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Just finished final edit (haha, as if!) of my YA novel 'White Raven', and submitted to the top two literary agents on my...
02/05/2024

Just finished final edit (haha, as if!) of my YA novel 'White Raven', and submitted to the top two literary agents on my very long list, Sheil Land Associates and Spring Literary. Related Middle-grade novel 'Shadowlands: The Poacher's Trap' also ready to go.
Now itching to get on to the next project - an adult novel set on Dartmoor, exploring the theme of obsession and the intersex condition, provisionally titled Scare Crow (definitely a corvid theme emerging!)

12/04/2024

Stayed up to 2.30am this morning finishing Where the Crawdads Sing by the amazing DeliaOwens. We saw the movie when it came out, but so glad I read this beautiful book. https://www.facebook.com/authordeliaowens

Author

Miro Miro on the wall, who's the fairest watercolourist of them all? Last few days to visit Olya Baklan ArtStudio at Art...
21/09/2023

Miro Miro on the wall, who's the fairest watercolourist of them all? Last few days to visit Olya Baklan ArtStudio at Artizan Gallery, Lucius Street, Torquay. Don't miss it! You know it makes sense to be in an art gallery when outside it's raining cats and dogs.

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30/03/2022
07/02/2022

A windy Sunday is sure to blow away your cobwebs.

Dog-walkers urged to pick up mess after unborn calves lost in the New Forest. Some dog walkers just don’t care. This wee...
20/01/2022

Dog-walkers urged to pick up mess after unborn calves lost in the New Forest.

Some dog walkers just don’t care. This week I’ve had to navigate around dogsh*t smeared across the pavement near my house.
You can be sure some of that will have been carried into shops. You’ve probably seen toddlers down on the floor in shops. Now use your imagination as the dogsh*t travellers from floor to little fingers to mouth.

Dog-walkers are being urged to pick up their pets’ mess after a parasite carried in faeces caused almost half a herd of pregnant cattle in the New Forest to lose their calves

Scum bags. These spotted during a two-hour walk on and near the South West Coast Path between Labrador Bay and Maidencom...
22/12/2021

Scum bags. These spotted during a two-hour walk on and near the South West Coast Path between Labrador Bay and Maidencombe today. Two flung into the bushes and two dropped next to the path.
What is actually wrong with these dog owners?
Much as I hate dogsh*t, it would be better than dogsh*t-in-a-bag, which doubles the pollution and could kill animals.

With the lovely & talented Olya Baklan  Olya Baklan Artist Ol'a Baklan at the English Riviera Film Festival awards day. ...
07/11/2021

With the lovely & talented Olya Baklan Olya Baklan Artist Ol'a Baklan at the English Riviera Film Festival awards day. Congratulations to John Tomkins for a festival that continues to grow in strength and interest. And congratulations to the winners. Don’t miss next year’s festival.

How did your MP vote in the Environment Bill debate? Here’s a list of the Tories who voted against an amendment which wo...
23/10/2021

How did your MP vote in the Environment Bill debate? Here’s a list of the Tories who voted against an amendment which would have put a legal duty on water companies to reduce the sewage they dump into our rivers. You’ll be shocked at how many represent constituencies that rely on coastal tourism.
A dividend?

The House of Lords amendment sought to prevent companies discharging raw sewage in rivers. It was rejected.

Here’s my pledge: I will never visit the Faroe Islands or knowingly buy anything connected with them. Visit Faroe Island...
15/09/2021

Here’s my pledge: I will never visit the Faroe Islands or knowingly buy anything connected with them. Visit Faroe Islands Sea Shepherd Sea Shepherd Faroe Islands Campaign

13/09/2021
Lewis Pugh is tough - but we have to rein in climate change because even tough won’t be enough.
12/09/2021

Lewis Pugh is tough - but we have to rein in climate change because even tough won’t be enough.

Good luck Lewis.
11/08/2021

Good luck Lewis.

ANNOUNCEMENT: In two weeks I will attempt the toughest swim of my life across Greenland’s Ilulissat Icefjord. There is no better place in the world to show the dramatic impact of the Climate Crisis. This is ground zero. đŸŠâ€â™‚ïžđŸ‡ŹđŸ‡±đŸ§Š

https://lewispughfoundation.org/news/no-ice-no-life

You’ll have to come south to see the beautiful Jersey tiger moth. Perhaps this is descended from the 2019 influx. S/he t...
11/08/2021

You’ll have to come south to see the beautiful Jersey tiger moth. Perhaps this is descended from the 2019 influx. S/he took flight moments after this photo, revealing vivid orange underwings. Insects and other Invertebrates of Britain and Europe

The sooner that jet skis are regulated the better. Why has nothing been done yet?
27/07/2021

The sooner that jet skis are regulated the better. Why has nothing been done yet?

