Tony Juniper

Ever wondered what @NaturalEngland does? I was pleased to record this podcast with the Civil Service Climate & Environment Network, answering questions about our work, why we do it & the context. open.spotify.com/episode/4JcuEy…

250 editions later, the climate conversation has changed — but so has the planet via @fionaharvey @guardian Since COP26, we’ve seen record heatwaves, rising climate costs, political setbacks, and growing pressure on communities, businesses, and governments. Yet at the same time, clean energy is accelerating, climate innovation is scaling, and public awareness has never been stronger. The fight against climate change is no longer about predictions. It’s about adaptation, resilience, finance, and action at speed. The real question is not whether change is happening. It’s whether leadership is happening fast enough. An important reflection from The Guardian’s 250th climate edition. 🌍 bit.ly/42ZQrXX #ClimateChange #NetZero #ClimateAction #Sustainability #EnergyTransition #ClimateFinance @AndersWijkman @ClimateArena @IRENA @ClimateBen @UNFCCC @mattiasgoldmann @AHallbarhet @YaleClimateComm @jonathonporritt

@LandguardNot Yes. Decarbonisation at this stage is about making the ultimate outcomes less bad. The longer we leave it the worse it will be.

@TonyJuniper I don't want to sound pessimistic but its a bit late for for slowing down emmisions, even if the world was net zero tomorrow not much would change for a very long time, so the science says.

This is about a thousand more people than died in the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, yet hardly a mention in news bulletins. Extreme heat is becoming so frequent to the point where it’s no longer noteworthy, while some say we should slow down on emissions reductions…

Así estalló hoy el juguete en forma de cohete del magnate capitalista Jeff Bezos, que sufrió una enorme explosión durante una prueba espacial en Florida (EEUU). Una explosión así puede emitir CO₂ equivalente a cientos o miles de coches diésel circulando durante un año completo. Mientras los capitalistas contaminan por hobby como si no hubiese un mañana, a ti te piden que hagas un esfuerzo por salvar al planeta.

@markrwilliamson There are still a few, but well down compared with not so long ago. Sad, but hopefully recoverable. Anyone with a garden can help (nest sites, no chemicals, shady cool areas etc)

Can’t remember the last time I saw a thrush here.

Another shining example of food production and nature recovery working side by side.🌾 Our Chair @TonyJuniper recently visited Codicote Bottom Farm to see @JordansCereals Farm Partnership in action - where farmers are dedicating almost 30% of their farmed land to wildlife. ⬇️

@WeatherProf Also melting ice from Greenland I expect.

See that cold blob near Greenland? It sticks out like a sore thumb because virtually all of the rest of the oceans are warming. It's a canary in a coalmine signaling something is wrong with our climate system. The cause has been debated and a now a new study from Stefan et al. sheds light, saying this "warming hole" is likely due to less transport of heat into the region due to a weaker AMOC circulation due global warming. Not a big surprise, but it provides clarity.

An ancient moor has been protected for wildlife after Natural England declared it a new national nature reserve.💚 More than 1,100 hectares (2,718.1 acres) of moorland in Cornwall has been marked out as an area of focus for conservation and nature restoration. The land near St Austell boasts a rich mix of habitats including wet woodlands, heaths and bogs, which are havens for rare species such as willow tits, sphagnum moss, butterfly orchids, royal fern, Cornish moneywort and the carnivorous round-leaved sundew. Named the Mid Cornwall Moors, it becomes the 14th site to be declared a reserve as part of the King's series of National Nature Reserves, with 25 new protected areas planned by 2028. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

A very nice @BBCNews report on yesterday’s declaration of the Mid-Cornwall Moors NNR: Nature, culture, history & landscape celebrated via a cross-sectoral partnership.

Nearly 2 billion people live in the red area. It is becoming completely uninhabitable. What do the climate deniers, who also hate immigration, think is going to happen?

The power of practical action…

This is my favourite British bird. Fewer than there were in #Cambridge, but they hang on where the habitat is good.

