lele-o-north

[lele-o-north]

Some of the lichens I've seen at Holy Island last Sunday. Species include: Caloplaca sp., Cladonia spp., Evernia sp., Parmelia spp., Diploicia sp. and Xanthoria parietina

[lele-o-north]

Last Sunday's trip to Holy Island, Northumberland Coast (United Kingdom).

[lele-o-north]

iPhone 14 - Carbon Footprint

Questions for you:

What do you think?

Is 2018-2022 difference enough or not?

The other day, I was reflecting on how old my iPhone XR is. Its performance is slowly deteriorating due to the numerous hours of screen-time, and the heavily loaded iOS updates. I like my phone, but in this particular moment of my life I am craving for something new. I asked myself: “Why don’t I give this phone back to Apple Inc., so to get a new and discounted iPhone?”. Curiosity brought me to check what sorts of environmental and sustainable specifications Apple products carry with them. I was pleased to find the”Product Environmental Report - iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus” after a quick Google search.

I started skimming through the pages: between aesthetically pleasing layouts and sweet writing style, nothing seemed to disturb the gentle sensorial experience that only Apple Inc. can deliver. 

However, since I started working in sustainability, I developed something similar to a ‘second mind’, which owns its own eyes and evaluates the context of what I am looking at. The reports kicks off with a beautiful diagram representing ‘green anatomy’ of a yellow-coloured iPhone 14. 

What does Carbon Neutral mean? Carbon Neutrality means reducing their own carbon emissions by measuring them, and offsetting what is left on carbon capture projects that sit outside the boundaries of the organisation, without necessarily working towards reducing them.

What does ‘product decarbonisation’ mean? It means acting in order to reduce the amount of CO2e per unit of a dated product. In this case, the iPhone. 

How much is 9.6 million metric tonnes of Carbon? Well, to put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of the Carbon sequestered by 158,736,825 tree seedlings grown for 10 years (according to the Environmental Protection Agency)

Is 75% reduction against 2015 baseline by 2030 good enough? We are talking about a 15 year journey during which Apple Inc. reduces its carbon footprint by millions of metric tons. It depends, but there is definitely a huge amount of work being done to arrive there. So far, the difference between a 2018 iPhone XR (62 kgCO2e) and a 2022 iPhone 14 (61 kgCO2e) is only 1 kgCO2e per unit. On a larger scale, accounting for around 30 million sales each product, they have a 30 tonne reduction of CO2e emitted into the atmosphere in 4 years, which is the equivalent of energy-related emissions of 11.7 houses in the U.S (still according to the Environmental Protection Agency) in an entire year.

[lele-o-north]

This is such a cute achievement ✨

Web Of Life

Last week I had the opportunity to watch Web of Life at the cinema. I was so mind-blown that I needed to take notes 🍄

Those who know me also know how interested I am on the relationship between soil organisms and plants. Specifically, I spent the last year of university checking the colonisation rate of mycorrhizal fungi on basil (Ocimum basilicum) roots 🌱 I am grateful I could observe these small but fascinating beings ❤️

This film has been a source of great inspiration thanks to Merlin Sheldrake’s glowing charisma and immense passion-transfer skills ✨The way his eyes sparkled while talking about the essentiality of fungi for world survival was enough to make my arms go full on goosebumps 😍 Last but not least, Björk (the singer, yes!) is also the narrator 🔥

These are 5 facts that hit me the hardest:

1. Fungal genes carry A LOT of information. They are the living proof that you don’t have to have a brain to solve problems (i) 🧠

2. They have been around for millions of years, and during the most catastrophic events of Earth’s history they THRIVED (ii)💥

3. Fungal mycelium connects entire ecosystems, and if we would spread the world hyphae network, its length would be about HALF OF THE WIDTH of the Milky Way Galaxy (iii) 🪐

4. Plastic has been around for a relatively short time compared to fungi. Yet, they have the ‘chemical arsenal’ capable of breaking down polymers (iv) ♻️

5. Every year, around 50 MILLION TONNES worth of fungal spores are released into the atmosphere (v) 🌫️ Enormous amounts of species of fungi dispersing spores into the air can affect atmospheric moisture levels, which consequently trigger rainfall able to support their own as well as entire ecosystems survival 😱

Pic 1 - Basil roots colonised by mycorrhizal fungi I observed in 2020 (microscope);

Pic 2 - Mushroom seen from below I found during a walk in the Northumberland National Park;

Pic 3 - Popped fungal spore.