Spiders eat snakes, who'd have thought it?  It’s one-nil to invertebrates!Spiders can out-fight snakes 10 to 30 times th...
29/06/2021

Spiders eat snakes, who'd have thought it? It’s one-nil to invertebrates!

Spiders can out-fight snakes 10 to 30 times their own size – and then eat them, a new study has shown.
In our imagination, it's usually the spider and the fly, but it turns out they occasionally expand their menu by catching and eating small snakes.
Dr. Martin Nyffeler, arachnologist at the University of Basel, and American herpetologist Professor Whitfield Gibbons of the University of Georgia, USA, got to the bottom of this phenomenon in a meta-analysis. Their findings from a study of 319 occurrences of this unusual feeding behavior recently appeared in the American Journal of Arachnology.
European spiders, on the other hand, are lagging behind their cousins in the US and Australia, where this spider feeding behaviour is most common. Eighty percent of the incidents studied were in the US and Australia, and less than 1% of all reported incidents in Europe, where small web-building spiders eat tiny, non-venomous snakes of the blind snake family (Typhlopidae).
Spiders from 11 different families are able to catch and eat snakes, but black widows of the family Theridiidae are particularly successful. Their potent venom contains a toxin that targets vertebrate nervous systems (including humans, so watch out!), and they build tough webs allowing them to capture larger prey animals like lizards, frogs, mice, birds and snakes.
The largest snakes caught by spiders are up to one meter in length, the smallest only about six centimetres, with an average length of 26 centimetres – mostly very young, freshly hatched animals.
About 30% of the captured snakes are venomous themselves. In the US and South America, spiders sometimes kill highly venomous rattlesnakes and coral snakes. In Australia, brown snakes (which belong to the same family as cobras) often fall prey to redback spiders (Australian black widows).
Martin Nyffeler said: "These brown snakes are among the most venomous snakes in the world and it's really fascinating to see that they lose fights with spiders."
A snake is a good meal for a spider, which will often spend hours or days feasting. A spider often eats only a small part of a dead snake and scavengers such as ants, wasps and flies get the rest.

Insects and other Invertebrates of Britain and Europe

The Image by Daniel R. Crook shows a juvenile scarlet snake (Cemophora coccinea, Colubridae) entrapped in the web of a brown widow, Latrodectus geometricus, in Georgia, USA.

23/06/2021

THIS IS A CLICKBAIT HEADLINE. ONLY IT ISN'T.

Clickbait headlines are no better at enticing readers - and sometimes worse - than traditional headlines are.
That's the conclusion of research at Penn State University in the US.
Clickbait headlines often rely on linguistic gimmicks to tempt readers to read further.
How long before this news filters through to some news websites we can think of? Soon, let's hope.
In the first study, the research team randomly assigned 150 participants to read one of eight different types of headlines and measured if they would then read or share the story.
Alongside traditional headlines were those that relied on one of the seven types of clickbait features, including headlines with questions, lists, "Wh" words (i.e., what, when), demonstrative adjectives (i.e., this, that), positive superlatives (i.e., best, greatest), negative superlatives (i.e., worst, least), or modals (i.e., could, should). The headlines were taken from both reliable and unreliable online sources and classified using algorithms developed to detect clickbait.
"One of the questions we had initially was, which of those clickbait features would attract more clicks?" said Maria Molina, assistant professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State, who is the lead author of the study. "We wanted to explore that more in depth, but when we analyzed the results, we realized there were no significant differences, and, if anything, people were more attracted to non-clickbait headlines. So, from there, we figured there might be some reasons why this might have happened."
The researchers conducted a second study to make sure that other factors such as the subject matter of each headline, were not confusing the results, according to Molina.
In this study, the researchers recruited 249 participants, who were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions - seven clickbait headlines and one non-clickbait headline. This time, all headlines focused on a single political topic and were written by a former journalist. Again, the team reported that the clickbait headlines did not dramatically outperform the traditional headline.
One reason clickbait doesn't work may be that we've all become immune to it.
The researchers suggested that the popularity of clickbait headlines in the past might be a reason for the failure of the headlines to engage readers in their studies.
Clickbait could be so ubiquitous in today's media that they fail to stand out and attract the same attention as traditional headlines.
BTW, I went looking for examples on the Devon Live website, and was pleased to discover that they seem to have left the clickbait era behind. Sanity returns!

