Our nation has a long history of scientific innovation that has produced the computers that run our businesses, new discoveries in medicine that can extend our lives, and rockets that take us to distant worlds in search of other life.

In short, science is our best hope to enable informed choices about our future. Big ideas like president Roosevelt’s New Deal also gave our nation hope for reversing the downward economic spiral of the 1930s with government programmes that still benefit us today. However, when it comes to a safe climate, science and policy have operated in a vacuum.

The Green New Deal in Congress provides an opportunity for bringing both science and policy together in shaping a sustainable future for our nation that avoids a pending crisis to the planet’s life support systems if we do not act boldly and promptly.

Earth stewardship

For decades, scientists have been monitoring the planet’s life support systems using satellite images of how we are transforming forests, rivers and oceans over vast areas, and thousands of instruments around the globe to track the climate.

Reading these signals like the warning lights on a car’s dashboard, 1,700 eminent scientists were alarmed enough to issue a warning in 1992: “A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required,” it stated, “if vast human misery is to be avoided.”

A second warning was issued in 2017 that the planet’s climate and natural systems were indeed worsening. It was signed by more than 21,000 scientists from 184 countries.

Referring to these same signals, Sir David Attenborough, the 92-year-old naturalist and broadcaster, a man not given to drama or hyperbole, opened the UN’s Katowice Climate Conference in December 2018 by stating: “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

Fortunately, forward-thinking members of Congress recently introduced a bold resolution that responds to the climate challenge at scale. Aptly named a Green New Deal, it is as ambitious as president Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. It comprehends the magnitude of the climate threat humanity faces, and we see it as a sign of realism – not radicalism – that the problem is viewed in its totality and with urgency.

Comprehensive response

The Green New Deal recognizes that environmental policies are an important part of a broader social and economic fabric that must work together to transition the economy to renewable energy empowered by innovation, a “green” workforce, and proactive businesses.

While there are gaps to be filled, by calling for carbon-free energy, clean air and clean water and an economic system that addresses inequalities, the proposal is the most comprehensive response yet to the scientists’ warnings.

As daring and impudent as a moonshot, the Green New Deal is a breath of fresh air in changing the political conversation to how we should quickly address the climate crisis. As a first priority, there is an urgent need for Congress to follow up with immediate legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions with a fair, equitable and effective scheme for carbon pricing and by enlisting nature in comprehensive climate solutions.

Recent experience shows what can be accomplished in transforming the energy sector. In 2009, Congress included $90 billion for renewable energy research and development in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Wind and solar energy grew from 2 percent of America’s total energy production then to 10 percent in 2017. The energy sector’s carbon dioxide emissions dropped 28 percent, despite a rising population and a larger economy.

Important outcomes

National forest roadless areas and older forests on public lands also need to be protected as climate insurance. These pristine areas absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide, helping to cool the planet, and they provide clean drinking water to millions of citizens that will only become even more precious with extended droughts.

Tidal wetlands and mangroves buffer communities from rising seas and they too need to be properly stewarded and restored. Agricultural lands can do their part in storing more carbon in soils through minimum tillage and providing wildlife habitat with landowners rewarded through Farm Bill incentives.

In sum, the Green New Deal is a means for leveraging these important outcomes.

Guided by science, policy makers now need to solicit input from social-environmental justice, labour and other organizations to fine-tune and activate the Green New Deal as a unique opportunity to turn the planet’s warning lights off. It’s the best deal we have for a safe climate, equitable society, and thriving planet.

These Authors

William J. Ripple, PhD is distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University, and was the lead author of the 2017 ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice’. Dominick A. DellaSala, PhD, is chief scientist at Geos Institute, Ashland, Oregon, and has over 200 science publications. He has also been an expert witness at forest and climate change hearings. Franz Baumann, PhD, is former United Nations assistant secretary-general, and a visiting research professor at New York University.

This article first appeared on Climate Home.  

Those of you who have come across Mac Macartney, founder of Embercombe – the leadership and education centre in Devon – will know that he is a world-class storyteller who communicates with power and profundity.

The Children’s Fire, about his midwinter pilgrimage across Britain, is so much more than one man’s quest.

The latest issue of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine is out now! 

It’s our story: the story of Britons, Europeans, Indigenous and all Earth people. It’s also a story about the epicentre of Druidic Celtic society, the holy isle of Mona (Anglesey), revered by Britons, feared by Rome.

Fresh history 

This small, accessible book is a portal: a way into subconscious recesses; a reverie of immense relevance to today’s malaise; a portrayal of humanity’s innate desire to live with meaning; and our search for the sacred grail, to see with new eyes.

Mac Macartney has spent his life on such a quest, a life rich with tumbling twists and tales of courage and fear, threshold crossings and new beginnings.

He was mentored by Indigenous elders over many years and has acquired profound insights into the questions of our time. His life passion is to share a new narrative of sustainability, awakening a fresh yet ancient story about how we become more human in our more-than-human world:

“All parts of the emerging new story are about integration, collabor­ation, inclusion and wholeness … We have to bring all of Nature to our altars, and acknowledge the sacred in ordinary, everyday living. 

