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DW
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- DW
Japan's nuclear revival and the fight over indigenous land – DW – 07/11/2025
Nuclear power is making a comeback in Japan. But in Hokkaido, indigenous Ainu communities are being sidelined as their ancestral land is eyed for nuclear waste storage. The Ainu musician Oki Kano leads a quiet resistance - raising questions about justice and who gets a say in the race to decarbonize. Transcript: In a dimly lit club in Kyoto, Japan, the sound of the Tonkori — a five-stringed instrument once silenced by cultural assimilation — cuts through the air. On stage is Oki Kano, a 68-year-old musician who's spent decades reviving the music and spirit of Japan's indigenous Ainu people. Oki Kano: "It's like salmon knows where they were born, always back to the same river. So I'm, I was one of the salmon. That's why I returned to my Ainu background.." Oki's music blends rock, dub, and traditional Ainu folk — a sound that's both a celebration and a protest. He doesn't call himself an activist, but his work speaks volumes about identity, survival, and resistance. Oki Kano: "My father was Aino, you know. And my parents divorced when I was like four years old. And my mother hid my Aino background, you know. Then I found out that I was in like a 20 something-" Stories like Oki's aren't unique. For generations, Ainu families were forced to hide who they were. After Japan annexed their homeland - the northern island of Hokkaido - in the late 19th century, the government banned traditional hunting, fishing, and language. Many Ainu were pushed into poverty and silence. Today, the exact number of Ainu in Japan is hard to pin down. A 2017 government survey identified around 13,000 in Hokkaido, but advocacy groups believe the true figure could be ten times higher. Oki Kano: "The time of my grandfather, they decided not telling Ainu language to the kids, my father's generation, you know. Four survived, you know, so Ainu needed to acting like a ordinary Japanese. That was the best way to survive in Japan." Today, Oki is one of the most well-known Ainu musicians in the world. He's helped bring Ainu culture back into public view - even as the legacy of colonization continues to cast a long shadow. And now, he's worried about a new and toxic threat to his homeland. Oki Kano: "Nuclear is totally against the Aino philosophy.' …the threat of his homeland being used as permanent storage site for nuclear waste. This week's episode of Living Planet brings you a story about energy, identity, and the cost of progress. It's about who gets to decide what happens to the land - and who gets left out of that decision. I'm Neil King. Music March 2011. A massive earthquake strikes off Japan's northeastern coast. The tsunami that follows devastates entire towns and triggers one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. At the Fukushima nuclear plant the tsunami wrecks the power supply and cooling systems. Three reactors melt down. Radiation leaks into the air, the soil, the sea. Over 24,000 people are forced to flee their homes. Following the disaster, all of Japan's nuclear reactors are shut down. And the shock ripples far beyond Japan. Germany and Switzerland announce nuclear phaseouts. Anti-nuclear sentiment surges across the globe. But more than a decade later, the tide is turning again. Japan, like many countries, is under pressure to decarbonize and fast. With few natural resources of its own and the specter of energy insecurity and inflation the Japanese public appears to be warming to nuclear energy again. Since 2015 it has gradually ramped up nuclear power to about 8.5% and the Japanese government is planning to get 20% of its electricity from nuclear by 2040. But there's still a problem no one has solved: what to do with the waste? Jacopo Buongiorno: The amount of high-level waste generated by nuclear reactors is exceptionally small. That's nuclear scientist Jacopo Buongiorno from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. Jacopo Buongiorno: And that's because the energy density of uranium is exceptionally high. Just to give you a comparison, compare to, say, burning coal or natural gas, kilogram for a kilogram. If you are using uranium as your fuel, you get about 10, 20 million times, not just 10 to 20, but 10 to 20 million times more energy out of the same material… If an individual like myself or you would use only nuclear energy for all their energy needs throughout the lifetime, so not today, not a month, not a year, but our lifetime, say 80 years, then the amount of nuclear waste generated would fit within a coffee cup. That would be it. So that's the amount of energy, how energy dense that fuel is. And therefore, the amount of waste that you generate is exceedingly low. The bad news is that it's highly radioactive and it has to be sort of handled with care And that waste he's referring to - which essentially is the spent fuel rods - stays dangerous for tens of thousands of years. And it has to be stored somewhere, ideally underground. In 2020, two tiny fishing villages in Hokkaido — Suttsu and Kamoenai - volunteered to be studied as potential sites for Japan's first permanent nuclear waste repository. In exchange, they received millions in government subsidies. But there's a catch: these villages sit on traditional Ainu land. But the Ainu – who number about 25,000 in Japan were never asked. Ann-Elise Lewallen: 'This is Ainu land. And so technically speaking, running like the whole idea of having nuclear power anywhere in Japan is always an Ainu problem. Ann-Elise Lewallen is an American scholar who's spent years researching Ainu rights. She describes what's happening to the Ainu as 'energy colonialism' – that's when Indigenous lands are used for energy projects without consent. Ann-Elise Lewallen: "With energy colonialism, it's a particular kind of settler colonialism that is targeting some kind of resource. For example, it often involves both removing uranium or some other sort of raw material that will be made into nuclear fuel on the one end of the nuclear fuel cycle and then the other end is to sort of hollow out the land and use that land as a permanent wasting ground. In 2011, just months after Fukushima, Oki Kano stood before the United Nations in Geneva. He warned that nuclear energy was not just a safety issue - it was a justice issue. Ann-Elise Lewallen: 'And he was the first person that I recall having asked the question and really trying to sort of link this question of sort of who is really bearing the burden of nuclear waste' The answer, increasingly, seems to be Indigenous communities - not just in Japan, but around the world. Suttsu and Kamoenai - two quiet fishing villages on the western coast of Hokkaido. Combined, they're home to just over 3,600 people. Nearly half are over the age of 60. These towns have seen better days. The fishing industry is shrinking. Young people are moving away. So when the Japanese government offered billions of yen in subsidies to communities willing to be studied as potential nuclear waste sites - they said yes. The money has helped repair piers, build nursing homes, and fund local infrastructure. For some, it's a lifeline. For others, it's a gamble with the future. The Ainu weren't part of that decision. Not when the villages volunteered. Not when the studies began. Not even when the government's own agency - NUMO, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization - came to town. Since then NUMO have said they'd be happy to address any concerns. But critics say that's too little, too late. Ann-Elise Lewallen: "You can't sort of say, on the one hand, we support the UN DRP and we pass this new law, but Ainu have no right to speak about nuclear waste." Japan signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP in 2007. It explicitly states that hazardous materials should not be stored or disposed of on the lands or territories of Indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent. Even if the declaration is not legally binding it is a moral commitment. But in Hokkaido, that principle appears to have been ignored. The decision to move forward now rests with the village mayors — and the governor of Hokkaido. The governor has voiced opposition, citing a 2000 ordinance that bans nuclear waste from the island. But under current law, the first phase of study can proceed without his approval. Deep beneath the surface of Hokkaido, Japan has been testing what it would take to store nuclear waste underground - permanently. The site is called Horonobe. It's an experimental facility meant to simulate what a real repository might look like. The facility includes shafts and tunnels that go down to 350 m, allowing research into hydrogeology and rock stability as well as radionuclide behavior in sedimentary formations But there's a problem: water. Shaun Burnie: "I think it was around 300 cubic meters of water per day were coming into their facility. That's underground water.' Shaun Burnie is a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace East Asia. He's worked in Japan and South Korea for over a decade. And he says water is a dealbreaker. Shaun Burnie: 'Water is a transport mechanism for radiological materials. So if you can't isolate your facility from water, I mean, the containers that the waste is put into, of course, that will corrode over potentially hundreds of years, certainly thousands of years. There will be no containment as such. And therefore the radionuclides will migrate through the water system, water course. So Hokkaido is completely unsuitable as a geological repository.' Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. Earthquakes, groundwater, and long-term corrosion - these are not small risks when you're talking about waste that stays radioactive for tens of thousands of years. But not everyone agrees. At MIT, nuclear scientist Jacopo Buongiorno sees things differently. Jacopo Buongiorno: 'The radioactivity contained within these fuel rods is not particularly mobile. It doesn't really want to go anywhere…because it's 99% it's actually in solid form…so it's also very easy to shield.' He says the waste is stored in solid ceramic pellets, encased in steel and concrete. First, it cools in water pools for several years. Then it's sealed in dry canisters that can last a century or more. Jacopo Buongiorno: 'In fact, in all the environmental impact assessments, our assessment studies done for these repositories, you have to assume that at one point your containers are completely rusted away. So at one point you assume that there is complete failure. And so now you've got these radionuclides. They are maybe a couple of hundred meters underground. And then the question becomes, how do they diffuse underground? And so the bulk of the analysis and assessment that go into the licensing of the repository is exactly how are the radionuclides, once they are outside these canisters or these containers, how are they going to diffuse underground? And that's why the selection of the proper geology is very important.' The science, he says, is sound - if the geology is right. But that's exactly what critics like Burnie are questioning in Hokkaido. Shaun Burnie: 'The materials in there will be hazardous for millions and millions of years. It removes the problem from this generation, from this government, these scientists, these companies, for someone in the future to deal with the problem when it starts affecting them.' And that raises a deeper question: even if we can store nuclear waste safely, should we? Especially if the people most affected - like the Ainu - never agreed to it? Japan's nuclear future is still uncertain. The government wants nuclear to make up 20% of the country's energy mix by 2040. But experts disagree on whether that's realistic - or even wise. Shaun Burnie: 'If they get the best case scenario…they could possibly reach around 15% of national electricity from nuclear energy by 2030. And that assumes that there's not problems with the reactors... and they still have huge problems seismic problems design problems security problems.' Burnie believes Japan is clinging to a fading dream. He says nuclear energy diverts resources from renewables - and risks locking the country into fossil fuels when nuclear falls short. Shaun Burnie: 'The biggest problem I see with maintaining nuclear is that they will fail on the nuclear target…that's where there's a very close relationship between the nuclear industry and the fossil fuel industry um so the fossil plants will basically be retained uh of course. But when the gap becomes clear, it will be filled most likely by fossil fuel plants. So Japan will undermine its own decarbonization progress by maintaining a nuclear share. They need to signal that they can go fully 100% renewables, which they can.' But MIT's Jacopo Buongiorno sees nuclear as essential - not just for Japan, but for the world. Jacopo Buongiorno: 'If you're trying to decarbonize your grid exclusively with intermittent renewables such as solar and wind, the average cost, the aggregate cost of your grid goes up dramatically. Yes, it is true that a solar panel or a wind turbine have become cheaper. But if you don't have a reliable base load source like nuclear, and you're trying to meet your electricity demand 24-7, 365 days per year, no matter what the weather is, no matter what the load is, et cetera, then in order to meet that demand, you need to overbuild and overgrow the amount of solar and wind and, importantly, energy storage batteries that goes with it to meet that demand. And the aggregate cost of all that equipment far exceeds the cost of having also a nuclear baseload in the mix. It's really the combination of nuclear and renewables that gives you the least cost decarbonized system.' Two visions. One sees nuclear as a bridge to a cleaner future. The other sees it as a costly detour - one that risks repeating old mistakes. But all the experts interviewed for this episode agreed on one thing: communication matters. Jacopo Buongiorno: You can't simply say it's safe, therefore accept it. You got to engage them from the beginning, try to explain what the risks are, what the benefits are, what the value of nuclear is. Ann-Elise Lewallen: 'All Ainu need to be given an opportunity to participate in whatever way they feel is appropriate, which means there's many, many different groups and they need to be approached in good faith' Back in Kyoto, Oki Kano finishes his set. The crowd cheers. But his message lingers - a quiet reminder that this isn't just about energy policy. It's about respect. It's about balance. Oki Kano: 'We need to make some harmony in between people and nature… We get together and face up to the problem and do some activity …I think this is not only the Ainu issue, you know. Everybody's issue.'