Do you hate wasps? So many people do, you’d think they were disease-carrying super-monsters with no purpose in the world...
29/04/2021

Do you hate wasps? So many people do, you’d think they were disease-carrying super-monsters with no purpose in the world other than to annoy picknickers.
We’ve all become friends of the bee (and they also sting, btw). Now a new paper by researchers from UCL and the University of East Anglia points out that we’d be in trouble without wasps.
Wasps are top predators of other insects – and insects that kill other insects should be considered to be key workers in the agricultural industry. Their role in biocontrol, protecting crops, is reckoned to be worth at least US$416 billion a year worldwide.
Wasps hunt critters like aphids and caterpillars, which otherwise would devastate crops. Solitary wasp species tend to be specialise in specific pests, while social wasps are less picky.
The researchers say that wasps could be used as sustainable forms of pest control in developing countries, especially tropical ones, where farmers could bring in populations of a local wasp species with minimal risk to the natural environment.
Pollination by insects is vital for agriculture, and its economic importance has been valued at greater than US$250 billion a year worldwide. And it’s not only bees that are the unpaid workers.
The researchers found evidence of wasps visiting 960 plant species. This included 164 species that are completely dependent on wasps for pollination, such as some orchid species that have evolved adaptations to attract the wasps they rely on, such as an appearance that mimics the back end of a female wasp.
Professor Seirian Sumner from UCL said: "Wasps are one of those insects we love to hate - and yet bees, which also sting, are prized for pollinating our crops and making honey.
“In a previous study, we found that the hatred of wasps is largely due to widespread ignorance about the role of wasps in ecosystems, and how they can be beneficial to humans.
"Wasps are understudied relative to other insects like bees, so we are only now starting to properly understand the value and importance of their ecosystem services. Here, we have reviewed the best evidence there is, and found that wasps could be just as valuable as other beloved insects like bees, if only we gave them more of a chance."
Oh, and in case that’s not enough the review also describes other uses for wasps such as wasp-derived medications. Their venom and saliva have antibiotic properties, while yellowjacket wasp venom has shown promise in treating cancer.
Wasps may even be a valuable food source, as their larvae are already harvested in some tropical countries for food.
None of this is helps you when you’re plagued by wasps in the garden in late summer or autumn. Fair enough. One secret is to ignore them. Another is don't drink from cans or bottles as you can't see if a wasp has entered them.
As long as you don't flap they won't sting.

The picture here, courtesy of Prof Sumner from UCL, shows a social paper wasp (Polistes satan) munching on a fall army worm. This moth caterpillar is notorious for eating anything in its way, including about 30 economically important crops.
Insects and other Invertebrates of Britain and Europe

I’m out for a run or a walk every day, and not a day goes by that I don’t see this kind of thing. And please don’t tell ...
05/04/2021

I’m out for a run or a walk every day, and not a day goes by that I don’t see this kind of thing. And please don’t tell me they’re probably coming back to collect it. Some bags have become fixtures in the landscape. Take your dogsh*t with you.

Opponents of the plan to dredge a new deep-water channel in Falmouth Harbour may have right on their side.A new Universi...
30/03/2021

Opponents of the plan to dredge a new deep-water channel in Falmouth Harbour may have right on their side.
A new University of Exeter study has found that the "maerl beds" in the Fal estuary are genetically unique.
These beds of coralline red algae, Phymatolithon calcareum, might seem a bit boring - but they are important as habitats and shelter for hundreds or even thousands of fish and invertebrates. These algae also play an important role in storing carbon.
They fulfil a similar role to tropical coral reefs.
The maerl in the Fal Estuary were found to be "genetically distinct from all other sites" - including at the Manacles reef, just 13 km away across Falmouth Bay.
Corraline algae are extremely slow-growing - some maerl beds are estimated to be thousands of years old. They are vulnerable to shipping, dredging and climate change.
Dr Tom Jenkins, of the University of Exeter said: "It appears that the unique diversity in the Fal Estuary has likely been shaped over time by geographical isolation of this maerl bed and a lack of genetic exchange with other P. calcareum populations."
And Dr Jamie Stevens added: "This is a busy waterway and is heavily used by commercial and naval shipping accessing Falmouth port.
"Consequently, the genetically unique Fal maerl bed is very much at risk from marine pollution and the threat of sedimentation from dredging which is undertaken periodically to maintain navigable access to the port."

