ClientEarth’s free online hub will offer open access to unbiased legal information regarding the forestry sector, with information on forest governance and measures affecting commodities that currently rely on forest clearing, such as palm oil and soy.

Each year deforestation results in a loss of around 18 million acres of forests annually, the equivalent of 27 football fields every minute, and forest protection and management is vital to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown.

In response, the environmental law charity has built the ‘Forest Logbook’ for all users – from lawyers, communities and NGOs to importers, logging operators and regulators – to have access to the most up to date legal information available.

Centralising information

ClientEarth climate and forest programme officer Heather Kingsley said: “With so many laws across different jurisdictions, and different organisations providing resources on forest legality, we saw a need to build a database that centralises everything in one place.

“Forests are under such pressure everywhere, so providing easy, instant access to the most up to date information about vital forestry laws will help to empower anyone working to protect forests.

“From our experience working in west and central Africa with the communities that rely on forests for survival and the lawyers defending them, as well as lawmakers themselves, we’ve found that forest protection and management is most effective where the rule of law is strongest.

“We envisage the Logbook will be a dynamic resource, designed to evolve over time. We encourage users to send us new or updated information that could be added to the logbook, to expand on the information available.”

The Logbook works by linking to resources published by organisations and institutions. These resources are selected based on their impartiality or on their official status.

The online hub currently focuses on resources related to timber legality. In the future, it will be expanded to include more information on non-timber forest-risk commodities, such as palm oil and soy.

This Author

Marianne Brooker is a commissioning editor for The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth. Visit the Forest Logbook here.

Rewilding may have the potential to drastically improve biodiversity – but remains a highly controversial and divisive topic.

A new book edited by scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Utah State University aims to build common ground and show how rewilding can foster human coexistence with wildlife.

Rewilding brings together, for the first time, experts from around the world to discuss the benefits and dangers of rewilding approaches and is published by the British Ecological Society and Cambridge University Press.

Protecting biodiversity 

Dr Nathalie Pettorelli from ZSL’s Institute of Zoology, one of the new book’s editors, said: “Whoever is concerned with the conservation of nature cannot afford to ignore discussions on rewilding and miss potential opportunities to improve biodiversity levels.”

The volume introduces key definitions and approaches to rewilding, highlighting similarities and differences between them and discussing how they may work in practice. 

The editors hope the book will help readers appreciate how rewilding can be more than a purely ecological concept. Socioeconomic, cultural, psychological and political dimensions will all affect the ultimate success of any rewilding intervention.

Pettorelli continued: “Previous approaches to conservation have been dominated by the establishment and maintenance of wilderness, a western concept that can ultimately separate nature from people.”

“Rewilding has the potential to deliver a progressive and resilient approach to wildlife management, connecting people with, rather than separating them from, nature.

“It directly feeds into discussions relating to coexistence, societal values and tolerance for wildlife, and inviting nature right back to our doorstep.”

Interdisciplinary approach

Covering issues such as the benefits to human wellbeing, rewilding cities and the translocation of species, one chapter explores what rewilding means in a British context.

Britain – with its dense population, few forests, and none of the large carnivores commonly associated with rewilding – might not seem the most obvious place for rewilding. Yet rewilding is increasingly attracting the attention of the public and professionals, not only in connection with Brexit, which has been noted as a window of opportunity to manage land differently.

The book describes how moving forward on rewilding will require consensus building and understanding of different opinions to foster human-wildlife coexistence.

Professor Johan du Toit, another editor of the book, has commented from his lab at Utah State University in the USA, said: “Rewilding currently means different things to different people, but the book clarifies it as the process of reorganising, retooling, or regenerating wildness in a degraded ecosystem. That is not the same as restoring an ecosystem to its former condition, which is an increasingly challenging and tenuous goal under the rapidly-changing conditions of our human-influenced planet.

“Rewilding is an adaptive and pragmatic approach for regaining and maintaining the provision of ecosystem services, which are essential for humanity.”

The book’s interdisciplinary nature will appeal to a broad range of readers, from ecologists and conservation biologists to land managers, policymakers and practitioners in NGOs and government departments. Written for a scientifically literate readership, it also acts as a key resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. 

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from the British Ecological Society. 

