Modern humans, or Homo sapiens, are the only species of human living on the planet. But this wasn’t always the case – it’s been a long evolutionary journey to get to where we are now, from our early hominid ancestors the Australopithecines to the big-brained, flat-faced people we are now. This post will look at …
Category Archives: Environmental Topics
Gender biases: Mother nature and the macho man
This post was going to be G for Greta Thunberg. But as usual, I fell down multiple rabbit holes until deciding to instead focus on G for gender, and how it can be a bias in environmental issues. Hope you enjoy! Most research literature on the topic of gender and environmental issues focuses on women. …
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Fishing down the food web – what is it and why does it matter?
A popular idea in marine conservation and fisheries management is that of “fishing down the food web”, first coined in a paper by Pauly et al. (2000). The phrase describes the observation that the average catch from global fisheries in 2000 was of a lower average trophic level than over the last 50 years prior. …
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Anthropocene
Today is the first day in what I am referring to as my “Alphabet”, which will feature an environmental/social issue for every letter (Z and Q remain a struggle so let me know if you have any ideas!) So, A is for Anthropocene. “Anthropocene” is the term used by many to describe the new geological …
Smart Shorts III: Foraging Frenzy
Foraging describes the harvest of non-cultivated “wild” goods, also known as non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Such goods may contain wild animals, fish and wild plants such as stinging nettles, wild garlic and wild mustard – the focus of this essay is on the latter. The practice, at least in people, is as old as the …
Positive news amid a pandemic
Today’s post is a little different. Through the bombardment of news updates, rules, regulations and scaremongering around the current Covid-19 pandemic, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and hopeless. As such, this article will look at some of the positive aspects of the global situation: firstly in terms of the potential environmental benefits, then in …
Veganuary: going cold tofu on meat and dairy
Okay, so I thought that perhaps a nice way to summarise what I had learned about veganism so far in previous blog posts would be to do it for myself. And what better time than the glorious period of failed resolutions that is January? I joined the approximately half a million people (since 2014) who …
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Air quality and exercise: should I be worried?
Introduction to air quality Anthropogenic activities are a major cause of air pollution. Whilst historically it was the actions of the industrial sector which led to major air pollution events (such as the famous Great Smog of London in 1952) in the Western world, today the transport sector plays an increasingly devastating role in making …
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Sustainability and veganism I: nutrition and health
What is veganism? “Food consumption is an environmentally significant behaviour, accounting for around 20-30% of Western greenhouse gas emissions” – Beverland, Wahl & De Groot, 2015 Veganism has been suggested as a solution to many of our sustainability problems; including climate change, biodiversity loss and antibiotics resistance. As such, over 1% of the UK over-15 …
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What makes a sustainable diet?
Sustainability and diet Sustainability is one of those environmental “hot topics”, which is so often talked about but rarely specifically explained. According to the Brundtland definition (presented in the Brundtland Report of 1987 to the UN General Assembly), sustainable development is: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future …
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