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Dealing with the Climate Crisis
Anthony Day helps you plan a sustainable future with expert guests and reports on green technologies from across a warming world.
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I recently had the opportunity to talk to Christophe Bourguignat about insurance in the context of natural disasters and the climate crisis. We all rely on insurance to some extent.
Here’s what we discussed
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I particularly wanted to welcome today all those people who have signed up this week as patrons. But I'm still waiting. However if you would like to support the Sustainable Futures Report by becoming a patron you can do so at patreon.com/SFR . Many thanks to all existing patrons for your loyalty and support.
This week
This week I'm talking about the power of the press, about how the rich view the climate crisis and what are they doing about it, how NASA is saving the world and a different perspective on one of the oil majors. First, we are back to carbon offsets.
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The truth is that offsets can be complex. Done right they do indeed reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Done wrong they can be exposed as no more than greenwashing, damaging the reputations of the organisations that bought them, usually in good faith.
I promised you more detail on the carbon offset controversy which was started by a report in the press last month. Here's an interview with someone with firsthand knowledge of the market.
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This week’s headline is Regenesis, the title of a book by George Monbiot. I'll tell you what I think and indeed what others think about his latest ideas.
I'm also bringing you a few stories that you might have missed; some about food, some about geo-engineering, the threat of a new pandemic and another book I’m just reading.
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Each week I write between 2,000 and 4,000 words to bring you an episode of the Sustainable Futures Report. I also write to the paper from time time and sometimes I get published. Today I’m going to share with you a couple of those letters and a letter written by someone else. I’ll also share the words of a judge in a recent case against Just Stop Oil activists. A very different judge from the one I mentioned last time.
Finally I present my guide to dealing with denial. You can listen here or you can watch me on YouTube.
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Last week I brought you news of the sentences handed down to the seven women who cracked the glass at the Barclays Bank building in Canary Wharf, London. How is the law treating people who demonstrate to warn and demand action on the climate crisis?
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Before we start let's remember the people caught up in the terrible earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Sustainability news doesn’t stop, nor does the weather, nor do GHG emissions. I’ve a bit of catching up to do, including XR, more extreme weather, wood burning stoves, the government’s environmental plan, FOMO and FOFO, the controversy over Verra and carbon offsets, the future for podcasts, the financial climate, the unlawful arrest of journalists, biodiversity and the cost of Twitter, a comment from Greta and a whole lot more that I’m going to have to hold over until next week.
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Nothing much is achieved without leadership and the ruinous consequences of bad leadership are all around us, from Ukraine to Iran to Haiti to Russia to China, and, well, the list just goes on. And we haven’t mentioned the consequences of the shortest-serving prime minister of the UK.
Success requires firm leadership, but it requires leaders who fully understand the issues they must address. Without this knowledge they cannot inform and enthuse the teams who work for them. And we are by no means talking only about politicians. Leaders are vital in all organisations.
If we are to preserve a habitable environment and successfully meet the challenge of the climate crisis our organisations need competent, sustainable leadership. I spoke to Clarke Murphy, who knows about these things.
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...But first...### Barclays Seven Update###
On Friday of this week Zoe Cohen comes up for sentence. You’ll remember that she is one of the Barclays Seven found guilty at the end of last year of causing criminal damage to the glass panels at the front of the Barclays Bank HQ in Canary Wharf, London. Their complaint was that Barclays is one of the biggest investors in the oil industry, investing hundreds of billions since the Paris Agreement and since the IEA warned that we could not achieve net zero unless all new oil exploitation was stopped now. Zoe and her companions face up to 18 months in prison.
I’ll keep you posted!
Save the Oceans
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Trees are good for the planet. Today's guest explains how trees do so much more for us than just sequester carbon. He shows how we can all help too.
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This week we turn to technology. I'm talking to Paul Hughes about new applications for batteries. How they can store energy, save energy, save money and cut carbon emissions.
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I spoke to Steve Long, RIPE Project Director, about adapting plants to the challenge of climate change and the challenge of 8 billion mouths to feed across the world every day.
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This week I bring you an interview with Peter Wang Hjemdahl of RePurpose Global. “Together, rePurpose Global’s coalition is recovering 14,228,074 pounds of plastic each year - will you join us?”
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This week I’m looking back on 2022. I’ve published 62 episodes over the year - about 150,000 words. Thank you for listening and thank you for your feedback.
In this episode I’m going to look at what concerned us this time last year and what progress we’ve made since then.
In December last year we were talking about COP26, which had just ended in Glasgow. There were complaints about fossil fuel subsidies, an Insulate Britain protester on hunger strike, profound wisdom on climate mitigation from Allegra Stratton (Yes, I can see you remember her) and Certified Greenwash.
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Last week we heard from the Shubhi Sachan of the Materials Library of India about how to minimise waste and re-use and recycle what cannot be avoided. This week, from the other side of the world, Stacy Savage, Founder & CEO, Zero Waste Strategies, LLC, explains how she addresses such issues with her clients, some of them very big brands.
This is what she told me.
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This is a special edition of the Sustainable Futures Report for Wednesday, the 7th of December 2022.
Barclays do not tell their customers about their investments.
Barclays Bank have invested £122 billion in fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement.
Barclays are one of the biggest investors in the world's plastic producers.
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Optimising material use. Last week we spoke about the future and we agreed that whatever the future holds we shouldn't be prevented from doing everything we can to make the world a better place. There is an obsession with economic growth and increasing argument about whether it's possible. There is no doubt that growth requires more materials and that materials on earth are finite.
The idea of the circular economy is to use, reuse and recycle materials to minimise the amount that we have to take from virgin resources. In an ideal world there is no such thing as a waste. When something is finished with it becomes an input to a new process. We are very far from achieving that, but there are people working hard to make it a reality. People like those at the Material Library of India. And it’s about a lot more than just collecting things up after they have been thrown away.
Recently I spoke to Shubhi Sachan, founder of the Material Library of India.
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To give you some pointers on how to control your carbon footprint I'm talking this time to John Cossham. After this there are only three more episodes until Christmas. I know! Don’t miss my review of 2022 coming up on 21st December. It’s likely to be a long one, but hey, you should have plenty of time to enjoy it between the turkey and the mince pies and more turkey and more mince pies.
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It's over. Cop 27 has finished even though it ran on for several days after its scheduled closing on Friday the 18th. An agreement was reached at the last minute! But where have we heard all this before? Cop 27 is certainly not the first cop to overrun. Not the first to create an agreement at the last minute and not the first to cause disappointment when people staggered from the last late night session and reviewed exactly what the agreement amounted to in the Cold Light of Day.
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This week’s theme is Australia. For a while I've been promising you a review of what's been going on from an environmental point of view since Anthony Albanese's Labor government took office in May. I spoke to Dr Simon Wright. He’s Director at Simply Sustainable Consulting and Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the Orange campus of the University of Technology, Sydney.
I found out that he was born in Cambridge UK, so as we are both Brits we started off by talking about the weather...
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About Anthony Day
A weekly podcast and blog brought to you by Anthony Day. A selection of stories and interviews aiming to be sustainable, topical and interesting.
And also, I do address conferences.