“We are being asked to imagine ourselves anew, to accept and grow our talents without collapsing into the arms of hubris.”

Deep within the story of Britain – and the west – is a psychic wound. This wound needs to be aired and attended to for healing to occur.

Forgotten story

Through the pages we reach upstream to sense the fecund cosmology of our animist past, and swim downstream to today’s pathology of our psychology. There is prescient wit and wisdom at every turn. It’s a floor-stomping rage of a read that throws anthropocentric materialism to landfill.

The antidote to today’s malaise: the Children’s Fire – elegant in its simpli­city and pragmatism. It’s a pledge each of us can make deep in our hearts, if we dare comprehend the implications. It originates from Native American chiefs:

“No law, no decision, no commitment, no action, nothing of any kind will be permitted to go forth from this council that will harm the children, now or ever.” The time has come to rekindle the Children’s Fire, and dare to make this pledge.

Beware, though: this book is not for the faint-hearted. It’s radical and raw. But if you wish to experience a gruelling, gut-wrenching quest in the comfort of your armchair, nested next to the fire, around the hearth, it’s one for you. I shall give the final words here to the author:

“We are a people walking home. We are searching the threads of a broken and forgotten story. It may be new, but in most respects I think it is the renewal of something that we once held close to our hearts and vivid in our imagination … [where] we allow the full recognition of sacredness in all aspects of life and living – then, then we will skim the voyage across the water to the far shore.” 

This Author 

Giles Hutchins is the author of The Illusion of Separation (Floris Books, 2014) and other books. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

French parliamentarians scrapped plans for a tax on unsustainable palm oil in 2016 after being warned by France’s government that passing the law could lead to the execution of a French citizen in Indonesia.

A former minister described the warning as “possible blackmail” and said it had swung the decision against the tax.

The warning to French MPs came amid intense negotiations between Indonesia and France over the fate of Serge Atlaoui, a French citizen imprisoned in Indonesia on drugs charges in 2007.

Oil tax

A former diplomat said that a French delegation left a meeting with the Indonesian government where both the palm oil tax and the death penalty were discussed wondering if the Indonesians “had just made a threat or not.”

The news, based on discussions with French politicians, officials and diplomats, was reported by DeSmog for the first time in the English-speaking press.

Palm oil is “a major contributor to global warming”, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, as current production methods require the destruction of swathes of carbon-rich forests and peatlands.

In the summer of 2016, France’s general commission for sustainable development considered a law to tax environmentally unsustainable palm, palm kernel and copra oils at €30 per tonne in 2017, rising to €90 in 2020.  

The move was strongly opposed by the world’s largest palm oil producers, Indonesia and Malaysia.  

Imprisoned citizen 

Before the vote on 22 June 2016, Delphine Batho, a French MP and former Ecology Minister, said a note from the French government was passed around MPs at a meeting of the sustainable development committee.

According to Batho, the note said it was possible that Serge Atlaoui, a French citizen imprisoned in Indonesia on drug offences in 2007, could be executed if the planned tax failed to be dropped.  

Answering questions by email, the former Ecology Minister said: “This note was intended to convince members not to vote for the amendments. In the meeting, there was unfortunately a turnaround because the parliamentary majority followed this instruction.”

The French newspaper Liberation reported last June that Batho recalled some MPs having access to a French government note citing threats against French prisoners held in Indonesia.

Liberation quoted another French MP, Geneviève Gaillard, saying that the French foreign office and the Prime Minister’s office asked her to backtrack on the palm oil tax move. She reflected, “It disturbed me a lot to know that the life of that man depended on my decision.”

Strong lobbying

In correspondence with us, Batho described the threat as “possible blackmail”.

On June 22 2016, Batho gave a speech in the National Assembly denouncing “unacceptable pressures exerted on France” over the palm oil tax, without specifying what these were. “We are legislating with the knife at our throat,” she said.

When a delegation from the Indonesian embassy came to France’s Environment Ministry for a meeting ahead of the vote, one French official recalled to DeSmog: “they said that palm oil was a very important subject for them, as the death penalty could be for France.” The official remembered: “We didn’t think about it until after the meeting, when we wondered if they had just made a threat or not.”

A French government adviser at the time said that threats against Atlaoui had been “negotiated directly into bilateral meetings” at diplomatic level, and that it was “credible” to assume that the threats involved had changed the French government’s position.

The National Assembly eventually scrapped the planned tax, with Reuters reporting “strong lobbying from producing countries” on the issue.

Morally incorrect

The 2016 palm oil tax plan came just over a year after Indonesia executed eight people imprisoned for drug offences, including seven foreign nationals. In 2015, Atlaoui won a last-minute reprieve after heavy diplomatic pressure from the French government. He remains on death row today.  

The French government declined to comment for this story.

