Unearthed today: We’ve won an award!
Good morning!
So let’s kick off with something cheering us up and, actually, let’s just stay that way for the whole mail.
Emma Howard and Georgie Johnson celebrated last night after their excellent video on the impact of insect decline and – crucially – what can be done about it won the award for best news analysis/explanatory reporting at the Association of British Science Writers awards.
The video has not dated, and nor has Emma’s long read which accompanied the series. Both are really, really worth your time and were fundamental in our decision to launch a strand of investigative reporting on the global pesticides industry – which is continuing.
The news agenda has largely forgotten about insects now as we focus on the pandemic and, occasionally, climate change. We just can’t handle multiple crises at once, but these crises are interlinked so we’re just gonna have to learn to.
I’m reading about solutions…
There’s not much point doing investigative journalism about what’s wrong if it can always be argued that, ultimately, There Is No Alternative.
This is a particular issue when it comes to scientifically complex areas – such as climate change or biodiversity collapse – where a huge asymmetry of power and information allows the public – and even policymaker – understanding to be manipulated. Just look at what happens over the cause of wild-fires.
That’s why it’s important to highlight the alternatives as Emma & Georgie did in their series and as the New York Times does today – with a major piece on the power of restoring land to nature.
“A global road map, published Wednesday in Nature, identifies a path to soaking up almost half of the carbon dioxide that has built up since the Industrial Revolution and averting more than 70 per cent of the predicted animal and plant extinctions on land,” by returning farm-land to nature and using remaining land more effectively and sustainably.
“It’s one of the most cost effective ways of combating climate change,” said Bernardo B.N. Strassburg, one of the study’s authors and an environmental scientist with Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and the International Institute for Sustainability. “And it’s one of the most important ways of avoiding global extinctions.”
There’s lots to dig into here, and there are certainly limitations. The authors acknowledge that this is a second priority compared to protecting the un-farmed nature that already exists, but it shows there are options.
Speaking of which, The Guardian reports that children whose outdoor play areas were transformed from gravel yards to mini-forests showed improved immune systems within a month, research has shown.
The scientists believe this is because the children had developed significantly more diverse microbes on their skin and in their guts than the children whose playgrounds were not upgraded.
It comes as rates of autoimmune diseases, where the body mistakenly attacks itself, are on the rise around the west. These illnesses often include asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis.
“It is wonderful forward-looking work.” said Prof Graham Rook, at University College London. “Many of the disorders that are increasing in western urbanised populations are due to failure of the mechanisms that supervise the immune system. This study shows that exposing children to a biodiverse natural environment boosts several biomarkers of the essential control mechanisms. These Finnish research groups have been leading the way in applying this understanding in a practical way.”
And finally, from China, writing in Carbon Brief Lauri Myllyvirta
reports on how Chinese academics at two highly influential institutions are working on ways the country can meet it’s goal of carbon neutrality.
Both scenarios indicate that the electricity sector would need to get to zero emissions by 2050 and start delivering “negative emissions” thereafter – assumed to come from bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) – to offset hard-to-eliminate emissions from industrial processes, agriculture and other sectors.
Some things stand out. “In the new scenarios, the main strategy for phasing out fossil fuels outside of the power sector is electrification, which means that emissions-free power generation will need to replace not only China’s coal-fired power plants – half of the world’s total – but also much of the coal and oil consumption in industry, transport and heating sectors.
Delivering the energy needs of the world’s largest energy-consuming economy from non-fossil sources appears a huge undertaking,” Myllyvirta notes.
Lauri highlights some other key factors to watch among them, whether China persists in the construction of new coal plants just 30 years or less from when they would have to close and the impact of China’s transition on fossil fuel imports.
“Combined with the carbon-neutrality pledge driving down demand for fossil fuels, along with heavy investment in domestic coal, oil and gas production and transport, this could mean a very rapid exit from fossil-fuel imports.”
The near-term is still not looking amazing “However, under the proposed cap on CO2, emissions would still increase by 4% from 2020 to 2025, almost 1% per year. The researchers recognise that continued increases in CO2 emissions from China are not in line with the 1.5C or 2C targets, but argue that “inertia” in the system means the country will fall behind those goals and will have to catch up later.”
And finally, closer to home. Business Green reports that “the UK’s export credit agency could support up to 42,000 jobs around the UK by 2035 if it switches it support for overseas fossil fuel projects to renewables and clean energy infrastructure, according to a major new analysis from Vivid Economics.”