DW
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- DW
Epilogue: The true cost of climate change – DW – 07/04/2025
Even in five episodes, we couldn't cover everything. So in this bonus epilogue, Neil and Kathleen sit down with reporters Sam Baker and Charli Shield to unpack some questions we left on the cutting room floor – from the messy consequences of outdated US flood maps to why helping poorer countries leapfrog fossil fuels matters to us all – plus your comments, a few laughs, and final reflections. Transcript: Kathleen: Hey, this is Kathleen. Before we get started, the Living Planet team has some exciting news. Starting in September, we'll be devoting a regular episode to answering your questions. Questions you have about the environment and climate change, questions about an episode you've heard, or even questions about us you can write to us in the comment section on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast app. Or you can send us a good old fashioned e-mail at livingplanet@ That's living as in 'not dead' and planet as in 'the place we all live' at Thanks and we can't wait to hear from you. Now let's start the show there. Sam: There we go. Kathleen: Now I can hear you. Can I hear me? Charli: Hello. Hello. Hello, hello. Neil: Oh wow, that's loud. So do you need any more talking, Michael? Sam: From me, ok, what else can I talk about? I am so brain dead. Kathleen: Do you bring the right script this time? Neil: Yeah, this time I think I've got notes. Charli: I think we should say who we are. Sam: Yeah, I think you should include that. Neil: Right, well, in that case, I think we can just start right from the top. I'm Neil King. Kathleen: I'm Kathleen Schuster. Neil: And for this episode of Living Planet, we sat down with producers Charli Shield and Sam Baker to talk about their eye-opening series, 'The true cost of climate change,' which came out in April. Kathleen: If you haven't heard it yet, you can find all five episodes in our podcast feed. Neil: And if you're new to the series don't worry you can still listen to this episode. Kathleen: We talk about what listeners have been saying. Sam: And I was like, OK, an economist signed off on it. I think we did OK. Neil: What didn't make it in. Charli: I definitely have mixed feelings at the end of it, but doing the series, it's clear we're not out of ideas for solutions. Kathleen: And more. Charli: And I did say to Brent at the end of our interview, I said, 'Has anyone ever told you that you're made for radio your voice?' And he was like, 'It's been mentioned a few times.' Neil: Cost of climate change brand new series, done and dusted. Charli, Sam, how do you feel now? It was quite a long process. You traveled for this series you reported from Australia, from the US, from Europe, Germany. And you packed a hell of a lot in. And today we'll also be talking about some of the stuff that didn't make it in. Not because it wasn't good enough, but because you just found so much good stuff, right? But how does it feel now in general now that the series is done? Charli: Sam's looking at me. I feel good. I'm glad it's over. I think it was super interesting to work on. It was really engrossing and it required a lot of research, but I loved working on it and I'm glad it's out in the world, yeah. Sam: I feel like we just scratched the surface, to be honest. I feel like I could make a whole podcast about this. Maybe not that much, but yeah, I think there's so much more to explore in the intersection of economics and, you know, just our, like, daily money quandaries and climate change. It had before been kind of a area I hadn't looked into very much. But the problem is only going to grow and become more clear in our economies, so I'm sure there will be more reporting on that. Neil: Yeah, I mean the also the figures that you packed in there, I think in every episode I learned something new and some of the figures it was really eye-opening. It was like, oh wow, I did not know that that is a huge figure and you put it into context as well and just highlighted just how precious the environment really is and what it contributes to our economies as well, because I think a lot of people still try to separate those two, but you can't really, or at least that's my main take away from this series that you really shouldn't separate the two. But yeah, Kathleen, what about you? What stuck with you the most from this series? Kathleen: Well, it wasn't actually any of the numbers, though. Those were always really eye opening. And there was so much good information. But the thing that I find myself thinking about the most, strangely enough is, Sam, your interview with Catherine McKenna, because there was something I just really appreciated about the fact that she was just openly saying, 'We kept getting the name wrong for the carbon tax. And just by the way, don't call it a carbon tax.' And there was something very like a little bit like 'Veep' about that. Like, you know, just kind of like we're not getting this right and it just felt very human and it's not usually how we hear about environmental politics of yeah, we're also trying to figure out how to do this the best way and we keep messing up, but we keep trying. Yeah, there was just something really humorous about that, but also a serious message in there too, of it's a tough, tough job and there are a lot of people who care very much, but they're not immune to accidentally, not picking the right word like in terms of PR. But yeah, I'm sure I could go on there were there are just so many things. But what about you, Neil? Neil: I mean, one thing I really do remember thinking, wow and sitting back was the final episode with the kelp forests. There were quite a few stats in there. I mean, I didn't know much about kelp forests to begin with. I first thought, well, kelp forest, what did they even look like? I didn't know. And then that the fact that they can grow 30 centimeters a day. I was like, wow, I want that in my garden. Mick Baron: Diving through the kelp forest is a unique experience, but effectively flying through a tall tree forest 3 dimensional not just looking up, but looking down looking down these massive great plants and then looking up because it has a canopy as well so it spreads out on the surface. So when it's really thick, you're down in 20 meters of water and you're looking up these massive great trunks effectively. And the and the sunlight dappling through the canopy on the surface. It's it is a very unique experience, no question about that. Neil: And then the other fact was also the value that they were valued at like $500 billion per year. These six major kelp forests that exist in the world or the the six biggest and one of them that you you went to in Tasmania Charlie, right, the one of the kelp forests and and that $500 billion, the reason that resonated with me so much, because that is pretty much exactly the German federal budget. It's a bit short of that, but that's the German federal budget for 2025. And as a German taxpayer, I was just sitting there thinking, wait a minute... kelp forests? You know just that connection that that really brought it home to me. But yeah, also, I mean the protagonists. You have so many charismatic people in there. And yeah, I think we'll we'll talk a bit more about those later. Kathleen: There is one other thing that I meant to say that I found really interesting. And that was in the very first episode when you were talking about hurricanes, somebody who has been through a number of tropical storms and tropical depressions and hurricanes, I was absolutely shocked at the description of the storm surge coming so far in and that they saw fish like going down the street. And I thought, that was something I had never thought about. Number one, I thought maybe the fish were still way far out at sea. Maybe somehow they were spared from the the surge, which doesn't make any sense, but also because the kind of community where they were living, that's really uncommon for the storm surge to reach that far. And that I found eye opening having yeah, been through those experiences where if you're in a safe area, it's a really serious storm. It's a bad storm, but it's not like. Like that sort of description that actually it reminded me of something I read in a novel once about, like what, Like a hurricane in the early 20th century and how it swept through an entire town and I thought that is really alarming. Really, really alarming. Sam: Yeah, I got a new appreciation for hurricanes, for sure. Working on that episode. I mean, I've lived through tornadoes in the Midwest. But it's like a thunderstorm and a tornado and a flood. Basically they it's, you know, multiple disasters, all kind of wrapped up into one terrible storm. Maria Blancett: We looked out our front window to the lake, across the street from our house and the lake and the road were one. And the road was a raging river was like the ocean. There were white caps going down the street. There were fish in the road. It was pretty scary, but it never came up to our house. It came within 10 feet of our front door. And that's when we realized maybe this isn't are forever home. Neil: I was also wondering, you know, because you've also been doing environment stories for such a long time and you've also worked on other podcasts as well. What sort of feedback have you been getting from the people who usually listen to your work on this series? Has it been different? Charli: Yeah, I mean, it's always a little bit of a risk with this series. You hope people will stay and they'll keep listening to each episode. But yeah, we had some really nice feedback about the stories taking people in to these issues and then just talking about some more fundamental stuff that I think often you kind of forget about when you're reading environmental news day-to-day. Sam: I think the best, most relieving piece of feedback was from one of the economists we interviewed who said he not only like shared this with his network, but also with his students, he's a professor and I was like, OK, an economist signed off on it, I think we did OK yeah. Neil: Very cool. Yeah, I mean, that also deals with what listeners wrote in most of the listeners. I think the common theme there was eye opening, brilliantly produced. That was sort of a recurring theme. And there's one listener e-mail I'd like to just read out. It's from Australia, from a man called Peter Croft in Adelaide. And yeah, I shortened it just a little bit, but I'm going to read it out. So this is Peter Croft. 