TerraCycle Recycles Millions Of Cigarette Butts Nationwide/RNN

Good follow up to our interview with Terra Cycle on this program.

Cigarette butts are the world’s most littered item with nearly 4.5 trillion being tossed each year and last year in the United States, it is estimated 1.69 billion pounds of butts ended up as toxic waste.

TerraCycle, the world’s leader in the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams works with cities and municipalities globally to recycle cigarette butts. Since 2012, when TerraCycle launched its first cigarette recycling program, it has collected hundreds of millions of butts around the world. In 2017, in the United States alone, TerraCycle collected tens of millions of cigarette butts from over 50 cities and six-months into 2018, is poised to exceed those numbers.

“TerraCycle develops innovative ways to recycle hard-to-recycle items,” said Tom Szaky, CEO, TerraCycle. “From diapers, to coffee pods, to cigarette butts, we are actively working to reduce the waste that goes to landfill. In the last six years our cigarette recycling program has grown tremendously and has contributed to cities across the country reducing their cigarette litter.”

A combination of organic material and cetyl acetate plastic traditionally render cigarette butts unrecyclable and destined for landfills. However, through the TerraCycle Cigarette Butt Recycling program, individuals and organizations can place the Cigarette Butt Receptacles in high traffic areas, collect the waste and ship it to TerraCycle for recycling into usable material for new products such as shipping pallets, ashtrays and plastic lumber.

Earth Challenge 2020 re-launched at the UN World Data Forum in Dubai

Another giant step forward--together.

April 22, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. In recognition of this milestone Earth Day Network, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the U.S. Department of State are launching Earth Challenge 2020 as the world's largest coordinated citizen science campaign.

Earth Challenge 2020 will engage millions of global citizens to aggregate and collect more than one billion data points in areas including air quality, water quality, biodiversity, pollution, and human health. Through Earth Challenge 2020, citizen science volunteers will learn about their local conditions, and leverage information to inspire collaborative action and influence policy decisions.

Want to get involved in the Earth Challenge 2020 movement?

• Submit a research question. Right now, we invite you to help define the critical research questions that will shape Earth Challenge 2020. What essential question have you always wanted answered? What topic would you like to see researched by millions of potential citizen scientists? Tell us before November 22, 2018! Submit your question using the EarthDay.org webform or on Twitter (@Earth_Challenge) using #EC2020.

• Sign up for Earth Challenge 2020 updates. Join our mailing list to learn more about upcoming opportunities to support the challenge.

• Partner with us. For Earth Challenge 2020 to succeed, we need the expertise and support of companies, organizations, and institutions around the world. Send an email to EarthChallenge2020@earthday.org if you can connect us with resources and outreach to expand our impact. We'd love to work with you.

For more information, visit the Earth Challenge 2020 site or read the latest press release.

Earth Day Network

Can Vodka Help to Save The Bees?/RNN

Dixie Vodka announced its most recent flavor innovation this week in a regional collaboration with Savannah Bee Company (SBC): Dixie Wildflower Honey Vodka. Dixie’s newest product uses SBC’s Georgia Wildflower Honey infused in Dixie’s award-winning Dixie Southern Vodka, 6x distilled from non-GMO corn. The result is a delicious flavored vodka with a hint of sweetness, perfect on its own or in a variety of classic cocktails. A portion of proceeds from Dixie Wildflower Honey Vodka benefits The Bee Cause Project, which works to support the health of honey bees in the Southeast by increasing the number of hives in the region and helping to educate the public on their importance.

“As the leading homegrown vodka in the region, it’s a key part of our mission that we work with flavors and ingredients that are core to the southeast,” said Matti Anttila, CEO of Grain & Barrel Spirits and founder of Dixie Vodka. “We want to tell a story about where our ingredients are from and who our partners are. Beyond being a delicious, locally sourced ingredient, honey also tells a critical sustainability story for the region. Healthy bee populations are vital to our everyday lives and we hope we can do our part in working with Savannah Bee Company and The Bee Cause Project to help promote positive awareness for the challenges bees face.”

