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Great Barrier Reef: scientists ask Malcolm Turnbull to curb fossil fuel use

International Society for Reef Studies presidents say prime minister should prioritise reef after ‘devastating’ damage

As the largest international gathering of coral reef experts comes to a close, scientists have written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, calling for action to save the world’s reefs.

The letter was sent to Turnbull on Saturday imploring his government to do more to conserve the nation’s reefs and curb fossil fuel consumption.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Hardwood from illegal logging makes its way into UK stores

Deforestation is rife in the Amazon, Colombia and the Philippines, say environmental groups

British shoppers could be unknowingly buying wooden furniture, flooring and even food items that are byproducts of destructive illegal logging in the Amazon, environmental campaigners are warning.

Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to make companies reveal the source of their products in order to stop the black market trade. Last week human rights watchdog Global Witness revealed that 185 environmental activists were killed in 2015, many of whom had been trying to stop illegal logging in the Amazon. An estimated 80% of Brazilian hardwood is illegally logged.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Hebden Bridge flood victims finally get their Christmas dinner

People in the Calder valley are picking up where they left off before their homes were inundated last December

People in West Yorkshire enjoyed their Christmas dinner yesterday, six months after floods inundated homes along the Calder valley.

After unprecedented rainfall last December the river Calder burst its banks, flooding the market town of Hebden Bridge and the village of Mytholmroyd, forcing residents to abandon their Christmas festivities.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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EU out vote puts UK commitment to Paris climate agreement in doubt

Leave victory risks delaying EU ratification of the Paris deal, leaving the door open for Obama’s successor to unpick the pact

The UK government won high praise six months ago for taking a leading role in the successful Paris climate change agreement, the first legally binding commitment on curbing carbon emissions by all 195 United Nations countries.

With the vote to leave the EU, the UK’s future participation in that landmark accord is now in doubt.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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How can we make Brexit work for the environment? | Craig Bennett

Leaving the EU puts about 70% of UK environmental safeguards at risk. But Brexit is not a mandate to make us the dirty man of Europe again – we have to make it work for the environment, from the grassroots up

And so, Brexit has happened. I, like many people reading this, feel desperately sad today.

Friends of the Earth campaigned vigorously to remain in the EU. Membership of Europe has been good for our ‘green and pleasant land’, and the plain truth is that pollution doesn’t recognise national boundaries. It seems obvious to me that the best way of solving anything other than very local environmental problems is for countries to cooperate and develop solutions under a common framework.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Four billy goats with a tale to tell

Coignafearn, Highlands There is something about wild goats that appeals to me – perhaps their look of superiority?

Standing on the side of the burn, I watched the water flow past my feet, gurgling and murmuring as it continued on its way to the river Findhorn below. After the cold spring, the spring and early summer plants were all flowering together. The yellow carpets of bird’s foot-trefoil, or “eggs and bacon” as I prefer to call it, dominated the scene. On the drier areas were small groups of mountain pansies whose flowers varied from red to intense violet.

The butterworts in the splash zone of the burn were such an outstanding purple that their tiny flowers looked much larger than they actually were. Lady’s smock plants – also known as cuckooflowers, because they bloom when the first cuckoo begins calling – stood out above the others. Their slender stems topped with tiny pale lilac flower heads looked as if they were just waiting for an orange tip butterfly to lay its tiny orange eggs on them.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Anti-fracking activist refuses to pay £55,000 legal bill in Cuadrilla dispute

Tina Louise Rothery was part of a group that occupied field near Blackpool being considered for shale gas exploration

An anti-fracking campaigner has appeared in court faced with a legal bill of more than £55,000 and a potential custodial sentence after being sued for trespass.

Tina Louise Rotheryrefused to answer questions about her financial affairs at Blackpool district registry and said she would not pay the bill. She said afterwards she had been told she could face up to two weeks in prison.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Germany bans fracking after years of dispute

Coalition government revived proposals after companies said they would push ahead with projects

German politicians have approved a law that bans fracking, ending years of dispute over the controversial technology to release oil and gas locked deep underground.

The law does not outlaw conventional drilling for oil and gas, leaving it to state governments to decide on individual cases.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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Circulate on Fridays: the complexity of Brexit, life in the e-waste industry and what’s wrong with on-demand

Every Friday, Circulate rounds up a collection of interesting circular economy related stories and articles. This Friday, we’ve got a systems thinker’s take on Brexit, a brief recap of this year’s CE100 Annual Summit, and a report from the frontline of the e-waste industry.

