1 CLEAR OUT THE CLUTTER… It might sounds obvious, but getting rid of clutter is the first stage in any successful Spring Clean. Take the opportunity to sell the things you’re no longer in love with. SORT IT OUT! Once you’ve cleared out, it’s time to get organised. Work on a room-by-room basis so you don’t get overwhelmed and remember, you don’t have to do it all in a day! Here are a few ideas to get you started… 2 Fed up with a tangle of cables spilling from the TV, digibox and games console? Invest in some cable tidies to neaten them up, and think about stashing all your electronics in one handy cupboard. 3 Embrace your collections (vases, ceramics, ornaments, etc) by consolidating them all into one beautiful statement ‘shelfie’ grouped together on…

Want to follow an eco-friendly diet, but not sure how? Wondering if a sustainable way of eating will shrink your waistline or leave you feeling hungry? Well, here’s a plan that is packed with tasty, wholesome meals to fill you up and help you stay slim – all while helping to reduce your impact on the environment. ‘By following a climatarian diet focused on plant-based foods and rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes, you can eat until you’re comfortably satisfied and still lose about 2-3lb a week – even more depending on how much weight you have to lose,’ says Dr Alona Pulde of nutrition app Lifesum*. How the climatarian diet works This plan, created by Lifesum, has been made using environmentally-friendly choices, while limiting the foods that…

LAUNCHING a dust cloud from the moon to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth could help cool the planet – although such a strategy would require a lot of research and the risks to agriculture, ecosystems and water quality are unclear. Previous research looked into the idea of placing more than 100 million tonnes of dust between Earth and the sun to partially block light from reaching our planet as a way to combat climate change. The particles would absorb light energy or scatter light away from Earth. To achieve this, the dust would need to sit 1.5 million kilometres from Earth at the first Lagrange point, or L1, where the gravitational pull of the sun and our planet cancel out. But energy from sunlight and charged particles ejected from the sun,…

Back in 1990 climate change – or global warming as we called it then – barely got a mention in much of the media. Yet the warnings about its impact were already there. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had just published its first assessment report, warning that emissions caused by human activity were increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases which would result in a warming of the planet. In his opening editor’s letter for our 1990 magazine on global warming, Wayne Ellwood pointed to the impacts of climate change already being felt, including the knock-on effect of already lighter winter snows in his home country, Canada. The magazine was constructed as a series of lessons in ‘how to turn down the heat’ from saving trees to boosting renewable energy.…

In May 2021, CO2 levels reached 419 parts per million – the highest average ever recorded. “As a manufacturer, we know we have a responsibility to be as sustainable as possible. Sustainability and environmental impact has always been a high priority for us and I am delighted to announce that we have introduced further environmental initiatives, all with the aim of reducing our environmental impact.” Mark Shorrock, Managing Director at Instarmac. “Having as little impact on the environment as possible is behind every decision I make about the running of our production facility. I am proud to say that we have introduced initiatives which include using variable speed drivers across the plant, consuming less electricity at start up, replacing lighting with LED bulbs and using Intelligent Wrapping Technology to select…

Nature provides for us in a variety of ways, whether we recognize these gifts or not. But nature isn’t just there for us to exploit. By following a few basic guidelines, anyone can engage with nature in a more grateful way. There’s nothing to it but to do it! These days, it’s a high priority for some people to simply get out and get in touch with nature. It can be therapeutic to spend time away from technology and in the company of the relaxing sounds and fresh scents of the outdoors, if you’re willing to lace up tight and venture out into the splendor. Nurtured by Nature If you can accept nature as it is, it can work in your favor. If gravity is on your side, you’ll have to do much…

Tengo un colega que cuando su equipo de fútbol gana por goleada tiende a narrar la gesta en primera persona del plural. Te suelta cosas como “vaya partidazo hemos hecho”. ¿Tú qué has hecho exactamente, payaso, aparte de ver el partido con dos cervezas de más? Y ojo, que aun con todo puedo comprender tal actitud. La pasión que ciertas personas sienten por esas empresas multimillonarias fraudulentas llamadas “clubs de fútbol” es algo de lo más normal y… bueno, te haces a ello. Pero cuando pierden… ¡Ay, cuando pierden! El plural se desvanece entre un escaparate de insultos que incluyen a los sobrinos del entrenador y a familiares muertos de más de un delantero. Han perdido ellos. Con esto del calentamiento global pasa esto, pero exactamente a la inversa: cuando las cosas…