A spokesperson for the Indonesian government denied that the palm oil tax plan and Ataloui’s situation were related:

“We do not comment on issues and reports based on speculative assessments. We deem it morally incorrect, irresponsible and misleading for any coverage that attempts to link the two issues together. Such reporting will benefit none. We trust that you will continue to remain objective, accurate and fact based in your reports.”

In December 2018, France’s National Assembly changed course, voting to stop palm oil in biofuels counting toward green energy targets and to remove tax incentives for adding palm oil to diesel on environmental grounds.

The move by French politicians was followed by a European Commission decision to label palm oil biofuels as unsustainable, which should mean that most palm oil in biofuels will not count towards EU renewable energy targets.

Excessive deforestation

In March 2019, the European Commission published guidance that palm oil cultivation results in excessive deforestation, and that its use in transport fuels should be phased out.

However, campaigners say the law is at risk of being watered down by the European Commission after pressure from Malaysia and Indonesia. The rules exempt palm oil from smallholders or produced on “unused” land.

In recent years, southeast Asia’s palm oil sector has become dependent on EU demand for palm to fill petrol tanks, now the most popular use for the commodity in Europe.

This Author

Joe Sandler Clarke is a journalist with UnEarthed, and tweets @JSandlerClarke. This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

‘Power, Nature, Culture and Society’ was a platform at a major conference on design and sustainability  held at London College of Fashion (LCF).  

Attending an intensive two-day event is a luxury to anybody who isn’t a student, academic or staff journalist. But much of the conference was radical – at last!

The event proved surprisingly upbeat, and revealed a new world of possibilities and cutting edge technologies.

Sustainability activism

Attendees and presenters from as far afield as India, Japan and the United States presented alongside European institutions, also out in force. Their talks were crammed with progressive ideas, as well as  investigative research that revealed how this subject has developed as an area worthy of ecological, environmental and political significance.

Transgressive in its behemoth approach, this was a conference with a difference and an unabashed audience.

Noticeably, certain speakers from the more established and luxury brands were received with an audible gasp of exasperation and cynicism. Time to cue you know who.

An honorary of fashion sustainability and activism and a former student at  designer Katherine Hamnetts was once shunned by the greater industry, which now see her embraced as the ‘High Priestess’.

Hamnetts work in this arena spans several decades, most notoriously taking centre-stage in 1984 with her anti nuclear statement T-shirts of protest, provocation and politics. Cue present-day sustainability and Hamnetts related response ”Slogans are fine but we need action now and it needs to be dramatic”.  Ever outspoken, she quickly dismissed Donatella Versace’s recent sustainability award, with a hiss of caustic hilarity. 

Experimentation and cooperation 

Met with a rapturous response especially from the many students in attendance, the field of force that is

Hamnett exhaled a hurricane of cynicism throughout her interview, and stressed the persistence of many in the industry who do not want to deal with the environmental, human and animal issues relating to fashion. She was received by rapturous applause, particularly by students. 

She argued: ”There’s a conspiracy to do nothing”. Perhaps then, a slogan T-shirt could read HUNG LIKE HAMNETT,  because we need more ballsy women in this challenging field.

However, activism and education and bringing change, plus there is willing from areas of the industry, particularly from some of those at the very top. Watch this space.

There needs to better dialogue, action, experimentation and cooperation, which may not necessarily come from expected sources. The conference offered a mosaic of considerations in sustainable fashion and some stand out talks.

New skin

Ever aware of alternatives to animal skin, a fascinating presentation under the ‘Natures  Materials’ section, Istituto Marangonis Kirsten Scott (no relation!) spoke about ‘tree skin’ from a holistic study of trees in Uganda.

Their work is surely ‘fashion forward’ in its feasibility and approach to sustainable luxury.

Ten apprentices and artisans work with their bark ‘cloth’, which also is fully compostable and has antibacterial properties. It is a wonder material that’s used to wrap bodies as it preserves decomposition. 

Conversant clothing

With few exceptions, it’s a sad truth that the notion of fashion and ageing make for an uncomfortable pairing on several levels. This project offers ingenuity and hope in an area worthy of greater attention and respect.

Japan represented some startling and heartening endeavours, exploring ways of communicating and sharing knowledge, creating  holistic environs and using manga cartoons.

Most notably the Daijiros Mizunos work which could surely be termed ‘conversant clothing’. A garment with sensor pockets for cameras and collars fitted microphones that ‘talk’ to the wearer, intent on enhancing well-being and aiding the ageing.

The talk ‘Speculative, Fashionable, Wearable, Engaging Fashion Design with Wearable Tech for the Sustainable Future’ emphasised facilitation and the role emerging designers can play in promoting positive partnerships, in this case with ATAP Google Lab.

Mizuno pragmatically proclaimed, after going to Google HQ in San Francisco, that “They are the tech experts, but we are the designers who work well collaboratively”.

Sophisticated ethnography

Catherine Glover from Northumbria University produced a polished and professional presentation on the Tweed Run. A sophisticated ethnography and narrative enquiry on an annual heritage cycling event, where attendees and participants ‘dress up’ in period clothing.

