By Suzanne York. It feels like a moment of truth for humans and nature.  It’s obvious we are in ecological breakdown and need to change course, but will we do it? The weather is becoming increasingly erratic and harsh, from heatwaves in Europe to floods in South Asia.  Antarctica’s “doomsday” glacier is breaking. There are
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By Geoffrey Holland, guest writer for Transition Earth. Over the years, I have tried to be a student of good planetary stewardship.  The ultimate prize is a humanity that functions in harmony with nature. This is what comes when what we take from the biosphere balances out with what we give back to it. In
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By Suzanne York. We could call it the “COVID-19 void” or some such name, the period when so many important issues, reports, conferences and more fell to the wayside due to the overwhelming need to deal with the novel coronavirus. One such report was released last month that didn’t seem to garner much attention, which
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By Geoffrey Holland, guest writer for Transition Earth. All humans require nourishment. No exceptions. The future of food may reside in multi-story urban structures, built out with hi-tech hydroponic or aeroponic crop growing systems. Another name for this is vertical farming. There’s a lot to like about vertical farms. They require about 90% less water
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By Geoffrey Holland, guest writer. Recently, the great renaissance city of Venice, Italy flooded yet again. It is happening ever more frequently. Each time it happens, it seems to get worse. What is happening to Venice provides a foreboding glimpse of what will likely become a permanent condition in many of our Earth’s coastal cities
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By Suzanne York. Imagine being a small-scale farmer in a developing country, trying to grow crops in challenging conditions that farmers have faced for generations.  Then increasingly severe climate impacts really start to throw things out of whack.  Droughts, floods, and erratic weather conditions threaten livelihoods and the ability to provide adequate amounts of food
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By Geoffrey Holland, guest writer. Nearly a century ago, an American humorist named Will Rogers said of the human condition, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.”  As we move through the early part of the 20th millennia, humanity is up to its ears in a hole
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By Suzanne York. The new year kicked off with a lot of coverage of extinction, mostly due to the tragedy in Australia.  Television news programs, newspapers and social media are awash in reports of the devastating impact of Australia’s raging fires on its enigmatic species.  The images of koalas, kangaroos and wallabies burning are tragic
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By Suzanne York. Green is in, and trees are all the rage as a key (and obvious) solution to climate change: India planted 220 million trees in one day; Ethiopia planted more than 350 million trees in 12 hours; China has plans to plant an area of forest as large as Ireland every year. Even corporations are joining in –
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By Julian Cribb FRSA FTSE*, guest writer. The fate of human civilization in the mid-21st Century turns critically on food. Success in overcoming the intersecting challenges of climate and resource scarcity will bring peace, plenty and a chance to repair the Planet. Failure will bring war. Food or War (Cambridge University Press 2019) presents compelling evidence
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