Back in the 1990s some expected that climate action would ramp up as the scale of the disaster became evident. As it happens, the opposite is the case. Ever more catastrophic impacts are accompanied by diminished ambition & political attacks on decarbonisation. Hard to explain.

Finnish scientists trucked in real forest dirt and grass and laid it over the gravel at four daycare yards. They let the kids dig around in it for a month. The blood tests came back with changes the researchers hadn’t expected to see so fast or so clear. The study ran at ten daycares in two Finnish cities with 75 kids aged three to five. Four of the yards got the forest treatment: about a tennis court worth of soil and grass laid over the gravel, plus planters and peat blocks the kids could dig and climb on. Three others stuck with their normal gravel yards. The last three were daycares where the kids were already visiting real forests every day. After one month, the variety of bacteria living on the kids’ skin shot up, and the kind that helps train the skin’s immune defenses jumped the most. Their gut bacteria started to look like the gut bacteria of the forest-visiting kids. Their blood showed more of the immune cells whose job is to keep the body from freaking out at harmless stuff like pollen and peanuts, and overall inflammation dropped. The kids on the plain gravel yards showed none of this. Childhood asthma in the US doubled between 1980 and 1995. Food allergies in kids jumped 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, then jumped another 50 percent between 2007 and 2021. And peanut allergies in one-year-olds tripled between 2001 and 2017. The Finnish researchers think one of the reasons is simple: kids today don’t get dirty enough. 37 percent of American preschoolers now spend an hour or less outside on a normal weekday. Their immune systems are getting trained in environments stripped of the bacteria humans have always lived around. Aki Sinkkonen, who led the study, put it in plain words: “It would be best if children could play in puddles and everyone could dig organic soil.” The Finnish government is now helping pay for daycares across the country to make the same changes.

A new National Nature Reserve declared today - The Mid-Cornwall Moors NNR. Excellent to join the @NaturalEngland team to mark the moment & to meet the partner organisations who have made it possible. 1100 hectares of outstanding habitat included in number 14 of the King’s Series.

Today we celebrate the declaration of Mid Cornwall Moors National Nature Reserve. 🌿🎉 Over 1,100 hectares of moorland, rare wildlife such as the elusive willow tit and thousands of years of Cornish heritage. gov.uk/government/new…

On the hottest May day on record yesterday, I finally got to visit the most urban beavers in Britain at the Ealing Beaver Project & was frankly blown away by witnessing nature’s finest engineers close hand. Billed as a ‘Beaver Safari’, I was surprised that the meeting point was outside a McDonalds next to a main road. This surprise continued when I discovered that not only were we allowed into the beaver enclosure but that the enclosure was also a public park with a cycle route running through. The beavers had got so used to humans that just the day before a beaver who had recently given birth was spotted dining on a delicious blackthorn branch just feet away from a bench where people were sitting in the park. We weren’t quite so lucky, but did see a beaver swim through a pipe under bike path & then haul itself out to cross their beaver dam to go downstream. The beavers are not only a magical creature to witness though. They produce a cascade of environmental benefits. Their dams have raised the water level creating an amazing wetland home to reed warblers, water fowl, numerous bat species & wood peckers. Their dams help humans too by filtering urban pollution, alleviating droughts reducing flooding downstream. The wetlands they create also act as a giant air conditioning unit, cooling the city around it and reducing the urban heat island effect. This project really shows that not only can humans & beavers live alongside each other, they can actively benefit each other as well. We now need to release natures engineers in rivers and wetlands across London so they can get to work building their dream homes, which make the city better for us humans too.

Sand lizards are already using the UK’s first heathland bridge over the A3 in Surrey, reconnecting two protected sites for the first time in decades. More here: bbc.in/4nNNROa

@markdeeble1 @BTO_Cornwall Thanks. I’ll do that.

@TonyJuniper @BTO_Cornwall I think it’s likely a gull ringed for a university of Exeter project. You can email pic to: urbangullproject@gmail.com projectcgull.com

Colour ringed Herring Gull St Austell Station, Cornwall. Any ideas @BTO_Cornwall as to who’s collecting data?