Glover participated by wearing her husbands Grandfathers ‘plus fours’ (or knickerbockers). Her presentation emphasised: “Tweed is the original technical material; Thorn-proof, weatherproof and waterproof”. 

Tweed is a material making a comeback due to its endurance and efficiency, and helping heritage designers to regain a platform.

Glover regards herself as a contemporary communicator and professional marketer. Her own style and notable presentation offer progressive insight.

Fashion revolution 

Edwina Ehrman, senior curator on the Victoria & Albert museum’s exhibition ‘Fashioned from Nature’, spoke of the importance of making their exhibition deliberately uncomfortable for people, as well as examining the many and consistent abuses toward animals for fashion.

The exhibition premièred prototypes which could revolutionise the field. Ehrmans talk was ell-received and impressed the audience, as did Orsola de Castros from ‘Fashion Revolution’ with an impassioned appeal for action.

‘Power, Nature, Culture & Society’ welcomed topics as diverse as ‘Culture and Spirituality’. Noteworthy contributors such as Elsa Parente and Miguel from Portugal’s ‘Co-curating a Fashion System’ presentation, and Sara Caravagnero from Italy’s Red Cross were very well received. 

Caravagnero’s remarkable work on disability – an under-represented area in the industry – was potent and pertinent. Her presentation was resolutely fuelled by optimism and opportunism as the ‘take-away’ elements in an arena which can at times, frustrate and deflate.  

This Author

Wendyrosie Scott is an anthropologist and journalist focusing on design and creative communities. She looks at the positive partnerships between lifestyle trends & the natural world.

Image: Bukomansimbi organic tree farmers association laying bark cloth to dry.

There is an emerging trend for manufacturers to develop their own sustainable sourcing models, inspired by Fairtrade and consumer demand for ethically-sourced products. Even the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s are following suit.

While a proactive commitment to sustainable sourcing is to be applauded, setting up an entirely new sourcing model – and doing it well – is no mean feat. I speak from experience of converting English Tea Shop to run on a Creating Shared Value model throughout our supply chain from seed to cup.

The impact of creating and implementing our own sourcing model has been profound, not only for the farmers but for our business and all those in our community, or our Prajāva as we like to call it. I want to share some of the key things I’ve learnt about setting up a sourcing model, based on my experience over the years.

Clear motivations

The very first step should be asking yourself why you’re setting off on this path. Is it to help support and share value with those in your supply chain? Is it to improve transparency?

Is it to have a more secure and reliable supply chain? Is it so you can source increasingly high-quality produce? Is it because ethical sourcing is important to your customers? Is it to be better for the environment? Is it all of the above?

What’s important is considering what long-term outcomes you want to achieve, both for your business, and for those in the supply chain.

Start small

Unless you’re starting a new business, it’s likely best to take a long-term approach to sourcing.

Having direct relationships with producers is both essential and time-consuming, and building close relationships even more so.

It may be best to start working with one producer or co-operative under your model, or on one project, and to grow from there. 

Strong Prajāva

Prajāva is the Sri Lankan word for community and taking a wide view of who this includes is vital.

Creating shared value throughout a supply chain takes a great deal of thought – and it’s surprisingly easy to do the wrong thing when trying to do the right thing.

That’s why close relationships are so important – you have to have an innate understanding of what people want and need, rather than just doing what you think they need. The stronger your Prajāva, the better placed you will be.

Business people

This is one of the absolute best ways of sharing value through your supply chain. For us, this means helping our farmers to improve the quality and quantity of their yield through support education and a trusted route to market rather than just paying a minimum price.

For those who work in our factories, we have a profit-sharing initiative called Big Game which involves them in programmes such as open book management, knowledge sharing and budget games with the goal of making English Tea Ship a significantly employee-owned business.

This ultimately drives employee engagement and increases productivity too – there has now been a 31 percent increase in value added per employee since The Big Game initiative was introduced.

Without wanting to be too trite about it, helping people help themselves is much more sustainable and powerful.

Measuring and monitoring 

If you’re going it alone, you need to find a robust way of benchmarking the outcomes of your model. Failing to do so could cause more harm than good. 

This could involve developing a framework for measuring social and economic impact for your investments and efforts and then tracking how business is directly and indirectly impacted as a result of such social progress.

Shared value

Creating a sourcing model is not without its ups and downs and there are times when commercial realities come knocking that can put you in difficult positions.

My advice would be to focus your sourcing model on creating shared value – that is, value for people throughout your supply chain, but also for your business.

For me, this is what makes a model truly sustainable in that it is then protected from short-termism during leaner periods. 

As our society becomes even more ethically-minded, it will soon be the norm for businesses to adopt and drive growth through sustainable sourcing models.

We’ve already seen a good selection of early adopters make their mark, and I hope that the fruitful results produced will encourage others to take a leap of faith.

This Author

Suranga Herath is a global expert on the tea industry, and CEO of English Tea Shop, one of the world’s leading organic tea businesses which brings high quality, ethically-sourced tea to customers all over the world.

