Environment

Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 may have been circulating in bats for decades

Research has concluded that the lineage from which SARS-CoV-2 came has been circulating among bats for decades. The researchers found that the virus which causes Covid-19 diverged from other bat viruses about 40-70 years ago. They warn SARS-CoV-2 is likely to include other viruses with the ability to infect humans. The lineage that gave rise to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, has been circulating in bats for decades, researchers report. They also warn it likely includes other viruses with the ability to infect humans. The discoveries, which researchers made by reconstructing the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, have implications for the prevention of future pandemics stemming from this lineage. “Coronaviruses have genetic material that is highly recombinant, meaning different regions of the virus’s genome can be derived from multiple sources,” says Maciej Boni, associate professor of biology at Penn State. “This has made it difficult to reconstruct SARS-CoV-2’s origins. You have to identify all the regions that have been recombining and trace their histories.” A SARS-CoV-2 ‘family tree’ The team used three different bioinformatic approaches to identify and remove the recombinant regions within the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Next, they reconstructed phylogenetic histories for the non-recombinant regions and compared them to each other to see which specific viruses have been involved in recombination events in the past. They were able to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships between SARS-CoV-2 and its closest known bat and pangolin viruses. The researchers found that the lineage of viruses to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs diverged from other bat viruses about 40-70 years ago. Importantly, although SARS-CoV-2 is genetically similar (about 96%) to the RaTG13 coronavirus, which was sampled from a Rhinolophus affinis horseshoe bat in 2013 in Yunnan province, China, the team found that it diverged from RaTG13 a relatively long time ago, in […]

If more of us work from home after coronavirus we’ll need to rethink city planning

We have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of people working from home as directed by governments and employers around the world to help stop the spread of COVID-19. If, as some expect, people are likely to work from home more often after the pandemic, what will this mean for infrastructure planning? Will cities still need all the multibillion-dollar road, public transport, telecommunications and energy projects, including some already in the pipeline? World’s largest work-from-home experiment Remote working was steadily on the rise well before COVID-19. But the pandemic suddenly escalated the trend into the “world’s largest work-from-home experiment”. Many people who have had to embrace remote working during the pandemic might not want to return to the office every day once restrictions are lifted. They might have found some work tasks are actually easier to do at home. Or they (and their employers) might have discovered things that weren’t thought possible to do from home are possible. They might then question why they had to go into the workplace so often in the first place. But what impact will this have on our cities? After all, many aspects of our cities were designed with commuting, not working from home, in mind. Stress test for NBN and energy networks From a telecommunications perspective, the huge increase in people working from home challenges the ways in which our existing networks were designed. Data from Aussie Broadband show evening peak broadband use has increased 25% during the shutdown. Additional daytime increases are expected due to home schooling with term 2 starting. Research by the then federal Department of Communications in 2018 estimated the average Australian household would need a maximum download speed of 49Mbps during peak-use times by 2026. If more people work from home after COVID-19, the size and times of peak use might need to be recalculated. […]

Mature Man Working On Community Allotment

How access to land plus a participation income could change the world

Samuel Alexander, University of Melbourne and Alex Baumann, University of Western Sydney | 27 February 2020 We’ve spent enough time criticising our broken system characterised by overconsumption and inequality so here’s a solution that should appeal to both sides of the political divide. Our civilisation is facing an alarming barrage of overlapping crises, together presenting an existential threat to life as we know it. Climate breakdown is intensifying; we are decimating wildlife populations; and more generally the life-support system called Earth is trembling under the weight of overconsumption. Just as concerning are the social consequences. The global economic system has produced deep, socially corrosive inequalities; poverty around the world is extreme; and worst of all, perhaps, is that even those who are “winning the rat race” so often find that the promises of consumer lifestyles are unfulfilling. Too much ink has been spilt already criticising this broken system. What about solutions and creative responses? In words often attributed to Albert Einstein, we cannot solve our problems with the same kinds of thinking that caused them. In this article we’d like to offer some new thinking: a policy proposal that we feel has the potential to be transformative. At its simplest, our proposal involves providing self-selecting unemployed public housing residents with a basic, living wage. With housing and other basic needs secured, the goal would be to enable these public residents to participate voluntarily in the creation of “simple living” communities and neighbourhoods that are sustainable, resilient, and consistent with human flourishing. If successful, our “wager” or hypothesis is that these initial examples could be scaled up to support the economically “redundant” and attract progressives across the political divide as a viable alternative for a sustainable society. Central to this vision is the recognition that access to land, just as with air and water, is not a market product. It is a human right and should be recognised […]

We can recycle everything we use, so why don’t we?