'I listened to your latest podcast on who's paying for the next hurricane on ABC Radio in Australia a couple of hours ago. Terrific story. Well done. I am an older Australian who is part of a climate change group at Council of the Aging South Australia. The cost of house insurance is a real issue for older people. The issue is that as extreme weather events occur, those who are affordability stressed may choose not to insure or to under insure their houses. This means that their next storm or flood can render them potentially homeless. We are trying to raise awareness of the issue. New Zealand has an excellent scheme to cover earthquakes and their approach may be useful elsewhere. Thank you for the work that you do. Sam: Hmm, that's nice. We'll have to check out what New Zealand is doing. I'm curious now about the specifics, but yeah, I think that's something that a lot of it's it's good, he points out older homeowners are thinking about people who thought, OK, I've paid my house off, you know, 10-15 years ago. I'm good to go for retirement, but you still have to pay your insurance every year, and if that becomes astronomical, you know that can take over your budget and either you, pay it and don't have much leftover or you let it go, which can really hurt you in the next disaster. Neil: Just to balance things out, of course there was also some critique. Not much, but there was one listener who actually had a suggestion or a bit of critique. Kathleen: Yeah, there was one listener who wrote in from the US who said, 'I really enjoyed the cost of climate change series. However, I'm always frustrated that these conversations never touch on animal agriculture. It's a huge contributor to greenhouse gases, and it's the leading cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss. Also, it's one thing that most individuals can actually do to make significant difference. Please, please talk about this because people can and should reduce consumption of animal products!! Two exclamation points. So what do you all have to say about that? Charli: Yeah, we didn't dig too much into animal agriculture in there. So, agriculture, especially animal agriculture, is a huge contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. It's not the top one, but it definitely as this listener points out, is a is a major contributor. So the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions are electricity and heat production. That's followed by transport, manufacturing, construction and agriculture. So that's the global overview. But it does differ from country to country. So in the US, for example, the transport sector contributes a lot to emissions overall, US emissions, much more so than the global average. And in Brazil the top sources of emissions are agriculture and land use change, and I'm getting my data here from our world in data and that's a data tracking and analysis hub project from the University of Oxford in the UK and the global Change Data Lab. Sam: And we should say this listener is totally right, it's one of best things you can personally do in your own life because so many of the things you just listed, Charli, are, you know, national or global, and they take much bigger systemic change to change them and to, you know, bring in a new system. Whereas, yes, you can make decisions about your diet in your own life that are pretty simple to implement so. Charli: But just to that point also it's not just about veganism for everybody tomorrow. It really is just about less. Consuming, less, so any reduction helps. Neil: And also again the price, right cause meat is too cheap where we live. I think that again the money comes back in right, the price tag. Kathleen: So that was one big topic that didn't make it in. And there were a lot of really interesting details and even interviewees who didn't make the cut just because we had to keep things to time. And we only had so many episodes. So tell us a little bit about. Yeah, the things that you unfortunately had to leave out. Sam: Well, like I said before there was just kind of so much to explore and this always happens. You have to leave a few things on the cutting room floor, but one of the things I had wanted to look at in the first episode about climate disasters and the cost of those particularly hurricanes, is how much taxpayers end up footing that bill. I've always kind of wondered about this, and it was something we just enough time to get into. We looked at how much insurance companies are are shelling out or withdrawing from certain states. And we looked at how this affects homeowners and the cost that they incur. But this does kind of hit all Americans, at least in this example. I would imagine it is the case in other countries, too, in that there is some part of disasters that we foot the bill for. So, I spoke to one economist who has worked in mortgage finance on Wall Street for large investors and also, importantly, for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These are large government sponsored companies that guarantee mortgages in the US for home buyers and he's actually testified to the US Senate before about how some of these programs that the government has to cover homes in particularly flood zones are kind of a looming financial crisis waiting to happen because the flood maps are outdated and that the data is kind of not up to par with what it should be telling homeowners and the government. So you have these homes that are kind of overvalued and really dangerous zones. So maybe we can hear him explain that a little bit more. Sean Becketti: I worked for a large mortgage originator that did a lot of business in subprime that turned out very, very badly and led to the largest bank failure in U.S. history. So, when we look at a lot of the climate risk issues, there's steady evidence of an increase in very expensive natural disasters and there seems to be a lot of reluctance to make rapid changes now that are gonna be expensive and painful if the day of reckoning has not quite arrived yet. Sam: So he was specifically speaking to me about one program, the National Flood Insurance program, again, that is these homes and and flood zones. But unlike the financial crisis that we saw back in 2007, 2008, where home prices did eventually kind of come back up, if you're in a really dangerous climate zone, whether that's from flooding or a hurricane, the value of your home is just going to go down and down and down over time. So there's kind of no recovery if that crisis comes to pass. Which, as someone who has to file my US taxes every every year, concerns me quite a bit. I don't knowa about you, Kathleen, but... Kathleen: I think it's first thing that comes to mind and is kind of making my heart stop a bit is that I'm from the Southeast and people have seen the value of their homes just explode and are completely ecstatic about all the money they could make from their homes. You know, just growing a lot in value over the past years because so many people are moving to the Southeast as a result of climate change, for example, from the West Coast. As a result, also like post pandemic, though, I think that trend is starting to reverse, like leaving the bigger cities and just wanting more space. And also because the Southeast tends to be a part of the country where there are very low taxes. So it's very attractive place to live. And so I know a lot of people who are like, 'Oh great, my house used to be worth this much now it's like doubled in value within like 3 years.' And when I hear that, you know it, it makes me worry that people are getting their hopes up and something bad can happen. And then all of a sudden their plans that are now centered around how much money they might get out of their houses could. Yeah, just evaporate. Sam: So, yeah, in that part of the country last year, we saw a bit of that, North Carolina, Tennessee Hurricane Helene came into areas that thought they weren't in flood zones. But again because. Kathleen: Yeah, Asheville, North Carolina, which is up in the mountains, flooded. Sam: Yeah. Exactly. So yeah, I think that's something people need to look into a bit more and also all of us who pay taxes, you know, thinking about the fact that we are paying for people to rebuild again and again in these places that are getting more dangerous and at what point do we look to our elected officials and say, OK, enough is enough? We have to think about kind of managed retreat from some of these areas. Kathleen: Yeah, it's a. It's a huge question. I can only imagine what that would mean. If you're really trying to understand the global view, because from country to country, the tax system is going to be different. The social safety net is completely different and emergency services are completely different. And we're also watching that slowly be dismantled in the what else didn't make of it? Neil: Well, I was wondering about the relocation thing more. There are precedents for that, aren't there, where people have been relocated, I think in the Mississippi or on the Mississippi, where they were paid to actually up and leave. And they were offered new housing. I do wonder whether such programs, you know, how much incentive there is there for people to actually give up their homes if they've lived in a place for generations? Sam: Actually, Sean actually told me about a couple of these examples. I think it was in Louisiana in that part of the country that gets hurricanes and and they have offered people money to move. But he said, you know, a lot of people don't take it. Even though in the long term it's kind of the smarter financial choice, not yet. Neil: Because what you do then right, then you can't evict them. There's no legislation for that, is there? Sam: Not yet. Neil: We'll be right back. TRAILER 'Threshold' Sam: Yeah, so you had mentioned before, Kathleen, Catherine McKenna, who is a former Environment Minister of Canada. And yeah, one of the most interesting interviews I think I've ever done, just incredibly candid. And I also appreciated her kind of, I guess it's Midwestern Canada. I don't know what they call that part of the country, but it reminded me of the part of the US I'm from, too, just kind of straight talking. So she talked about just how difficult it is to decarbonize Canada. And we looked at some other examples in that episode, too. But one thing I would have liked to get into more, and we just kind of ran out of time for, with how countries in the Global South are dealing with this transition countries that just have less money available to them to make this transition. And I think they also have a unique, very different opportunity, whereas places like Canada are trying to kind of, you know, pull their energy system over to a new energy system. Countries in the Global South, they're often building their energy system. So it also looks a bit different. But yeah, I think this is one area that there's a lot of conversation about the economics of it going on. So I did speak to an expert Sangeeth Selvaraju, a policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. He looks at climate finance and emerging markets like India, so he's all over this topic. And he told me this figure that, overall for the Global South, these countries need $2.5 trillion per year in order to transition to clean energy. So $2.5 trillion every year. But let me break that number down a little bit. So basically, $1.5 trillion of that, they're already funding themselves. Another half a trillion is going to come from private finance from companies that want to invest in solar or wind or whatever in these countries. But there's a final half, a trillion that's still kind of unaccounted for. And this is where some of these big global discussions about climate finance really get heated: Who exactly should pay for it? And yeah, maybe we can just hear from him. What kind of explaining that? And the complications of that a little bit. Sangeeth Selvaraju: Where does the rest of the money come from going forward? And what are the avenues for that in the world that we live in today? So as we all know and as we are seeing around the world, development aid budgets are being cut. In a landscape of competing local priorities for different countries, particularly in the developed world. Of course, US aid is one of the key examples, but budgets are being cut in the UK, budgets are being cut in other European countries as well. Sam: I mean, we're seeing this as well here in Germany. Yeah, the US is a big one, obviously in the news lately. But how we meet this gap for, for transitioning the energy of countries in the Global South is a big question. And you know, there's a lot of argument about these countries should be able to develop in the same way that wealthier countries have in the past and also that wealthier countries like the US have huge historic emissions and are kind of, should pay up for that. Should should make up for what they've consumed before. But as we heard, you know, throughout the series, politics usually gets in the way of this. And that seems just kind of unlikely. So, I I also wanted to know from Sangeeth, like, what's the economic argument behind this? And I thought he