The UK’s use of export finance to fund overseas fossil fuel projects is “flatly inconsistent” with both domestic climate policy and efforts to meet the 1.5C warming limit, according to academics at a hearing in Westminster yesterday.

UK export finance (UKEF) provides guarantees, insurance and reinsurance to shore up British investments overseas. Yet instead of supporting much-needed renewables infrastructure, some 99 percent of all energy-related support went to fossil fuels. Between 2014 and 2016, the UK spent £551 million per year to support fossil fuel production.

In December 2018, the government’s Environmental Audit Committee launched an enquiry into the state of UKEF. The first hearing took place today.

Oil refineries

“If we’re going to hit 1.5C or anything close to it, all of the pathways say that we need very rapid decarbonisation, to demand side mitigation, electrification, emissions reductions now,” said Navraj Ghaleigh, senior lecturer in climate law at the University of Edinburgh.

“If that’s correct and if that’s what we want to do, the current pattern of UK export finance is simply flatly inconsistent with that.”

Ghaleigh described the UK’s export finance as “just odd”, given efforts to cut carbon emissions on home soil.

“I think the Climate Change Act, and the implementation of the Climate Change Act, and the institutions that have been established, such as the Climate Change Committee (sic), continue to be world leading,” he said.

“UKEF, which [contributes] £5 billion per year every year for building oil refineries in Saudi and coal infrastructure in Ghana and fleets of aircraft all over the world, those are locked-in emissions that will not be reversed.

Discouraging renewables

“That’s really significant, and that I think is a very sharp indication of a policy dissonance that needs to be addressed.”

Last year, DeSmog reported on the UK’s support of a £5 billion oil refinery in Oman, by opening a line of credit to boost British exports.

The credit agency was also considering supporting the expansion of an oil refinery in Bahrain, despite acknowledging its potential for “significant adverse environmental and/or social impacts”.

A further DeSmog investigation found that half of all projects to receive export credits during the 2016-17 financial year were related to the fossil fuel industry, amounting to more than a billion pounds.

According to Professor Jim Skea, who was co-chair of a major climate science report for the UN, the UK’s failure to fund renewable energy projects abroad could result from an undeveloped domestic industry, potentially discouraging renewables companies from applying for financial support – a question that he suggested MPs put to ministers themselves when they provided evidence to the committee.

Export finance

“The UK has, historically, whether we like it or not, been very good at oil and gas, and the skills and competencies needed to extract it, and for that reason I wouldn’t be that surprised if a lot of the applications were coming from that sector,” Skea said.

“The UK has not so far exploited all the opportunities associated with renewable energy around wind and solar. Although we’ve got lots of deployment of wind, the turbines themselves are coming from Vestas, Siemens etc [Danish and German companies respectively].

“I don’t think we can do well in export markets unless we have a home market to build from.”

To clean up UK export finance, Ghaleigh suggested that it may be necessary to implement a new policy that puts climate change considerations at the heart of its decision making.

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

International wildlife conservation charity World Land Trust (WLT) has launched an urgent appeal to raise £30,000 and save the hillstar’s habitat from being destroyed by mining.

The metal-rich landscapes of Ecuador have seen an increase in industrial mining over the past thirty years. Swathes of Ecuador’s tropical forests have been cleared so that metals such as copper, gold and lead can extracted from large open pits, a disaster for local wildlife. 

WLT has launched the Save the Blue-throated Hillstar appeal to enable its partner Naturaleza y Cultura Ecuador (NCE) to extend a Water Protection Area to include the hillstar’s 70,000 acre range. By incorporating the hillstar’s habitat in the Water Protection Area it will have government-level protection and will eliminate the threat of mining. 

Ecological damage

Richard Cuthbert, director of conservation at WLT, said: “This is a unique opportunity to save a critically endangered species from extinction. If we do not act now, mining corporations can move in on the habitat and create a mine which would most likely wipe out the hillstar population.

“This situation is the perfect example of why habitat conservation is so important. Habitat loss is one of the greatest causes of species extinction worldwide, and for every habitat we lose, we eliminate a stronghold for numerous plant and animal species.

“For species such as the Blue-throated Hillstar, with such a small range, this can mean extinction. The fact that we are continuing to discover new species in habitats facing threats like mining shows that we may not even be aware of the ecological damage these activities are causing.”