Image: © Bauer Media/Homes to Love. 

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is always working to increase construction practices that address health and safety hazards.

The NIOSH Construction Program works through every stage of development – from pre-design to design, construction, occupancy and eventual demolition, the safety of people in the area remains a top priority.

NIOSH is not the only group in the United States pushing for safer conditions for construction workers. While worksites have improved in the past, how things are built is under constant transformation.

In this case, switching to green, eco-friendly building designs have been both a good and bad thing for construction workers. While the general point is to ensure the health of people throughout the building’s life, some of the practices are new and not yet mastered.

Green positives

All construction can be a dangerous business. Just because the building is environmentally friendly doesn’t mean it’ll be safer to build from the label alone. Work has to be put into the project for everything to come out right with everyone’s well-being in mind. However, green buildings and construction can make sites safer for workers.

The NIOSH Office of Construction Safety and Health, along with the United States Green Building Council, has developed a concept called Prevention through Design, or PtD. This concept, explained in two webinars, covers the prevention of occupational injuries, illnesses, fatalities and exposures on the worksite. PtD is there to minimize risks during the design phase of buildings by changing equipment, tools, processes and anything else to make the job safer.

Through PtD, workers eliminate hazards as early as possible. This can easily be implemented through green construction, as everything to make the building green is decided upon during the design phase. The premises, structure, equipment, machinery, substances and other parts of construction all have to be taken into account for both reasons.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that green construction is “the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s lifecycle.” While also being considered as high performance and sustainable, green buildings are also meant to be better for durability, comfort and the economy.

Occupational and environmental health can benefit each other by working together. As of 2011, 71 percent of construction businesses claimed to use at least one piece of technology or practice that was green while over half reported being involved with energy and waste efficiency.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that about 100 construction workers are killed each year. Going off this figure, the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) finds that 55 percent of those fatalities happen on the worksite rather than anywhere else. Construction is a dangerous job either way, but finding new innovations to make the work safer is worth trying out, which is one reason why green building continues to gain traction.

Green negatives

The Identification of Safety Risks for High-Performance Sustainable Construction Projects study looked into construction projects with the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, certification. LEED remains the largest program in America for certifying green buildings.

In the study, dozens of designers and contractors were interviewed, each with an average of 100 traditional construction jobs and about four LEED jobs. Out of the results, 12 LEED guidelines lead to an increase in safety risk compared to non-LEED.

A lot of the problems have to do with height coupled with unfamiliar, new technology. The high-risk tasks include constructing atria and installing solar panels. This has been attributed to the 24 percent increase in falls.

There are also more electrical currents near unstable soils and an increased use of heavy equipment on LEED projects. Even wastewater technologies have about 14 percent more exposure to harmful substances.

The Bureau of Labor and Statistics also conducted the Occupational Employment Statistics, or OES, survey. Along with the O*NET green occupational categories, about 90 percent of the construction workforce is now employed in green-related industries. Again, the increased risk of falls is a big factor when dealing with solar or wind power, as well as skylights or atriums. They also found extra exposure to hazardous materials because of weatherization.

Some other hazards not previously considered were from cement, concrete, terrazzo and insulation exposure to silica, coal ash and nanomaterials. In addition to material hazards, injuries continued to happen in green worksites. While these are all important problems to consider, the situation doesn’t have to be like this.

Safety First

The executive director of the Center for Construction Research and Training, Peter Stafford, noted that “with proper layout of the worksite, recyclables can be sorted safely and efficiently. With properly scheduled breaks for hydration, a reflective roof doesn’t have to mean trips to the hospital. And with proper fall protection, solar panels can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels without risking workers’ lives.” Simply put, new technology brings new safety measures.

Construction can be a dangerous job, especially when negligence is involved.

While green construction has new problems to overcome, they aren’t much worse than the issues already presented, and they’re better during the long run.

New safety measures need to be implemented for these different processes, and proper training must be conducted. With knowledge and the correct tools, risks can be lowered for everyone’s peace of mind.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer and the editor of Conservation Folks.

Kindness is a delicate thing – as soon as you try to ‘operationalise’ it, or scale it up, something of its essence is lost. It brings to mind an image of a wild animal being brought into captivity.

In an older people’s ward a terminally ill man commented that he appreciated a nurse making him a hot chocolate after she’d finished her shift. He felt that she went out of her way to be kind to him, he felt that he mattered, and he was touched – “She sort of broke the rules for me.”

The new issue of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine is out now!

The well-intentioned ward manager responded to this by introducing a ‘hot chocolate round’ as part of the routine care on the ward; it became part of the ‘machinery’ of care rather than an act of spontaneous kindness.

Common humanity 

Health care is a calling to so many people who are led by an instinctual, natural kindness. We believe that the act of caring is an invitation to engage with distress, disease and death, which in itself carries a necessary emotional cost.