References:

i - https://arnosvale.org.uk/fungi-whos-really-in-control/#:~:text=Mycelium%20can%20be%20thought%20of,to%20solve%20complex%20microscopic%20mazes.

ii - https://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/mycokids/how-old-are-fungi

iii - https://www.positive.news/environment/the-project-to-map-mycorrhizal-fungal-networks-and-why-it-matters/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CGlobally%2C%20the%20total%20length%20of,wonders%20of%20the%20living%20world.%E2%80%9D

iv - https://earth.org/plastic-eating-mushroom-of-the-amazon-and-ecuadors-development-dilemma/#:~:text=When%20Yale%20University%20students%20found,oxygen%2Dstarved%20environments%20like%20landfills.

v - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624964/

[lele-o-north]

Web Of Life

Last week I had the opportunity to watch Web of Life at the cinema. I was so mind-blown that I needed to take notes 🍄

Those who know me also know how interested I am on the relationship between soil organisms and plants. Specifically, I spent the last year of university checking the colonisation rate of mycorrhizal fungi on basil (Ocimum basilicum) roots 🌱 I am grateful I could observe these small but fascinating beings ❤️

This film has been a source of great inspiration thanks to Merlin Sheldrake’s glowing charisma and immense passion-transfer skills ✨The way his eyes sparkled while talking about the essentiality of fungi for world survival was enough to make my arms go full on goosebumps 😍 Last but not least, Björk (the singer, yes!) is also the narrator 🔥

These are 5 facts that hit me the hardest:

1. Fungal genes carry A LOT of information. They are the living proof that you don’t have to have a brain to solve problems (i) 🧠

2. They have been around for millions of years, and during the most catastrophic events of Earth’s history they THRIVED (ii)💥

3. Fungal mycelium connects entire ecosystems, and if we would spread the world hyphae network, its length would be about HALF OF THE WIDTH of the Milky Way Galaxy (iii) 🪐

4. Plastic has been around for a relatively short time compared to fungi. Yet, they have the ‘chemical arsenal’ capable of breaking down polymers (iv) ♻️

5. Every year, around 50 MILLION TONNES worth of fungal spores are released into the atmosphere (v) 🌫️ Enormous amounts of species of fungi dispersing spores into the air can affect atmospheric moisture levels, which consequently trigger rainfall able to support their own as well as entire ecosystems survival 😱

Pic 1 - Basil roots colonised by mycorrhizal fungi I observed in 2020 (microscope);

Pic 2 - Mushroom seen from below I found during a walk in the Northumberland National Park;

Pic 3 - Popped fungal spore.

References:

i - https://arnosvale.org.uk/fungi-whos-really-in-control/#:~:text=Mycelium%20can%20be%20thought%20of,to%20solve%20complex%20microscopic%20mazes.

ii - https://www.britmycolsoc.org.uk/mycokids/how-old-are-fungi

iii - https://www.positive.news/environment/the-project-to-map-mycorrhizal-fungal-networks-and-why-it-matters/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CGlobally%2C%20the%20total%20length%20of,wonders%20of%20the%20living%20world.%E2%80%9D

iv - https://earth.org/plastic-eating-mushroom-of-the-amazon-and-ecuadors-development-dilemma/#:~:text=When%20Yale%20University%20students%20found,oxygen%2Dstarved%20environments%20like%20landfills.

v - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4624964/

[lele-o-north]

For this #WorldEnvironmentDay, I just wanted to say how beautiful the world we live in is 🌍

Everyone can contribute to its preservation and restoration. We only need to look at it and understand that we are part of it 🙏🏻

If it is going down, we’re going down with it.