had a pretty good answer to that. Sangeeth Selvaraju: So if we were to, for a brief moment, set aside. The historic responsibilities climate impacts don't know borders. Climate impacts don't care whether you were born in some part of the world or the other. Climate impacts hit everybody. I mean, just in the second-half of last year, we saw flooding in Valencia, you know, causing hundreds of billions of euros of damage, taking lives. We saw Hurricane Helene in South Carolina and North Carolina, you know, damaging and causing billions of damages. So these impacts will only intensify as we are already beginning to see the wildfires in California and others, there's many others we can go on if we don't think about this as a global problem, we simply will not be. It will be a challenge to solve it. So from an entirely economic point of view, if you want to mitigate the frequency of these these events of climate impacts, which are clearly already increasing but will only intensify if we don't think about what to do, the costs will be astronomical. Kathleen: And it really gets to the heart of your whole miniseries. Sam: Yeah, I think as we're all becoming more aware of maybe recently, like the economy is so globally connected, we don't exist. Just as individuals are in a vacuum, and it's kind of like climate change in a way. Yeah, there's always kind of push and pull factors and you can't kind of just extricate yourself from that. Kathleen: Yeah. And also I loved what he had to say about borders because I can't tell you the number of times I've heard somebody made make a comment to the effect of, well, you know, 'Who cares if this one country in Europe lowers their emissions? It won't make a difference.' And you know, I mean, yeah, on a global scale, we have a huge problem. But it does make a difference if every country is trying to do something, yeah, so. Charli: On that point, I did ask ecological economist, Sophus zu Ermgassen, and who we heard from in episode five, what he thought the most urgent economic reforms we need right now to protect nature at scale for the benefit of all of us, the global population. And he said that that would be funding a clean energy transition, clean economic growth in the Global South. And I have a clip from him about that. Sophus zu Ermgassen: The majority of the world's remaining biodiversity tends to be in the Global South and in tropical areas, and that's partly because a big chunk of the Global North extracted all of its resources from its nature, from its biodiversity as a way of fuelling its economic expansion and industrialization. A big chunk of the widely perceived economic success of the Global North has come from the destruction of its natural resources. So I would strongly advocate for economic policy reforms that lead to the Global North paying their fair share to emerging Global South economies to skip the dirty economic model that we used and try and find a better way. I mean I genuinely believe the Global North owes a massive climate and nature debt to the Global South and I would really emphasize economic policy reforms that put this, this kind of climate and nature justice at the heart of them. Kathleen: When we talk about things getting left out, I think that's such a strong statement. But everything and the episodes were strong statements, so. Neil: But the I mean one of the things that also came through in the series, you know that the polluters should be paying, they should be paying more. They're not doing it. And that's where also one, you know, with the economic system, it's all geared towards growth. Profits are rewarded, financial profits. It's all about generating that and where I do wonder whether if we could change that mindset and rather have a scenario where companies are rewarded, who actually are clean. And that you change the taxation system in that regard and reward that rather than somebody who has huge returns for their investors. But yeah, obviously we're not there yet. Sam: I think some countries are trying to do that essentially that's, I mean the flip side of carbon tax. Neil: Yeah, but beyond carbon tax, obviously, carbon is definitely very important. But I mean, there's other forms of pollution, you know, in terms of, I don't know, plastics or whatever. Sam: And I think it is happening any anyway, I mean like with episode two. I was thinking about that. Te clean energy companies are making money like, that's why they're doing what they're doing ultimately. And you're seeing fossil fuel companies kind of start to freak out a little bit. So yeah, it's probably not going as fast as it needs to, but I think those economic pressures are starting to show up in certain parts of the transition. Neil: The risks are probably growing for that kind of business model. Sam: I mean, and this is an issue that's like getting pushed, pushed on in a non- economic way in the US of like not letting investment companies have ESG funds, environment, social governance funds because they're against these like green funds, but actually they make a lot of sense for investment companies because they don't want stranded assets. But yeah, that's probably a whole new thing. Charli: Yeah, I think self is alluded to some different motivations for a different kind of economic model in episode five. But I think that's another episode as well. Neil: OK, there's one thing that kind of came up in a team meeting yesterday I thought was interesting because we're talking about the protagonists in your series, and particularly the protagonists that you found Charli, right? Very charismatic men called Brent and Mick. Kathleen: From Australia. Neil: From Australia. And I don't know the the reaction from the female colleagues was kind of interesting. Kathleen: Thought the the female contingent got a bit swoony and... Charli: Oh really? What happened? Kathleen: Well, I'm going to take myself out of that one, actually, because I think no offense. No, Bt I I had a moment in the meeting where I zoned out for a second, then all of a sudden there were two female colleagues who were kind of swooning about these men, and I was like, what is going on? Do you have any insights into what was going on? Charli: Well, you heard that voices. Sam: Some rugged Australian. Charli: Rugged Auzzie blokes as I described them. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. Neil: How was it meeting these guys? Kathleen: I must say I was enormously pleased when I first heard their voices on the phone and I thought, yeah, this is going to work out very well. And I did say to Brent, at the end of our interview, I said, 'Has anyone ever told you that you're made for radio your voice?' And he was like, 'It's been mentioned a few times.' Neil: Well, he had this very deep voice, which was really, really, I mean, it was. It was quite amazing listening to it. I do remember listening to it was really, really nice. Everybody is to go back into the podcast feed, wherever you get your podcast and check this out. Mick and Brent, my two favorite voices on, you know the whole series. Kathleen: Even Neil was swooning. Charli: Not just the women were swooning. Kathleen: It's Pedro Pascal level swooning. No, but I have a question for you, Sam, actually, I don't know how to phrase this in a polite way, but going back to Florida, what really struck me was these people are living in a very dangerous place. I, too, have lived in Florida. What the heck is going on with Floridians that they're so happy despite all these hurricanes? Sam: That's a good question. I mean, I am someone who doesn't mind winter, but I will say that like people who live there, have a real aversion to what they call, I guess, bad weather, although I think they have some bad weather in certain parts of the year, but anything cold, anything like under certain temperature? Yeah, they want to be able to not have to turn their heat on. So I guess it's yeah, just a certain part of the population is looking for that sunny beach lifestyle, which I kind of get but yeah. Kathleen: Yeah, I don't know. It just it really struck me. I mean, in a way it's nice, but at the same time, I just thought, what is it with Floridians? Sorry, I feel like I can say that because I used to live there. Neil: You used to live there. You didn't like it there then? Kathleen: Well, I have, like Northern European skin and very frizzy hair. It was a nightmare going through puberty in Florida. Charli: So you have to move over the other side of the world. Kathleen: There's a longer story to happen. No, at that age it was not my decision when and where to move. Charli: This is a good time to ask for follow up questions episode. Kathleen's puberty journey. Neil: So, you know, having done this series now and just on a final note with with hindsight, with all the facts you've accumulated, all the knowledge you've gained and also all the things that we just talked about that didn't make it into the series, I mean, what would you say, is the main element that gives you hope that we can actually turn this all around because a lot of the indicators suggest we're still going in the wrong direction. Charli: Yeah. I definitely have mixed feelings at the end of it, because I think as we explore, there's a lot of devastation that's already occurred and that's underway and a lot more of it is locked in because of the climate change that's locked in because of the emissions that we've already released. But doing the series as well highlighted that it's clear we're not out of ideas for solutions. There are plenty of solutions out there, a lot of the the main ones we need we already have and I'm pretty confident we'll come up with more and I'm also, always, hopeful speaking to people who are devoting their lives to, to working on this, to working on change. Sam: I think you might be more hopeful than I am, but I will say this series and why I find reporting on climate so interesting is because it's such a multi-faceted, super complex topic. I mean, it's just got so many elements going on and for me this added kind of a whole new world of the economic elements to it. But from that perspective, it's just a giant puzzle that we have to figure out, but I also I guess what gives me hope is, you know, we are to our knowledge kind of the most intelligent creature that's ever been on this planet. And we made this problem. So, we should be smart enough to figure it out. Again, I don't know that I'm totally hopeful that we'll do so, but. Charli: I didn't say we I didn't say we would, but we could. Sam: Yeah, but I think one take away from me was also just thinking about those different possible futures, the heat episode and thinking about, you know, my own life down the road and being an older person dealing with heat and where do I want to live and do I need to think about that and how will our cities be built in the future, yeah, is something that definitely stayed with me after the series. Charli: Did anything give you two hope? Kathleen: Well actually I I tend to agree with you. I mean, I think hearing from people who are working on solutions who have a great deal of expertise and a lot of passion that goes into that work, it does make me feel more hopeful because it's a huge reminder that there are people out there who they do know what they're doing. They're creative, they're innovative and it is very much a matter of political will [mispronounces]. Will , sorry from the South. It is very much a matter of political will and, I think also talking about it, it's something I feel like comes up a lot in our reporting, the more you talk to people and also take the time to talk with basically anybody you can about these subjects, it's noticeable that most people aren't completely apathetic it could just be a situation where they don't think that it affects their lives, but I think once you start engaging in these topics more and more