🐬Okra goo, Putin and dolphins?
new eco-nnect TALKS episode out
Good Evening.
It’s early May yet somehow it feels already like mid-summer? What can you personally do about the climate crisis? Well did you know that swapping just 20% of worldwide beef consumption with alternative meats could halve deforestation? 🥕
This Week in Climate News:
🌎 Earth’s CO2 hits highest recorded level in human history: 420ppm.
💀 Lake Mead (US reservoir) faces historical drought, unearthing dead bodies.
🏠 Two homes collapse into the ocean in North Carolina as high surf intensifies.
🔥 New Mexico wildfire spreading north toward mountain resort towns near Taos.
🌉 Record-breaking heatwave causes flash flood that collapses a bridge in Pakistan.
🌡️ Earth has 50% chance of exceeding 1.5°C in next five years, scientists say
📈 Cool Trends:
💨 Products made from captured CO2: vodka, hand sanitizer, perfume, ink, and meat.
🥒 Okra Goo to the Rescue
Texan scientists have discovered that okra can remove microplastics from wastewater. Study suggests these small particles can already be found in our blood, rain and even in snow.
Microplastics are currently removed using chemical flocculants—sticky chemicals that attract microplastics and clump them so that they sink to the bottom of the water. Of course, these chemical flocculants are toxic, so the team looked into natural polysaccharide extracts instead.
The team tested fenugreek, cactus, aloe vera, okra, tamarind, and psyllium. They found that polysaccharides from okra combined with fenugreek clumped microplastics in ocean water, while combining polysaccharides from okra and tamarind worked best with freshwater.
👄 eco-nnect TALKS to Sir Partha Dasgupta
In this episode Isi and Marrina dive into conversation with Sir Partha Dasgupta, the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at the New College of the Humanities, London.
His landmark report: 'The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasupta Review’ was commissioned by the UK Treasury and published in 2021. The review explores the relationship between biodiversity and economics and outlines the need for an overhaul of the way we value nature within our current economic frameworks.
Full of solutions!!! Have a listen.
💩 WTF? news
🌏 The Culture Club
📺 What we’re watching: I am Chut Wutty, documentary
📚What we’re reading: 5 minute read: Extinction is loneliness, by Alexa Firmenich
👁 Profile of the week: @apiboficial
🤯 Fun fact we learnt this week: Owls dont have eyeballs🦉