Just in case any of us still need a wake-up call 
. Here’s a summary of the report to the first Nobel Prize Summit.Our a...
23/03/2021

Just in case any of us still need a wake-up call 
. Here’s a summary of the report to the first Nobel Prize Summit.
Our actions are threatening the resilience and stability of Earth's biosphere, the wafer-thin veil around Earth where life thrives, the report says.
This has profound implications for the development of civilisations.
We humans, plus our livestock, now make up 96% by weight of all mammal life on the planet. The remaining 4% is all that’s left of the wild creatures we once shared the Earth with.
Within the next 50 years one to three billion people (depending on how well we restrict greenhouse gas emissions) will “experience living conditions that are outside of the climate conditions which have served civilizations well over the past 6,000 years".
In other words: At least a billion people will find themselves in zones where it’s too damn hot to live and thrive.
Even if you’re the I’m-all-right-Jack type, this will affect you because of the influx of climate refugees. It will be like a war – only worse.
The report is the work of an international group of researchers for the digital summit in April 2021.
"Humanity is now the dominant force of change on planet Earth," says Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "The risks we are taking are astounding,
"We are at the dawn of what must be a transformative decade. The Nobel Prize Summit is really the scientific community shouting Wake Up!
"In a single human lifetime, largely since the 1950s, we have grossly simplified the biosphere, a system that has evolved over 3.8 billion years,” says lead author Carl Folke, director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and chair of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University.
“Now just a few plants and animals dominate the land and oceans.
"Our actions are making the biosphere more fragile, less resilient and more prone to shocks than before."
"Humanity must become effective planetary stewards. About 96% of all mammals by weight are us, Homo sapiens, and our livestock, or cattle, sheep and pigs. Just 4% are wild mammals like elephants, buffalo or dolphins," says Folke.
Recent research shows that 75% of Earth's ice-free land is directly altered as a result of human activity, with nearly 90% of terrestrial net primary production and 80% of global tree cover under direct human influence.
Co-author Line Gordon, director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, says this is the decade in which we must turn a corner – drive down greenhouse gas emissions and end shocking biodiversity loss.
“This means transforming what we eat and how we farm it, among many other transformations."
The researchers say two of the biggest barriers are unsustainable levels of inequality and technology that undermines societal goals.
We have pinned our faith on the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, but co-author Victor Galaz, deputy director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, says this will only work if we act forcefully to use new technology for planetary stewardship and responsible innovation.
The report says the global pandemic opens up the possibility to change the course of history. “It is a moment to accelerate action to stabilise Earth for future generations," says Folke.
The pandemic is a phenomenon of what has been called the “Anthropocene” era. It has been caused by our intertwined relationship with nature and our hyper-connectivity.
The summit will be a digital gathering in April 2021.
The report is published in Ambio, a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The first Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future, a three-day digital event open to all, has been convened to provide a platform for scientists to discuss the state of the planet at a critical juncture for humanity.
The summit is based around three themes: the biosphere (climate and biodiversity loss), rising inequality and the technological revolution.
Nobel laureates will be joined by guests including Al Gore, the Dalai Lama, Anthony Fauci, Johan Rockström and youth activist Xiye Bastida.
I expect Derek Gow would be interested in this. although he's part of the solution, not the problem.

Our future depends on our collective ability to become effective stewards of the global commons – the climate, ice, land, ocean, freshwater, forests, soils and rich diversity of life.

The world will have to come together with a tough global environmental strategy if we are to rein in multinational compa...
09/03/2021

The world will have to come together with a tough global environmental strategy if we are to rein in multinational companies, a new study shows.
At present, these huge corporations just skip ahead of individual countries’ environmental regulation, moving their polluting factories to regions where they can get away with it.
While countries may hope their regulations will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, these results show that these policies can lead to "carbon leakage" to other nations, said Itzhak Ben-David, co-author of the study and professor of finance at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.
"Firms decide strategically where to locate their production based on existing environmental policies, with the result being that they pollute more in countries with lenient regulations," Ben David said.
"This highlights the importance of worldwide collective action to combat climate change, given the global scale of firms' operations."
The study was published online in the journal Economic Policy.
The researchers studied 1,970 large public firms headquartered in 48 countries and their carbon dioxide emissions in 218 countries from 2008 to 2015, using a database provided by CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project).
They also used rankings from the World Economic Forum that rated the strength of each country's environmental policies on a scale of 1 (worst) to 7 (best).
Stringent policies can have a partial, but positive, impact on reducing overall global pollution, Ben-David said.
For example, an increase in the environmental policy score from China (2.1, suggesting weak regulations) to Germany (5.5, stronger regulations) is associated with 44% lower global emissions.
But it is also associated with a 299% increase in foreign emissions when compared to the companies' home countries.
"If you make it more difficult to pollute in a company's home country, firms will move some of that pollution activity to somewhere else," Ben-David said.
Firms in the most polluting industries were the ones most likely to respond to strict policies in their home countries by locating their pollution activities elsewhere.
# # #
Co-authors on the study are Yeejin Jang of the University of New South Wales; Stefanie Kleimeier of Maastricht University, Open University and University of Stellenbosch; and Michael Viehs of the European Center for Sustainable Finance and Federated Hermes International.