Caring cannot work in relieving pain and suffering unless the person being cared for can see an impact on the carer. This connection is the psychological and spiritual basis of transformation in suffering.

Touching and being touched by the heart and mind of another creates the connection that enables relief and comfort. This happens from the cradle to the grave as all of us seek recognition and understanding in the responses of others. It is part of our common humanity.

Organisations can become structured to protect staff from some of the painful realities of people’s lives. For example, an emphasis on checklists of questions can bring apparent structure and certainty, rather than connecting with patients on an equal human level and responding to whatever comes up.

A perceived need for staff to have a sense of detachment (often described as ‘being professional’) carries a risk of disengagement from the feelings necessary to build compassionate relationships with patients and colleagues.

Emotional detachment 

Part of professionalism is an intention to ensure that individual preferences and personal connections don’t cloud the process of objective, equitable decision-making. However, this emotional detachment can be at the heart of systemic care failings.

To care, we need to feel, but feelings can sometimes invite us down unhelpful paths. Feelings without thought can mean that sometimes we react in a totally inappropriate way, without consideration for others.

The solution is to bring conscious awareness to feelings so that we can be aware of the emotion before we act and consider whether this is the best way to respond to the situation. This is a skill that people can learn and develop.

At a local level, reflective practice sessions or mindfulness groups might offer protected spaces for thinking and being, and not ‘doing’ all the time – spaces where our own and others’ vulnerabilities can be acknowledged and embraced.

Feelings can be combined with thoughts. Individuals and teams are increasingly encouraged to reflect on what matters to them, as a way to reconnect with core values. Our experience is that sessions like these can be useful but are tough to set up and maintain. Also, they can have much in common with the way that individual therapy functions as a sticking-plaster for wider social issues. We must consider the ecology of the whole health-care system.

Nurturing relationships 

To care is an interpersonal matter that involves empathy, warmth and genuineness. These vital human qualities are the easiest things to experience subject­ively, but in a health-care system that values objective outcomes the spiritual essence of care can become lost or diluted. 

Care can only be as good as the mental state of the carer, and the mental state of the carer depends in turn on the support and nourishment of the working environment.

Carers need nurturing relationships with other people so that their own energy can be constantly replenished. For this to happen, the needs of caregivers have to be recognised and the working environment has to be designed to meet them, in line with fundamental psychological needs.

What we call a ‘psychologically safe’ health-care environment is one in which everyone feels a sense of involvement; an environment where conversations routinely happen whose purpose is to talk through difficult feelings so that people feel refreshed and re-energised to carry on; an environment where not only the patients feel remembered and held in mind, but also the staff.

One of the most practical steps, therefore, in ensuring good-quality care is to care for the care staff as human beings too. Simple behaviours that create psychological safety include conversational turn-taking, empathy and a freedom to “say what I think without fear”.

Compassionate work 

We must be able to talk about what is messy or sad with openness, to embrace hard conversations with colleagues (for example in team meetings) with whom we are having difficulty. We acknowledge that these behaviours require some time, and that health care is fast-paced and highly pressured. We lose so much when our focus is on efficiency and protocols.

Care can only be as effective as the state of mind of those providing it. This means limiting the factors that expend emotional energy, and bolstering those who supply it.

This task cannot be left to self-care or individual ‘resilience’: it requires the whole organisation to provide a system of sustaining supportive relationships.

If patients feel heard, cared for, engaged with on a human level, they are more likely to feel that they had a positive experience of health care and perhaps will feel more supported to self-manage and be more in control of their health.

This becomes more possible, we believe, if carers are maintained in a state of mind where there is the energy, focus and time to really engage with patients. This means that we cannot care for patients unless we also care for their carers. In human health, the most powerful factor is caring relationships.

By honouring those relationships, we will optimise health outcomes, enable more compassionate work environments, and genuinely improve efficiency.

These authors

Charlie Jones is a clinical psychologist at North Bristol NHS Trust. Martin Seager is a clinical psychologist/adult psychotherapist. This article was first published in Resurgence & Ecologist magazine. 

Image: Julie Delton. 

A vast newly-planted forest and enchanting wildflower meadows are growing alongside pockets of ancient bluebell woodland and old hedgerows near densely populated areas in Hertfordshire.

In the spring and summer, fields after fields are covered with blue, yellow, red, pink, purple and white wild flowers, undulating in the wind.  There are tracks for horses and bicycles and even a yoga grove, but also miles of solitary muddy paths. It is a haven of peace and beauty for wildlife and people.

Ten years ago, none of this was there: low-grade farmland stretched as far as the eye could see.

Realising dreams

In 2008, the Woodland Trust acquired 347-hectare of arable land in Sandridge with an ambitious plan to launch the largest tree-planting scheme in the country.

Louise Neicho, who has been the Woodland Trust’s Site Manager from the start of the project, said that Heartwood Forest is “the fulfilment of a dream for us – to create England’s biggest new native woodland. We wanted to plant a forest of trees on a truly landscape scale and make a difference to wildlife and nature – but also to the hundreds of thousands of people we could inspire.”

