Yesterday, over 50, 000 people ran the London Marathon

After months of training and mindboggling commitment, they pushed themselves to the absolute limit and achieved something really amazing

What if that effort had gone towards defending life on Earth?
1/ I have incredible respect for marathon runners, I couldn’t do it

The have achieved something amazing and I salute them - it's a testament to the power of human will

But we’re deep in a planetary emergency and that means society has to reconsider its priorities
2/

1/ Earth at Risk!

As yet another stark and terrifying scientific warning lands to general indifference, here’s a quick thought experiment for anyone who isn't convinced that we should act on these warnings with the utmost urgency and focus

Imagine a civilisation... 2/ It's a wondrous civilisation with lots of of lovely people, rich in history, culture and creativity, and with untold gazillions worth of built infrastructure

We all know that plastic is now everywhere, but the great drifts of it on the world’s beaches barely scratch the surface of the plastic pollution problem

Here’s a thread on just how deep the crisis goes

🧵1/ It's in the earth beneath our feet, buried underground

In places it has already become the earth, forming new kinds of rock known as pyroplastics and plastiglomerates

2/

1/ Inspired by the arrival of this beauty, here’s a thread of books that help us understand and overcome the barriers that people put up to save ourselves from having to think about climate change and take action
#ClimatePsychology 🧵 2/ Margaret Klein Salamon @ClimatePsych's 'Facing the Climate Emergency' is the most clear-headed guide to understanding ourselves as we face up to this emergency, and commit to taking action, as you could hope for

I'm excited to read this 2nd Ed

1/ It's not annual emissions that ultimately matter but the concentrations of greenhouses gasses in the atmosphere - and these are already dangerously high

That means net zero is not enough
🧵 2/ Net zero means reaching equilibrium at much higher concentrations than they are now

27 years' (!) worth of emissions higher if we're going for 2050 🤯

And the consequences would be unimaginable

Why is individual action* on climate change and the destruction of nature so powerful and important?

Well, imagine yourself at a concert or party where you've had a couple of drinks, the music's getting good... but nobody's dancing

🧵 1/ You tap your feet and start to sway, but there's no way you're going to get up in front of all those people and show off your moves
2/

9 years in the making, yesterday's #IPCC 6th assessment report synthesises a 6000-page (?) summary of climate and related sciences, and is arranged around 18 'headline statements'

I'm going to try and summarise it in 18 plain-language tweets 😬 1/ By burning stuff & emitting gasses we’ve DEFINITELY heated the world by 1.1C, but we haven’t stopped doing it. Wealthy countries and individuals have contributed much more to the problem, so we’re not equally to blame

This amazing figure from yesterday's #IPCC report shows the potential of different approaches to mitigate climate change

It exposes two common misconceptions about 'natural climate solutions'
1/ First, BECCS (growing trees or logging forests to burn for energy) has very limited potential compared to solar and wind

Since it also destroys nature and competes for land with food, it is bad news. Burning trees is not a climate solution
2/

1/ This is a tale about some strange goings on in the UK courts

It starts with some friends of mine, the ‘BEIS 9’ scientists from @ScientistsX prosecuted for protesting the government’s fossil fuel-heavy energy strategy
theconversation.com/extinction-reb… 2/ In April last year, we pasted scientific papers to Department of Energy (BEIS) building, and nine scientists glued themselves to it. They were arrested

In the thread below, several of these scientists explain why they were willing to face arrest

https://twitter.com/ProfColinDavis/status/1514990406555078659

Here’s a story (an allegory?) for climate/nature communicators, about the Yale psychologist Howard Leventhal's work in the 1960s

He was interested in how fear affected people’s attitudes and behaviour, so he conducted an experiment

🧵1/11 He put together a booklet on the importance of tetanus inoculations, and asked students to evaluate it. To test the effects of fear, he made two versions

A high-fear version, fully of grizzly descriptions and illustrated with gory victim photos, and a low-fear version 2/

