1/ To maintain all the carbon stored in forests, we just need to stop the trees being cut down, right?

Actually it’s a bit more complicated, because forests are more than just trees

They are whole communities of interacting plants and animals
🧵 2/ That’s a big problem, because many tropical forests are losing or have already lost their largest animals

Many are heavily hunted for ‘bushmeat’, while lots of forests are, targically, now just too small to support populations of the biggest beasts

They are 'empty forests'

1/ We're rightly terrified of feedback loops and tipping processes in the climate system - but what about climate feedbacks in our social and economic systems?
🧵 2/ The FT reports on how the exceptional drought in South America has led to blackouts in Ecuador and Colombia, since water levels in the hydroelectric reservoirs are too low to generate sufficient electricity

ft.com/content/ed447a…

1/ If 'humanity is “on the precipice” of shattering Earth’s limits, and will suffer huge costs if we fail to act on biodiversity loss'

Then why is the main message of conservation still 'let's help the pandas and the penguins'? 2/ Don't get me wrong, I love penguins - just as I love so many plants and animals (pandas are ok, I guess)

But conservation is about so much more than saving endangered species

Nature underpins our prosperity, wellbeing, and survival - isn't that a big selling point?

1/ As millions evacuate from the path of Hurricane #Milton, let's remember the denialist and delayist think tanks and PR companies that have worked so hard to ensure society and our leaders ignore the science and take no action (top chart) 2/ And offer our particular thoughts to the billionaires, fossil fuel companies and neoliberal fundamentalists who paid them to do it - to the tune of $2.65 BILLION in 2003-2018 (bottom chart)

Conservationists have always sought to conserve nature as it is, to prevent destruction and change

But climate change makes that an impossible goal, forcing us into strategies we would never previously have considered

A thread on the future of Britain's forests
1/ James Bullock @JMBecologist and I were among those discussing this issue with Phoebe Weston @phoeb0 in The Guardian today

We argue that maintaining Britain’s forests in the face of a rapidly changing climate will require giving nature a helping hand
2/
theguardian.com/environment/ar…

Critics of activism by scientists often refer to ‘axiological neutrality’, the idea that scientists should be apolitical and value free

But I don't think that's how the public or popular culture see scientists at all
1/ 🧵 Here’s a headline positioning scientists not as researchers, but as conservationists with a value-driven, politically relevant agenda to make positive changes in the real world

Millions will see it, but none will even blink at the suggestion. It is utterly uncontroversial
2/

This strange paper argues that scientists shouldn't be activists "because scholars should not have a priori interests in the outcomes of their studies"

But many fields of study are explicitly mission and value driven. They exist to make the world a better place
1/ My field, conservation science, is very clear on its purpose

We do our research not for the sake of knowledge but because we have an a priori interest in the outcomes - we are trying to conserve the diversity of life on Earth
2/

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”