Land
Many sustainable development challenges are really challenges of land-use, as highlighted in the new IPCC report on climate change and land. Biodiversity habitats are converted to agriculture and urban space, precipitating mass species extinction. Tropical forests are replaced by palm oil plantations. A powerful concept in weighing these land-use choices is carbon opportunity cost, which George Monbiot recently wrote about. All the land being dedicated to livestock farming comes at a significant climate cost, since it could be used in far more carbon-productive ways, as forests, agriculture or renewable energy farms. Let’s question our economic choices.
— Wayne Visser
More on Nature & Biodiversity
Lawns
Our suburban lawns (along with golf courses) are green deserts – biodiversity dead zones. While our catastrophic loss of wildlife and insect populations is largely…
Planet · Nature & Biodiversity
Lichen
Did you know that lichen – which covers around 6% of the Earth’s surface – is a symbiotic composite organism. It emerges from algae or…
Planet · Nature & Biodiversity
Magical
Some of my favourite films and books fall into the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and magic realism – but sometimes nature is all the magic…
Planet · Nature & Biodiversity
From Purpose Inspired: Reflections on Conscious Living, Volume 1. Buy on Lulu ↗