The land is owned by local communities, who want to ensure it is protected because they rely on the clean freshwater collected in the mountain ecosystem.

With the funds from this appeal, NCE will extend the proposed Water Protection Area so the total area protected will be almost 200,000 acres (79,000 hectares) and also provide water for at least 470,000 Ecuadorian people.

Government protection

Bruno Paladines Puertas, head of community development at NCE, said: “Mining is happening in lots of areas in Ecuador. We are lucky that this area is in an early stage of the process before any construction has begun, so there is still time to act.

“The support of the communities and the Water National Secretariat (SENAGUA) mean that, if we act quickly, we can place this habitat under the highest level of government protection in Ecuador and the mining concessions will be lifted.”

As well as the Blue-throated Hillstar, a new species of frog, the Tik Tik Rain Frog, was also discovered in August, found very close to the eastern border of the proposed protected area. This unique páramo habitat is also home to Spectacled Bear, Mountain Tapir and the magnificent Andean Condor.

These mountains are still relatively unexplored by naturalists, and by protecting them, many more species new to science may be discovered.

By donating to help save the Blue-throated Hillstar’s habitat today, you will be securing a future for this species and perhaps some that have not yet been discovered. You can find more information and donate to save the Blue-throated Hillstar online or call the WLT office at 01986 874422.

This article

This article is based on a press release from the World Land Trust. 

A row has broken out over the apparent lack of disclosure of a conflict of interest by Tory politician John Gummer, also known as Lord Deben, who heads government scientific advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

The Mail on Sunday fulminates: “Tory peer John Selwyn Gummer’s private company has been paid more than £600,000 from ‘green’ businesses that stand to make millions from his advice to Ministers.”

It then lists a number of alleged payments received by Gummer’s consultancy, Sancroft, by green-tinged companies. This is a huge conflict of interest, the article roars.

Greenhouse gas

The issue will no doubt be investigated – and it’s not up to anyone other than Gummer (who denies the allegations) to defend himself – but what’s behind this story is a climate science denial media network in action, and that’s the bigger story not being told.

As one high profile member of the climate science denier mob put it: “Christmas has come unusually early this year for British climate sceptics.”

What’s behind an array of co-ordinated and similarly apoplectic editorials is not necessarily concern for public fiscal regulation and lobbying transparency but a deep hatred of environmental regulation. This is seen in the disdain shown by the reporter that broke the story, David Rose, towards the CCC’s goals.

In the Mail on Sunday, he writes: “Under Gummer, the CCC has said the country must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2030.”

“The Committee on Climate Change, established by the 2008 Climate Change Act, is a supposedly independent quango which advises the Government on how to achieve Britain’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.”

Science denier

“Chaired by Gummer since 2012, it has urged Ministers to fund vast subsidies paid to ‘renewable’ energy companies.”

Gummer was also a key part of John Major’s government, which led the UK’s initial foray into climate leadership.

Rose’s initial blast was followed up by Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail. “Oh look, another member of the great and the good is in the soup. And, not for the first time, it’s one of those who preaches to us about our duty to ‘save the planet’.”

It’s worth remembering that Dominic Lawson is the son of Nigel Lawson, chancellor of the exchequer under Margaret Thatcher and – until very recently – chair of the UK’s principal climate science denial campaign group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

Next up was infamous climate science denier James Delingpole over at far-right website Breitbart who got very excited: “The Climate Industrial Complex is a $1.5 trillion per year scam industry of no value to mankind — or indeed the planet — whatsoever.”

Chastised

But Delingpole lets slip the group’s real concerns: “Barely a wind turbine would be erected, barely a shimmery solar panel allowed to disfigure the landscape, barely a palm oil plantation planted, barely a bushel of biomass burned, barely a dubious university climate science department funded, barely a first-class airfare to the next COP shindig subsidised, were it not for the government subsidies and regulation which make these fringe, non-commercial and unnecessary activities temporarily viable.”

To complete the set, here comes Viscount Matt Ridley, with a twitter tirade and Times column calling on Gummer – a long-standing thorn in Ridley’s side – to “come clean”.

Ridley, lest you forget, is the owner of a coal mine site and was censured by the House of Lords’ Committee for Privileges and Conduct in January 2014 for failing to declare his coal interests while speaking in debates on the Energy Bill.