Brexit – the complex systems angle

Photo credit: Theophilos via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND
Photo credit: Theophilos via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-ND

If you’re visiting Circulate today hoping for some respite from the news that the UK has voted to leave the European Union, then we can only apologise. But stick with us! Fast Company has a short but insightful piece that relates the Brexit vote to systems thinking, and a ‘classic psychological error’. That error is that recent tensions in the UK have been interpreted through a lens of linear causality: that EU membership is the cause of problems for many voters. However, it’s becoming more widely appreciated that most real-world systems aren’t simple and linear, but fall into the category of ‘ordered complexity’. What’s been missing from much of the debate around the referendum is that “maybe improvements in air travel, wars in the Middle East, or global climate change caused the economic changes troubling some in the U.K…without a control condition, it just isn’t possible to know”. Art Markman also offers this nice analogy to highlight the difference between simple and complex systems:

Complex systems like economies aren’t like air conditioners. If a room is too hot, you turn on the air conditioner, and it cools down. If the room gets too cool, you shut off the A/C unit, and your room warms up—voila! There aren’t a lot of other factors governing the temperature in the room. Global political economies are different. Removing the same set of factors that caused a drag on the economy may not be enough to reverse those same trends.

It’s this thinking that has made the circular economy a popular vision – we can’t solve the problems of today just by tinkering with isolated components of the current system, but through a deep appreciation of how complex systems work.

Come Together

CE100_Summit_Highlights_084

Abbey Road Studios has been celebrated as a petri dish of musical innovation and invention for over eighty years, and this week hosted experimentation of a completely different kind. Business leaders, academic visionaries, progressive governments and thought-leaders gathered in London for the fourth CE100 Annual Summit; a day of groundbreaking presentation and conversation that aims to further understanding of the circular economy. Attendees heard from speakers from around the globe, on topic ranging from materials science and regenerative agriculture to education and health. Among the stellar lineup of speakers were Nike’s Cyrus Wadia, Leontino Balbo Jr of Nativ, Hunter Lovins of Natural Capitalism Solutions, and Greg Hodkinson of new Ellen MacArthur Foundation Knowledge Partner Arup. Watch this space for more coverage of the day in coming weeks.

The chips are down

To reach a circular economy, we’ll have to look beyond recycling, to the inner loops of a circular economy. That said, the way in which we cycle materials if of great significance to the development of an economic model that delivers long-lasting prosperity. Reporters from The Verge toured various stops on North America’s e-waste recycling journey, providing a good overview of some of the challenges faced by logistics businesses, recyclers and resource management companies along the value chain. Summarising the issues in one line, author Andrew J. Hawkins states that “The profits are slim, the overhead is huge, and regulatory landscape is endlessly confusing”. The report focuses mainly on the volume and variety of the waste electronics problem, and offers plenty of material for a further analysis of how it should be addressed. For instance, one particularly gory extract highlights the destructive nature of today’s end of use practices for electrical goods:

Around the warehouse, old electronics are endlessly brutalized. Teams of workers snap laptops in half, smash screens, disembowel computers, and cripple keyboards. One employee wearing a Ghostbusters T-shirt rips apart printers and bulky Toshiba laptops as if they were made of matchsticks. Giant piles of circuit boards and shredded plastic gather at his feet. A roller coaster of conveyor belts soars overhead. It’s the perfect place for a Luddite with anger issues.

Work by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to define the building blocks of a circular economy has suggested that through innovation in design, business models, reverse logistics and system conditions (such as education and incentivisation),  stakeholders could move from the current extractive and destructive practices,  towards a restorative system; one that circulates products, components and materials at the highest utility at all times.

The on-demand economy grows up – a bit

In the past couple of years, people have been asking ‘where next?’ for the on-demand economy. Fast Company has an answer: nowhere – it’s just business. Explaining how ‘The On-demand Economy Hits the Reset Button’, Sarah Kessler features the stories of four different startups that have embraced unique business models. She concludes that the oversaturated on-demand market is maturing, with companies differentiating based on the needs of their specialisation and customers. So just aiming for ‘the Uber of X’ isn’t a fast track to success, and ‘the on-demand economy is more complicated than merely applying a clever business model to different service sectors’. Of course, this is just part of the story, as the article is primarily concerned with the financial success of the startups in question. An overlooked and arguably greater complication is the wider values governing these new businesses. Are they still ruled by ‘colonial economics’ as Doug Rushkoff puts it, and therefore missing an important opportunity to build not just financial capital, but social and natural capital too?   

Caption competition

Did you hear the story this week about the snake who shed its skin in a perfect circle, getting trapped inside in the process? We know there’s a materials, re-use, circular economy joke in there somewhere, but we haven’t figured it out yet. Answers on a postcard please.

 

The post Circulate on Fridays: the complexity of Brexit, life in the e-waste industry and what’s wrong with on-demand appeared first on Circulate.

Source: Circulate News RSS

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UK's out vote is a 'red alert' for the environment

From the ‘red-tape’ slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of green professionals, all indications are for weaker environmental protections

Despite being an issue that knows no borders, affects all and is of vital interest to future generations, the environment was low on the agenda ahead of the UK’s historic vote to leave the European Union.

The short answer to what happens next with pollution, wildlife, farming, green energy, climate change and more is we don’t know – we are in uncharted territory. But all the indications – from the “red-tape” slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of environmental professionals – are that the protections for our environment will get weaker.

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Source: Guardian Environment

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