Poorer countries are used to paying the price for our industries. In December 1984 Union carbide India's pesticide plant in Bhopal accidentally released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas, killing 16,000 people and leaving an estimated 40,000 permanently disabled, maimed, or suffering from serious illness. The incident is not part of this study, but shows the global reach of polluting industries.
This picture by Jbhangoo (https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbhangoo/) shows a mural outside the Union Carbide plant.

There's a great fear now that fisheries businesses will go under because friction at the border is hampering their expor...
04/03/2021

There's a great fear now that fisheries businesses will go under because friction at the border is hampering their exports - and something like 80% of the fish caught by UK vessels is exported.
Here's an article I wrote for the Western Morning News in July 2018. I'm sorry to say this again: but they were warned (repeatedly).

A “hard” Brexit could leave piles of fish rotting on the quayside, fishermen have been warned.
“If they get a hard Brexit, they won’t know what hit them,” fisheries boss James Marsden said during a tour of Brixham fish market yesterday.
Brixham is England’s top fishing harbour by value of catch landed.
The port has almost doubled the value of landings, from £22million three years ago to £40million in 2017 – mostly on the back of a booming cuttlefish fishery.
About 90% of the cuttlefish is exported to EU countries.
Mr Marsden is vice chair of the Devon and Severn Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority and a board member of the Marine Conservation Society.
“What happens if we ‘fall off a cliff’ and don’t get a trade deal?” he said. “This market thrives as the moment because it’s able to move fast and transport the fish within hours from here to the end destination. If that can’t happen, it would be very serious for Brixham.”
But Jim Portus, chief executive of the South Western Fish Producers Organisation, said: “I believe we’ll end up with a deal with our European colleagues because they also want frictionless trade into the UK.
“It’s true that we have a perishable product going to the Continent, but there will be a deal.”
Although some fishermen are pushing for a cliff-edge departure, in which Britain severs its links to the EU on March 30 next year, Mr Portus said: “We are having a transition period and that’s already a done deal.
“In the EU referendum fishermen just wanted to get out. There’s the desire of the fishing industry, and then there’s the reality.”
Brixham fish market is leading the way in innovation in the industry. The market was knocked down and rebuilt in 2010, with most of the money coming from the EU and Torbay Council.
Although fish are sold with a traditional “shout” auction, transactions are already done electronically.
Barry Young, managing director of Brixham Trawler Agents, said they hoped to install the UK’s first full electronic, web-based auction in January.
He said the fishermen were naive to believe that they would get 100% of the Channel quota, but “we just hope to get a fair share”.
Mr Marsden and Hugh Raven, chair of the MCS board toured the fish market early yesterday with staff from the conservation charity.

Practically every child at school knows that it’s the Gulf Stream that keeps Britain warmer than it otherwise would be.T...
03/03/2021