La muerte. Ese momento que tanto tememos, sobre todo el hombre occidental. Nadie quiere enfrentarse a ella pero, como reza el refrán, «todo el que nace muere, sea lo que fuere». Así que no queda más remedio que hacerlo tarde o temprano. En estos agitados años, cuando el cambio climático está provocando todo tipo de fenómenos extremos y la temperatura se ha elevado en la atmósfera y en los océanos de forma cuanto menos preocupante (el 7 de noviembre de 2022 el secretario general de la ONU, António Guterres, aseguró que «estamos en una carretera al infierno climático con el pie todavía en el acelerador»), cada vez son más los que adquieren una conciencia ecológica, una actitud de salvaguarda del planeta que pueden reflejar cada día de sus vidas… y…

Envoyée spécialeNeemli, Rajasthan (Inde) Vivre dans une nature hostile, Chote Lal, 57 ans, en a toujours eu l’habitude. C’est un homme du Rajasthan, l’un des États les plus touchés par la sécheresse, en Inde. Le manque de pluie, il a toujours connu. Il y a quinze ans, elle tombait encore quatre mois d’affilée. Aujourd’hui, elle arrose les champs à peine quatre jours par an, et encore, de façon sporadique. Une femme passe au loin, un énorme seau sur la tête. Il la connaît et sait que d’autres, des mères, des filles ou même des grands-mères, parcourent toujours des kilomètres pour aller chercher de l’eau, ce liquide de plus en plus précieux. La terre ici est en souffrance et ses habitants subissent chaque année plus durement les aléas du climat. «…

“I came up with the idea for Kids Save the Earth while chatting with my friend about global warming. We both wanted to help the environment, but we kept thinking our ideas were either bad ideas or impossible to make. I was determined to keep trying. I scheduled two meeting events, and kids ages 6 to 11 participated. The first meeting was on Zoom, and we brainstormed ideas for fixing climate change. The second meeting was at my house and we called it The Big Event. We shared our prototypes for inventions that help the environment. The solutions ranged from a litter-scooping solar-powered boat to a disk that you put on your car to prevent fossil fuel emissions. We all learned a lot and liked sharing our ideas with one…

Imagine for a moment that something was poisoning Britain’s water supply. Imagine that 97 per cent of the population was drinking and bathing in this water every single day, unknowingly letting toxins accumulate in their bodies and the bodies of their children. Most survive, but the poisoned water is linked to as many as 64,000 deaths every single year, while lowering the life quality of thousands more. Rightly, if this situation arose, the scandal would be enormous. The government would issue apologies, the news would go global and calls for compensation would be almost immediate. What doesn’t take any imagination is applying the same scenario to the air. Every day millions of people in the UK breathe in unsafe levels of toxic air – yet the issue barely registers on the government’s…

JASON TREAT, NGM STAFF SOURCES: “UN WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS 2022”; GAPMINDER WE’VE REACHED A NEW MILESTONE in the human journey. Last November, according to the United Nations, the number of people on Earth hit eight billion. Our population has doubled in less than 50 years, just since 1974, the year the UN brought the world’s countries together for the first intergovernmental conference to address population growth. At the time, only three metro areas were home to 10 million people or more—New York, Tokyo, and Mexico City. Today there are more than 30. The reasons for this explosion are well known: Medicine, sanitation, and crop yields continue to improve dramatically. As a result, child mortality is plummeting and life expectancy is rising. Demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, and…

Communities around the world emitted more carbon dioxide in 2022 than in any other year on records dating to 1900, a result of air travel rebounding from the pandemic and more cities turning to coal as a low-cost source of power. Emissions of the climate-warming gas that were caused by energy production grew 0.9% to reach 36.8 gigatons in 2022, the International Energy Agency reported. The mass of one gigaton is equivalent to about 10,000 fully loaded aircraft carriers, according to NASA. Carbon dioxide is released when fossil fuels such as oil, coal or natural gas are burned to powers cars, planes, homes and factories. When the gas enters the atmosphere, it traps heat and contributes to the warming of the the climate. Extreme weather events intensified last year’s carbon dioxide emissions: Droughts…