Some 140,000 people per year are now visiting the forest and Heartwood Forest has been selected as one of the trust’s Top Ten Destination Sites.

Each of the 600,000 trees there has been planted by some 45,000 volunteers, including more than 17,000 school children. Neicho said: “So many people have been involved from the local community and further afield – school children, businesses, religious groups, the public and our very own volunteers.”  

They have also planted new wildflower meadows, open grassland and a 600-tree community orchard, which includes many old Hertfordshire varieties of apple, pear and cherry, as well as plum, medlar, apricot and quince. An arboretum has also been created – the only one known in the UK to contain all 57 of our native tree species. 

Increased biodiversity 

The trees have had remarkable effects on wildlife – including doubling bird numbers and increasing butterfly populations by 160 percent, as well as encouraging the arrival of new species such as the water shrew, barbastelle bat, common lizard and grasshopper warbler. 

To date, 27 species of butterfly have been recorded and 87 species of bird, including owls, linnets, skylarks, buzzards, kestrels and a rare sighting of a great grey shrike. The linnet is one species that particularly thrives there – in six years linnet sightings have increased by 250 percent, bucking a national trend decrease. 

Surveys have also recorded 62 species of woodland mammals such as voles, badgers, deer and mice. In the insect kingdom, the exotic-looking but non-poisonous wasp spider is new to the site. 

These regular surveys are conducted by volunteers from the Hertfordshire Natural History Society to enable the Woodland Trust to chart populations of plants and wildlife during changes to the site.

Neicho added: “These surveys illustrate the impact that planting new woodlands can make, even in short space of time. [The Woodland Trust] has achieved something amazing, a green and natural place where everyone can find space, peace, wildlife and miles of beautiful young woodland to explore.”

This Author 

Veronique Mistiaen is an award-winning journalist writing about the environment, international development, human rights and social issues. She blogs at The Right Human and she tweets at @VeroMistiaen.

Image: Judith Parry. 

The extraction and processing of natural resources now accounts for more than 90 percent of global biodiversity loss and water stress impacts, and approximately half of global greenhouse gas emissions, a flagship UN report concludes.

The Global Resources Outlook report, released on Tuesday at the United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, provides a global analysis of the world’s natural resource use and management.

The report depicts a story of relentless growth and increasingly severe trade-offs for human well-being and environmental health.

Resource inequity

Izabella Teixeira, co-chair of the International Resources Panel and an author of the report, said: “Over the last 50 years, material extraction and consumption has tripled. This is not surprising knowing that the global population has doubled and global GDP has grown fourfold since then.”

“What is reason for concern, however, is how the benefits of that resource use have been distributed,” Teixeira adds.

While consumption is growing in upper-middle income countries such as Brazil, India and China, high-income countries continue to outsource resource intensive production, exporting the negative external impact that come with resource extraction to middle- and low-income countries.

The world’s poorest countries, on the other hand, have rarely seen any growth in material consumption, even though they have the highest need for higher material living circumstances.

Janez Potocnik, co-chair of the International Resources Panel and an author of the report, said: “We are not saying that developing countries are not allowed to grow and increase consumption. Low income countries would benefit a lot from an increase in their resource use. This report outlines the need for a more comprehensive and careful approach, instead of rampant one-dimensional growth.

“Even a country like China, known for its incredible economic growth, is now having to come to terms with the fact that it needs to take sustainability into account if it wants to ensure its future.”

Fossil fuels

The use of coal, petroleum and natural gas increased from 6 billion tonnes a year in 1970 to 15 billion tonnes a year in 2017.

A huge increase in capacity for the generation of global fossil fuel electricity has increased access to affordable energy for many in recent years, but has come at high environmental and health costs and has locked the world in environmentally harmful technologies, the UN report states.

Based on current trends, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to further increase by 43 percent by 2060. To attain the sustainable development goals, however, greenhouse gas emissions would have to decrease by 90 percent.

Similarly, global pasture lands would have to decrease by 30 percent, intensive agricultural land would have to decrease by 9 percent and forests would need to increase by 11 percent by 2060 for the world to reach sustainability.

Potocnik explained: “The only way towards a sustainable future is by accounting for the negative impacts of extraction and consumption on the environment and our well-being.

“The environmental and health trade-offs from rapid growth and increased resource consumption are usually not accounted for in a country’s GDP. If they had [been accounted for], the last few decades of global GDP growth would have been minimal.”

This Author

Arthur Wyns is a biologist and science journalist who writes about climate change, environment, health and migration. He tweets from @ArthurWyns. 

Image: Gerry Machen, Flickr. 

If you ask someone to describe the deep sea, the response is often a depressing description of a barren landscape devoid of life; one of such crushing pressure and eternal darkness that the chance of life surviving here seems only possible in stories of science fiction.

So, it would probably surprise you to hear that there are rich, deep-sea ecosystems under threat from an emerging ocean industry… and virtually no-one knows about it.