“Savannah Bee Company strives to live as bees live: symbiotically with nature and in a manner that contributes positively to the world around us,” said Ted Dennard, Founder of Savannah Bee Company and The Bee Cause Project. “Our Georgia Wildflower Honey is made from a variety of nectar sources depending on the whimsy of the bees. It’s the perfect all-around honey. Infused with Dixie Vodka it also makes for one fantastic spirit.”

Rolling out this month, Dixie Wildflower Honey Vodka will initially be available in leading retailers, bars and restaurants in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky, before expanding across the region through the holidays.

Climate Change, It May Be Too Late/RNN

We’ve been hit recently with a crazy news cycle with headlines seemingly changing every hour, but, the big one, that is hitting all major news outlets is the one that is giving a “final warning” on the approach of climate change.

The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.

“With more than 6,000 scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.

Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The report’s full name is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

“One of the key messages that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.

The report highlights a number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C. The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2°C.

“Every extra bit of warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5°C or higher increases the risk associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some ecosystems,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.

Limiting global warming would also give people and ecosystems more room to adapt and remain below relevant risk thresholds, added Pörtner. The report also examines pathways available to limit warming to 1.5°C, what it would take to achieve them and what the consequences could be. “The good news is that some of the kinds of actions that would be needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C are already underway around the world, but they would need to accelerate,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of Working Group I.

The report finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from the air.

“Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.

Allowing the global temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5°C would mean a greater reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global temperature to below 1.5°C by 2100. The effectiveness of such techniques are unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable development, the report notes.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared with 2°C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being, making it easier to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” said Priyardarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III.

The decisions we make today are critical in ensuring a safe and sustainable world for everyone, both now and in the future, said Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.

“This report gives policymakers and practitioners the information they need to make decisions that tackle climate change while considering local context and people’s needs. The next few years are probably the most important in our history,” she said.

The IPCC is the leading world body for assessing the science related to climate change, its impacts and potential future risks, and possible response options.

The report was prepared under the scientific leadership of all three IPCC working groups. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change; Working Group II addresses impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and Working Group III deals with the mitigation of climate change.

The Paris Agreement adopted by 195 nations at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in December 2015 included the aim of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

As part of the decision to adopt the Paris Agreement, the IPCC was invited to produce, in 2018, a Special Report on global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. The IPCC accepted the invitation, adding that the Special Report would look at these issues in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

Global Warming of 1.5°C is the first in a series of Special Reports to be produced in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Cycle. Next year the IPCC will release the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, and Climate Change and Land, which looks at how climate change affects land use.

The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents the key findings of the Special Report, based on the assessment of the available scientific, technical and socio-economic literature relevant to global warming of 1.5°C.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR15) is available at https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15 or www.ipcc.ch.

New Study Shows We’ve Got to Change What We Eat/Earth Day Network

Good follow up to yesterday's report:

With the human population now at 7.6 billion and heading for 9 or 10 billion by midcentury, a new report in the journal Nature asks, how are all these people going to eat?

Their conclusion: Any efforts to keep climate change at acceptable levels can't be successful without a huge reduction in meat consumption. We've got transform our food systems and radically change our dietary habits, and we've got to do it fast.

What will you do? Take our poll.

Current methods of producing, distributing and consuming food are simply not environmentally sustainable. We're damaging our planet and making it less hospitable for human existence.

The Washington Post summed it up this way: "Global warming has typically been linked to the burning of fossil fuels, but food production is a huge and underappreciated factor."

An area equal to North and South America combined is already devoted to livestock or growing feed for animals. That's half the earth's ice-free land. And food demand is increasing fast. Factors like rising income in China mean higher demand for animal protein. The Nature report contends that, without big changes, pressures on environmental systems will increase 50-90 percent by 2050 compared with 2010.