A finales de 2019 la preocupación en torno a los desechos humanos se centraba en cómo reducir la cantidad de plásticos. En muchas partes del mundo se habían logrado leyes que prohíben los de un solo uso y se habían creado, al mismo tiempo, incentivos para aumentar el reciclaje o el diseño de productos libres de envoltorio. El mundo parecía haber caído en cuenta de que los plásticos generan graves problemas cuando su utilización es irracional. Pero el covid-19 llegó y estas preocupaciones se tornaron frívolas, empujando la discusión sobre residuos sólidos –en el mejor de los casos– a segundo plano. Con la emergencia se incrementó de un día para otro la demanda de productos de protección personal y, al mismo tiempo, la industria de plásticos abogó por aplazar medidas…

Les spécialistes en conviennent : la déforestation et l’agriculture sont désormais au centre des préoccupations des acteurs engagés dans la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique. Mais quid de l’océan, le grand oublié de ce qui est, pourtant, un enjeu majeur pour la survie de la planète ? Un oubli d’autant plus fâcheux que l’océan est une formidable machine à enterrer le CO2. Serions-nous, malgré nos technologies d’observation surpuissantes et notre développement scientifique, de simples créatures essentiellement terrestres ? À l’évidence, l’attention que nous prêtons aux continents en dépit des 70 % du globe recouverts d’eau pose question. On estime qu’en 2020, les océans ont absorbé environ 9 milliards de tonnes de carbone, soit plus du quart des émissions mondiales “Si l’on regarde les contributions nationales à la réduction des gaz à effet…

Amperfied by Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG: Inteliigente Ladelösungen im öffentlichen wie im privaten Raum sind ein wesentlicher Faktor, damit die Elektromobilität zum Treiber für die Energiewende wird. Schon im Vorwort zum Whitepaper „Elektromobiität für eine erfolgreiche Energiewende“ gibt Dr. Ludwin Monz, Vorstandsvorsitzender der Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, einen optimistischen Ausblick, dass die Verkehrswende hin zur Elektromobilität gelingen kann. Sowohl technisch als auch von der Kapazität der regenerativen Stromerzeugung her sollte das machbar sein – wenn einige Dinge konzertiert auf den Weg gebracht werden und sich auch ein paar Gewohnheiten der Autofahrer verändern. Status Quo und Ausblicke Nach dem Stand vom 1. Januar 2022 waren in Deutschland 48,5 Mio. PKW zugelassen, davon 600.000 BEV und 1,7 Mio. PHEV. Insgesamt waren damit erst 4,7 Prozent aller PKW zumindest teilelektrifiziert. Dabei gab etwa jeder dritte…

IN THE BEGINNING, the story goes, the Earth was formless and empty, and darkness shrouded the surface of the deep. Several millennia later, an independent scientist named James Lovelock started to ponder this primordial arrangement: He imagined a fictional planet called Daisyworld, carpeted with black and white daisies. The pale flowers reflected the sun, while the dusky ones absorbed light and heat. As the sun’s rays grew more powerful, the balance of blossoms shifted, stabilizing the globe’s temperature. A similar process, Lovelock speculated, might have maintained Earth’s temperature over geological time. He believed the planet’s systems could self-regulate, and in the 1970s, he proposed what came to be known as the Gaia hypothesis. In 1987, shortly after Congressional hearings on climate change—during which a Republican senator from Rhode Island concluded that…

Las precipitaciones en forma de nieve varían según la región y dependen de factores como la latitud, la elevación, la humedad y la proximidad a mares y lagos. El aumento de la temperatura del aire incrementa los niveles de humedad, de modo que las precipitaciones invernales caen cada vez más en forma de lluvia y no de nieve. Las zonas costeras y de baja altitud corren especial riesgo de ver reducidas las nevadas. MONITORIZAR UN INVIERNO CAMBIANTE Los datos sobre el manto nival aportados por los satélites ayudan a documentar una tendencia preocupante desde el año 2000. En casi el 80 % de las cordilleras del mundo están disminuyendo significativamente la superficie cubierta de nieve y el número de días de nieve cuajada en el suelo. DÍAS DE NIEVE En muchas cordilleras, cada vez…

