The Top 5 Happy Eco News Stories for February 21, 2022
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This week we have two guest posts. The first post is by Debbie Ward, the Director at The Rebuild Site CIC who tells us about how she brought a circular economy to the construction industry. The second post is by Sharon Michelle, MSc Psychology who tells us how knowing more about climate change can empower us to make changes. We also have stories about Scotland’s efforts to save the wild salmon, how Finland is restoring their river ecosystems, scientists’ mechanical trees that suck up carbon dioxide, a major victory for electric vehicles, and the first all-electric passenger aircraft.
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Making the Most of What We Have (Waste Not Want Not)
Guest Post by: Debbie Ward, Director at The Rebuild Site CIC
I haven’t always banged the sustainability drum as loudly as I do now, in fact when I started in the construction industry over twenty years ago it wasn’t something I thought too much about. However, throughout my time in the sector I became more aware of how unsustainable our way of life generally is and within that the contribution of the construction sector to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. The more aware I became the more the problem became apparent, it was like buying a red bike and then noticing red bicycles everywhere you go… news articles left, right, and center about the huge volume of resources the sector uses, reports about what percentage of that goes to waste, headlines about the industries massive carbon footprint and buildings being demolished far from the lifespan they had been designed to be around for…
It doesn’t paint a very rosy picture, but hold on, this blog is for Happy Eco News, where is the positive story?… [read more].
Guest Post by: Sharon Michelle, MSc Psychology
For 40 years witnessing the destruction of the natural world by humans has caused me to feel blind fury, profound sadness, disbelief, and many more emotions. Often, my feelings have been dismissed by others. I’ve been told I’m too sensitive, I’m naïve, I need to face up to the fact it’s a dog-eat-dog world and I should grow up and accept reality – which if course only added to my feelings of outrage at the injustice of it all.
Why has so much environmental destruction been allowed to happen, and worse still why are so many people not waking up even with the ever-mounting scientific data about the consequences to all life on Earth?
I do understand that being aware of the scale of what is happening can be depressing and totally overwhelming but how can be problems be dealt with if they are avoided? This problem isn’t going away…[read more].
The Happy Eco News Weekly Top 5
Takeaways:
- To protect wild salmon from the effects of climate change, millions of trees are being planted along Scotland’s rivers and streams.
- On the banks of the River Dee in Aberdeenshire, over 250 000 saplings have been planted with the intention of planting a million by 2035.
- Experts say that planting trees will improve the overall health and biodiversity of rivers which will also increase insect life and help manage essential nutrients and flood control…[read more].
Takeaways:
- Although Finland is the most heavily forested country in Europe, rewilding teams are chopping some trees down for a river restoration project.
- These teams are adding dead wood to the water, gravel to the riverbend, recreating old spawning grounds for fish, and moving rocks from the riverbank into the water.
- The goal of these projects is to create healthy habitats and the big win will be to see if, after these efforts, the trout will return to them…[read more].
Takeaways:
- Scientists from Arizona State University are proposing mechanical trees to capture COP2 directly from the air to help combat climate change.
- Once the CO2 is captured by the tall vertical columns of discs that are coated with a chemical resin, the carbon will sink into a barrel.
- According to Klaus Lackner, the brains behind the project, these mechanical trees would use less energy than other intensive carbon capture projects…[read more].
Takeaways:
- The increasing demand for rapid battery chargers in the UK and Europe has led to oil producers jumping on the trend.
- British Petroleum (BP) says that their fast EV chargers will very soon be more profitable than filling up gasoline-powered vehicles. And they will expand their EV charging division in the next few years.
- Currently, BP has around 11,000 chargers and this will increase to 70,000 by 2030… [read more].
Takeaways:
- The Alice, an all-electric passenger aircraft developed by Eviation is preparing to take flight.
- The plane has a battery technology similar to an electric car, allowing for 30 minutes of charging, and will be able to fly for one hour.
- Twelve of these planes have been ordered for DHL Express to allow them to reduce their carbon footprint on shorter distance trips…[read more].
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