This network of co-ordinated climate science denial isn’t just an oddball collection of angry Tories turning on the perceived traitordom of own of their own.

This is a group of people who are regularly (and ineffectively) chastised by IPSO the media regulator, who attempt to control the steady stream of climate disinformation that this group pumps out.

Stepped down

David Rose has a track record of spreading erroneous information about climate science and policy, as his astonishing record of IPSO complaints attests.

There may be a case against Gummer, but for the sake of consistency and balance it’s only fair to point out that this frothing-at-the-mouth coterie gravitates around the climate science denying GWPF.

Rose’s article quotes Labour MP Graham Stringer, who is a GWPF trustee. Matt Ridley likewise is sits on the GWPF’s advisory board. Dominic Lawson is the GWPF’s founder’s son. Rose himself has described the GWPF as a “friend”.

It’s a tightknit group. And they’re not exactly faultless when it comes to declaring their interests.

After Nigel Lawson stepped down earlier this month he was replaced by Labour peer Bernard Donoghue.

Squeaky-clean

As DeSmog UK reported recently: “The new chairman of the UK’s principal climate science denier campaign group holds investments in a number of fossil fuel companies”. He also has shareholdings that are invested in the controversial Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines.

Donoughue has repeatedly cast doubt on the importance of tackling climate change, calling efforts to reduce emissions “virtue signalling” and the climate change movement “evangelical.” He is, it’s fair to say, a fan of fossil fuels.

What this controversy really shows is a network of people defending their political commitment to the fossil-fuelled status quo (and in some cases, their economic interests) through a hit job.

This is yet another example of what happens when the media is driven by an undeclared agenda, as we exposed when revealing the clandestine funding of Spiked and the LM network that spreads climate disinfomration and is backed by champion climate science deniers and fossil fuel magnates, the Koch brothers.

In this context, the howl of moral outrage accompanying the Gummer revelations is somewhat undermined by this network’s own commitment to disinformation and far from squeaky-clean declarations of interests, all with the aim of slowing or stopping efforts to avert climate catastrophe.

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Canadian company Gabriel Resources wanted to created Europe’s largest open pit gold mine and use cyanide to extract the gold.

Two beautiful valleys and some 2,000 inhabitants living in or next to an almost 2000-year old Roman settlement were to be sacrificed because an $8 billion profit was in sight. Today, the village of Rosia Montana is 1888 years old. A mass movement with more than 100, 000 active supporters fought back.

The conflict came to a head in 2013 when parliament had to decide on a new law that would allow the mine. The protests in the streets of Romania were so massive that Parliament could do little else than block the mine.

Grassroots activism

Romanians managed to keep mayhem for the Rosia Montana region at bay. They’ve done this with grassroots activism at national and international level and mass direct participation.

While doing this they were able to transform the area from a doomed mono-industrial isolated space into a dynamic, lively and attractive region of farming, eco-tourism and socio-political debates about alternative futures.

Stephanie Simon, legal adviser of the Alburnus Maior NGO that was part of the struggle against the line said: “Gabriel’s mine was irrevocably rejected by Romania’s civil society despite the company’s attempts to conduct costly cosmetic surgery to hide its ugly mine together with its disastrous effects to the environment, cultural heritage and human health.”

But Gabriel Resources is like a scorpion.  It stung with a tale full of poison in 2015. Ever since, Romania is facing a whopping 4,4 billion claim, 2 percent of its GDP.

Gabriel Resources used an investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism to claim billions from Romanian people because of a loss in expected profits. This ISDS mechanism works with secretive corporate courts that stand above national judicial systems.

The case of Rosia Montana is just one example why the European Environmental Bureau decided to join a massive pan-European campaign against these ISDS systems.

Corporations basically have their own global private court system – called ISDS – which they use to bully governments. The bullying all too often happens to push an environmentally destructive project through – with Vattenfall suing Germany for closing nuclear power stations as another example.

The campaign coalition – which unites almost the same groups that collected 3,3 million signatures to kill TTIP in the Stop TTIP campaign – argues that we need to get rid of ISDS mechanisms and instead need a tough global system that can punish multinationals for their crimes.

In fact, such a mechanism is being debated at UN level on the initiative of countries that are hurt by multinational mining companies, like Ecuador.