Chaque année, plus de 4 000 tonnes de cheveux sont coupés dans les salons de coiffure français. La plupart du temps, ils sont jetés à la poubelle. Or, ils peuvent être recyclés. Nos tifs sont une ressource non-polluante, renouvelable et peu coûteuse : ils poussent d'un centimètre par mois sans que l’on n’ait rien à faire ! Après la coupe, un coup de balai suffit pour les récupérer, et ils sont déjà lavés et triés. Il n’y a qu’à les mettre dans des sacs et les envoyer à des associations ou des entreprises engagées dans le recyclage des cheveux. En France, des milliers de coiffeurs sont déjà convaincus. Depuis quelques années, ils ont récupéré plus d’une centaine de tonnes de cheveux. Voici ce qu’on peut en faire. DES FILTRES À POLLUTION Les…

Diesmal traf es die Deutsche Bank beziehungsweise ihre Fondsgesellschaft DWS, die größte Fondsgesellschaft Deutschlands. Die Umweltschutzorganisation Greenpeace ließ sich undercover in Filialen der Deutschen Bank und der Postbank beraten, um herauszufinden, wie gut sich die Beraterinnen und Berater mit klimaverträglichen Geldanlagen auskennen und welche Finanzprodukte sie anbieten. Greenpeace-Finanzexperte Mauricio Vargas analysierte die empfohlenen Fonds. Ergebnis: In nur zwei von 38 Fällen seien den Testpersonen passend zu ihrem Anlagewunsch ausschließlich klimaverträgliche Fonds angeboten worden, in sieben weiteren Fällen sei zumindest ein klimaverträglicher Fonds unter den Empfehlungen gewesen. „Manche der angebotenen Fonds enthalten große Positionen in Ölfirmen, was Menschen mit Klimaschutz-Präferenzen niemals hätte angeboten werden dürfen“, so Vargas. Fazit, so Greenpeace: „Wer sein Geld in klimaverträgliche Aktienfonds der Deutschen-Bank-Tochter DWS anlegen möchte, erhält in den meisten Fällen weder eine fundierte Beratung noch passende Fondsvorschläge.…

Per numero di startup tecnologiche prò capite è prima in Italia e per investimenti pubblici in ricerca doppia la media nazionale, ben oltre gli standard europei. La valle dell’innovazione italiana è in Trentino, dove 8 persone ogni mille abitanti si occupano di elaborare soluzioni d’avanguardia per migliorare la nostra vita sul pianeta. «Tutto nasce sessant’anni fa. Quando in Italia si pensava a far crescere l’economia tradizionale, qui abbiamo puntato sulla crescita del capitale umano e sull’innovazione», dice l’assessore allo Sviluppo economico della provincia autonoma di Trento, Achille Spinelli. «Restiamo un territorio piccolo, con una capacità d’impatto limitata, ma quelle scelte ci hanno portato ad avere un’università di eccellenza e centri di ricerca di livello molto elevato, come la Fondazione Bruno Kessler e la Fondazione Mach». Ora tocca continuare questo percorso.…

La lotta alla crisi climatica si riassume in due parole inglesi frequentemente ripetute nelle riunioni internazionali: mitigation e adaptation. L’impegno per la “mitigazione” delle cause del riscaldamento del Pianeta dura da anni e richiede politiche globali, soprattutto per abbattere le emissioni di anidride carbonica (CO₂) e di altri gas che alterano il clima come il metano. Ma, essendo sempre più evidente che l’aumento della temperatura non può essere totalmente evitato, si parla anche di politiche di “adattamento” per fronteggiarne gli effetti. Rispetto all’epoca preindustriale, le temperature medie sono finora aumentate di circa un grado e già se ne vedono le conseguenze. Dalla fusione dei ghiacciai all’aumento degli eventi estremi come alluvioni e siccità, che abbiamo vissuto anche in Italia. La crisi climatica è monitorata dall’Intergovernmental panel on climate change (Ipcc),…