Some saturday morning cartoons on the planetary emergency

It has been a massive week for scientific activism, with a series of major actions by @ScientistRebel1 in Germany, and a court case for members of @ScientistsX in the UK

Here's a summary🧵

https://twitter.com/i/status/1582008067285479424

In Germany, @ScientistRebel1 members came from across Europe to #UniteAgainstClimateFailure

In a coalition with @DebtforClimate and others, they carried out an amazing series of audacious actions – remember, these are scientists! 2/

*New paper* Just published in @ConLetters with @JMBecologist and @Thierryaaron -

“The recent past is not a reliable guide to future climate impacts”

Here’s a🧵on some of the key points…
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11… The key take home is that “ the recent past is not a reliable guide to future change, and that conservation must look to the future if it is to successfully anticipate and mitigate biodiversity loss” 2/n

1/ My interview with @SkyNews yesterday, in four parts

“This is not the new normal. It is going to get worse and worse and worse until we stop burning fossil fuels and stop destroying nature” 2/ “I remain convinced that the only way to force our leaders to take the required action is to get out on the streets in huge numbers”

Seeing lots of reports of out of control fires in today's record-breaking UK heat, so I thought I'd compile some.

Please add others I've missed.

This is round the corner from me in Norfolk - climate change symbolically blocking roads
edp24.co.uk/news/traffic/a… Wild Ken Hill nature reserve on the West Norfolk coast

https://twitter.com/WildKenHill/status/1549369512558006273

Thrilling to see many new direct action groups around the world seemingly inspired by Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil, and using similar tactics such as motorway blockades and/or having a simple demand right there in the name

A brief 🧵 In Canada, @saveoldgrowth have been blocking highways and disrupting meetings to try and stop deforestation 2/

https://twitter.com/saveoldgrowth/status/1519351974222729216

“I am not convinced that climate change is a huge threat to many species” is an extraordinary thing to hear from a leading conservation scientist, from Australia, in 2021.

It's also dangerous and needs to be countered, so here goes

🧵1.

https://twitter.com/HugePossum/status/1471002384226680833

We’ve all seen some of the disasters that biodiversity has suffered from climate-related events in recent years, from the 3 billion animals killed in the 19/20 Australian bushfires to the 1 billion animals boiled in the 2021 North American heat dome.
2.
theguardian.com/environment/20…

A huge fire has ripped through one of the world's most important forests

Madagascar's extraordinary Menabe forest is the only home of three amazing animals, and there's now only 5000 hectares left

When it has gone, three species will be extinct in the wild 1/4

https://twitter.com/Jayah_Jacket/status/1446781617658376198

Madame Berthe's Mouse Lemur is the world's smallest primate, weighing little over an ounce

Photos @JaspaMadagaska 2/4

Unpopular (but short)🧵on conservation in the climate emergency

The past 5+ mass extinctions were all prob. driven by changing climate. They occurred in an ecologically intact world where species could adapt by shifting their ranges. Nevertheless, mass extinctions occurred 1/5 Current climate change is happening in a devastated, highly fragmented world, where most non-flying species can’t shift their ranges. They’re trapped in their habitat fragments as they break down, & have to adapt with hugely reduced populations, distributions and gene pools 2/5

I'm a conservationist, I worked for WWF for several years in Madagascar and have done research for WWF UK.

I’m also a member of Extinction Rebellion, so this week’s occupation of WWF UK by @XrYouth and others has me slightly conflicted.

I fully support it though 🧵1/ WWF do some good work. They are the biggest brand in conservation, have done a lot to raise awareness & funds, & have good projects around the world

But the action wasn’t about the good aspects of their work, obviously – it was about some very dodgy practices they engage in 2/

1/ You’ve seen the fires
You seen the floods
You’ve read the news reports
You’re scared
And now you want to do something about it

But what? And how?

A (longish) thread 2/ First of all, welcome!

Whatever gifts or talents you bring, we need them in the climate movement and will put them to good use

We have been waiting for you, and we need you, so welcome aboard