This binding UN treaty on business and human rights is the second big ask of the campaign. Since the “Rights for People, Rules for Corporations – Stop ISDS” campaign launch on 22 January, the coalition gathered already 300.000 signatures.
 

This Author 

Nick Meynen is policy officer for Environmental and Economic Justice at the European Environmental Bureau. He authored several books on the environment and he comments on global environmental and economic issues on Facebook and Twitter. For more details, visit the Atlas of Environmental Justice.

More information about the Rosia Montana case can be found in the Atlas of Environmental Justice.

Terror gripped me at the thought of being crushed to death by a tractor hurtling down the country lanes. I was lost in the Sussex ‘wilderness’, but I was soon put at ease by the aptly named Kate Green who had invited me to her permaculture market garden. 

Arriving in late autumn it was hard to know what to expect and what grows when all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey. As we walk and talk Kate tells me her and her husband Richard own and manage Trefoil Farm, an 18-acre plot of land just north of the A272 between Midhurst and Petworth.

After winding through fields we come upon an enclosure the size of a football pitch and surrounded by 2m high deer-proof fencing. At the gates, we’re greeted by a rescue dog from Romania. Doe-eyed and affectionate.  

Permaculture garden

Even late in the year, the garden is colourful with signs of life and growth. Kate described it as “a sustainable rural business”, which grows organic fruit and vegetables on a seasonal basis.

Now in its third year of operating the farm supplies two local shops within the wider community. Kate said: “We do a veg box scheme and people really love the edible flower salad.’’

There are greenhouses, polytunnels, neat rows of planting beds and the beginnings of an orchard. Once a week and with the help of five volunteers, Kate and Richard grow their produce using principles of permaculture. 

Permaculture combines two words ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture”. The ‘movement’ or philosophy came about in response to the 1970s oil crisis and as a way of living lightly on the living planet and making sure that humans can sustain their activities for future generations.

Ultimately it’s a design process which claims to meet human needs while enhancing biodiversity. Regardless of its origins, permaculture could be argued to be as relevant as it is today as it was in the 1970s.

Carbon footprint 

After a tour, I join Kate, Richard and the volunteers for lunch in the refuge of a greenhouse. The site has several. All recycled and all sourced for free. 

During discussions, Kate said: “Food production creates a huge carbon footprint and that growing your own food is a small and practical way to help”.

It’s hard to dispute this. Go to any supermarket and chances are you’ll find blueberries from Chile and strawberries from Spain.

Food from the farm, Kate claims travels 884 metres from the field to The Lodsworth Larder, the local community shop and is sometimes eaten within an hour.

A November report published by scientists from the InterAcademy Partnership claims that the global food system is broken and is driving the planet towards climate catastrophe.

Traditional solutions

Permaculture, in contrast, is solution focused and works with the balance of nature. Unlike many destructive methods used in intensive farming today. The garden employs techniques such as complimentary planting that offers a habitat for wildlife to thrive.

In other words, by growing certain plant species next to food crops attracts insects that eat the pests that eat the crops. No pesticides involved. Another example. Building ponds attract frogs that eat slugs. Again, no pesticides. All organic.

The market garden runs on a ‘no dig system’ that protects the soil by keeping it covered and relatively undisturbed as nature would do. Many of these are old fashion techniques that have been forgotten but Kate says: “There are countless examples of successful regenerative agriculture projects around the world”.

With limited daylight hours, it’s back to work. I sit like a garden gnome amongst what I think is rhubarb but at this time of year is in fact rainbow chard. 

The doe-eyed rescue dog licks my face and Kate picks her crop as the cold wind blows off the South Downs. 

More than just food

Kate’s story is inspirational. At the age of 23, she was diagnosed with ME. She was house and wheelchair-bound for three years, spending the rest of her 20s recovering. On discovering what a difference eating organic food made to her health she started gardening as there was always something she could do with any level of energy. 

Kate said: “I found it [gardening] to be transformative and a form of therapy, and permaculture fits with everything I believe in; positive solutions, the natural world and sustainability.” Since then she has recovered from her illness and designed and run several school and community gardens as part of her permaculture diploma. 

Kate started the market garden, as she had always wanted to set up a farm and own a small holding while at the same time boosting the local permaculture and organic scene.

