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Time to #AxeDrax

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In a major blow, the energy company Drax received approval from the UK Government on Tuesday to fit carbon capture technology to its wood-burning power plant; a project that could cost the public over £40bn (Ambrose, 2024). The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, was behind the approval of the project, which is claimed to help the energy sector achieve net zero carbon emissions (Ambrose, 2024). The move is a sure fire sign that the Government sees the controversial Drax power station as here to stay. So what’s the big deal over Drax and why are so many environmentalists against it? Isn’t net zero a good thing? One thing that is agreed on is, yes, carbon emissions need to reach net zero by 2050 as a minimum for any chance of preventing the worst effects of climate breakdown. This means that by 2050, the amount of carbon emitted in the UK must be balanced or outweighed by the amount of carbon absorbed through actions that remove carbon from the atmosphere, such as nature restorati...
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Eco-anxiety got your tongue?

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 And so it feels as if the world is slipping from beneath our feet. Or burning. Or melting. Or freezing. All at once. And it’s not just a feeling anymore. Apart from a privileged few in the Global North, the effects of climate breakdown affect us all, as our life-support systems crumble under the footprint of the Global North. It has been like this for decades, centuries even. As the Global North pined over foreign lands for their own colonial expansion, subjugation, suppression and extraction stole from sustainable livelihoods and churned out mainstream Western ideals of consumerism, individualism and growth. The resulting crimes led to environmental injustices, where degraded lands, pollution and health problems became enlaced with racism, sexism, albleism and other forms of othering. Now, the scale of climate change and biodiversity loss has encroached so far as to alarm people in the Global North, but the culprit remains the same. I came into the climate movement abou...
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Can we protect the deep sea?

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Knowing what we know now, what would you give to go back in time and stop fossil fuel extraction? If you had the chance to reverse it all and go straight into a just system of renewable energy distribution, is there anything you wouldn’t do? Dwelling on the road not taken is no doubt unproductive; stirring up climate apathy and an encroaching sense of doom. For that reason, it can be best to hold onto the future visions generated by grassroots communities and activists rather than facts of the past. Yet if there’s another lesson to be learned from climate activists, especially those from marginalised backgrounds and Indigenous peoples, it’s that we mustn’t forget our past. Rather, we can take our horrors, our fears, past traumas and mistakes, and channel them into more considered and decisive action. And now we are faced with the opportunity. Yesterday, the United Nation’s International Seabed Authority (ISA) met in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss the potential of deep-sea mining (DSM). ...
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#StopRosebank.

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 As my local town breaks into a week of events on climate change, activists up and down the country are demanding the UK does not approve new oil and gas fields. On the table is a huge site in the North Sea, known as Rosebank. With the potential to supply almost 500m barrels of oil and gas, burning Rosebank’s supplies would create more CO 2 than the combined emissions of the world’s 28 lowest-income countries, including Uganda, Ethiopia and Mozambique. Yet, if the world is to have any chance of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed by our nation’s leaders at the Paris Agreement, there can be no new investment in fossil fuels. Period. It does seem a little strange. If our government is bound by its climate pledge to strive for a 1.5°C limit, and claims to be a climate leader , why are our politicians even considering new fossil fuels? A lot has changed since 2015, as I’m sure you are all too aware of. I doubt you could go a day witho...
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Return of the Recluse

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This feels a little awkward.  Tinged with a bit of shame. Like the return of a repentant family member whose spent 17 years estranged. It's been a while since I last engaged in climate politics, and except for a recent statement against the destruction of trees by Plymouth City Council , even longer since my last blog. Not that I haven't been following the news - my ears always prick up at the words "climate change". I am nonetheless out of touch with the activist community and need to thoroughly update myself with the facts before I can hand on heart speak with sufficient confidence in my knowledge. You could say I've been a climate recluse, critiquing things from afar without getting myself in on the action. But in activism, nothing is achieved if you hold back from engaging with others. Whether it's contacting politicians, planning with other activists or simply keeping in touch with campaigns on social media, results require you to stick your head out the ...
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Save the Trees

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It should not be this easy for trees to be axed.  Especially when the weapons are in the hands of councillors, our elected officials. On Tuesday night, over 100 trees were felled in Plymouth's city centre to make way for a new regeneration project. This came just days after an independent inquiry criticised Sheffield city council for felling thousands of healthy trees, misleading court judges who were scrutinising plans and the arrest of many elderly protesters.  Sudden disappearances of trees have been occurring across the country, from Reading to Wellingborough. In each case, the council has 'apologised' for the loss, but once felled, a tree is dead, forgotten, and developments go on on regardless. The loss of one tree alone is mournful. The loss of forested land; ecologically harmful. But this repeated blight on trees caused by councils across the country? This is systematic, reprehensible slaughter. And they say they worry about ash dieback. In Plymouth, local authoriti...
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Yes, Sire!

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A species for us or a species for all? For decades, the ability to genetically modify organisms has roused ethical debate. Yet scrutiny over these debates reveals a worrying trend; more people are supporting a pro-GMO stance on the grounds of solving sustainability issues, before considering whether more ethical and sustainable alternatives exist. Recently in the world of GM, scientists have managed to create “surrogate sires” (Ciccarrelli et al., 2020, p.1). These are sterilised male animals who act as vessels for the production of sperm donated to them from another male carrying a desired trait.  The technique involves using CRISPR-Cas9 technology - a game-changing gene editing tool that can knock out the male fertility gene in sires and make them sterile. Sperm-producing stem cells can then be transplanted into surrogate sires, enabling them to carry traits from the donor. Male mice, pigs, goats and cattle have all been subject to the technology, but so far only surrogate mice h...
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