comes out and to me, that's what makes me feel more optimistic. And yeah, and hearing from these people who do have solutions. Sam: Actually coming off of that political will is something I've also been thinking a lot about after this and, unfortunately, I think that's what makes me not so hopeful is, at least in most countries, that political will is still not there. But actually reporting on this series and talking about economics, just to kind of bring it back to the core of the series is something people do really think about and do vote on and I think, if we can frame these issues not as, you should make this change in your life or you should you know, support this government, yeah, position just to sacrifice, like. No, you should do this because it's in your economic interest and it's in like your long term economic interest and your short-term depending on you know your situation and where you live so I think, that needs to be integrated actually into more climate reporting. Kathleen: Yeah, but I think it's, it's already getting that way for some voters because, you know, when you experience these disasters repeatedly, you can't explain away every single thing. And in terms of political will, I would disagree in terms of the voter base, because you could talk about national level politics in many countries and there's seeming to be a lack of political will. But I think what we saw happen over just the course of a short period of time with Friday for Future actually a lot of people care a lot and you can change people's minds. I think much faster than than we sometimes admit, but, but then the question is holding people's attention and also when they're having to deal with so many problems at the same time, I think we're all dealing with a certain level of overwhelm and and being aware of that, but yeah, the political will is tricky also because like Green Party, politics can become messy if the party itself doesn't work. But the concept is something that the voters want. But I see that a little more optimistically that I know what you mean, but. Neil: The one thing I find really comforting about the whole thing, and I totally get it with the political issue being the main problem, and something that is really worrying, but I find a lot of comfort in maths. And the figures that you have there, you know, if the maths were stacked against us, then I would be depressed. Then I would really think, OK, but we haven't got a chance in hell to sort this out. But I think we do. And you had some really good examples there where, for instance, if we were to shift on the subsidies, what are we subsidizing? Take the things that are harmful, that are being subsidized and use that for a clean energy transition. I just have to look at my notes because you had a very striking figure here and it was based on the International Monetary Fund reports. And it found that $7 trillion of fossil fuel subsidies in 2022 alone were paid. And that is more than enough to cover the roughly 2 to 4 trillion per year that we would need to transition our energy system. That's huge. That's fantastic news. Yeah. The only thing that's missing is the political will to make that happen. But the maths I find, that's what I took away. I drew hope from that. Sam: Yeah. And people just realizing that, you know, the political will is only going to come if people are aware of that in the first place. Charli: Yeah. And I think that's part of what we wanted to do with this series and want to continue to do is to draw this link between climate change and the cost of living. Why are things expensive? Why does this cost me more? Kathleen: Well, great job and yeah, we look forward to more of this in the future. Neil: Well, I would just say whoever hasn't listened to the series yet. Go back episode one in our podcast Feed, Apple Podcast, Spotify wherever you get them and yeah, go through the whole series. Listen to it back to back. Charli: No skipping an episode.
DW
13-06-2025
- Business
- DW
Breaking the chains of consumerism – DW – 06/13/2025
How does a person in advertising go from perpetuating consumerism one day to championing environment citizenship the next? In this episode, we explore the story of one ad man whose job was quite literally making him sick and the unexpected connection he made with a climate-anxious teen. Transcript: Jon Alexander: One day it all really just comes to a head for me. And I'm on my way to work. I'm on the tube and I get off. The underground at Oxford Circus where the agency is, and I'm, and I just can't leave the platform. I'm asking all these questions in my mind of what are we doing to ourselves when we're telling ourselves we're consumers all the time. What am I doing when I'm a propagator of those messages when I'm just a another of the priesthood. And I'm staring at the wall, I'm staring at the ads and I'm watching a train go by and stop and go. And another one. And I'm starting to feel this rising sickness in me. And then I'm like, I'm physically sick on the platform. And at that point, funnily enough, I know I can't really go to work that day or probably ever again. And that is the end of Jon Alexander's career in the advertising industry. Welcome to Living Planet, I'm Neil King, and in this episode we're exploring the ripple effects of swapping a life of consumerism for one of citizening. It might be little used, but citizen is also a verb with roots dating back to the late 16 hundreds and it's seeing a resurgence. But what does it mean and how can it help us tackle the climate crisis? Back in the early two thousands when Jon graduates from university, he gets a job at a leading advertising agency in Central London. He's keen to get started in this glittering industry to claim his place in the working world, or at least what he thinks is his place, and he's excited to learn how to make his mark. Jon: My first boss when I first arrived in advertising described my job to me, really? He said he said, what you've gotta remember is that the average consumer sees something like 3000 commercial messages a day, and you, and he said, you've gotta cut through that. You have to make yours the best. More recent estimates suggest people on our exposed to anything between 4,000 and 10,000 daily ads, many of which are fed to us digitally. And that trend is set to continue. Industry analysis suggests. So that by the end of next year, the global advertising market will be spending 80% more than it was before the pandemic stop. But back to Jon. He's not too phased at the prospect of finding ways to cut through the already deafening noise of companies and organizations trying to pedal their wares. He has previously tried his luck at becoming a professional athlete, so he feels he has what it takes to rise to this new challenge. Jon: I was very happy with making mine the best. I have a competitive streak that's pretty strong. I guess the logic inside, it's a bit like, that old thing about the person who stands up in the front row at the football stadium, and then everyone has to stand up behind them. That's effectively what's going on in our brains and in the world around us with these consumer messages. So you compete by trying to find whatever way you can to make yours, the message that gets there smartest, quickest. Fastest, yeah. But the novelty soon starts to wear off. And what it reveals for Jon is a whole lot of uncertainty about the industry he has signed up to be part of. Jon: Over time, I just started to ask deeper and deeper questions about what we're doing in the world when we're effectively telling ourselves we're consumers 3000 odd times a day. With that question, occupying his thoughts, he takes some time out and goes to live in Zambia, wondering if international development might suit him better. Ultimately it doesn't, but his time away does make him want to do something that feels more constructive. So when he gets back to the UK, he turns his advertising hand to what might be seen as conscious consumption, train over playing fair trade chocolate these sorts of things. Jon: But actually in that phase of my career was one of going, this is nowhere near commensurate with the scale of the challenge either. All we're doing is selling something slightly better while. As two doors down the road is being spent promoting the opposite. But that is not all that is preoccupying him looking at the world around him, he is drawing correlations between the crisis of loneliness and the idea that people are independent and isolated. He's recognizing the relationship between inequality and competition as a way of solving problems, and he's seeing how ecological destruction is tied to the belief that humans are somehow impossibly separate from nature. And he acknowledges the role of advertising in everything. Jon: I think the advertising industry is, as most industries are actually deeply embedded in a logic that says actually the right thing to do is to pursue self-interest. The right thing to do is to provide the choices. To set out the array of glittering choices that people can choose from because if everyone pursues their own self-interest, that will add up to the collective interest. That is the underlying logic that pervades the advertising industry, but also pervades most of our society for the last 80 years or so. And actually it's the cause of most of the challenges of our time. For all that he says, it is a story with an internal logic, which most simply don't question. Jon: Until such time as you challenge that story, you can be good within it. What I realized was that I wasn't just trying to be good within a story that I came not to believe in. I was actually a key propagator and spreader of that story, and once I ceased to believe in that, it became a deep threat to myself and my wellbeing and. That basically tipped into self-hatred really. Having finally turned away from the industry that was making him sick, John finds work with the UK Heritage and Nature Conservation Charity, the National Trust. It is operating along transactional lines that invites visitors to buy a ticket for the chance to roam old houses and grounds. But John sees an opportunity to try something new that actually involves the public in these places of shared national interest and inheritance. Jon: It was the perfect place to start to explore these ideas that were building in me around what would it look like to use the same kind of skills. But not to sell people stuff or get them to click things, but to invite them into their agency as citizens to invite them to contribute their ideas and energy and resources. I did an awful lot of work around children and nature. We created a marketing campaign, allegedly marketing campaign that was called 50 Things to Do Before Your 11 and three quarters That was actually about rebuilding the connection between children and nature and was a crowdsource list. So we were asking people to contribute. Their ideas for the experiences they believed everyone should have before they were 12 years old. So a very different way of thinking about these sorts of tasks. He and a team of others also set up a project called My Farm Using the Line, 10,000 farmers wanted no experience necessary. They invite online voting to get people involved in making decisions around sustainable food production as opposed to just buying what has already been grown. Jon: So it became a very exciting and creative playground for the work that has since become all of what I do. Other projects follow. And before he knows it, he's writing and publishing his book: Citizens - Why the answer to fixing everything is all of us. It contains stories of collective citizen action to tackle problems relating to affordable housing, education for girls, access to healthcare and the climate. He has no idea where it will go or the nerve he is about to hit that set of ideas. Jon: It was just