Rieke Gansz

21/12/2023

COP28: Five reasons for optimism on climate

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by bad news about climate change. Even for those of us used to covering it every day as journalists, it can sometimes seem relentless.

Of course we are right to worry. This year will be the warmest twelve months in 125,000 years, scientists say, as its impacts hit home in every corner of the Earth.

But as UN climate talks conclude at COP28 in Dubai, there are some real reasons to be optimistic too. Here's a look at some of them:

1 - The secret solar revolution
On streets and in estates all over the UK, there's a silent solar insurgency going on.

Every month this year around 17,000 houses added solar panels right across Britain.

Even in parts of the UK not known for their sunny days, homeowners are sticking the silicon to their roofs; about 8% of homes on the Isle of Angelsey in north Wales are now powered by solar, in Aberdeenshire, it's close to 6%.

Driving this boom is cost - solar is not just the cheapest form of electricity now, according to some it is the cheapest in history.

It's not just people putting up panels in an orderly way, according to Jenny Chase, a solar expert from BloombergNEF, we're seeing a growing amount of "balcony solar" as well.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."

14/12/2023

Climate scientists are working with indigenous tribesW
When the warm nights used to come each summer, Frank Ettawageshik would spend most of his time outdoors, sleeping outside, right on the ground. Today, he balks at the thought.

"I was 35 or so before I ever saw a tick," says the 74-year-old executive director of the United Tribes of Michigan, a Native American advocacy group. Now in northern Michigan, he says, "there's ticks all over the place".

Ettawageshik belongs to the Anishinaabe people, whose members are from the Great Lakes. His own Tribal Nation is the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, who have lived in the northwestern shores of Michigan's lower peninsula for centuries. Besides the spread of ticks, a phenomenon exacerbated by rising temperatures, they've witnessed the struggling populations of whitefish in nearby Lake Michigan and the gradual changes in harvests from the sugar maple tree, whose name in Odawa is "niinatig" — meaning "our tree". Research suggesting warmer temperatures might force sugar maples out of Michigan add to Ettawageshik's concerns. "Our tree is going to be moving away from us," he says.

Ettawageshik's tribe has observed many changes to their ancestral lands over hundreds of years, but Ettawageshik says human-caused climate change is different. "It's happening at a pace that we don't normally see."

For many people, climate science brings to mind satellite observations, temperature records or the analysis of ice cores. But there's plenty more data besides that. Indigenous communities that have long lived close to the land — and have traditionally depended on deep knowledge of their environments to survive — often hold their own records and recollections. These can include extraordinary details about alterations in weather patterns, changes in vegetation or unfamiliar behavior of animals that have emerged under their watch.

07/12/2023

How the world's newest island explains Japan's approach to life
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In late October, plumes of billowing white smoke and ash began to spew from the sea, as an underwater volcano roared to life near Japan's Ogasawara archipelago in the western Pacific. By November, the eruptions became so violent and frequent that they caused a new land mass to surface measuring 100m in diameter off the southern coast of Iwoto island (formerly called Iwo Jima).

While the dramatic event made international headlines, it largely went unnoticed here in Japan, whose location along the Ring of Fire makes it the most seismically active nation on Earth. Home to roughly 10% of the world's active volcanoes and enduring an estimated 1,500 earthquakes each year, in many ways, Japan is a rumbling, grinding, geological laboratory shaped by mighty forces. And over the centuries, the same forces that have shaped Japan physically have also shaped its unique worldview.

Japan is a nation of islands. Though it consists of four main islands connected by bridges and bullet trains, the entire Japanese archipelago contains more than 14,000 islands – including 7,000 that were discovered earlier this year. Underwater volcanoes regularly heave up new landmasses. Sometimes these new islands erode and disappear under the waves. Other times they merge with existing islands to resemble funny shapes. And occasionally, these volatile volcanoes continue to spew ash and rock 200m into the sky a decade after forming – as happened just a few weeks ago. Needless to say, Japan has not always been the easiest place for people to live.

01/12/2023

Wildebeest and wolves: The secret weapons against climate change

When scientists examined the effect just nine groups of animals have on the climate the results were startling. So what would happen if we did more to protect them?

More than a million wildebeest roam across East Africa's vast Serengeti grassland. Their annual migration is one of the largest movements of animals on the planet. Their hooves churn up the dirt and hungry mouths devour huge quantities of plant life as they travel.

