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A five-star recipe for cutting food waste?
July 11, 2024 — A comprehensive report on food waste published in March by the United Nations Environment Programme shares some sobering statistics: In 2022, people around the world wasted the equivalent of more than 1 billion meals each day. But the key take-home message is a far more encouraging one. In addition to scoping the extent of food waste, the report offers a specific strategy for reducing it and shares case studies that show the strategy really works — with benefits for people and the environment alike that far outweigh the costs.
In war-torn Syria, efforts to save a river refuse to die
Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration between Ensia and. Egab exploring environmental efforts by communities facing potentially more urgent concerns such as war and poverty. Egab is a media startup that helps young local journalists from across the Middle East and Africa get published in regional and international media outlets, with a focus on solutions journalism. You can read the other stories in the series here, here and here.
Opinion: What’s the best climate action you can take? You tell me.
May 22, 2024 — Editor’s note: This op-ed originally appeared at Project Drawdown and is printed here with permission. When I tell someone I lead a climate change nonprofit, one of the most common questions I get is: What can I do to reduce my carbon footprint?. It’s...
E-waste generation is accelerating five times faster than recycling rates. What to do about it?
May 3, 2024 — At first glance, one might consider it good news: The volume of electronic waste recycled is growing. At a closer look, the statistics are less savory: E-waste generation is accelerating five times faster. In The Global E-Waste Monitor 2024, released in March, the United Nations...
Moving climate interest to action
April 8, 2024 — It likely is no surprise to hear that people don’t always do the good they could — even if they want to. When it comes to supporting political action around climate change, that reality is particularly stark. Analysis of a series of surveys of American adults spanning three years recently found a marked gap between the willingness of respondents to take political action with respect to global warming and the extent to which they actually did act.
In Libya, one person’s garbage is another person’s gain
March 14, 2024 — Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration between Ensia and. Egab exploring environmental efforts by communities facing potentially more urgent concerns such as war and poverty. Egab is a media startup that helps young local journalists from across the Middle East and Africa get published in regional and international media outlets, with a focus on solutions journalism. You can read the first two stories in the series here and here.
As Egypt’s economy dips, sustainable fashion soars
Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration between Ensia and. Egab exploring environmental efforts by communities facing potentially more urgent concerns such as war and poverty. Egab is a media startup that helps young local journalists from across the Middle East and Africa get published in regional and international media outlets, with a focus on solutions journalism.
In search of the last saola
February 15, 2024 — “I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears in the Annamite Mountains,” says wildlife biologist Lorraine Scotson of the mountain range along the border of Laos and Vietnam. “[Men] who are physically fit and really strong, adventurous types.” There’s a “claustrophobia that gets introduced” when you’re in these forest-covered mountains, she says.
Amidst ongoing conflict, efforts to save this endemic tree are threatened
Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration between Ensia and Egab exploring environmental efforts by communities facing potentially more urgent concerns such as war and poverty. Egab is a media startup that helps young local journalists from across the Middle East and Africa get published in regional and international media outlets, with a focus on solutions journalism.
Why it’s important to let sediment reach the shore
January 26, 2024 — In the Benediction for his 1968 autobiographical book, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, American author, essayist and environmental advocate Edward Abbey wrote, “May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys.” Today, many of those pastoral valleys have become homes to dams — altering the flow of rivers, sometimes ending it prematurely, and creating issues downstream we have only begun to understand.
Good news for manufacturers, builders and — well, everyone
January 18, 2024 — We’ve known for a long time that improving the built environment’s energy efficiency is good for the planet. A recent report by McKinsey Sustainability makes it clear how good it can be for business, too. And with nearly one-quarter of human-produced greenhouse gases tied to making, transporting and using building materials, and/or operating the things they’re used to build, identifying low-cost, low-carbon alternatives holds potentially huge payoffs.
Can forest expansion balance climate change, economic growth and ecological health?
While that number has rebounded to about 11%, Ireland remains one of Europe’s least forested countries. So, in 2022 the island nation launched an aggressive forestry expansion initiative, with a goal of increasing forest cover to 18% by planting 450,000 hectares (more than 1 million acres) before 2050, partly in an effort to uphold international commitments to carbon neutrality.
If you care about conservation, read this
December 18, 2023 — For the past decade and a half, a team led by Cambridge University conservation biologist William Sutherland has engaged scientists and practitioners from around the world in a unique annual activity: conducting a horizon scan to identify the top emerging technological, political, economic and related shifts most likely to have a substantial effect on biodiversity around the world in the year ahead. Over the years, the list has helped illuminate intended and unintended consequences in a way that offers benefit to both policy and practice.
What happens when U.S. insurers stop covering prescribed burns?
On the first day of a 2021 prescribed fire in south-central Oregon, all went to plan as firefighters slowly burned areas in Fremont-Winema National Forest. They created a deliberate mosaic alternating between swatches of blackened land and decadent foliage. Fire specialists designed the operation to reduce risk to the nearby...
The hidden power of nature in cities
November 20, 2023 — We’ve long known that trees, parks and other green spaces can sequester carbon dioxide. But it turns out that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far as their ability to make the world a better place. When urban planners consider and work to maximize all effects on greenhouse gas emissions, the potential of these and other nature-based solutions (NBS) to contribute to climate goals multiplies many times over. In fact, if done right, NBS could help seven European cities achieve near if not total carbon-neutrality by 2030 — while also providing bountiful benefits related to resilience, biodiversity and human well-being.
How to keep climate change from breaking your budget
October 18, 2023 — When people think of the impacts of climate change, they often focus on physical harm, such as loss of homes and businesses to wildfire, or illness due to floods, wildfire smoke or heat. That physical harm, however, can easily lead to financial devastation. And, as a new report from the U.S. Department of Treasury shows, this is particularly true for those living in vulnerable areas or who are already teetering on the edge of financial difficulty. Fortunately, the report also offers specific advice on how to prepare for and minimize the economic harm climate change can leverage at a personal level.
Planting trees? Start here.
October 3, 2023 — Planting trees is one of the best things we can do to not only add beauty to our surroundings but also sequester carbon, support biodiversity and provide numerous other benefits to people and nature alike. But which trees, where? Getting the answer to that question...
Opinion: Why understanding limits is the key to humanity’s future
Recent news articles about a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research heralded the potential for “limitless” energy. Whenever I read that word limitless I wince. The promise of limitlessness is misleading and sometimes deadly. Limits exist everywhere in nature. They enable the functioning of systems at scales from the...
A community-led approach to stopping flooding expands
August 8, 2023 — Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, Borderless, Ensia, Planet Detroit, Sahan Journal, and Wisconsin Watch, as well as the Guardian and Inside Climate News. The project was supported by the Joyce Foundation. You can read the launch story from Ensia, “Inundation and Injustice: Flooding presents a formidable threat to the Great Lakes region,”here. This story originally appeared in Borderless, a nonprofit news outlet reporting on and with immigrants. To read a Spanish version of this story, click here.
As flooding increases in the Chicago area, many communities are left without funding
August 7, 2023 — This story will publish August 15, 2023. Check back then!. Editor’s note: This story is part of a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, Borderless, Ensia, Planet Detroit, Sahan Journal, and Wisconsin Watch, as well as the Guardian and Inside Climate News. The project was supported by the Joyce Foundation. You can read the launch story from Ensia, “Inundation and Injustice: Flooding presents a formidable threat to the Great Lakes region,” here.
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Ensia is a solutions-focused nonprofit media outlet reporting on our changing planet.
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