in my head really and in the sort of people I was directly speaking to. And it had become to feel incredibly heavy. So in a way, the book, the writing of the book wasn't like, I'm going to write a book. It was like, get out of my head. And I think maybe that's why these ideas have me rather than I've got these ideas like I and I can't but try and do what they demand of me. The book maps out three different incarnations of collective human experience over the course of history. The first he calls the subject story, which dominated for centuries and was characterized by a handful of leaders, essentially telling everyone else what to do, which for the most part they did. Second, the consumer story only emerges after the first and second world wars, but builds massive momentum over a few short decades. Jon: The story is an idea of how to be good in the world. I. Milton Friedman, the famous Milton Friedman saying the social responsibility of business is to maximize its profits. Friedman wasn't saying business should maximize its profits to make as much just because making money is fun, right? He wasn't like, put money in your ears and stick your tongue out. He was saying the social responsibility of business is to maximize its profits. The right thing, the good thing for business to do is to maximize its profits. That is the consumer story as applied to organizations. And so for individuals, it's a story that says the right thing, the good thing to be good, increase consumption, grow the economy. But on a planet of finite resources, continued growth is having a detrimental effect. Around 40 countries have already used more resources than the planet can regenerate This year and rampant production of consumer goods is responsible for a large chunk of the greenhouse gas emissions that lead to the soaring temperatures connected to drought, excessive heat, and other extreme weather events. Jon: The highest possible aspiration in the consumer story in that logic is to be less damaging. All we can be is the least damaging possible consumers. And that is not an aspiration. That's not something that gets us wanting to do something in the world. Which leads to the third part of Jon's book called The Citizen Story. It shines a bright light on the potential opportunity and enthusiasm for a different way forward outside the mold of a consumer. He showcases everyday people in different parts of the world who have achieved significant changes in their communities and beyond by working together in the name of a broader benefit. Jon: Humans are a useful part of the ecosystem when we play our proper role. And that is what we start to open the door to when we conceive of ourselves as citizens, when we conceive ourselves as finding collective agency to do generative, constructive stuff in the world, rather than just seeing ourselves as individuals and trying to minimize our negative impact. It's a, it's just a total flip. The book seems to hit a chord with a lot of people. Initially, Jon has a page on his website which says, invite me and I will come. He goes to lots of places, but receives so many invitations that he eventually has to take the page down. Meanwhile, other people who don't yet have a project to talk to him about or quietly reading his book, taking it all in and allowing it to sow the seeds of thought about what might be. Ellie Meredith: I honestly don't remember what like prompted me to pick it up, but the book cracked something open and it gave form to feelings that I hadn't yet found like the words for. And it just reminded me that there's another way to be in the world and that we don't have to live as consumers, but we can live as citizens, as carers and co-creators. And also the people in the book are very normal, ordinary. People, but there's nothing, particularly like groundbreaking about any of them, apart from the fact that they're choosing to put their energy in different places than most people do. Ellie Meredith is coming to the end of high school in the central English County of Shropshire. When she reads Jon's book, her upbringing has been steeped in nature, surrounded by woodlands and countryside. She has spent lots of time in nature walking her dogs or just lying on the grass listening to the wind. Ellie: I feel like nature was my playground and kind of my teacher in a lot of ways. I really struggled at school. I was just like desperate to be outside and then after school, that's where I was most of the time. Just relaxing, tuning into that, slower sort of pace of existence. Yeah, and I just like being outside more than anything else. It is that very love that Ellie has for the natural world that's making her anxious about what is happening to it. She's around 10 years old when she first sees coverage of Australian bushfires on the news. And although she tries to suppress what the images have stirred in her, she can't shake a deep sense of worry. It has started to take root and her growing understanding that Earth is experiencing a climate crisis starts affecting her in a way. It doesn't seem to be touching those around her. Ellie: To be honest, I think I felt like completely alone in it. Like I started to care about it on a frequency that just didn't match those around me, and that was pretty overwhelming because it's difficult to find the people that you can talk to about it. And I was like riddled with guilt and kind of confusion and like just sad that's what was going on in the world. And I felt a little bit betrayed by the adults in my life who just said oh, it'll be fine. Don't worry about it, we'll fix it. But it, it wasn't, and it still isn't, and it felt like the world was falling apart and no one really wanted to name it. And I was desperate and longing at that point to be. Myself, I didn't wanna sit on the sidelines anymore. So she emails Jon, it's the week she leaves high school for good. She has no goal in mind when she reaches out other than to thank him for the book and to tell him it has shifted something for her. She doesn't really expect him to respond, but he does. Ellie: And he replied on my various last day on campus. And said let's just hang out on a phone call or something. Jon: I was getting a fair bit of inbound communication once the book was out in the world and there was a bit of momentum building, but I'm really, I was, I'm really awake to what it's like to be a young person in this moment in time. And I've done a couple of talks at universities and these sorts of things, but to actually get someone who is prepared to contact me and say, this spoke to me at some level. I was like, okay, I just had an instinct. They end up meeting in London. To talk about the ideas Jon has given voice to and the resonance Ellie is feeling. She explains that the stories in his book have cut through some of her feelings of being lost and given her a sense of hope. Ellie: I'm definitely infected by the citizen story. And Jon's kind of. Way of looking at the world just felt like really refreshing compared to the other narratives we were being sold. Like certainly at school, like when you have a careers advisor come in and they're like what do you wanna do when you like grow up? And I was like I just wanna be outside and, and do things that feel good. And they're like we can't really help you with that. I was like, okay, cool. I was the only one in my school year not to apply for uni. So that was a pretty kind of uncomfortable time. But I, it was, yeah, it was a weird one, but I knew that I wanted to do something else, so I actively chose at every corner to just do that instead. During that first meeting, and there have been many since Ellie describes her love of the natural world and how happy she feels when she's outside. She tells him she wants to be involved in something like the Citizen Action stories told in his book, but she doesn't know where to begin as she is laying all of this out. John has an idea. Jon: I really deeply believe that if we're gonna break out of these stories, we're gonna be led out of them by folk who haven't been so steeped in them that they can actually naturally live in something else. They can choose to inhabit a different logic. And so I was instrumentally using Ellie from the moment I heard from her. But it, I had an instinct to pick up this connection and understand what she was up to. And. And then as you can already tell, as your listeners can already tell that the energy of this human is pretty punchy. I just tried to support it all the way I could. Ellie: The first thing that, like Jon said to me was like, go and find the others. And I was like, okay, how do I go and find them? Because Ellie's concerns were related to the climate and because being in nature is what makes her happy Jon suggests Ellie make contact with a group called the Re-action Collective. They are located in different countries across the world, including the UK. So Ellie starts volunteering with the collective online. Before long she's invited out to the Alps, not only to see where it all began, but to feature in a short documentary about the inherent potential in taking a community approach to meeting the challenge of the climate crisis. Ellie: And ironically that was on my birthday, so that was the best birthday present I'd received up to that point. It was the invitation to go out and do that. Re-actionism is not a widely used or perhaps even widely known word, but up in the Alps as she's introduced to different members of the Re-action Collective, it's what Ellie is witnessing. She meets and mucks in with the team fixing up and creatively rebranding old ski wear for resale at reasonable prices. This not only means more people can afford to dress warmly enough to get outdoors, but it also generates profits to put into environmental regeneration initiatives, and it keeps clothes out of landfill, which as Ellie learns, is hugely relevant in a world where up to 85% of clothing ends up on rubbish heaps or being incinerated. According to the United Nations, the rate of clothing production has doubled over the past 15 years, and studies suggest the clothing sector is responsible for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Equally, making the clothes that hang in our wardrobes requires enough water to fill more than 80 million Olympic sized swimming pools. Ellie is also introduced to people who run a secondhand shop and others who collect food waste from a local town to turn into biofuel. She's taking it all in and feeling at ease. Ellie: When I was there, it felt like that was the first time that I was really in it, like really in reaction, and I felt at that point I found the others. She also visits an old supermarket. That Re-action has creatively repurposed to benefit the community and the environment where there were once shelves of food. There is now secondhand furniture and clothing. As well as spaces for the community to gather and teach each other new skills. Jon: I think at one point there was even like car teaching people how to repair their own cars and stuff. It all in this space that have been abandoned by consumerism in this perfect metaphor. But perhaps most of all, it is a place that generates a sense of being a part of something bigger by working collectively to find creative ways to act. Ellie: Finding reaction gave me permission to imagine another way, like to stop believing that my only role in life was to consume and comply. Just demonstrated that you can be in relationship with one another, with the land, with community, and that there's that way of being is not only possible, but it's already alive in so many places. The film that documents her journey from feeling overwhelmed and alone with her worries about the climate crisis to, as she puts it, finding her crew is aptly called Actionism. The art of finding your people and taking collective action. Jon: This is where the power