Within the broad range of sustainability concepts and activities, recycling is without doubt the most easily understood and accessible: individuals and groups, old and young, communities and institutions can participate. When we buy a candy bar, we own the wrapper after the short life of the product; doing something with that branded possession, rather than adding to waste, feels good. Recycling is empowering to consumers and, in the case of traditionally recyclable materials such as glass, paper, rigid plastics and certain metals, economically viable. Recycling not only diverts potentially valuable materials from landfills and incinerators, it also offsets demand for virgin materials, helping to keep carbon in the ground. Recycling aligns human consumption with nature’s activities. But as human-generated waste streams continue to evolve in diversity and volume, the global community faces the mounting challenge of developing viable recycling and waste management solutions at a comparable pace. For example, electronic waste is currently the fastest growing solid waste stream, increasing two to three times faster than other waste streams. More broadly, industrial activities currently generate nearly 7.6 billion tons of solid waste in the US each year – that’s 3000% of the total municipal waste generated by Americans annually. As the world enters the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the ecological implications of not prioritizing sustainable resource management are dire. Image: OECD Economics, not high science, is what determines recyclability: a material is recycled only if one can by Advertise” href=”https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/we-can-recycle-everything-we-use-so-why-don-t-we/#35366683″>FINANCE the collection of packaging, with much of the waste being incinerated – not much better than land-filling from an environmental perspective. Recycling is the more expensive option, but as the late, great eco-capitalist Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, posted on the side of her company’s trucks said: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” With evident […]

A four-day working week will not only improve wellbeing – it could save the planet

A shorter working week has re-emerged as a prominent subject of political and economic discussion in recent years, with the TUC, the Green Party and Labour taking a reduction of working hours seriously as a policy that could increase workers’ well-being, boost productivity and face the challenges of automation. In Germany, the IG Metall, Europe’s largest industrial union, led a strike last year that mobilized 1.5 million workers and won the option to individually reduce working time from 35-hours per week to 28-hours per week, while securing the option to return to full-time employment afterwards. While a shorter working week is often framed as a tool to fix a broken economic model that is working for the few, rather than for the many, the increased interest in working time reductions coincides with the emergence of powerful global movements that highlight another crisis that is facing humanity today: the depletion of resources, the degradation of our natural environments and above all the rapid heating-up of our planet. Here, too, pressing issues of intra- and intergenerational justice emerge, with people in the global south and the poor more likely to suffer the fall-out of an economic system that largely favours the capital-owning class in the global north. For decades now, the sustainability debate has largely been dominated by calls for ethical consumption, rather than facing the systemic root of the problem: an economic system that prioritises profit-making over workers’ well-being and even the preservation of the very natural basis of our collective life. To develop a sustainable economic model, it is becoming clear that we need to break with the imperatives imposed by the necessities of capital accumulation (endless “growth”) and find a way to provide a decent standard of living while honouring planetary boundaries. At the same time, our current working time and […]

Foam Concrete, an environmentally friendly building material

If you want to rank Foam Concrete (FC) on how environmentally friendly (or damaging) it is, consider this list. Igloo made from snow. Mud bricks from locally found mud Log cabin in the woods Foam Concrete Dome shaped house Box type house made from Foam Concrete FC compared to all those other building products and “normal“ concrete, because you can make a house with less cement, is less damaging to the environment. Simply because it takes a lot of energy to make Portland Cement. About 7% of greenhouse gases come from the production of concrete. It is also one of the lowest cost building materials, and if we can equate the costs directly with energy use, or greenhouse gas production, than we are way on top of the list. Foamed concrete is simply a concrete mix with a lot of air in it and the aggregate left out. To get the air into the mortar mix, foam is mixed in. The foam is made from a special foaming agent and water and this mix is put through a foaming machine to create small bubbles. The only disadvantage of this material is that it is not as “strong” as normal concrete; however there are special mixes that come close. There are also other ways to make a “light weight concrete” such as replacing the aggregate with polystyrene foam or expanded clay pebbles, pumice, and a few others. The disadvantage of these are the cost, environmental impact and the difficulties in making the mix right. Depending on the climate and geologic conditions, the construction can vary from light and simple to cold climate and earthquake proof. I put the Dome shape into the mix as that it is the strongest form made with the minimal amount of material. This means that it […]

What is ‘ecological economics’ and why do we need to talk about it?

Anitra NelsonAssociate Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Brian CoffeyVice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, RMIT University As environmental crises and the urgency to create ecological sustainability escalate, so does the importance of ecological economics. This applied, solutions-based field of studies is concerned with sustainability and development, rather than efficiency and growth. Also, given that cities account for 70-80% of global economic activity and associated resource use, emissions and waste, they are central to finding solutions to the challenge of sustainability. Ecological economics recognises local to global environmental limits. It ranges from research for short-term policy and local challenges through to long-term visions of sustainable societies. Ecological economists also consider global issues such as carbon emissions, deforestation, overfishing and species extinctions. Core concepts You’re probably familiar with some core concepts of ecological economics. These include “steady-state economies”, “carrying capacity”, “ecological footprints” and “environmental justice”. A steady-state economy is both relatively stable and respects ecological limits. Drawing on the work of mathematician and economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, economist Herman Daly elaborated the model, editing a 1973 anthology, Toward a Steady-State Economy. In 1990, Daly co-founded the International Society of Ecological Economics (ISEE). It had three key principles: the human economy is embedded in nature, and economic processes are actually biological, physical and chemical processes and transformations ecological economics is a meeting place for researchers committed to environmental issues ecological economics requires transdisciplinary work to describe economic processes in relation to physical reality. Joshua Farley, who has worked with Daly, discusses some of these principles in an opening address to the Australia New Zealand Society of Ecological Economics (ANZSEE) conference at RMIT University later this month. In a partnership program of several North American universities, Farley teaches Economics for the Anthropocene postgraduates. They apply ecological economics to “real-world environmental solutions”. Some will talk at the conference about their research. Today overconsumption is measured against Earth’s carrying capacity. William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel developed the […]