One obvious strategy is to change what we eat. Researchers say meat production, which includes growing livestock and growing food specifically to feed livestock, is an inefficient way to feed people. Moreover, ruminants such as cows are huge producers of methane – a potent greenhouse gas. The report says greenhouse-gas emissions from global food systems could be cut significantly if people reduced meat consumption and followed a diet built around fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

This information is not new. For years it has been reported that the emissions caused by the meat industry are a major cause of climate change. "The meat industry creates the same amount of greenhouses gases as all the vehicles in the world," stated the Independent in 2015.

What's different now is that this week's Nature report comes on the heels of the October 8 IPCC report showing just how little time we have to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. We must reduce global greenhouse gas emissions immediately and even more dramatically than we previously thought, because to avoid the worst damage from climate change we must reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Now that we know that meat eating has roughly the same climate impact as driving a dirty gas guzzler, and that if unchecked damage to the environment will most likely thrust humanity into existential crisis by 2050, what will you do?

On World Food Day, Take a Holistic Approach to Food Production/Food Bank

Taking a holistic approach to food production includes soil restoration, limited use of water, safer treatment of plants and cutting transportation miles from farm to plate.  And, of course, providing base nourishment for all.

You can help.  Your own diet can better serve your body and planet.

Contributing Authors: Emily Payne and Katherine Walla 

October 16 is World Food Day. It can be a day of action, dedicated to tackling hunger and ensuring food security and nutrient-dense diets for everyone. Food should nourish and nurture people, society, and the planet, but in so many ways, the food system is broken.

“Not only have habits changed, but also foods. When was the last time you consumed a potato with the flavor, color, and smell of potatoes? We are not just losing food, we are losing food quality,” says agricultural engineer Dr. Walter Pengue.

Across the world, decreasing soil quality is stripping food of its nutrients: 33 percent of the Earth’s land surface is moderately to highly affected by some type of soil degradation. Food has also become the main driver of human health costs—while almost one-third of all people are undernourished and 815 million people still go to bed hungry, close to 30 percent of all people are overweight or obese and close to 10 percent of all people are actually obese.

And throughout the food system, businesses, farms, and consumers are losing perfectly edible food—approximately one-third of all food produced is thrown away. If food waste were a country, it would rank as the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.

How do we start on the path towards a more sustainable food system? The answer is in the connections between all these systems.

“The current economic systems do not include or reward the value of social, human, and natural capital in agriculture and food systems. This often leads to the promotion of practices that are harmful to farming, the environment, and people,” says agricultural scientist Dr. Harpinder Sandhu, who helped develop and write a recent report by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture & Food, or TEEBAgriFood.

TEEBAgriFood’s new report presents a holistic new framework, which looks at the full range of impacts of the food value chain from a systems perspective—from farm to fork to disposal.

This evaluation framework can support policymakers, researchers, and businesses in making better-informed decisions—decisions that will improve public health, regenerate soils, and nurture people and the planet. TEEBAgriFood recently won the World Future Council’s 2018 Future Policy Award in Vision for this comprehensive framework.

“The only measure of success in current agriculture systems is higher productivity. But such a narrow focus on productivity has left our freshwaters more polluted as there are increases in surface run-offs from farms, loss of biodiversity, degradation of soil, and greenhouse gas emissions,” Dr. Harpinder continues. “This focus also leads to poor health for the farm workers, and consumers as well.”

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is applying the framework to two different corn systems in the Mississippi Valley—one organic and one conventional—to detect the positive and negative environmental, biodiversity, and climate impacts of both those systems. How can TEEBAgriFood’s holistic framework support your work towards a more sustainable food system for all? Share your thoughts, questions, and feedback in the comments.

CLIMATE CHANGE MIGHT DOUBLE THE COST OF A BEER/Wired

Now we will start to get people to pay attention to our fight to balance the environment and economy:

BEER DRINKERS MIGHT pay more and find less of their favorite beverage as climate change comes for barley. Scientists expect that extreme droughts and heat waves will become more frequent and intense in the regions that grow the grain.