Amber Cobley is speaking at Exploring the Deep at Edinburgh Science Festival, taking place at the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday 6 April. Tickets and more information is available here. 

Within the next decade, the deep-sea mining industry plans to send 300-tonne vehicles to harvest tens of thousands km2 of deep seafloor for minerals considered vital to the future of green technology. But these hard mineral resources are also home to fragile and diverse ecosystems, some new to science and some yet to be found. 

Mineral Resources 

Currently in its exploration phase, deep-sea mining is targeting three different types of mineral resources on the deep-ocean floor: potato-sized manganese nodules, also known as polymetallic nodules, that carpet vast areas of abyssal plains; cobalt crusts, also known as ferromanganese crusts, that form on the slopes of some undersea mountains; and seafloor massive sulfides, that form at undersea hot springs called hydrothermal vents.  

Of these, nodules and seafloor massive sulfides are likely to be exploited first.

Many believe it was John Mero’s book The Mineral Resources of the Sea that began the deep-sea gold rush in the early 1960s.

Mero proclaimed that “once these nodules are being mined, the minerals industry would be faced with the very interesting situation of working deposits that grow faster than they can be mined” – a utopian, sustainable industry that seemed too good to be true.   

These possible riches of the deep were so tempting that deep-sea mining was added to the agenda of the UN General Assembly for discussion in 1967.

Abyssal plains

Fast-forward to today, and we know manganese nodules actually take 10,000 to 1 million years to grow, gradually accreting many layers of polymetallic oxides from surrounding waters and everything from volcanic debris and prehistoric shark teeth forming their core. 

“Fields” of these nodules cover huge areas of some abyssal plains around the world, covering ~6 million km2in the North East Pacific alone.  The nodules are rich minerals of economic interest such as Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, Lithium and Rare Earth Elements, a group of elements vital for green technology, such as neodymium magnets for wind turbines and hybrid cars.

In contrast to the nodules that carpet large areas of abyssal plains, the seafloor massive sulphides that form at hydrothermal vents occur in very small patches, typically along undersea volcanic rifts.  Cold seawater percolates into oceanic crust at these rifts, where it becomes heated geothermally and leaches minerals from surrounding rocks.

These hot fluids burst out of the crust, precipitating minerals to form the seafloor deposits. These can be formed subsurface, or on the seafloor where the “chimneys” of hydrothermal vents tower up to 30m tall, all enriched in minerals such as Iron, Zinc, Copper, Lead, Gold and Silver.

Potential impacts

Despite proving that nodules do not grow back soon after they are mined, some industry experts now think the higher mineral concentrations of deep-sea deposits could mean a smaller impact footprint than land-based methods.

But many scientists and conservation groups caution that at this moment in time, there is simply not enough known about life in our deep-oceans for the industry to begin mining safely.  

Without the basic understanding of the species that make up these ecosystems and how they function, we cannot assess any potential impacts deep-sea mining may have that could cause serious, irreversible harm to our marine environment. 

Both resource types provide hard surfaces for many species to attach to and create biodiversity hotspots filled with organisms often new to science. However, low food availability, cold temperatures, and low disturbance levels at nodule fields means these communities are predicted to be ill-adapted to cope with mining impacts. Scientists predict any recovery post-mining to be at decadal, if not centurial time scales.

Experts anticipate responses of vent populations to mining impacts to be different to those at nodules, as their ecosystems experience disturbance when the venting fluids supporting them “turn on and off”. However this disturbance occurs at time scales varying from tens to thousands of years, depending on vent location.  

Complex ecosystems

Caution is therefore advised towards these complex ecosystems until we have a better understanding of their processes, with many scientists and conservation groups calling for a ban on mining active “switched on” vents altogether.

The variation between ecosystems at different resource types means management of environmental impacts must be based on scientific understanding of each of the three resource types individually. This triples the workload for the International Seabed Authority, the UN regulator of deep-sea mining on the international seabed, on which the majority of these mineral resources are located.  

Although previously criticised for a lack of transparency and inclusivity during this process, a recent step-change by the International Seabed Authority leaves some stakeholders more optimistic and hopeful for an increased and continued focus on regulation underpinned by scientific evidence.  Without that evidence, many are still concerned that we risk ending up in a situation where we aim for a green economy to protect one environment, whist causing avoidable harm to our deep oceans.

The ISA says it will have finished writing regulations allowing for the commercial exploitation of all deep-sea minerals by 2020, after which mining could begin.  

The race is now on to feed knowledge of these unique and fragile ecosystems into environmental safeguarding of this industry, to ensure that deep-sea mining is governed by environmental regulations that avoid mistakes of generations past in other habitats.

This Author

Amber Cobley is a postgraduate research student within Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre Southampton at the University of Southampton. She is speaking at Exploring the Deep at Edinburgh Science Festival, taking place at the National Museum of Scotland on Saturday 6 April. Tickets and more information is available here. 

Image: Venting fumeroles just from the crown of Godzilla hydrothermal vent. Ocean Networks Canada, Flickr.