But, her first project, the Petworth Community Garden has been running for 13 years and was originally intended as a way to get organic food to people who could not afford it in an area of rural deprivation.

With qualifications and experience working with people with physical disabilities and mental health issues the community garden now takes on a therapeutic role and acts as a support hub for the Petworth community.  

Richard said: “Trefoil farm plans to offer therapeutic horticulture, nature-based therapies and run courses in permaculture and organic gardening over the next few years as well as supplying local organic produce”.

As the day drew to a close I made my way to the local shop to buy one of the farm’s winter salads.

This author

Tom Orde is a freelance journalist with an interest in environmental issues.

Image: Irene Mei, Flickr.

The European Commission (EC) has approved a measure to support the production of electricity from renewables and electricity-heavy industrial consumers in Lithuania, a move that positions the largest of the three Baltic States as the region’s leader in meeting the European Union’s 2020 and 2030 energy directives.

In 2018 it was announced that Lithuania was amongst 11 EU member states including Sweden and Finland to already be sourcing 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

The EC’s support package to Lithuania worth EUR 1.24 billion came into effect on 1 January 2019, and will run until 2029. The Commission says that it will financially support producers of renewable-sourced electricity across Lithuania through a levy paid by the final user.

Corporate responsibility

As part of the package, the Lithuanian government also announced that it would give energy-heavy industries a reduced electricity levy of up to 85 percent they paid on the previous year if they are able to show an electro-intensity rate of 20% or more.

The EC’s decision to issue this support package is the latest in a series of renewable energy-related moves in relation to Lithuania ahead of 2020. In July 2018, Sun Investment Group and partner I+D Energias Lithuania announced that they would be installing the largest commercial rooftop PV plant in the Baltic States.

The plant is worth 1,389 kilowatts, and installed on the roof of the RETAL factory in Lentvaris, some 10 kilometres from the capital Vilnius. In December 2018, the project was successfully completed and will be officially opened in February this year.

The decision to pursue a renewable future was taken by RETAL as part of its corporate responsibility pledge to be amongst the very first multinational companies founded in the Baltic States to use solar as one of its various energy sources.

Lithuania’s commitment to renewables is also key to moving the Baltic region away from their  energy dependence on Russia, after the supply arm of the Lithuanian state energy supplier, Lietuvos Energija (LE), recently signed a short-term one-year agreement with Russia’s Gazprom to supply Lithuania with gas throughout 2019.

Neighbouring countries 

International renewable energy industry experts predict that within the next two decades, traditional energy sources such as gas, coal, and oil due will be replaced 100 percent by renewables as a result of their current slow-to-non existent growth rates.

In light of these findings, Lithuanian energy experts believe that by continually meeting EU energy directives, incentivising electricity production, and pursuing corporate responsibility targets where companies aim to be powered 100 percent by renewables, then Lithuania can set an example to policy makers and solar energy suppliers in neighbouring Latvia and Estonia on how to reduce the entire Baltic region’s need for Russian energy and pursue its own energy autonomy.

Sun Investment Group’s Chief Business Development Officer, Andrius Terskovas said: “It is extremely positive to see the European Commission incentivise electricity production via renewables in Lithuania. 

“As a country, we have already exceeded our 2020 renewable energy targets, and we are determined to continue this trend and be fully reliant on our own energy supplies as the world moves a renewable future. We hope that our example will be adopted by our friends and neighbours in Latvia and Estonia as we seek further integration with the EU in the coming years.”

Lithuania is amongst the few EU member states to have already met its 2020 renewable energy targets. Therefore it is expected that the drive it has shown and the subsequent support it has obtained from EU institutions is likely to spread to Latvia and Estonia as all three Baltic States seek to create a sustainable and renewable future energy policy for the region. 

This Article

This article is based on a press release from Sun Investment Group.

There’s been a push amongst environmental commentators to eliminate everyday individuals from the ‘who’s causing climate change’ narrative. Environmental commentators have, in part, justified this reframing by claiming that a focus on individuals perpetuates neoliberal reasoning and, in turn, neoliberal policymaking. 