of the language is so powerful because it's and when you juxtapose it with not to critique activism, not to say that we don't need activism but activism is a sort of accepts where power is now and says like, how do we try and change that or reject it or whatever. Whereas Actionism is just going, what can we do? What if we come together, what can we do that I couldn't do on my own, and what can we do right now right here? It's not immediately enough, but it's such a, it speaks so powerfully to the kind of the deep need for agency that we all have. By the time Ellie returns to England, she has a better sense of what she wants and even needs to do to move forward. She starts an 18-month apprenticeship, which allows her to work with reaction and simultaneously study corporate social responsibility at a university in the city of Manchester, she sees weaving the two together as a chance to spark meaningful change beyond the collective. Jon: It's demonstrating that there's something else that we can do now and actively moving towards the future while still being in the present. The kind of leadership that, that Ellie's now showing as part of the reaction collective is potentially transformative. Like these things start in these ways that that they bubble and connect and, but then, but this is really a very powerful thing I think. Ellie: Reaction has massively felt like a homecoming and like a remembering of what actually matters. Now it's just about showing up with kind of questions in both hands and your heart kind of wide open to, the massive kind of complexity that is the reaction collective. And I just feel completely rerouted now and there's that kind of, that pulse of life and possibility I, on my own, my generation needs to carry the shoulder, that burden of the climate crisis. She's now able to take a single step at a time aware that each one of them is moving towards a bigger vision. Knowing she's no longer alone is a source of stability. But so is having found an approach that she felt was right from the start. Ellie: And the action that Re-action was taking at that point felt very different to the action that I was told to take at the time, which felt very joyless and like big sacrifices. But they were showing that it can be really joyful and colorful and creative. And I hadn't seen that before, to be honest. To me that the kind of action activism was all very protest and placards and you had to go and shout on the street for an afternoon, and that just, that wasn't my vibe. I am like, I'm neurodivergent and I'm being in places of lots of protests and shouting was just not not of an environment that I wanted to be in. Ellie still feels that mainstream messaging on climate awareness and action is missing a vital opportunity to encourage the kind of involvement that can have an impact. Ellie: We're not guided in a way to, to do something different. I just got properly frustrated by it. 'cause, I like, again, like I just felt riddled with guilt anytime I tried to do something else because it was never quite good enough or I wasn't being activist enough or there was just something about me that didn't really hit the bear on what was the expectations, how you should be showing up for the planet, and then the kind of the joyful things that you end up doing are so much better than the other stuff. She still cares deeply about the state of the earth, but knowing that neither she nor her generation can solve the climate crisis by themselves, the burden of feeling they should has eased. And she has also learned to see her own concern from a different, more galvanizing perspective. Ellie: Climate anxiety, I don't think ever really fully disappears. Even when you're surrounded by people who understand in a way that I'd never experienced before. I also learned that's okay and that it doesn't have to disappear for us to keep going. If anything, it can be used as like a force to keep us in motion, but I feel like you do have to have that awareness of, okay, so there's stuff that I can do day to day, but actually the real work that needs doing is the finding of the others and the acting and not the, okay, I'm gonna get my disposable coffee cup outta the cupboard and go to a coffee shop, because, that's the thing that, that makes me feel good. Both Ellie and John have traveled far on their respective journeys, starting from different places. They have ended up on the same path. Understanding and experiencing how making use of citizen agency genuinely can lead to change. And the key is working in community. Jon: This is not an easy time to be human and acknowledging that and feeling the pain of it and finding the others in order to be able to hold that together and to be able to act together. Just is the work in this time and it's not easy and there's no point pretending it is or pretending that we're all happy and joyful every minute of every day. Ellie: And also we can't keep like clinging certainty and expecting that we can keep, like buying our way out of this problem. There's a lot of stuff that we can unlearn and it's easier to do that when we're in community with others. A billion choices have led us. Here, and we've got to make a billion more to feel and act our way towards something better and more meaningful and joyful. This episode of Living Planet was produced by Tamson Walker and edited and mixed by me, Neil King. Our sound engineer was Jan Winkelman. With thanks also to two-step productions and reaction for the inclusion of some sound from their film. Actionism Living Planet is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you think of this episode? We'd love to hear your thoughts, so please do send us an email or voice message. Our email address is living planet@ Of course, you can also leave a rating or review on the podcast platform of your choice.
DW
06-06-2025
- Science
- DW
Why are oceans getting darker? – DW – 06/06/2025
In the past 20 years more than a fifth of our oceans have been growing darker. What is causing this and how worried should we be? To mark World Ocean Day on June 8, we've repackaged a deep dive that will take you beneath the Baltic Sea to explore how ocean darkening is changing the marine ecosystem, plus the steps we need to take to protect our oceans. Interviewees: Claas Wollna, fisherman from Stralsund Oliver Zielinski, director of the Leibnitz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemünde Florian Hoffmann, biologist with the World Wildlife Fund in Stralsund Dag Aksnes, marine ecologist at the University of Bergen Maren Striebel, biologist at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment in Wilhelmshaven Listen and subscribe to Living Planet wherever you get your podcasts: Got a question for us? Email livingplanet@ And, if you like the show, leave us a rating and review on whichever podcast platform you use – and tell a friend! Transcript: Claas Wollna: That's perch, flounder, pike, zander and whitefish. That's fine, I had worse catch. It's a good morning for fisherman Claas Wollna. He has just come back from the gillnets and now heaves four boxes of catch onto the jetty. Some of the fish are still wriggling. Wollna is the last permanent fisherman in the region of Stralsund, a harbor town on the German coast of the Baltic Sea. Most of his colleagues have given up. Fishing no longer earned them a sufficient income. And that's because their most important fish, the herring, is almost gone. It doesn't reproduce sufficiently. To save the herring from extinction, Wollna is only allowed to catch a meagre 1.3 tons a year. Claas Wollna: I am not against protection of herring at all. I understand that if the stock is poor, it needs to be saved. But that needs to be done in a way that people can survive. Claas Wollna's struggle runs way deeper than mere fishing regulations. And the missing herring is just a symptom of a much a bigger problem. Something's fundamentally wrong with the water ... no, with the sea itself, all along the coast. Not just in the Baltic Sea, but at many coasts around the world. Something has changed. Dag Aksnes: And then we saw that the water down there was very dark. Florian Hoffmann: We could see about an arm's lenght. It wasn't even a meter. You're listening to Living Planet, I'm Neil King. And this deep dive is a literal one. We're about to explore the phenomenon of coastal ocean darkening, also known as coastal browning or brownification. Although 'known' seems to be a bit of an overstatement. A fairly small community of researchers around the world has only just begun to understand where this darkening comes from and how it messes up pretty much everything from seaweed to fishery and even the oceans' ability to help us protect the climate. To get started, we head to another harbor town on the German Baltic Sea coast, Warnemünde, to meet Oliver Zielinski a renowned expert on Coastal Ocean Darkening. Oliver Zielinski: Ocean darkening and specifically coastal ocean darkening refers to how much light gets into the depths of the ocean to a plant or a fish sitting at the bottom of the ocean. It refers to the light within the ocean itself, not as seen from above. From a bird's eye view, an ocean surface can shine brightly and yet be very dark under water. Oliver Zielinski is the director of the Leibnitz Institute for Baltic Sea Research. He has studied the darkening in the Baltic Sea and North Sea for years. However, the problem is a global one. Researchers found the darkening happening in the waters around New Zealand, the US, Singapore, China, Japan and in the Medditerranean Sea. Oliver Zielinski: …that's where we measured darkening of coastal waters. This is where we have long series of measurements and where human interaction with the ocean has been strong. 'Human interaction with the ocean' - we'll save this little bit of what Zielinski just said for later when we talk about what – or who – causes the darkening. Before that, we're taking a little walk with Zielinski to the harbor quay. He wants to show us something. A tool. Oliver Zielinski: I now lower the disk into the water and watch it slowly drift down from the surface. The disk that Zielinski puts in the water, is a Secchi disk, named after its inventor, Pietro Angelo Secchi, a 19th century priest and scientist in Italy. It is white and 30 cm in diameter. A bit like a large pizza plate on a cord. Zielinski is holding the cord with both hands, letting the disk sink down centimeter by centimeter into the water just off the quay. Oliver Zielinski: It is getting harder to see the disk now as the murky water covers it. The important thing is that I now figure out the exact depth at which I can hardly see the disk. If I lift it up a little now, I can see the disk again. That's it. And that is the depth I'll write down. The disk is roughly 2.5 meters under the sea surface. And according to Zielinski, light, as a rule of thumb, reaches down into the water three times as deep. That's ... 