We are right in a 'tipping point' in terms of our (mankinds) global effect on our natural worlds environment, we can carry on as before, and maybe have a couple hundred years of 'manageable' negative effects, before things get so messed up we probably will be facing some kind of global collapse; in relation to how we run the world and the chaos that follows this period. Certainly it would not be a world we recognise (no internet forums to discuss stuff etc).
The other option is we change things, change the normal state of play and how we operate in our world, and it all starts with us, each one of us. Every action we take (or don't take) has a consequence, and unlike the classic narrative of the lone hero on a quest to save the world, our current and future narrative is about all of us 'heroes' doing their bit to save the world. And on that subject here are a few topics to think about.
'David Attenborough on the scourge of the oceans: 'I remember being told plastic doesn't decay, it's wonderful':
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...being-told-plastic-doesnt-decay-its-wonderful
His sequel to The Blue Planet will focus not only on the marvels of sea life but also the threats to it. The naturalist explains why plastic pollution, climate change and overpopulation are problems too urgent to be left to ecologists
David Attenborough vividly remembers, nearly 80 years on, his first encounter with one of the worst scourges of the planet. He was a schoolboy. “I remember my headmaster, who was also my science master, saying: ‘Boys, we’ve entered a new era! We’ve entered, we’ll be proud to say, the plastic era. And what is so wonderful about this is we’ve used all our scientific ingenuity to make sure that it’s virtually indestructible. It doesn’t decay, you know, it’s wonderful.’”
Attenborough lets the last word hang in the air, eyebrows and hands raised. Then the hands fall. “Now we dump thousands of tonnes of it, every year, into the sea, and it has catastrophic effects.”
Sir David is certainly right up there as one of my life long heroes, so i'm really looking forward to his new series.
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'Sixth mass extinction of wildlife also threatens global food supplies':
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-wildlife-also-threatens-global-food-supplies
The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies, according to experts.
“Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report on Tuesday.
“If there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains each and every one of the seven billion people on our planet,” she said in an article for the Guardian. “This ‘agrobiodiversity’ is a precious resource that we are losing, and yet it can also help solve or mitigate many challenges the world is facing. It has a critical yet overlooked role in helping us improve global nutrition, reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to climate change.”
Three-quarters of the world’s food today comes from just 12 crops and five animal species and this leaves supplies very vulnerable to disease and pests that can sweep through large areas of monocultures, as happened in the Irish potato famine when a million people starved to death. Reliance on only a few strains also means the world’s fast changing climate will cut yields just as the demand from a growing global population is rising.
A growing problem, especially as we enter into the stronger feedback loops of AGW (human caused climate change). There have been some spectacular crop failures over recent years, nothing to so far completely disrupt the global food supply chain, but it is going to happen and maybe not too far off?
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'In shift towards electric vehicles, Volkswagen looking for cobalt contracts':
https://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2017...cles-volkswagen-looking-for-cobalt-contracts/
Volkswagen is looking for serious, long-term contracts with cobalt producers, according to a Reuters report on Friday. Cobalt is a common component in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries, and it's projected to command more and more demand as electric vehicles are adopted in greater numbers. Currently cobalt is trading at about $26 per pound.
Securing reserves of the kinds of materials used in batteries will be key to Volkswagen’s future growth. After the so-called “dieselgate” scandal of 2015, Volkswagen Group pledged to pivot away from diesel to electric vehicles (EVs). The German automaker has said it wants to produce up to 3 million electric vehicles by 2025 and offer 80 electric vehicle models across all 12 brands by 2030. If VW Group succeeds, it would be a considerable feat given that so far there are only about 2 million EVs of any brand on the road worldwide.
As more automakers move to develop EVs, the minerals used to make car batteries will become more and more important. In 2015, Tesla secured two contracts with mining companies Bacanora Minerals and Rare Earth Minerals, as well as Pure Energy Minerals, to explore lithium deposits in northern Nevada and Mexico. Cobalt is often used as a component in electric powertrain batteries because cobalt-based lithium batteries tend to have high energy density (although other materials like nickel and manganese can be used in lithium-ion batteries as well, depending on the battery application).
Cobalt is primarily mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often under exploitative conditions. According to UNICEF and Amnesty International, around 40,000 children are involved in cobalt mining in DRC where they make US$1-2 per day. Apparently, the wording of Volkswagen’s request for proposals stipulates that child labor is not to be used to produce the cobalt the company buys. (As always, such stipulations are only good when enforced. A 2016 report from The Washington Post shed light on the fact that many companies turn a blind eye to human rights abuses perpetuated by materials suppliers.)
I'm a bit of an EV fan, nearly got one a couple of years back, but at the time as a one car family, the range was just not good enough on the affordable options, and the house electrics needed modernisation. It's different now, and i wish i'd probably kept running the old banger a few more years before buying a new (low CO2 emission petrol version) ICE car (ICE stands for Internal Combustion Engine, and the term is used quite widely in EV circles). But yeah new technology that can offer us a way out of increasing CO2 output, does come with some drawbacks as the arstechnica article goes into. There is no easy option going forward, but we do need to make this shift (to a global green/clean energy usage) sooner rather than later.