Neoliberals, who espouse individualism, typically believe that the attitudes and behaviours of individuals solve or break big problems. For example, in the UK the condition of the chronically unemployed is attributed to a poor attitude or work ethic, rather than the socio-economic structures that disempower and exclude certain social groups from the workplace. To remedy this, the state employs psycho-coercive behavioural and attitudinal correction programmes, intending to ‘fix’ unemployable characteristics.

In light of the neoliberal policy trend, many anti-capitalist environmental intellectuals reactively expunged ‘individual behaviour’ from the narratives they used to explain and, in turn, combat climate change. Instead, focus has shifted to big producers and corporations – corporations that grew fat off imperial capitalism, and who now rely on internationally liberalised markets to exploit socio-economically disempowered communities and countries.

False dichotomy

The accumulation of capital in the hands of a very few investors and financiers has massively skewed the trajectory of our socio-economic system, with a minority deciding what our industrial future will look like (e.g. big oil’s investment in plastic factories).  

Certainly there’s truth in these narratives. For example, the behaviour of energy producers and corporations, particularly Oil Majors, is uniquely destructive. They directly accelerate climate change through resource depletion, irresponsible waste management, catastrophic oil and gas spills, and the perpetuation of GHG emissions.

These corporations also leverage their positions as major players within energy oligopolies – who have access to technology, funds, political lobbies, research and expertise – to disproportionately influence the course of technological and policy developments. In relation to the energy sector, systemic overhaul is what we need. 

However, by exclusively focusing on the structural causes of climate change, we establish a false dichotomy between individual action and system change (the system being white-supremacist patriarchal neo-colonial capitalism, henceforth referred to as the capitalist system). This is flawed.

Economic systems

Firstly, “individual behaviour” is a Strawman. It is not just the behaviour of an individual that is being challenged when consumption choices are highlighted as problematic. Rather, archetypal materialistic and consumerist attitudes are in the firing line. It is these attitudes that undergird, perpetuate, sanitise and celebrate oppressive consumer behaviour. It is these attitudes that are being challenged.

Secondly and most importantly, the anti-capitalist environmental commentator uses a linear causal model to understand a (mostly) circular economic system. Simplistically, individuals collectively form the ‘consumer’ group, whilst corporations, industries, and oil-oriented governments collectively form the ‘producer’ group.

These two groups are intimately integrated and responsive to one another, such that they form a circular chain of causality. In this chain production induces consumption induces production induces consumption etc. 

In claiming that exclusively challenging the productive capitalist system will solve climate change issues, these commentators are implying that consumption has no bearing on the rate or nature of production.

This describes a linear causal model, where production induces consumption and zero consumer feedback occurs. This linear model defies basic macroeconomic principles and common sense, and fails to realise that the consumer group is not only produced by the capitalist system, but reproduces it through consumptive behaviours (and revolutionary inertia). 

Consumptive asymmetry

Thirdly, there lies a distinct asymmetry in both the consumption choices and in the rates of consumption between the Global North and the Global South. Comparatively, consumption in the Global North massively outstrips the Global South in terms of the production of emissions, land usage, waste creation and the devastation of ecosystems.

What’s more, the effects of this production/consumption disproportionately affect those in the Global South. As such, the consumptive behaviours of the Global North should be a primary target of those who want to tackle climate injustice (a state of affairs where the countries who have most caused climate change feel it the least).

When we include consumer behaviour in our understanding of the capitalist system’s relationship to climate change, addressing consumptive asymmetry by reducing and reshaping our own consumption becomes central in tackling climate injustice. 

For example, meat and dairy are predominately consumed by the richest countries and regions (China, Russia, the US, Europe, Brazil). Yet, animal agriculture causes 14.5 percent of global emissions, is the main driver of deforestation (cattle and soy production are the top two causes of deforestation with 90+ percent of soy being used in animal agriculture), and 60 percent of total biodiversity loss has occurred due to meat-based diets.

What’s more, cattle ranching and soy farming in Brazil spreads violence and causes the displacement of indigenous forest communities.  

Consciousness raising 

Fourthly, the freedom to consume environmentally harmful object X at the rate and price-point that we do has been/is enabled by neo-colonial trade channels. Trade channels that were and are being dug by powerful imperialist countries and international corporations that use extreme violence to secure natural resources, and that exert soft power to leverage cheap labour and lax regulation.

