An epic global study of moss reveals it is far more vital to Earth’s ecosystems than we knew
New global research on soil mosses published today in Nature Geoscience reveals they play critical roles in sustaining life on our planet.
ecosystem services
What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 88 Janine Benyus
Janine Benyus is the co-founder of Biomimicry 3.8 and Biomimicry Institute. She is a biologist, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?
Marketing the planet: The financialization of nature
How did we reach this precarious point in our collective existence, and more importantly, can we craft a clear and secure path out of this mess?
Páramos at Risk: The Interconnected Threats to a Biodiversity Hotspot
Páramos, experts say, may also serve as a sort of buffer against climate-change-induced recession of tropical mountain glaciers and extended droughts — if we can protect them.
Earth’s Real Treasure
Which do you think is more valuable: the web of living animals on this planet, or all the gold accessible in the ground? If given a choice to eliminate one and preserve the other, which would you choose?
The value of biodiversity
It came as a bit of a shock to open a government news release that reads more like an editorial in the Ecologist, but I think it’s an indication of the speed at which the landscape is changing here.
What Is a Migrant Worth?
The root cause of our social and environmental challenges is neoliberalism and the fetish of the market, which values profit over people and sees nature simply as a commodity.
Our Modern Obsession with Financializing Nature
Language is surely one of the greatest political weapons ever invented because it invisibly defines the world in narrow ways and can impair our capacity to see and think clearly. This is one of the takeaways I had after looking through Sian Sullivan’s new website, “The Natural Capital Myth and Other Stories,” which collects twelve years of her writing (2008 to present) on this theme.
Notes on the “Financialisation of Nature and Carbon Markets”
What is needed is an approach called commoning – the idea that we all share responsibility. We are all are entitled to share natural resources– but only so far as use is made at a sustainable scale.
The Future of UK Farming: Measuring and Valuing Sustainability
At The Future of UK Farming conference this April, The Sustainable Food Trust’s Patrick Holden chaired a session on “Measuring and Valuing Sustainability”. The panel discussed how to transform the economic environment for sustainable food production by empowering farmers to deliver measurable public goods.
Up in Smoke
The declining health of trees globally is starting to have profound effects on Earth’s carbon cycle. The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been picking up speed over the past few years, even though human CO2 emissions have flattened. The net effect: Climate change is starting to accelerate.
I Bet You Don’t Know These 8 Amazing Things about Trees
It’s safe to say that life would not be the same without trees. In fact, all human civilisation is dependent upon them. Not only as a source of valuable resources, but also for the ecological benefits they provide – called ecosystem services. We all know trees are awesome, but most people don’t quite understand all the important things they do.