Many farmers are already adapting to the slowly warming planet—with advanced plant breeding techniques to create more drought-resistant grains, for example, and by using more efficient irrigation systems to conserve water—but a new study out today in the journal Nature Plants says that many regions won’t be able to cope with the arid conditions of the future. The work was done by a group of researchers in China along with Steven J. Davis, an environmental scientist at the University of California Irvine.

The team looked at the areas around the world that grow barley, which is turned into malt for beer, and projected what will occur under five different climate warming scenarios by 2100. Using models of both economic activity and climate change, the group made predictions about what will happen to barley production, as well as beer price and consumption.

During the most severe climate events, the study predicts that global beer consumption would decline by 16 percent, an amount about equal to the total annual beer consumption of the United States in 2011. It also expects average beer prices to double. Each country would be affected differently. The price of a single pint of beer in Ireland, for example, will rise by $4.84, followed by $4.52 in Italy and $4.34 in Canada. American tipplers will see beer prices rise up to $1.94 under the extreme events, the study said, and barley farmers will export more to other nations.

Davis, who has published several papers on climate change and the Chinese economy, says many extreme drought and heat events will force farmers to feed barley to livestock instead of selling it to domestic breweries. “When we have these shortages, our models suggest people are going to feed the barley to the livestock before they make beer,” Davis said. “That makes sense. This is a luxury commodity and it’s more important to have food on the table.”

The effects of climate change are already being felt by craft brewers, says Katie Wallace, director of social and environmental responsibility at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. In 2014, the US barley-growing region—Montana, North Dakota and Idaho—was hit by an extremely wet and warm winter that caused crops to sprout early, rendering much of it useless. Farmers were forced to tap into reserves in storage.

In 2017 and again this past summer, the Pacific Northwest was hit by severe drought that affected production of hops that give unique flavors to craft brews. Wallace says that climate change is on the minds of all craft brewers as they plan for how to avoid future shortages of both barley and hops. “Its stressful,” Newman said. “We are seeing an increased level of vulnerability and some near escapes in some cases. All of these things have happened periodically, but the frequency is growing.”

The craft beer industry is already planning for the future, says Chris Swersey, a supply chain specialist at the Brewer’s Association, a trade group that represents 4,500 small breweries across the country. Swersey says he is skeptical of the paper’s findings, mainly because it assumes that the amount and location of barley production will stay the same as it is today. He says barley growing is already moving north to Canada, while researchers are hoping to expand barley's range with winter-hardy breeds.

“The industry is already aware that barley production is shifting,” Swersey says. “We need to be thinking ahead and be smart about what is our climate going to look like 50 or 100 years from now.”

It’s not just the little guys who are thinking of climate change. The king of US beer production remains Budweiser, which produces the number 1 (Bud Light) and number 3 (Budweiser) top-selling brands. Budweiser buys barley from a vast network of farmers in the northern US and is investing in new breeds of drought-resistant barley strains, according to Jessica Newman, director of agronomy for Budweiser. “It’s all about getting the right varieties, getting the right mix, and getting the right technology to our growers,” Newman says from her office in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

She says Budweiser’s crop science lab in Colorado is working on new barley strains dubbed Voyager, Merit 57 and Growler. “We are breeding for drought resistance and sprout resistance,” Newman said. “If we see rainfall coming earlier, or if it rains in the wrong time of year, the barley can sprout and it wouldn’t be used. We also want it to use less water and fewer agricultural chemicals.”

Climate scientist Davis says he and his colleagues wrote the study as a thought exercise to perhaps stoke conversation about how climate change affects our daily lives. “A paper on beer might seem a little bit frivolous when it's dealing with a topic that poses existential threats,” Davis said. “But some of us have a personal love of beer and thought this might be interesting.” Climate change won’t just alter the weather; it’ll also hit our grocery tabs and hobbies.