Climate explained: how growth in population and consumption drives planetary change

-Michael Petterson, Auckland University of Technology The growth of the human population over the last 70 years has exploded from 2 billion to nearly 8 billion, with a compounding net growth of over 30,000 per day. We all breathe out carbon dioxide with every breath. That equates to about 140 billion CO₂ breaths every minute. Isn’t it logical that atmospheric carbon will continue to increase with the birth rate regardless of what we do about fossil fuel reduction? This question touches on the core of our impact on planetary change. It highlights the exponential growth in the human population, but also homes in on the potential direct input of carbon dioxide from humans, through respiration. As I explain in more detail below, our breathing does not contribute to the net accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But population growth, combined with an increase in consumption, is now seen as the main driver of change in the Earth system. Humans: a moment in geological time Earth has been around for 4.56 billion years. The earliest evidence for life on Earth comes from fossilised mats of cyanobacteria that are about 3.7 billion years old. From around 700 million years ago, and certainly from 540 million years ago, life exploded into its present myriad forms, from molluscs to lung fish, reptiles, insects, plants, fishes and mammals – culminating in hominids and finally Homo sapiens. Genetic studies suggest hominids evolved from primates around 6 million years ago, with the oldest hominid fossil dating from 4.4 million years ago in East Africa. Our species appeared around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in geological terms. From Africa, Homo sapiens migrated through Europe and Asia and spread across the world, at lightning speeds. Part of the question is about a putative link between human biological functions and climate. Homo […]

Here’s how a circular economy could change the world by 2030

Recycling and reusing natural resources – such as water – will become the norm, not just an ideal. Predictions for 2030: What if we get things right? Let me share my vision of 2030. By then, we are living in a global circular economy that has become ‘intentionally transparent’. This open mindset has released a surge in trust throughout the world’s supply chains that encourages higher visibility and greater control over responsible sourcing. We now have ethical and sustainable circular supply chains in which the rewards are shared equitably, right from local communities through to the primary consumer and beyond. Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT) and nanotechnology have helped to facilitate the tracking of critical metals and minerals from mine to consumer. This transparency has heralded a ‘new normal’ in which the raw materials we use for manufacturing and construction can be traced from the moment they are extracted through to first use, re-manufacture and eventual deconstruction and reuse. In 2030, nobody talks about the circular economy; it’s just the economy. The hard yards in increasing societal prosperity, while reducing dependence on primary materials and energy, have already been done. We wince at the grim days of the 2010s, when billions of tonnes of materials were extracted every year to meet the functional needs of society – but only a fraction was ever recycled back into our economies. Change of era People in 2030 will celebrate the initiatives that were launched to drive action towards net-zero carbon emissions from heavy industry and the heavy-duty transport sector. Improvements in sustainable battery supply chains enabled the transport and power industries to reduce emissions by 30%, putting economies back on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Looking back, few categories benefited more from the vision of our […]

This is how climate science went mainstream

Environmentalism has become mainstream. Recycling is now a $200 billion global industry. Sustainability has become a significant focus for global corporations. And governments have been introducing major programmes to cut carbon emissions. It wasn’t always this way. In the 1960s, worrying about our impact on the Earth was perceived as a niche pursuit. So how did we get to where we are today? Here’s a timeline of some key developments. 1962 – Silent Spring The book that is widely seen as having launched the modern environmental movement was written by an American ecologist, Rachel Carson. Silent Spring took aim at the use of pesticides and the damage they were causing to biodiversity. Carson called for environmental stewardship and a more considered approach to human intervention in the natural world. 1971 – Greenpeace Inspired by Rachel Carson, a group of activists from Vancouver, Canada set sail for Amchitka – an island off the coast of Alaska that was home to bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and 3,000 endangered sea otters – in an old fishing boat called The Greenpeace to try to stop an American nuclear weapons test. The activists feared the underground explosion would trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. The ship was forced to turn back, but the mission captured the public imagination. Greenpeace is now an international organization with offices in 40 countries and its own research laboratories. It is still involved in direct action, but also lobbies governments for policy changes and conducts investigations into “environmental crimes”. 1989 – Margaret Thatcher Known as “The Iron Lady” for the certainty she had about her political views, the former UK Prime Minister also raised awareness about climate change in a series of domestic and international speeches. In November 1989, she told the UN General Assembly: “The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country […]

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