Happy World Environment Day everyone! 🌲☀️🌈

[lele-o-north]

A Solarpunk Reading List

Fiction:

New York 2140 - Kim Stanley Robinson

Ecotopia - Ernest Callenbach

Always Coming Home - Ursula K. LeGuin

The Fifth Sacred Thing - Starhawk

Half-built Garden - Ruthanna Emrys

Future Home of the Living God - Louise Erdrich

The City, Not Long After - Pat Murphy

Too Like the Lightning - Ada Palmer

Walk to the End of the World - Suzy McKee Charnas

The Summer Isles - Ian R. MacLeod

Nonfiction:

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience - Rob Hopkins

Emergent Strategy - Adrienne Maree Brown

The Little Book of Conflict Transformation - John Paul Lederach 

The Urban Farmer - Curtis Stone

Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland - Beth Dooley

Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy - Nathan Schneider

When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency - Matthew Stein

Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature - Janine M. Benyus 

Papermaking with Garden Plants and Common Weeds - Helen Hiebert

Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming - Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

[lele-o-north]

Recycling Centre Site Visit ✨

Today I had the opportunity to visit the Hazardous Waste Recycling Centre in Gateshead (i): a tour organised by Suez, the site owner ♻️

I am pleased with how transparent Laura and Hannah, our guides, have been while explaining what happens to the local recycling and general waste. No question has been left unanswered, and topics have been discussed with the most environmentally friendly tone: everything led to the concept of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle 🙌🏻

The overall experience exceeded my expectations as the amount of knowledge I gained was HUGE ⛰️

This is how I would summarise today’s experience in few points:

1. Disposable vapes are a PROBLEM 💨

Strangely classified by UK Legislation as “toys, leisure and sport equipment”, they have been responsible for numerous fires at the recycling centre. E-cigarettes contain lithium batteries, which can easily ignite when segregated with the other waste streams. Furthermore, recycling one 200L barrel full of disposable vapes costs more than £2000 😰

2. Machines that sort general waste out DO NOT EXIST ⚙️

Due to complex composition of general waste, there is no machine or automated process able to effectively separate non-recyclables from recyclables that ended up in the general waste. At Suez, sorting is done BY HANDS 🤲🏻

3. Energy-from-Waste (EFW) requires A LOT of ENERGY ⚡️

Suez’s EFW facility has the potential to generate enough electricity to power 30.000 homes via waste incineration. However, the majority of energy goes back into the facility to keep the process going: fire is on 24/7 🔥

4. Separate food waste segregation at home is COMING SOON 🍔

Around 6.5 MILLION tonnes of food waste come from households every year. The shocking thing is: around 70% of that food waste IS STILL EDIBLE when people dispose of it (4.5 MILLION tonnes). Suez compared it to 90 Royal Albert Halls! 😱

5. Load contamination is a serious thing ☣️

Staff works hard every day to ensure skips contain the waste they have been designed for. When hazardous materials get in the same bin with recyclables, the WHOLE load becomes hazardous. This means that all the waste contained in that bin is very likely to lose its recycling potential. As it has been said today: “It is better losing some recycling in the general waste than contaminating an entire load of recycling and losing all of it” 😞 This is such a powerful sentence.

For those interested in knowing about waste disposal and recycling, I strongly recommend this experience. Event details can be found on Eventbrite and many waste sites are available for tour booking 🤩

Ah, forgot this: IT’S FREE 🤯

References:

i. (Photo) https://lnkd.in/eYyWCWmp

[lele-o-north]

World Dugong Day

Every year, on the 28th of May, it is celebrated the World Dugong Day! 🧜

Dugong is known as the sea cow (pic attached 🐮 - x). Why sea cow, you ask? These animals can be found in coastal environments feeding exclusively and extensively on seagrasses. The largest remaining population of Dugongs can be found in Australia (i), while the closest to the United Kingdom can be observed in the shallow waters of The Arabian Gulf (ii) 🌊