Practically every child at school knows that it’s the Gulf Stream that keeps Britain warmer than it otherwise would be.
The Gulf Stream is a giant conveyor belt, carrying warm surface water from the equator up north, and sending cold, low-salinity deep water back down south. It moves nearly 20 million cubic meters of water a second – a hundred times as much as the mighty Amazon River.
Climate scientists have long predicted that global warming would cause it to slow down and eventually stop – and now evidence has emerged that this is already happening.
Never before in more than a thousand years has the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – the posh name for the Gulf Stream – been as weak as in the last decades.
Scientists from Ireland, Britain and Germany looked at “proxy” data, taken mainly from natural archives like ocean sediments or ice cores, reaching back many hundreds of years.
They found consistent evidence that its slowdown in the 20th century is unprecedented in the past millennium – and is likely to be linked to human-caused climate change.
The giant ocean circulation is relevant for weather patterns in Europe and regional sea-levels in the US; its slowdown is also associated with an observed cold blob in the northern Atlantic.
"For the first time, we have combined a range of previous studies and found they provide a consistent picture of the AMOC evolution over the past 1,600 years," says Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research P*K, initiator of the study to be published in Nature Geoscience.
Their study suggest that the Gulf Stream was relatively stable until the late 19th century. With the end of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, the ocean currents began to decline, with a second, more drastic decline following since the mid-20th century."
Proxy data, as witnesses of the past, consist of information gathered from natural environmental archives such as tree rings, ice cores, ocean sediments, and corals, as well as from historical data, for instance from ship logs.
The Atlantic overturning is driven by what the scientists call deep convection.
Warm and salty water moves from the south to the north where it cools down and thus gets denser. When it is heavy enough the water sinks to deeper ocean layers and flows back to the south.
Global warming disturbs this mechanism: Increased rainfall and enhanced melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet add fresh water to the surface ocean. This reduces the salinity and thus the density of the water, switching off the sinking mechanism that drives the whole system.
The result is substantial cooling of the northern Atlantic over the past hundred years, and that has serious consequences for people living on both sides of the Atlantic, including higher sea levels on the American side and more extreme winter weather on the European side.
Other studies suggest we could get extreme heat waves or a decrease in summer rainfall.
"If we continue to drive global warming, the Gulf Stream System will weaken further – by 34 to 45 percent by 2100 according to the latest generation of climate models," Rahmstorf concludes.
“This could bring us dangerously close to the tipping point at which the flow becomes unstable."
Article: L. Caesar, G. D. McCarthy, D. J. R. Thornalley, N. Cahill, S. Rahmstorf (2020): Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium. Nature Geoscience [DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z]
Photo by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center shows meltwater in crevasses in Greenland.

Who doesn’t own a “reusable” cup these days? Before the lockdown last Spring I had got into the habit of carrying mine a...
02/03/2021

Who doesn’t own a “reusable” cup these days? Before the lockdown last Spring I had got into the habit of carrying mine at all times, the way a soldier always has his rifle by his side.
I was a soldier in the environmental cause, and drinking coffee was my cover.
But now we environmental troops are prisoners of Covid-19.
Cafes may be open for takeways, but you might as well offer them a used specimen bottle as your own reusable cup.
According to researchers at the University of South Australia, nearly 300 billion disposable cups are being thrown away every year.
Even if the cup and its plastic lid weigh just 25g, that’s a total of 7.5 billion kilos of rubbish. That’s the equivalent of all of New York’s garbage – domestic, civic and commercial.
To sustain a thriving café culture, we must ditch the disposable cup, the Australian researchers say.
South Australia has banned single-use plastics (when is Britain going to do the same?).
But an absence of infrastructure and a general throwaway culture is severely delaying sustainable change, the academics say.
"There's no doubt we live in a disposable society - so much of our lives is about convenient, on-the-run transactions,” Lead researcher, UniSA's Dr Sukhbir Sandhu, says . “But such a speedy pace encourages the 'takeaway and throwaway' culture that we so desperately need to change.
"Educating and informing people about the issues of single-use coffee cups is effective - people generally want to do the right thing - but knowing what's right and acting upon it are two different things, and at the moment, there are several barriers that are impeding potential progress.
"If your favourite coffee shop doesn't offer recyclable or compostable cups, it's unlikely to stop you from getting a coffee; we need that coffee hit and we need it now.
"Then, with the popularity of arty, patterned paper cups on the rise, you may think you're buying a recyclable option. But no - most takeaway coffee cups are in fact lined with a waterproof plastic, which is not only non-recyclable, but also a contaminant.
"Finally, if you happen upon a coffee shop that does offer recyclable coffee cups, once you're finished, where do you put it? A lack of appropriate waste disposal infrastructure means that even compostable cups are ending up in landfill.”
But perhaps (and this is me speaking, not Dr Sandhu), perhaps Covid might help in the long run. Perhaps, when lockdown ends, we’ll be so fed up with wandering about clutching a cardboard cup that we’ll go back to sitting down in cafes.
The environmental argument is a no-brainer, but there’s more to it than that.
What could be nicer than to sit in a pleasant cafĂ© chatting to fellow customers (or quietly reading a newspaper, if that’s what you prefer)?
A lifestyle that makes you feel so pressured that you can’t stop for ten minutes to drink coffee cannot be good for your mental health. And which of us can say, honestly, that we can’t stop for ten minutes a day?
It’s time to throw away our throwaway cups for one last time.

Picture Credit: Pixabay

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