. Kasia Piwosz, aquatic microbial ecologist, Scientist, Institute of Microbiology Czech Academy of Sciences,
Dr. Anna Urbanowicz, molecular biologist, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Poland
Mateusz Leźnicki, researcher in Philosophy of Law, PhD candidate, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Legal Studies, Poland
Dr. Piotr Zieliński, evolutionary biologist, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Dr. Piotr Bentkowski, Inserm / Sorbonne Université, Institut Pierre Louis d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique,
Prof. dr hab. Kazimierz Rykowski Forest Research Institute, Warsaw, Poland
Dr hab. Agnieszka Pajdak-Stós, aquatic microbial ecologist, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Dr hab Paweł Koperski, hydrobiologist, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Prof dr hab. Jan Marcin Węsławski, marine ecologist, Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr hab. Anna Muszewska, biologist, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr Barbara Stępień, postdoctoral researcher, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics,
Jakub Kronenberg, Social-Ecological Systems Analysis Lab at University of Lodz, and the Sendzimir Foundation, Poland
Paweł Koteja, biologist, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Dr Michał Pałasz, Institute of Culture, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Dr Mateusz Płóciennik, assistant professor (ecology, palaeoclimatology), Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Łódź, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Jan R.E. Taylor, ecologist and ecophysiologist, Institute of Biology, University of Białystok, Poland
Dr Ernst von Kimakowitz, Direktor, Humanistic Management Center; Humanistic Management Network, Switzerland
Dr hab. Karol Zub, Associate Professor, Mammal Research Institute PAS, Białowieża, Poland
Igor Siedlecki, biologist, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
Dr Joanna Tusznio, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Krakow, Poland
Dr hab. Łukasz Kaczmarek, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Jan Kozłowski, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Łukasz Berlik, independent researcher, Natural Society of Opole Voivodeship, Poland
Dr Beata Czyż, ecologist, University of Wrocław, Poland
Dr hab. Maria Niklińska, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Anna Gromada, Social and Economic Policy Advisor, the Kalecki Foundation, the UN and the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Jacek M. Szymura, biologist, Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Anna Hauler, PhD candidate, hydrobiologist, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Dr Maria J. Golab, ecologist, Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Paulina Kramarz, evolutionary ecologist, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Krakow, Poland
Alek Rachwald, forest ecologist, Forest Ecology Department, Forest Research Institute, Raszyn, Poland
Elisa Plazio, PhD student in Ecology, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Krakow, Poland
Dr Justyna Kierat, melittologist and evolutionary biologist, independent environmental educator, Krakow, Poland
Dr hab. Krzysztof Pabis, marine ecologist, entomologist, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Łódź, Poland
Bogusław Pawłowski, prof., biological anthropologist, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Poland
Dr Jerzy Parusel, Upper Silesian Nature Heritage Centre, Katowice, Poland
Dr Aleksandra Walczyńska, evolutionary biologist, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Prof. dr Andrzej Dyrcz, University of Wroclaw, Poland
Kamil Bartoń, ecologist, Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Assoc. Prof. Tymon Zieliński, Institute of Oceanology PAN, Poland
Jan Sowa, Ph.D., member of Committee of Cultural Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr hab. Władysław Polcyn, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Michał Grabowski, Faculty of Biology & Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Poland
Dr Rafał Ruta, biologist, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Poland
Prof. Wiesław Babik, biologist, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Elżanowski, biologist, University of Warsaw, Poland
Prof. Jukka Heinonen, University of Iceland
Dr hab. Ewa Bińczyk, prof. UMK, Faculty of Humanities, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland
Prof. Michal Woyciechowski, evolutionary biologist, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Dr hab. Sławomir Mitrus, Institute of Biology, University of Opole, Poland
Dr Mateusz Iskrzyński, physicist (postdoc), International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria
Dr hab. eng. Marcin Kadej, biologist, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Poland
Dr. Adam Ostolski, sociologist, Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, Poland
Marta Połeć, Institute of Culture, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Dr Bartłomiej Gołdyn, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland.
Dr Zygmunt Dajdok, biologist, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Poland
Kornelia Sobczak, PhD Candidate, Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw, Poland
Prof. dr. Dariusz Tarnawski, Institute of Environmental Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wroclaw, Poland
prof. dr hab. Monika Kostera, Jagiellonian University and Södertörn University, Poland
Dr. Romina Martin, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden
Dr. Krzysztof Kujawa, Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Dr Ryszard Kulik, Workshop for All Beings, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Edward Gwóźdź, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
Prof. dr hab. Hanna Kmita, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan Poland
Dr Sarah Cornell, associate professor, sustainability sciences, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
Helena Norberg-Hodge, author of Ancient Futures, co-director of The Economics of Happiness, founder and director of Local Futures,
Anja Lyngbaek, Associate Programmes Director,  Local Futures, Denmark
Edward Langham, Research Fellow, Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, Bristol, UK
Julian Jones, Distinguished Fellow, Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, Bristol, UK
Richard Hellen, Director, Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, Bristol, UK
Dr Martin Oetting, Managing Director, Omnipolis Media, Berlin, Germany
Dr Luca Coscieme, Research Fellow, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Dr. Ingo Fetzer, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Arthur Perrotton, Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Bengi Akbulut, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
Dr Tim Daw, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Dr. Drago Župarić-Iljić, Assistant Professor, University of Zagreb
Dr. Ivan Murray, Ecological Economic Geographer, University of the Balearic Islands
Dr.sc. Jelena Puđak, Institute of social sciencies Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
Andro Rilović, Research Assistant, Institute for Political Ecology, Zagreb, Croatia
Tomislav Medak, PhD Candidate, University of Coventry, UK
Dr Marija Brajdić Vuković, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Dr Karin Doolan, University of Zadar, Croatia
Jere Kuzmanić, Assistant, Department of Urban Planning, , Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Geodesy, University of Split, Croatia
Prof. Dr Susana Paixao, Environmental Health Specialist, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Portugal
Jan Mayrhofer, Policy Officer, European Youth Forum
Predrag Momčilović, PhD Candidate and researcher, Platform for theory and practice of commons, Belgrade, Serbia
Sara Fromm, Research & Degrowth, Barcelona, Spain
Dr Susan George, President of the Transnational Institute, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Lisa Hough-Stewart, Communications and Mobilisation lead at Wellbeing Economy Alliance
Dr Jorge Riechmann, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Dr Giacomo D’Alisa, Center for Social Studies University of Coimbra
Dr Richard Lane, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
Dr Eva Friman, Director & Researcher, Swedesd, Uppsala University
Dr Tim Jackson, Professor, University of Surrey, UK
Jonas Van der Slycken, PhD Candidate in economics, Ghent University, Belgium
Dr Monica Verbeek, Executive Director, Seas At Risk
Arnaud Schwartz, National secretary of France Nature Environnement & member of the European Economic and Social Committee
Michel Dubromel, President of France Nature Environnement
Jeremie Fosse, President, eco-union, Spain
Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, researcher at the University of Valladolid, Spain
Dr Leho Tedersoo, Research Professor, Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, Estonia
Dr Mart Külvik, Professor in Biodiversity and Environmental Planning, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonia
Dr Mihkel Kangur, Senior Researcher of Paleoecology, Tallinn University, President of Estonian Geographical Society, Estonia
Dr Aleksander Pulver, Lecturer, School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Estonia
Prof. John Sweeney, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Maynooth University, Ireland
Dr Triin Vihalemm, Professor Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia
Dr Irmak Ertör, Postdoctoral researcher, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain