An “army” of gardeners spurred on by The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has added 22 million plants to gardens in the last year, a survey for the organisation suggests.

The poll of 2,000 RHS members found gardeners typically put in some 10 to 40 new plants a year, which the charity said benefits wildlife, the environment, health and well-being.

It is expanding its “greening grey Britain” campaign, which aimed to promote more planting in concreted and paved spaces, into a “greening Great Britain” scheme to promote growing more plants in any setting.

Diversity

The RHS said that among the estimated 22 million plants going in the ground or pots a year, at least 157,000 trees were introduced.

RHS director-general Sue Biggs said: “We know most of our members are active gardeners, but these figures are stunning and exceeded our expectations with the amount, and diversity, of plants they are adding each year.

“This is immensely positive for wildlife, the environment and numerous other benefits, including cooling local areas in summer, flood protection, air quality improvement, noise reduction and well-being benefits.”

Health benefits

And she said: “Without the plants our gardeners grow we would have fewer insects, wildlife, bees, beauty and benefits to the environment.

“We would have less nature, seasonality and colour in our front and back gardens; and if we didn’t have our ‘army of gardeners’ we wouldn’t have the rich and beautiful diversity we are so famed for and so good at maintaining.”

The polling by SurveyMonkey also suggests that three-quarters (77 percent) of gardeners quizzed choose plants for bees, while 96 percent of members believe in the health benefits of gardening and 95 percent think it is beneficial for the environment.

This Author

Emily Beament is environment correspondent for the Press Association.

Nuclear power has never lived up to the promise of cheap energy for all, but the costs have included displacement and sickness to nearby communities, contamination of land and water resources, and a build up of 70 years worth of nuclear waste.

In the UK, the costs of nuclear developments have been borne by the taxpayer. Under the ‘Contracts for Difference’ scheme, bills for electricity from the new plant at Hinkley C will be twice what we currently pay.

This does not cover the costs of accidents, which are underwritten by the Government. Nuclear plants typically run overtime and over-budget.

Nuclear waste

The Government’s consultation about burying nuclear waste is about to end, kicking off a five-year search for a willing host community with ‘suitable’ ground conditions.

We are presented with two options: leave the waste in crumbling storage facilities like Sellafield; or bury it and let it contaminate the environment.

In Scotland, new surface-level management facilities are being built but in England this is deemed too expensive. It is clear that we need a solution to managing the waste before we create more of it.

Springfields is where nuclear fuel is produced for both civil and military use, and waste processed from both the UK and abroad.

‘Surround Springfields’ on 27 April is an opportunity to follow the route of radioactive waste and to understand how this issue affects everyone, everywhere.

Creative action 

We will even be dressing as barrels of waste in an attempt to break a world record for surrounding a nuclear site.

We will also be having a live conversation with indigenous people in other countries via a webinar about the impacts of uranium mining and nuclear waste. You can join this remotely if you cannot get there – check our Facebook page for details.

Do we choose a long term, socially responsible and ethical energy supply, with a moral commitment to the wellbeing of future generations?

We need to come together and make the Government approach these challenges with vision and creativity, not with the poverty of ambition, opacity and lack of foresight that characterises the nuclear solution.

Take part

Surround Springfields will take place on Saturday 27 April. For more information, contact the organisers. 

This Author 

Chris Bluemel is a music teacher and campaigner and part of the Stop New Nuclear network. He has been involved in a wide range of campaigning from standing in elections as a Green Party candidate to direct action against road-building, fracking, the DSEI arms fair, and Trident.  He is also part of the radical protest-folk band Seize The Day. 

People are increasingly concerned about how to work hard towards a sustainable future. For some of them, that means investing in electric cars or biking to work while others might specifically aim to do businesses that have eco-friendly products and manufacturing practices.

But, most of them arguably don’t think about gender equality and inclusiveness as tying into sustainability.

The treatment of women moved into the forefront recently due to the #MeToo movement. And, that trend is undoubtedly crucial in achieving more equality across the board. But, it’ll soon become clear that any view of sustainability remains incomplete without including women within it.

Economic activities

Women bring a diversity of thought and practices, and the contributions they make will both directly and indirectly affect sustainability moving forward.

Once people recognise that females are essential for making sustainable improvements and safeguarding the planet for the future, they’ll facilitate meaningful progress in both small and large-scale ways. Here’s an overview of why that’s true.

Research shows that women are both impacted by sustainable social development and are well-positioned to influence it. Think of how women are often the ones responsible for sourcing the daily supplies for a household. As such, they are frequently the first to feel the effects of non-sustainable practices.

But, at the other end of the spectrum, consider that countries with high percentages of women in legislative positions tend to have fewer problems with unsustainable overshoot.

Positive changes

That’s an issue that happens when growing populations and economic activities harm the biophysical carrying capacity of the environment and could stimulate hardships such as having to travel further to find food or water.

As such, researchers argue that women have a continual motivation to work toward greater sustainability that might not be present in men.

In short, they may have different priorities that arise when caring for their families compared to men. That’s not to say males don’t care about sustainability, but the matters that women bring to the table regarding it could offer unique perspectives.

Findings also indicate that women are often better at building consensus or responding to the needs of their constituents. That could mean that the ongoing investment women have towards sustainability does not only extend to their immediate families but their communities and the wider world.

If females have the opportunities to promote positive changes through sustainability laws or movements, they could make long-term changes.

Thrive

Females have ongoing investments in making our future more sustainable. They have valuable and worthwhile reasons to fight hard for sustainability in ways that matter to themselves, their families and broader groups.

Additionally, they may also have priorities that men don’t initially bring up. So, their perspectives matter in giving well-balanced pictures of why sustainability counts now and moving forward.

There is still much progress left to make regarding equal opportunities for women to contribute through their work, ideas and perspectives. But, focusing on women during efforts to improve sustainability will pay off in countless ways.

In Philadelphia, for example, there’s a women-aimed sustainability group that stimulates discussions and opens minds about sustainable possibilities presented by local entrepreneurs.

Sustainability also applies to the workforce. Some long-standing employment models are difficult for women to enter and thrive within. However, the cooperative movement is one that empowers women.

Advocate

It also gives people the opportunity to behave in sustainable ways. More specifically, cooperatives are owned and operated by their members. They’re democratic organisations that give decision-making power to each member, too.

When women get involved in cooperatives, they have opportunities to make smart decisions that protect the planet for the future. But, the influence of women doesn’t only extend to cooperatives, of course.

An in-depth study profiled the contributions of females to ocean governance, including marine conservation and sustainable fisheries. It also helps that previous gender-related boundaries are getting blurred.

The experiences women have throughout their lives, whether while raising their families, participating in the workforce and doing the other things that comprise their daily existences allow them to advocate strongly for why sustainability matters and how it could positively impact their lives.

Pioneering

But, it’s crucial for the people involved in spurring sustainability progress to listen to women and realise that their voices matter.

In closing, it’s short-sighted and damaging for people to neglect to consider and prize female views during the continual push for better sustainability.

Women become affected by non-sustainable outcomes and associated problems like climate change in ways that men may not through during their lives.

And, they have pioneering ideas that could help bring about sustainability in unexpected and valuable ways.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.

‘Extinction’ is a word which has been cropping up more and more in news headlines. We regularly hear about different species which are being pushed to the brink of survival, whether at home or abroad.

Recently, a parliamentary debate was interrupted by protestors from Extinction Rebellion who stripped off in the House of Commons in order to bring attention to what they term an ‘unprecedented global emergency’ in which every species on earth is threatened.

Experts agree that we are living in an unprecedented time of species extinction. According to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, we lose between 24 to 150 species every day.

Unlike past mass extinctions which have been caused by phenomena such as ice ages and meteor strikes, current losses can be traced back to human activity. But what are we doing to cause it?

Habitat loss

The WWF states that habitat loss poses the greatest threat to species. The expansion of agricultural land is one of the main drivers for the destruction of natural habitat. This isn’t new information – a 2015 article in Science Direct states that “livestock production is the single biggest driver for habitat loss.”

Animal products are incredibly inefficient to produce, meaning that huge amounts of land are needed to raise animals and grow their feed.

Up to 91 percent of Amazon deforestation is attributable to animal agriculture. In just 12 months between 2017 and 2018, an area the size of one million football fields was lost, largely to make space to grow crops to feed to farmed animals. With this we lose some of the richest habitat on our planet.

But you don’t need to travel as far as the Amazon to see the impact. Here in the UK it’s the same story. We have lost 50 percent of UK wildlife, and again experts cite modern farming methods as the culprit.

In a recent article Michael McCarthy paints a stark picture: “The fields may still look green in spring, but it is mostly lifeless scenery … it is green concrete.”

Climate change

And then there’s the other reason. As the parliamentary protestors called it – the elephant in the room.

We’re all familiar with the powerful image of the polar bear struggling to stay afloat on an ever-decreasing ice floe. This is a potent symbol of what is happening across the world as animals struggle to adapt to changes in the environment caused by climate change.

Again, this leads back to animal agriculture, a major contributor of greenhouse gases. Farmed animals produce more emissions than all of the direct emissions from all transport globally.

Often the gas contributed is methane, which is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of warming the earth’s atmosphere.

The solution

In the face of this bleak picture, what if there was something you could do to tackle the problem? What if you could do something positive to counter it three times a day?

More and more people are going vegan, withdrawing their support from animal agriculture industries and instead funding a food system which is more environmentally friendly and more compassionate.

If you need any help or advice along your vegan journey, why not sign up to the free VeGuide app? It will walk you through 30 days of plant based living, offering help, tips and advice. Going vegan has never been so easy.

You might find it’s the simplest way that you can reduce your carbon footprint – and you don’t even need to take part in any kind of semi-naked public protest.

This Author 

Elena Orde is senior communications and campaigns officer at The Vegan Society and editor of The Vegan magazine.

As the Brexit deadlock continues to dominate the agenda – it’s difficult to keep other pressing issues such as the climate crisis on the agenda.

Extinction Rebellion’s naked protest in Parliament’s public gallery this week, demonstrates the need for bold action to keep the most important issue of our time visible while the public conversation is elsewhere.

We know how urgent serious action on climate change now is. Last year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) laid out in clear terms that we have 12 years – now closer to 11 to cut emissions by 45 percent if we’re to keep to 1.5 degrees of warming and reduce the risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and resulting poverty.

Averting catastrophe

Academic Jason Hickel recently wrote in the Guardian that the course of action required to avert catastrophe “represents a total and rapid reversal of our present direction as a civilisation.” As the UK’s political paralysis continues, we’re losing precious time to start moving ourselves towards a greener future – radically retooling our economy to reflect the severity of the challenges ahead.

For campaigners, activists and NGOs the length and breadth of the UK, it’s a daunting and unprecedented to time to be trying to influence to influence public policy. Just how do you keep talking about your issues, keeping up a conversation and attempting to reach policy makers when the normal business of national politics has ground to a halt?

The sight of a group of nearly naked protesters gluing their bums to the security glass in the public gallery of the House of Commons provided a distraction and some light relief from the turgid and seemingly endless debates taking place in the chamber.  It may have been a somewhat amusing stunt – which lead to Ed Milliband’s eyes virtually popping out of his head – but the message couldn’t have been more serious.

For years as a country we have failed to take the bold and forward thinking action that is required to seriously reduce our emissions. The IPCC’s report brought home the urgency of the situation but as political stagnation grips the country, we’re virtually unable to discuss the most pressing issue facing humanity.

Extinction Rebellion was formed to take eye catching and provocative direct action to cause disruption that the political classes can’t ignore. To date, it has done that admirably – with this week’s protest building on mass actions that have grabbed headlines and disrupted city centres around the UK.

Growing movement

When the political class is failing to address such an important issue – it’s down to ordinary people and communities to use whatever peaceful means are available to them to keep raising the issue and demanding change.

As Extinction Rebellion continues to grow in both numbers and the boldness and audacity of its stunts and actions – I can only hope that the message continues to cut through the noise and that more people are inspired to take action.

Despite how gloomy the political landscape of the UK feels right now – there is hope in the form of our movements. The School Strike for Climate, alongside Extinction Rebellion, demonstrates the power of people whatever their age or background taking action on the most urgent issue of the day.

In many ways it’s disheartening that it’s even necessary for people block access to fracking sites or strip off in the commons ­– but thankfully people are willing to take direct action for the sake of our future.

As we continue to be gripped by Brexit uncertainty ­­– campaigners and activists will need to find eye catching and effective ways to ensure the most pressing issues facing humanity remain part of the conversation.

This Author

Andrew Taylor-Dawson has been involved with the social justice and environmental movements for over a decade. He works in the NGO sector as well as writing about civil society, campaigning and progressive causes. Twitter: @Andrew_J_Taylor.

The Big Garden Birdwatch, now in its fortieth year, is a chance for people of all ages to count the number of birds that visit their garden, helping the RSPB build up a picture of how birds are doing.

This year, almost half a million people across the country took part counting an impressive 7.5 million birds.

The event, held over the last weekend in January, revealed the house sparrow held on to its number one spot, whilst there was a decrease in garden sightings of wrens and long-tailed tits, two of the smallest species to visit our gardens.

Good news

Long-tailed tits decreased by more than 27 percent and wrens by 17 percent in 2019 after being counted in particularly large number in 2018.

Populations of both species may have been affected by last year’s ‘Beast from the East’ as small birds are more susceptible to spells of cold weather. But it’s too early to say if this is a one year blip or the beginning of a trend.

Over its four decades, Big Garden Birdwatch has highlighted the winners and losers in the garden bird world. It was first to alert the RSPB to the decline in song thrush numbers. This species was a firm fixture in the top 10 in 1979. By 2009, its numbers were less than half those recorded in 1979, it came in at 20th in the rankings this year.

Daniel Hayhow, RSPB Conservation Scientist, said: “Over its long lifetime, the survey has shown the increasing good fortunes of birds such as the goldfinch and wood pigeon and the alarming declines of the house sparrow and starling.

“But there appears to be good news for one of these birds. While the overall decline in house sparrow numbers, reported by participants, since the Big Garden Birdwatch began is 56 percent (1979–2019), in the most recent decade (2009-2019) numbers appear to have increased by 10 percent, giving us hope that at least a partial recovery may be happening.

“This year’s survey also highlighted a rise in the number of sightings of redwings and fieldfares on last year’s figures.

School participation

The house sparrow remained at the top of the Big Garden Birdwatch rankings at the most commonly seen garden birds with more than 1.2 million recorded sightings throughout the weekend.

Starling held down the second spot once more, with the blue tit moving up one spot to round off the top three.

Throughout the first half of the spring term the nation’s school children took part in the RSPB’s Big Schools Birdwatch. The UK-wide survey of birds in school grounds saw close to 60,000 school children spend an hour in nature counting the birds.

Blackbird was the most numerous species seen with an average of 8 per school; and was seen in 89 percent of all schools that took part.

Martin Harper, the RSPB’s Director of Conservation said: “Our garden birds should be a part of our everyday life. For many people they provide our only connection to the natural world and bring enormous joy.

“To have hundreds of thousands of people spend an hour watching the wildlife in their garden doesn’t only help us build up a picture of how our garden birds are doing, but people who take part feel better.”

Beautiful recordings

The RSPB is releasing a specially-created track of birdsong titled ‘Let Nature Sing’, to highlight the crisis that nature is facing and the loss of over 40 million wild birds from the UK in just half a century.

The single contains some of the most recognisable birdsongs that we used to enjoy, but that are on their way to disappearing forever. 

A compilation of beautiful sound recordings of birds with powerful conservation stories including the cuckoo, curlew, nightingale, crane and turtle dove who form part of the dawn chorus choir.

The charity is calling on the public to download, stream and share the single (available 5th April) and help get birdsong into the charts for the first time, spreading the word that people across the UK are passionate about nature’s recovery. 

Martin Harper continued: “Birds are such iconic parts of human culture but many of us no longer have the time or opportunity to enjoy them. The time we spend in nature, just watching and listening, can have huge benefits to our wellbeing, especially in these stressful times.

“The RSPB wants to help more people reconnect with their wilder sides and is bringing birdsong back into people’s busy lives by releasing a soothing track of pure unadulterated bird song. We hope that by understanding what we have lost that we inspire others to take part in the recovery. Without nature our lives are so less complete.”

The track is designed to help reconnect the nation with nature, helping people find a moment to relax and promote a feeling of tranquillity, as birdsong has been shown to aid mental health and promote feelings of wellbeing.

This Article 

This article is based on a press release from the RSPB. For a full round-up of all the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch results and to see which birds were visiting gardens where you live, visit their website. 

Image: Mick Lobb, Geograph.

A network of marine reserves could be rolled out across the high seas to protect wildlife hotspots and save species from extinction, a report has said.

The study by academics at York and Oxford universities in collaboration with Greenpeace maps out how to protect at least 30 percent of international waters, a target scientists have said is needed to conserve wildlife and tackle climate change.

The high seas, areas of ocean outside national waters, cover more than two-fifths of the Earth’s surface and are home to an array of life which rivals that found in coastal areas or on land.

Fishing

Biological processes by ocean creatures which see carbon captured at the surface of the sea and stored deep below also play an important role in reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

But the report warns the global oceans are at risk from fishing, the emerging threat of deep seabed mining, climate change warming the seas while carbon emissions are making them more acidic, and plastic and other pollution.

Negotiations at the United Nations (UN) towards a new global ocean treaty could pave the way towards protecting vast swathes of seas outside national borders totalling 230 million square kilometres, the study said.

It breaks down the global oceans into 100 kilometre squared units and maps the distribution of wildlife and habitats such as sharks, whales, seamounts or underwater mountains and hydrothermal vents which support unique nature.

It modelled the best way to fully protect 30 percent or 50 percent of the global oceans to ensure hundreds of important conservation features are protected in the most efficient way while minimising impacts on human activity such as fishing.

International waters

The most efficient design included existing high seas marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic and vulnerable areas closed to fishing by regional fisheries management organisations.

The designs only displaced around 20 percent or 30 percent of existing fishing activity, showing that networks which cover the full range of wildlife and habitats can be created with limited economic impact, the report said.

Professor Callum Roberts, marine conservation biologist at the University of York, said: “The speed at which the high seas have been depleted of some of their most spectacular and iconic wildlife has taken the world by surprise.

“Extraordinary losses of seabirds, turtles, sharks and marine mammals reveal a broken governance system that governments at the United Nations must urgently fix.

“This report shows how protected areas could be rolled out across international waters to create a net of protection that will help save species from extinction and help them survive in our fast-changing world.”

Abundant

Louisa Casson, Greenpeace UK campaigner, said: “Over the next 18 months, governments around the world have a unique opportunity to establish a global framework for protecting the oceans.

“By working together they can facilitate the protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, via a network of fully protected ocean sanctuaries.

“UK ministers like Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt need to take the lead and personally engage with their counterparts to encourage international collaboration and high ambition to protect the oceans for future generations.”

The report has been welcomed by Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who said: “From climate change to overfishing, the world’s oceans are facing an unprecedented set of challenges.

“It is now more important than ever to take action and ensure our seas are healthy, abundant and resilient.

“The UK is already on course to protect over half of its waters, and I join Greenpeace in calling for the UK and other countries to work together towards a UN High Seas Treaty that would pave the way to protect at least 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030.”

This Author

Emily Beament is environment correspondent for the Press Association.

When Marion Esnault and comrades began removing portraits of president Emmanuel Macron from the walls of town halls across France they expected to get into trouble.

But it now emerged that their protest – involving up to 27 portraits so far – against what they say is Macron’s failure of climate leadership, has become the target of an investigation involving France’s Bureau de la Lutte Anti-terroriste (Blat), the office of counter-terrorism operations.

In correspondence leaked online, and reported by environmental publication Reporterre, Marc de Tarlé, deputy director of the judicial police, urged police forces to “counter this phenomenon” by contacting the Bureau de la Lutte Anti-terroriste (Blat), France’s office of counter-terrorism operations, and asking for help to investigate the group, known as ANV-COP21 (Non-Violent Action COP21).

Offences

It was unclear what assistance the Blat are expected to give police. But Marion Esnault, an activist who has taken down three portraits of Macron in Paris, told Climate Home News that the involvement of an agency self-described as “specifically concerned with the prevention and repression of terrorism acts”, was disturbing.

According to ANV-COP21, 276 activists have taken part in actions since they began in February. In response, police have prosecuted 20 people, detained 22 people and carried out 16 police searches.

“We had thought that the repression we’d faced until now – all of the police custodies, the police searches, and the four trials with many incriminated activists – was out of proportion for a symbolic action,” said Esnault. “But for them now to call on the Blat, it’s beyond disproportion. There are no words. We are considered terrorists when we’re citizens aware of the climate crisis and the current ecological catastrophe.”

Esnault said she understood certain actions risked prosecution, such as when Greenpeace activists entered nuclear power stations. “It’s more surprising to see activists who enter townhalls to take down portraits of Macron, demanding that he lead more ambitious climate policy, end up with trials and police custodies,” she said.

“It isn’t normal to resort to anti-terrorist units in order to pursue activists whose acts threaten neither the security nor the integrity of the state,” Alexandre Faro, a lawyer representing members of ANV-COP21, told Reporterre. “These are theft charges, thus common law offences: what is the point of resorting to the office of anti-terrorist operations?”

Green scare

The gendarmerie brushed off the correspondence, telling Reporterre that “just because the BLAT is involved doesn’t mean that it’ll take on exceptional proportions”. The letter wasn’t classified, they said, pointing out the “routine” tag pinned to the top of the message. The police force did not respond to questions from CHN.

Tarlé also instructed police forces to encourage mayors or state prefects to press charges against activists and “ensure that a judicial investigation be systematically carried out for aggravated robbery”.

The incident comes amid a hardening of responses from governments across western Europe to protest groups calling for a faster response to climate change.

Heather Albarrro, an associate lecturer in political ecology at Nottingham Trent University, said there were signs of a resurgence of “green scare” – a phenomenon in the mid-2000s during which the US government persecuted environmental activists. At its height, the FBI labelled the Earth Liberation Front as the nation’s lead domestic terrorist threat.

“The question of the green scare resurgence – maybe it’s not in full force as it was in previous decades,” Albarro told Climate Home News. “But then again, with the increasing severity of things like climate change and increasing desperation of some of these more radical strands, you might see more clamping down.”

Extremism

Albarro said the key message of the green scare was that authorities “weren’t clamping down on these activists because they were a threat to life per se. What they are is a threat to the status quo in the sense of growth-oriented capitalism”.

In February, high commissioner of human rights Michelle Bachelet recommended the UN investigate France for excessive use of force by police forces against the gilets jaunes.

Outside France, the German government deployed one of the largest police forces since WWII to arrest activists occupying Hambach forest in an effort to keep coal giant RWE at bay. One person died in an accident, according to climate campaign group 350.org.

Meanwhile, the British government’s extremism analysis unit has produced a report called ‘Leftwing Activism and Extremism in the UK’, according a February investigation by the Guardian.

Part of 21 reports designed to inform on extremism, including Islamist and far-right wing extremism, the document comes four years after it was revealed that an extremist database included politicians and activists. The political activities of Jenny Jones, a London assembly member, and Green Party councillor Ian Driver were recorded.

This Article

This Article first appeared on Climate Home News.

Most of our laws in the UK relating to public health, occupational health and the environment are based on EU Directives. The European Commission can take enforcement action when governments fail to comply. 

The EU commission started 753 actions against the British Government between 2003 and 2016, of which 120 related to the environment, according to the Institute of Government. That equates to nine environmental actions every year. Most were settled, but 29 cases reached the European Court of Justice.

The UK government has published a Draft Environment Bill which requires Ministers to “have regard” for a set of environmental principles when formulating government policy, in order to compensate for the loss of EU scrutiny post-Brexit.

Green watchdog

The Environment Bill further proposes to establish a green watchdog called the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) which will monitor performance and if necessary initiate enforcement measures against public authorities if the breach of environmental principles is considered sufficiently serious.

The remit of the OEP includes clean air, so an obvious question is whether the OEP will hold the UK Government to account for breaching air quality standards once we leave the EU.

Air quality standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and small particulates (PM2.5) are already enshrined in UK law, and the failure of the UK Government to comply with NO2 standards has already led to a series of defeats in the High Court.

Theoretically, the OEP could take action provided that Ministers don’t tamper with existing legislation, and assuming that the OEP is established as a truly independent body.

This sadly seems doubtful, as a majority of members on the OEP will be appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment. It stretches credulity to think that the Government would now establish a statutory body to enforce legislation that the Government has been actively resisting for the past eight years.

Legal standards

There is however a bigger problem. Court action has focused on NO2, which is particularly dangerous for asthmatics. But the medical effects of PM 2.5 are even more serious and wide-ranging and account for most of the 40,000 deaths that occur annually in the UK from air pollution.

The annual EU air quality standard for PM2.5 is 25 microgrammes per cubic metre of air, but the medical effects of PM2.5 are without threshold. In the US the legal limit is 12, and WHO have recommended a guideline of 10. Average levels in Central London are around 15. So what will the OEP do post-Brexit?

Currently the EU Commission are reviewing The Ambient Air Quality Directive, and will doubtless recommend stricter legal standards.

Known effects of PM2.5 in adults include heart disease, stroke, chronic lung disease and cancer. In children the best-documented effects are on the respiratory system and include physical effects such as reduced lung volume, but there is also serious concern about the unborn child.

It is well known that smoking in pregnancy reduces birth-weight, and the same is true of air pollution. Again it is PM2.5 that shows the strongest correlation.

Toxic exposure

It is also known that smoking and air pollution is associated with reduced IQ in childhood.

Researchers in the US studied a group of non-smoking pregnant women in New York and showed that higher exposure to a subset of small particulates, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) was associated with developmental delay at 3 years, a reduction in IQ of 4-5 points at 5 years, increased anxiety and depression at 7 years and a lack of self-regulatory behaviour that became more significant over timewhen followed up for 11 years.

A recent study based in London demonstrated that 12 year olds exposed to higher levels of air pollution had a four-fold risk of depression at age 18.

These are very worrying observations. Even so, the studies are preliminary and do not allow firm conclusions as to the most dangerous toxin or the most critical period of exposure.

Most traffic-derived PAHs come from diesel vehicles, and reach the maternal circulation both as gases and particulates.  The only PAH measured routinely in Europe is Benzo-a-pyrene (BaP).

From a mental health perspective, it may well be significant that BaP levels at traffic monitoring sites in the EU have increased by 52 percent since 2000, due largely to the growth in sales of diesel vehicles. In the UK diesel cars have increased from less than 14 percent of new registrations in 2000 to almost 50 percent by 2015.

Remedial action

It is likely that the EU Commission will impose stricter standards for both PM2.5 and BaP, and pressure will grow for a more rapid phase-out of diesel vehicles.

However these new standards won’t benefit UK citizens. The government’s recent Clean Air Strategy does include a commitment to halve the number of people in the UK exposed to levels above the WHO limit for PM2.5 by 2030, but this is not a standard. This is an aspiration that lacks any legal force.

Before Christmas DEFRA Minister Therese Coffey expressed the view that not all the associations between air pollution and health are causal. Even so, the precautionary principle holds that remedial action should be taken even when medical or scientific concern is less than certain.

The OEP could and should therefore challenge government policy and force the introduction of stricter air quality standardson the basis of the environmental principles set out in the Draft Environment Bill.

However, page 12 of the Bill’s wxplanatory notes states: “The  precautionary principles should be considered where there are reasonable grounds for concern … taking into account the available scientific evidence, and the associated costs and benefits of action and non-action”. This is a very weak interpretation.

Precautionary principle 

A stricter definition would require the polluter to demonstrate that a particular activity did not have an adverse effect.

Second it indicates that the precautionary principle is nothing more than a trade-off wherefinancial costs to the motor industry can be cited by the responsible minister as an excuse for inaction.

Finally the environmental principles contained in the Draft Bill includes outdoor, but not indoor air pollution, which makes it difficult for the OEP to fulfil its stated function in relation to clean air.

If people are expecting a watchdog with teeth, then don’t hold your breath.

This Author 

Dr Robin Russell-Jones is former Chair of CLEAR, the Campaign for Lead Free Air.

As a group of British academics and others who think and write about dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we have been impressed by your new book The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future. 

This already best-selling book, like the viral article in New York magazine from which it grew, states with passion and eloquence the hard truths of our current global plight. Far from being irresponsibly alarmist, as some have alleged, your straight look at oncoming disaster offers a vital stimulus to realistic understanding and action.

We are so pleased that your book is receiving the mass attention it deserves, and is thereby making  the very real risk of an unprecedented climate breakdown and consequent societal collapse comprehensible to the general public. 

Against geoengineering

As one of us has stated in a published review, however, we also fear that your book may lead people to believe that the unprecautionary deployment of geoengineering is the answer to our predicament.

We are unconvinced by your claim  that because we engineered this mess, so we must be able to engineer an escape from it. While that may be a neat journalistic turn of phrase, it is a logical nonsense.

Climate change was not intentionally engineered by humanity. The self-reinforcing feedbacks that are further heating our world show us how the complex living system of Planet Earth is beyond direct human control. So, we have no precedent for humanity intentionally engineering global change. 

We understand you may wish to offer your readers some hope. However, your argument offers a continuing license for the hubris which has led humanity into climate-peril in the first place.

You point out that since “a decarbonised economy, a perfectly renewable energy system, a reimagined system of agriculture and perhaps even a meatless planet” are in principle possible, we have “all the tools we need” to stop tragedy in its tracks. And yet that would require us, as you also sardonically note, to rebuild the world’s infrastructure entirely in less time than it took New York City to build three new stops on a subway line.

Deep adaptation 

It is dangerous to hang on to such an unrealistic hope while not making adequate preparations for the likelihood that it will prove groundless. 

Really facing up to climate reality, by contrast, means giving up all hope of solutions — without giving up on hope itself.

Instead of fantasies of one-world command-and-control salvation, we believe that The Uninhabitable Earth should wake us all up to the need for what one of us has recently and influentially named a ‘Deep Adaptation agenda’.

This involves building resilience, both physical and psychological, learning to relinquish long-held beliefs and aspirations (such as that od uninterrupted ‘progress’), and the attempted restoration of attitudes and practices which our carbon-fuelled way of life has so dangerously eroded.

Such an approach, while recognising the certainty that the civilisation which has brought us to this pass is finished, accepts also that we cannot know in advance what fine human and societal possibilities may emerge from the crucible of this very recognition.

Transformative change 

The irony of your starkly-titled book is that it ends up being, from our perspective, too ‘optimistic’. This may blind readers to the greatest new need now: for Deep Adaptation – that is, for accepting that some kind of eco-induced societal collapse is now not merely possible, but likely, and preparing honestly for it; for recognising that – while it is absolutely vital to continue to seek to mitigate our society’s climate-deadly emissions – the time is past when it was credible to fixate on doing this while ignoring the increasingly-urgent need for Deep Adaptation.

What we draw, and should like others to draw, from your urgently necessary book is a difficult but – we believe – a genuinely realistic message of hope.

It is not that acknowledging the hard truths which you present so starkly might still enable us to avoid climate disaster. For that it is, as in practice you so clearly demonstrate, now too late. Rather, it is the hope that through accepting the inevitability of such disaster for our present civilisation, we may yet find our way to genuinely transformative change, capable of avoiding terminal catastrophe for humanity and the biosphere.

The sooner we realise that humanity won’t have a Hollywood ending to climate change, the more chance we have to avoid ours becoming a true horror story.

We invite you to think with us about what facing up to climate reality now really means, and in particular to enter into the Deep Adaptation agenda. We look forward to your response.

These Authors 

Rupert Read is a reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia; Jem Bendell is Professor of Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cumbria, and author of the paper “Deep Adaptation”; John Foster is co-chair of Green House, and author of After Sustainability.