Why are dugongs important? 🧐

According to the Dugong & Seagrass Conservation Project (iii), dugongs contribute to maintaining balanced marine coastal environments, while also representing good indicators for local ecosystem health. Their presence is of course linked with seagrasses, which not only represents these herbivore mammals’ only source of food: seagrass sits at bottom of food chain in coastal environments (iv). Moreover, it provides important ecosystem services such as fish products, reduced erosion and flood protection (v). In other words, dugong presence is the manifestation of healthy ecosystem. Terrible news is: they are classified as vulnerable species (vi) 😰

Why are they declining? And how is climate change impacting their population? 😭

Dugongs are sensitive creatures not exempt from anthropogenic (modern age) disturbance. They have been largely hunted by humans for its meat, fat and oils, which caused significant population reduction (vi). Also, seagrass species are under extreme pressure due water quality variations largely driven by climate change (vii) and further human activity (viii). In addition, their slow reproduction rate and long life span (around 70 years) make them less resilient from not-environmentally friendly fishing practices (ix) 🎣

What can be done to support them? 💪

The Australian Great Barrier Reef and Marine Park Authority (i) provides the following recommendations:

1. Protect coastal habitats - Do not damage seagrass by dragging boats on underwater meadows and act against pollution, eutrophication and herbicide use deriving from land-based activities 🚜

2. Avoid use of mesh nets - Dugongs can get trapped in fishing nets 🥅

3. Boat responsibly - Dugongs are hard too spot while sitting on high speeding boats. Reduce speed while crossing shallow waters and seagrass meadows. If you spot one, it is likely it will not the only one in the area 🚢

4. Report - Just like for other sirenians, as well as cetaceans, it is essential to report injured/dead dugongs to local authorities ☎️

5. Donate - Dugong & Seagrass Conservation Project covers the conservation of dugongs and their associated seagrass ecosystems in eight countries in the Indo-Pacific region: Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mozambique, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. See more information here: https://www.dugongconservation.org/ 🙏

References:

i. https://www2.gbrmpa.gov.au/learn/animals/dugong#:~:text=Whether%20in%20protection%20areas%20or,flowing%20into%20creeks%20and%20rivers

ii. https://www.seaworldabudhabi.com/en/stories/meet-the-dugongs#:~:text=In%20the%20UAE%2C%20dugongs%20are,Marine%20Biosphere%20Reserve%20(MMBR)

iii. https://www.dugongconservation.org/about/about-dugongs-seagrass/

iv: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/marine-food-chain/7th-grade/

v: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5061329/#:~:text=Seagrass%20ecosystems%20play%20a%20multi,erosion%20and%20protection%20against%20floods

vi: https://nc.iucnredlist.org/redlist/amazing-species/dugong-dugon/pdfs/original/dugong-dugon.pdf

vii: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70204854#:~:text=A%20primary%20effect%20of%20increased,the%20patterns%20of%20sexual%20reproduction

viii: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-2983-7_24#citeas

ix: https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/env/pages/0fcb6106-b4e3-4f9f-8d06-f6f94bea196b/files/north-report-card-dugong.pdf

x (picture): https://theconversation.com/dugongs-looking-to-the-gentle-sea-creatures-past-may-guard-its-future-122902

[lele-o-north]

World Bee Day

Each year, on the 20th of May, it is celebrated the #WorldBeeDay! 🐝

Bees, and other pollinating insects, play an essential role in supporting global agriculture and food supply, as well as being extremely cute 😍 The video below shows an Apis mellifera L. in action at the #OuseburnFarm in Newcastle upon Tyne ✨

Why are bees so important? 🤔

According to Khalifa et al. (2021) [i] “Western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is the main species responsible for bee pollination worldwide and meets, for instance, 34% of pollination service demands in the United Kingdom”. To put this into more financial terms, the UK Government (2020) estimated that the economic value of pollinator services to crop production amounts to £600m every year [ii]. It is easily understandable at this point that if bee species would disappear from the Earth, the consequences to food production, security and national economy would be significant 😰

Why are they declining? 😞

The top 3 main factors contributing to bee species decline are:

1.        Habitat loss and fragmentation - Destruction of natural habitats, such as wildflower meadows and hedgerows, reduces the availability of food and nesting sites for bees;

2.        Pesticides - The use of harmful pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids, have detrimental effects on bee populations by impacting their health and ability to forage.