‘Entitlement’ to consume cheap products is predicated on exploitative politico-economic relations and, as the majority of this activity disproportionately impacts financially poor people of colour who live in industrialising economies, it reveals a racist, classist and Eurocentric attitude to social justice issues.

Lastly, challenging consumptive attitudes by highlighting the environmental and social impact of a productive sector, allows consumers to understand their consumption choices in terms of real-world impact.

If carried out persistently and by trusted public and private actors, the process of engaging with consumers on supply chains will raise eco-consciousness (in the way that European communist artists of the early 1900s raised class-consciousness by producing work that vividly depicted class relations). 

Raising the eco-consciousness of the public raises the eco-consciousness of the electorate, ensuring that the scrapping or capping of environmental policy incurs some political capital cost. A lack of eco-consciousness has previously allowed the Conservative party to obliterate UK environmental policy.

Political capital

To illustrate this, notice that the Tories are currently floating a raft of environmentally friendly policies and proposals through Parliament and into the gaze of the media. This is not because they have suddenly become environmentally conscious, but because they need to recruit the typically environmentally conscious young and woman voters (following the embarrassing June 2017 elections).

Raising the eco-consciousness of every social group will imbibe environmental issues with the political capital to become as pertinent a political issue as the economy (note: economic health is dependant upon a healthy environment). 

If the rate and nature of consumption remains unchanged, it’s hard to see that the structural nature of the productive sphere could be radically transformed. An unsustainable and oppressive consumer culture that fetishizes entertainment and status electronics, celebrates the consumption of meat and dairy, has a casual attitude to the use of disposable products, and normalises frequent flying does not resist capitalist structures. It supports them both financially and ideologically.

We need to accept that our collective current mode of existence is also contributing to the destruction of the planet and the violation of communities who live in production centres. 

By excluding the consumer group from our understanding of the capitalist system, we gain an incomplete understanding of the economic system and climate change, and, as such, incomplete solutions. 

We need to rebalance our narratives in a way that recognises the unabated behaviour of the consumer group as integral to the perpetuation of the capitalist system. In this sense, we may understand the consumer group as part of the problem. As such, challenging the productive capitalist system will need to occur in synchrony with the challenging of archetypal materialist and consumerist attitudes. 

This Author 

Samuel Hayward is the project officer of climate change campaigns at ShareAction. Image: Gary Denham, Flickr. 

Dolphins in the northern Adriatic contain high levels of PCBs – highly toxic chemicals banned in the 1970s and 1980s – and are passing the pollutant to their young, according to new research led by a marine scientist at the University of St Andrews.

An international team of researchers evaluated PCB and other organochlorine contaminants in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) living in the Gulf of Trieste (northern Adriatic Sea), the northernmost part of the Mediterranean Sea and one of the most human-impacted areas in the Mediterranean.

They found that, overall, 87.5 percent of dolphins had PCB concentrations above the toxicity threshold for the onset of physiological effects in marine mammals, while 65.6 percent had concentrations above the highest threshold published for marine mammals based on reproductive impairment in seals. Such high contaminant levels are of concern, particularly in combination with other threats to dolphins, including bycatch in fisheries, disturbance by boat traffic, and prey depletion.

Toxicological burden

The research, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, involved Morigenos – Slovenian Marine Mammal Society (Slovenia), the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St Andrews (UK), the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology (UK), the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS, UK) and the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (Italy).

Tilen Genov, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the University of St Andrews, said: “We have been studying these dolphins for over 16 years, so we know most of them well. Through long-term re-sighting histories of identified individuals, we were able to link PCB levels in individual dolphins to parameters such as sex, reproductive output and social group membership.

“The research showed that males have significantly higher pollutant concentrations than females. This is because females offload a substantial amount of their toxicological burden to their young through gestation and lactation.

“That is also why females that have not yet had calves had significantly higher concentrations than those that had previously produced at least one calf. Such results are expected based on our knowledge of mammal physiology, but it is not very common to demonstrate this phenomenon in wild whales and dolphins.”

Dr Paul Jepson, co-author of the study and specialist wildlife veterinarian at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, said: “This is another study showing high or very high levels of a very toxic and persistent pollutant – PCBs – in European dolphins. PCBs have the ability to cause diseases like cancer and can also suppress reproduction.”

This Article 

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from the University of St Andrews.