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What is eco-anxiety?
Imagine you open up your news app and discover a story about the climate crisis. Maybe it’s a piece focused on the 11,000 climate scientists who recently warned of “untold suffering” unless society transforms our way of living. Or perhaps it’s a write-up of recent research from Nature that says we’re headed toward a “global tipping point” and we can’t afford not to take action.
Maybe you live in an area increasingly affected by wildfires, or your region is seeing more flooding. Or possibly, you’ve been reading about the fact that our planet’s carbon dioxide concentration levels are the highest they’ve been in 3 million years.
No matter the version of the climate change story, the statistics probably make you feel a bit anxious. Our planet undergoing drastic changes and landscapes won’t look the same for future generations; that fact may fill you with grief, nostalgia or even panic. But concerned reactions to these stories are relatively normal and they even have a name: eco-anxiety…
Greta Thunberg: ‘They try so desperately to silence us’
“Swedish activist Greta Thunberg says young people are “bringing change” to the Madrid climate talks and will not be silenced.
At a news conference Miss Thunberg said that she hoped the negotiations would yield “something concrete”
The 16-year-old was mobbed by press and spectators when she visited the conference centre earlier on Friday.
She had to be escorted away for her own safety amid shouts of “leave her alone” from concerned observers.
Having arrived via overnight train from Lisbon to large crowds waiting for her in Madrid, Miss Thunberg was set to join a large demonstration in favour of rapid climate action this evening…”
Greta Is Right: Study Shows Individual Lifestyle Change Boosts Systemic Climate Action
“It is really important that scientists, or other messengers who communicate with the public, model those behaviors that reduce carbon emissions to drive their point home,” one of the authors, Professor Elke Weber, said in an interview released yesterday by Princeton University.
“Our new research showed that the carbon footprints of those communicating the science not only affects their credibility, but also affects audience support…
One man is trying to save the world from climate change by mobilizing an unlikely team: Iowa’s farmers
“In early March, just a week before the Midwest was inundated by catastrophic flooding, a dozen farmers gathered at the First Presbyterian Church in Grinnell, Iowa, for an event billed as a conversation about “Faith, Farmers, and Climate Action.” “How is God calling you to use your farm to improve the world?” asked the evening’s facilitator, Matt Russell. “We’ve got this narrowing window of time in which we can act,” he said. “When we think about climate action—are you feeling any call to that?”
Russell directs the Iowa branch of Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit that promotes a religious response to global warming. A fifth-generation farmer who runs a livestock operation with his husband in nearby Lacona, Iowa, the 48-year-old nearly became a Catholic priest in his twenties but then got a degree in rural sociology. Now he preaches that America’s farmers—a demographic seen as religious and conservative—are a secret weapon in the climate fight…”
Federal Judge: Pipelines Must Not Cross Streams Without Considering Endangered Species
“A federal judge upheld his April 15 ruling Monday, tossing a key permit required by the Keystone XL and other pipeline projects to cross streams and wetlands.
Montana U.S. District Judge Brian Morris affirmed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot use a blanket water-crossing permit to approve new oil and gas pipelines without considering their impacts on endangered species.
“The court rightly ruled that the Trump administration can’t continue to ignore the catastrophic effects of fossil fuel pipelines like Keystone XL,” Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) senior attorney Jared Margolis said in a press release…”
Agrivoltaics proves mutually beneficial
Building resiliency in renewable energy and food production is a fundamental challenge in today’s changing world, especially in regions susceptible to heat and drought.
Agrivoltaics, the co-locating of agriculture and solar photovoltaic panels, offers a possible solution, with new University of Arizona-led research reporting positive impacts on food production, water savings, and the efficiency of electricity production…
Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report
“WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.
The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited…”
Is a solution to climate change at the top of centuries-old trees? (Part one-video)
This past month, researchers from a UN panel on climate change recommended a simple strategy to help stem climate change: planting trees around the globe. The Milarch family has been doing its part by running Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, where David Milarch and his son Jake collect samples from tall “champion” trees to grow and replant…
How scientists are using selfies to challenge stereotypes
Science and scientists have been under siege. The scientific community is pushing back, by humanizing itself.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Scientist Selfies study found that participants considered scientists posting selfies to be warmer, more trustworthy, and no less competent than scientists posting science-only photos on Instagram…
“I’m not a climate change guy, but…” Farmers reckon with new reality in the heartland: Video
The reality is that protecting land for future generations is now more at risk than ever before: families’ lives are at stake. We need to rethink what conservation will mean into the future.
In response to troubling weather patterns and climate changes, some farmers in Nebraska are considering new solutions to keep their businesses afloat. One of those farmers, Graham Christensen, travels the country discussing a green farming initiative called regenerative farming…