3.        Climate change - Changes in climate patterns, such as extreme weather events and changings in flowering seasons, can disrupt the life-cycle of pollinators as well as impacting their food sources.

What can be done to support them? 🧐

The World Wildlife Fund (aka WWF) [iii], condensed what we can do to help bees in simple 4 points:

1.        Bees are attracted to classic cottage garden blooms and indigenous wildflowers, such as primroses, buddleias, and marigolds. Consider having these in your garden;

2.        When you see a bee laying on the ground, help her with water & white sugar mix (no honey!);

3.        Help tracking populations via bee identification keys and other useful tools (such as the FIT Count);

4.        Reduce honey consumption, and make sure that what you still eat comes from local and sustainable beekeepers.

Remember, every small action counts in safeguarding the well-being of bees and the ecosystems they support 💪

References:

i. Khalifa et al. (2021) - Overview of Bee Pollination and Its Economic Value for Crop Production - PMC (nih.gov);

ii. UK Government (2020) - Defra launches the Healthy Bees Plan 2030 to help protect honey bees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk);

iii. WWF - Our tips on how to bee friendly | WWF

#Bees #Pollinators #Environment #Pollination

[lele-o-north]

iPhone 14 - Carbon Footprint

Questions for you:

What do you think?

Is 2018-2022 difference enough or not?

The other day, I was reflecting on how old my iPhone XR is. Its performance is slowly deteriorating due to the numerous hours of screen-time, and the heavily loaded iOS updates. I like my phone, but in this particular moment of my life I am craving for something new. I asked myself: “Why don’t I give this phone back to Apple Inc., so to get a new and discounted iPhone?”. Curiosity brought me to check what sorts of environmental and sustainable specifications Apple products carry with them. I was pleased to find the”Product Environmental Report - iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus” after a quick Google search.

I started skimming through the pages: between aesthetically pleasing layouts and sweet writing style, nothing seemed to disturb the gentle sensorial experience that only Apple Inc. can deliver. 

However, since I started working in sustainability, I developed something similar to a ‘second mind’, which owns its own eyes and evaluates the context of what I am looking at. The reports kicks off with a beautiful diagram representing ‘green anatomy’ of a yellow-coloured iPhone 14. 

What does Carbon Neutral mean? Carbon Neutrality means reducing their own carbon emissions by measuring them, and offsetting what is left on carbon capture projects that sit outside the boundaries of the organisation, without necessarily working towards reducing them.

What does ‘product decarbonisation’ mean? It means acting in order to reduce the amount of CO2e per unit of a dated product. In this case, the iPhone. 

How much is 9.6 million metric tonnes of Carbon? Well, to put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of the Carbon sequestered by 158,736,825 tree seedlings grown for 10 years (according to the Environmental Protection Agency)

Is 75% reduction against 2015 baseline by 2030 good enough? We are talking about a 15 year journey during which Apple Inc. reduces its carbon footprint by millions of metric tons. It depends, but there is definitely a huge amount of work being done to arrive there. So far, the difference between a 2018 iPhone XR (62 kgCO2e) and a 2022 iPhone 14 (61 kgCO2e) is only 1 kgCO2e per unit. On a larger scale, accounting for around 30 million sales each product, they have a 30 tonne reduction of CO2e emitted into the atmosphere in 4 years, which is the equivalent of energy-related emissions of 11.7 houses in the U.S (still according to the Environmental Protection Agency) in an entire year.

[lele-o-north]

First post in this new Tumblr blog.

My name is Lele and I am an Environmental and Carbon Consultant. It is for a number of years that I have been looking at the natural world with a lot of interest, as well as our own relationship with nature: dissolving away alongside our sand grains left on this planet.

While working, I have witnessed stuff happening with my own eyes, that both filled me with anger and emptied my hopes for a better future.

I am here to listen and discuss with people from all different background about sustainability issues.