There weren't always this many though. And the story of this large antelope reveals the impact wildlife can have on the amount of carbon present in our planet's atmosphere. While it is tempting to look to technical solutions such as renewable energy as the solution to climate change, we may have other allies in the natural world too. Increasing populations of animals such as wildebeest is a largely overlooked, but valuable way of tackling climate change, according to scientists.

Although their numbers fluctuate year to year, the wildebeest migration is a sight to behold. But in the first half of the 20th Century, a combination of a viral disease called rinderpest, spread by cattle, along with poaching and loss of habitat decimated wildebeest herds, causing their numbers to fall to about 240,000.
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With fewer animals grazing, the volume of grass and other plants on the Serengeti increased. This might seem like a good thing for sequestering carbon, but in fact it provided fuel for more frequent and intense wildfires. This meant that much of the carbon stored within the plants and soil of the savannah was released into the atmosphere, turning the region from a net sink of carbon to a net source.

With the introduction of a cattle vaccination programme against rinderpest in the 1950s, however, wildebeest populations began to steadily recover, reaching a peak of 1.5 million in the late 1970s. Today there is an estimated 1.2 million wildebeest in the Serengeti, although the number fluctuates year to year. They eat vast amounts of vegetation every day – meaning it is no longer available as fuel for fires. As they eat, the animals also enrich the soil with their dung, helping to lock the carbon into the land. Their hooves trample seedlings and other plantlife, while large numbers of aggressive adult males damage trees and larger bushes through "horning". Here the males rub their horns against trunks and branches, helping to thin out the number of trees and maintain the savannah landscape.

This means that once more, the Serengeti has been transformed into a giant reservoir that absorbs more carbon than it releases, helping to lower the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

And for every 100,000 additional wildebeest in the Serengeti, the amount of carbon stored in the environment rises by 15%, according to Oswald Schmitz, a professor of population and community ecology at Yale University in Connecticut, US.

08/11/2023

Migratory flamingos roost in a high-altitude lake in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Water from springs, snowmelt, and scant summer rain creates such lakes in what is known as the driest place on Earth.

01/11/2023

Darkness is essential for fireflies to find a mate, making them especially vulnerable to light pollution. An estimated 83 percent of humans live under light-polluted skies. Sriram Murali showcases a forest illuminated with fireflies at the Anamalai Tiger Reserve in India.

27/10/2023

A September 1975 story about South Korea featured photos by Korean photojournalist H. Edward Kim. Here, Kim's brother-in-law holds his new daughter during a celebratory feast of dumplings with the rest of their family.

21/10/2023

A story in the September 2001 issue documented immigrants making their homes in America. Here, a bride and groom have a traditional Vietnamese wedding in Virginia.

17/10/2023

A story in the July 1994 issue documented the changing culture of Boston, Massachusetts. Here, children celebrate a birthday party in Charlestown's Bunker Hill housing project.

09/08/2023

TRAVEL ECUADOR
A land of geographical extremes, Ecuador has record biodiversity and wildly contrasting topography. You can travel from high-altitude Andes to deep Amazon, the Pacific coast and beyond in a two-three-week trip, making this a South America-in-microcosm experience you don’t need a sabbatical for.

August is Ecuadorian winter, when you’ll need a light jacket and a woolly hat at higher altitudes. It’s also dry season when the Amazon is less muggy, buggy and boggy, thus great for wildlife watching and clear Andean skies allow exceptional views of towering volcanoes, Spanish-settled cities and colourful market towns. While on the coast, it’s time for spotting whales, or bagging a mini-Galápagos experience on Isla de la Plata that sits within day-tripping reach of the mainland, complete with blue-footed b***y birds, manta rays and green turtles. Or head into the cloud forest, the jungle strung between Andes and Amazon lined with hiking trails, a plethora of orchids and the hummingbirds that feed on them.

Responsible travel tip: Ecuador’s network of eco-stays, often owned and operated by Indigenous communities, include places like Mashpi Lodge (cloud forest), Black Sheep Inn (Andes) and Kapawi Eco lodge (Amazon). Explore aboard Wanderbus: Ecuador’s first hop-on-and-off tour bus makes looped routes nationwide from the capital, Quito. Offering the spirit of independent travel with a little handholding, this B-Corp listed company is run and led by native, English-speaking guides.

16/06/2023

A whisky tour can take in the Queen's View overlooking Loch Tummel in Perthshire.