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Simon Lewis Profile picture
Simon Lewis
@SimonLLewis
They say I’m outspoken. Author, The Human Planet. Professor of Global Change Science @UCL & @UniversityLeeds. Trying to understand the world, and change it too.
Jul 17, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I discuss the disastrous implications for the planned auction of oil concessions in the rainforest and peatlands of Democratic Republic of Congo, in today’s print New York Times. nytimes.com/2022/07/15/opi… The most similar place where oil is drilled in rainforest and wetlands in a country with severe poverty and weak governance is Nigeria’s Niger Delta. It’s a land of pollution and ill-health, and fierce resistance. It’s a land of civil unrest. That’s a v. dangerous recipe for DRC.
Nov 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Being in the #COP26 plenary room and knowing insiders in UK Presidency team and global south ministers, I can’t help thinking that the China-India last-second play wasn’t necessarily centrally about coal. 1/6 Two theories. This was a way of demonstrating their anger at the imbalance between calls for increased mitigation from the EU/US/Umbrella without a match in increased finance. Essentially, you don’t get increased global mitigation ambition without increased finance ambition. 2/6
Apr 28, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
This thread clarifies to me why I differ from @JamesGDyke on their article (with whom I often agree with on quite a lot), as I don’t think reforming the ‘climate policy system’ would that change much. Short 🧵... leaning on Covid to highlight the issues. Science is crucial to society as it allows us to better understand the world (eg what is this new disease, covid) and solve societal problems (the pandemic) via additional knowledge (masks, new vaccines). But...
Apr 27, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
I don’t think that @JamesGDyke piece is a great article, as it has no analysis of *power*, and has been widely cited as being anti-net zero (so isn’t a clear piece of writing). But Glen’s summary below, of endless procrastination, makes a lot of sense, BUT.... 🧵 ...Finally we are talking, 30 years on, of short term cuts (at US summit last week) and actually getting to zero emissions by 2050, commensurate with the science of keeping warming to about 1.5C (given uncertainties).
Jun 1, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I know there is a lot going on in the news, but remember that Science paper which said tree restoration could absorb two-thirds of emissions. Well, @CrowtherLab have published a Correction in @ScienceMagazine saying they were wrong. science.sciencemag.org/content/368/64…
A thread:
1/7 The Correction takes blaming others for your mistakes to an art-form. The Correction says: the "text may have given the impression that the global tree restoration potential might help to capture two-thirds of the total anthropogenic emissions to date." But who said that?
May 22, 2020 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Many years ago I had the idea that we might be able to use tropical forest plot data to constrain the tropical land contribution to Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (following something @PFriedling said in a meeting I was at). The resulting paper is out in Science today. A thread: First it took a long time to piece together the data - 500,000 trees across 813 forests in 24 countries in South American, African, Asian and Australasian tropical forest. And second find a talented researcher to lead the analysis, @mjpsullivan, see science.sciencemag.org/content/368/64…
Sep 11, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
What’s the swiftest way to reduce meat and dairy consumption to free land for nature — without reducing people’s food choices, taxing them, or telling them what to do? 1/4 A ban of advertising meat and dairy. This would rapidly drive tasty alternatives, so big brands could advertise, making these foods visible, normal and competitively priced. Meat-free would be everywhere and cheap. 2/4
Sep 11, 2019 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
My Green New Deal for Nature report is out!

Lily Cole, actor and environmentalist said of the new report:

"Whilst technologists design fancy carbon-capture machines, nature offers us the simplest, most cost-effective and profound way to solve our environmental crisis." 1/5 "Re-thinking land use in the UK (and globally), offers us the opportunity to capture huge quantities of carbon, enhance biodiversity, and also improve our own human relationship to the land." 2/5
Aug 14, 2019 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
This @PeterBrannen1 piece appears to have been written so the over-privileged have something to talk while the world slides in environmental breakdown. It is also *staggeringly* incorrect. A (slightly grumpy) thread on the #Anthropocene from narrow geological viewpoint: If you fail to explain what the Geologic Time Scale is, you fail your reader in ever hoping to understand if the Anthropocene is a geological joke or not.