- Urban environmental & sustainability education as a space for social connections for the residents of Grenfell – by Emily Munn
- Wild in the City: building a bridge back into nature – by Beth Collier
- Developing an ecologically informed sense of place to safeguard tomorrow’s urban environment – by Edward Jones
- Urban environmental & sustainability education in he post-industrial landscape of Manchester – by Raichael Lock
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NUS and its new sustainability focused charity, SOS-UK, are working with Green Schools Project, RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF and the UK Student Climate Network to continue research started by NUS and Green Schools Project in 2018-19. The aim is to better understand the views and experiences of pupils on environmental sustainability in their school. The full details of the survey are here and the survey itself can be found online here.
The organisers say: “It can be completed with all pupils in year 5 and above. It takes 5-15 minutes, and is a great end of term activity and can form the basis of a discussion around what role schools can have in tackling the climate crisis.” ∫∫∫
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The Drax power station in Yorkshire mostly burns wood pellets to fire up its boilers, rather than the huge amounts of coal it was designed to burn. Some time soon it will start pumping the CO2 it produces into geological storage, rather than into the atmosphere. This is a example of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage [BCCS] which, many think, is vital technology if we are to keep temperature increases to below 2°C over pre-industrial levels. This is because country promises under the Paris Agreement will not be enough. According to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, roughly 40m tonnes of CO2 are being captured from industrial sources every year – around 0.1% of emissions. The Economist has an article exploring these issues. ∫∫∫
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has a video on the current state of our knowledge on climate issues, and this link gives the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin for Monday 25 November 2019, for green house gases in the atmosphere in 2018. This confirms
– (1) the mean atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing at an annual rate of about 2.3 ppm, and
– (2) the mean global atmospheric concentration of CO2 in 2018 (407.8 ppm) was 147 % higher than in 1750 (278 ppm), i. e., pre-industrial levels. ∫∫∫
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Reboot the Future has some top picks of websites with high quality resources for tackling the climate emergency in classrooms:
Campaign Against Climate Change has a list of excellent resources, including a blog piece on how to talk to children about the climate
The Climate Coalition has a pack for schools, and really accessible campaigns to take part in
The Economist Educational Trust has produced a workshop for children aged 10+ which includes critical look at the news about climate
You can browse for more curriculum resources from Reboot the Future here. If you have any recommendations for resources, Reboot the Future says “please share them with us”. ∫∫∫
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The following resources are from the USA where the debate about whether human-induced climate change is real is much more alive than it is in the UK.
– Skeptical Science lists 197 common myths about climate change alongside what the science actually says.
– NASA’s Climate Change: How Do We Know? dissects the evidence, causes and effects of climate change. There’s an FAQ page.
– The Climate Reality Project lists 12 Questions climate activists regularly hear and provides evidence-based answers to the most common arguments against man-made climate change. ∫∫∫
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In December 2017, the United Nations proclaimed a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, to be held from 2021 to 2030. This will provide a common framework to ensure that ocean science can fully support countries’ actions to sustainably manage the Oceans and more particularly to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Click here for more details. ∫∫∫
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Did you mark National Tree Week recently. Click here to see what Kew did.. ∫∫∫