Call for leadership – Stephen Hinton Consulting

The sorry state of Swedish Forests

Factual, concise and hard-hitting. This new website from Sweden shows the ACTUAL state of Swedish forests and the almost impossible challenge of preventing total biodiversity loss.

The fact that a large percentage of forests have already been clear-felled means that there is little chance these areas can recover their biodiversity. That just a few percentage of biologically and ecologically valuable forest has protected status has locked endangered species into such a small area reduces the chances of these species spreading.

The site also takes up the carbon sequestration function of Swedish forests and the challenge to have old growth continue to absorb carbon.

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Fossil fuel policy decision tree

I thought I’d help #cop27 out by providing a decision tree for policy makers. Rather simplified, I think it needs to match the level of public dialogue going on. Feel free to suggest additions/corrections.

The Water, Air and Food Awards hold some of the answers.

Do visit WAFA if you are in Copenhagen. Entry is free.

The Water, Air and Food Awards, WAFA, is a Copenhagen-based NGO dedicated to identifying initiatives that show practically what can be done to ensure water and food security and clean air.

By offering an annual award, WAFA identifies and showcases initiatives already working to remediate the earth’s environmental and social challenges.

The prestigious Award Events communicate positive messages of hope and invite sponsoring and partners to further support, spread and build on these grass-roots innovations.

Since 2010 WAFA over 400 applicants have gained approval and 14 have been awarded from countries as far apart as Canada, Jordan and India.

This year, the general public will be invited to vote for four winner among 14 finalists. To get informed about when voting opens, sign up for WAFA’s newsletter.

I am currently acting Program Office manager, and we are looking for several volunteers to take us from where we are today to the Award Ceremony on the 7th December.

Not targets but U-turns: reflections on the IPCC report

Released today, the report, which summarises scientists’ understanding of what is happening with climate change, warns that Earth will unavoidably hit the critical threshold of 1.5°C warming due to climate change within the next 20 years. This is a combination of natural processes and human emissions. This is regardless of how radically global governments cut greenhouse gas emissions. This article urgently proposes a new framing approach: a pivot.

The time to pivot is now

My interpretation of what a pivot is: a cap on resource withdrawal followed by a rapid reduction. A pivot can happen before or after the breach of capacity. When the pivot happens greatly affects how much resources will be needed to rectify the situation, as well as the costs of the negative impacts of overshoot. This article lays out the basic concepts of pivot.

Anyone growing up when times just get worse will expect that they will continue to get worse. Growing up in a time when things just get better you will expect them to continue to get better. The worst are when things have been getting better but you know they are going to get a lot worse. That is where we are. It’s uncomfortable to say the least.

We are waking up the realisation that progress since the 1950s has actually been at the expense of earth systems and natural resources. The carrying capacity of earth systems has been eroded to such an extent, and populations and their material uses have grown to such a magnitude, we now find ourselves in overshoot.

Pivot Projects seeks to inform post-covid strategy for net zero carbon

Understanding that as a species humans cannot go on as we were, 140 experts, academics and volunteers across the world are coming together to engage with policy agenda of the G20, COP26, EU and UK Government. The group will provide post-COVID19 stimulus policies that are socially fair; stimulate economic growth; and accelerate our transformation to a sustainable planet.

Worryingly, the outlook as we emerge from the restrictions is bleak. If we are to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 and have any hope of limiting the rise in global average temperatures to a level that will not cause a societal catastrophe, we have to achieve 15% of reduction in carbon emissions *every year*.

Stephen Hinton volunteered to work in the area of sustainable infrastructure. If you would like to join the project, please visit the Pivot Projects Website.

Cars are the answer to everything (sarcasm warning)

AI machine to help policy makers post-Covid

The behavior of complex systems such as the global environment, economy, and society are notoriously difficult to predict, especially when relying solely upon human cognition. Experts always see things from their perspective and can rarely factor in the whole picture. One organisation is looking to by-pass this human cognitive bias with AI. International AI firm SparkBeyond has set itself the task of saving the world by proposing ways forward post-Covid. Spark Beyond’s ideation Machine integrates the world’s largest collection of algorithms, and bypasses human cognitive bias to produce millions of hypotheses in minutes. It expands the scope of unique insights by auto-augmenting data with a rich network of data sources, including – but not limited to – news sources, scientific research, patents, and clinical trials, as well as geographic, census and financial data.

Greening the desert will help us. In many ways.

A group based in the Netherlands, called The Weather Makers, are rolling out an ambitious plan to turn the Sinai desert green. Apart from stabilising weather in the region and possibly an even wider area, the initiative hopes to bring livelihoods to the area, reducing the risk of conflicts among the troubled people who live in the area. The project literally has biblical proportions as it is the site of what ancient scripts refer to as the land of milk and honey.

Swedish Climate Parliament passes motion for true carbon budget

Just as budgets steer every household and every corporation, so should every nation signed up to the Paris Agreement be steered by a carbon budget. This carbon budget should be treated like a monetary budget, the actions of the Swedish Government (even with the Green Party in power) up to now can only be described as fraudulent. This message comes from Climate Scientist Kevin Anderson, most recently in his presentation to the Swedish Climate Folk Parliament on the 5th May 2018 as it passed a motion to adopt such a budget. Continue reading “Swedish Climate Parliament passes motion for true carbon budget”