7.5 meters then. That sounds pretty deep actually, but it used to be much more. Since 1900, the depth of visibility, or Secchi depth, on the coasts of the Baltic Sea and North Sea has decreased by 3 to 4 centimeters per year. The question is: why did this happen? Oliver Zielinski: The water itself obviously didn't change over the past 100 years. So it's the substances that got into the water, three of them: algae, dissolved matter and sediments. Okay, so here is what we've got so far. Coastal waters around the globe have been getting darker for decades. Meaning that the depth to which light can reach into the water has decreased. And that's because of algae, dissolved matter and sediments. Let's explore what that exactly means – and what harm it does. We're in a speedboat, heading out to a lagoon in the Baltic Sea, east of Stralsund. We're not here on our own of course. Florian Hoffmann: I am Florian Hoffmann, I am a biologist and have been working with the World Wildlife Fund in Stralsund for 10 years. Florian has kindly agreed to take us out for a diving trip. We arrive at the lagoon. But if you're thinking of crystal-clear, turquoise water now, you won't find that here. Quite the opposite. But that's why we're here after all. We drop anchor near a small island, where many plants are supposed to grow on the seabed, like seaweed or crested pondweed, green and lush. The water is not that deep, only 2.5 meters, as the echo sounder on board indicates. You don't need big diving gear for this depth. So, we're already dressed with a wetsuit, now it's time for the flippers and the belt with heavy weights. Florian Hoffmann: I'll start with two weights. I'll go down and then tell you how much you take with you. Because the wetsuit leads to a little buoyancy. Time to spit on the diving goggles, rub the spittle so that the goggles don't fog up, adjust the mouthpiece of the snorkel - and we're ready to go. Hoffmann jumps first. Florian Hoffmann: Visibility is terrible. Let's go take a look for ourselves. The seabed is just a few strong pulls away. Gliding above it, we can only see about an arm's length, beyond that it gets dark. Not dark in the sense of black of course, we are in shallow water after all, more like a fog, a dense and murky mixture of brown and green. What we can see directly in front of us are patches of sand and then again patches of seaweed and other plants. Their stalks seem to pop up out of nowhere and sweep across our arms and face. To be honest, it's a bit of a confusing and uncomfortable environment at first, but after gaining some orientation, much of the murkiness seems to come from masses of small green particles. They float around in the water weightlessly, like artificial snow in one of those kitschy snow globes. Back on the boat, Florian Hoffmann explains what we just saw. The green particles, he says, that's phytoplankton, the basis of all life in the seas and producer of half the oxygen we breathe. So having phytoplankton in the seas is essential. But when there's too much of it, it makes the water foggy as it dies and slowly sinks to the ground. Florian Hoffmann:This means that the light zone decreases. ... We know from older literature that the depths to which you could look down into the water here used to be up to 8 meters. It now has decreased to three or two meters. And that of course makes it a lot harder for sea plants to grow on the seabed here. Hoffmann pulled out a handful of seaweed and brought it back on board. Some of the stalks are covered with small brown stains. The remains of phytoplankton shield the living plants from light even in death. The reason for this mess in the water lies on land, Hoffmann says. When farmers spread too much fertilizer on their fields, it doesn't only make their crops grow. Florian Hoffmann:That overuse of fertilizer leads to increased supply of water bodies with nutrients. That's nitrogen, which is important for photosynthesis, and phosphorus, a component of the DNA, which is also an important building block for life. Florian Hoffmann has brought a clipboard with him, with sheets of paper, showing charts and numbers. Florian Hoffmann:So, these are figures from the Federal Ministry of Environment from 2021. Agriculture accounted for 78% of nitrogen inputs in the Baltic Sea and 51% of phosphorus inputs, while point sources such as sewage treatment plants accounted for another 10% of nitrogen inputs and 20% of phosphorus inputs. Apart from these nutrients and water of course, it's light that makes photosynthesis possible and lets plants grow. Imagine if someone switched off the sun. How long would life on earth survive? The trees, the bushes, insects, birds, mammals, all life. This is a dark thought experiment. But looking at the foggy water underneath our boat out there on the lagoon, the threat seems real enough. If the seaweed doesn't get enough light, it dies. Like here in the lagoon. Spanning more than 500 km² big there used to be giant underwater seaweed lawn here just 70 years ago. Today, the plants have retreated to the shallow edges of the lagoon. This has effects on the whole food chain in the water and beyond. Small fish that are at the start of the chain use seaweed to hide and to spawn. In this part of the Baltic Sea, it's the herring that essentially depends on it as it lays its spawn in the seaweed. The herring population has massively collapsed over the last 10 years. In an unfavorable combination, the fish migrated to the lagoon earlier due to warmer waters – but then failed to find sufficient seaweed there. The problem with that is that the herring is at the beginning of the local marine food web. Less herring means less food for bigger fish, ducks, and less catch for fisherman Claas Wollna, whom we heard at the beginning of this episode. Healthy seaweed is also a real climate superhero. One square kilometer of seaweed captures twice as much CO2 as terrestrial forest and it does this 35 times faster as well. The same goes for other plants in coastal waters. Researchers in New Zealand looked at the health of kelp in a lagoon that had strong inflow of nutrients from agriculture and the city of Auckland. The found that the darkening in that lagoon caused local kelp forests to degrade and fix up to 4.7 times less carbon than they usually would. To mention it a bit in advance: we're not doomed because of Coastal Ocean Darkening. That being said though, our take-away from the diving trip with Florian Hoffmann is that Coastal Ocean Darkening does both harm biodiversity and the climate. Except for one life form that seems to handle the dark waters quite well. As Hoffmann speaks, a handful of common jellyfish floats past the boat, just a little below the sea surface. Jellyfish who consist of 95% water are particularly transparent and small, about the size of a saucer. They have a distinct advantage in the murky water. Dag Aksnes: Jellyfish don't need light to feed. It's a so-called tactile predator. That's Dag Aksnes. Dag Aksnes: I'm a marine ecologist at the University of Bergen. And I have studied mostly fjords but also the ocean. You've likely seen pictures of Norway's majestic fjords. Long and narrow, placed between steep cliffs and several hundred meters deep. At first glance the fjords appear to be lakes, but they are in fact saltwater inlets from the North Sea, mixed with some freshwater from land that gets into the fjords via mighty waterfalls. But we're moving away from the topic... After decades of research, Dag Aksnes has come to know the fjords around Bergen like the back of his hand, both above and below the water's, in the living and non-living world. Until he and his colleagues from the University of Bergen went to a fjord called Lurefjord to check up on the fish population there. They let the trawl net down into the water, started the boat's engine and set off. Dag Aksnes: We would expect, like, at maximum in half an hour to get like 100 kilograms of this fish, which is very abundant also. But, when we trawled in this field, then we actually had to cut the trawl in the water and destroy it because we couldn't have it all up on deck. Instead of a bit of fish – and after just a few minutes – the trawl net was bursting with thousands of big, orange, fluorescent jellyfish. Dag Aksnes: You can trawl them and, actually, in five minutes you can have five tons. So it's a ton per minute. The helmet jellyfish is found all over the world and that's perfectly normal. But not in such large numbers. For the whole fjord, Aksnes estimated the population of jellyfish at 50,000 tons. Or in individuals... Dag Aksnes: Ohhh (laughs). Well if it's 500 grams each, in a ton you will have 2000 and then you have 50,000 tons multiplied by 2,000. Which translates into 100 million jellyfish. But almost no other life. Dag Aksnes: And then we started wondering, why is this jellyfish here and not the fishes? Dag Aksnes: And then we saw that the water down there was very dark. Too dark for visual-hunting fish to see its prey. Meanwhile jellyfish don't need light but use their tentacles to sense prey. Less competition and warmer seas due to climate change help them to spread. Not only in the Lurefjord, which is now also known as the 'jellyfish fjord', but to a smaller extent also in many other fjords along the Norwegian coast. But the reason for the dark water in the fjords is different from the nutrient overflow in the Baltic Sea. Dag Aksnes: So actually, we got a very extended water column with coastal water containing lots of dissolved organic matter which originates from land. And then this question, of course, which we still investigate, is why has this amount of dissolved organic matter which absorbs lights increased. Dissolved organic matter. Small particles of rotten leaves or wood. It gets into the Norwegian fjords via the rivers from all over Northern Europe. And stays in there for decades before it eventually degrades. In the case of Lurefjord, it accumulates more and more due to an exceptionally narrow exit to the sea. The irony here is that the source of all this organic matter is something that we'd usually desire: more nature. Dag Aksnes: The evidence now is that this is because of increased greening in Northern Europe. [...] There are more trees now than a hundred years ago. Much more. This is partly because of change in land use. [...] The other reason is, I believe, warming and also increased precipitation over Northern Europe, which also stimulates greening. [...] More green coverage in Scandinavia and Northern Europe which produces more dissolved organic matter that enters the sea sooner or later. Think of it as a cup of tea. You pour in the water, add a tea bag and watch as the water slowly turns brown. And now think of that cup of tea as a big barrel standing in a garage building, named like a character from a Transformers movie: planktotron. We're at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment in Wilhelmshaven. That's another German harbor town – the last one, that's a promise – but this one is situated at the North Sea coast. The planktotrons are 12 large cylindrical tanks made from stainless steel and wrapped with hemp and black foil for insulation. The numbers 1 to 12 are taped on the foil with pink duct tape. Maren Striebel: We can simulate the marine environment on a smaller scale here. We can manipulate nutrients or what we did in the Coastal Ocean Darkening project was to manipulate the light. Maren Striebel is a biologist at the institute. She does research on plankton and was part of the research group of Oliver Zielinski, whom we heard earlier. Maren Striebel: We had three different levels of intensity of input of dissolved organic matter. There was definitely shading at the beginning and an impact on the primary producers, the phytoplankton. We observed a reduction in its biomass, which had an impact on the next trophical stage, i.e. the food web in the water. But then the organic matter degraded over time and the nutrients were used up, so the system returned to its orginial state at some point. The dissolved organic matter waseaten up, so to say, by organisms in the water, which subsequently cleared and brightend up. That's good news. But in another experiment Striebel and her colleagues also added sediment to the water in the planktotrons, or sand, taken from the local beach. And sand doesn't get used up by organism because, well, it's just sand, there are no useful nutrients in it like the organic matter. So the sand stays in the water. Again, think of it as a cup or glass. This time you add a teaspoon of sand and give it a good stir. The water turns murky for some time, before the sand slowly settles at the bottom of the glass. But the seas are no glass of water and the sediment in it is more than a teaspoon. Here's Oliver Zielinski again. Oliver Zielinski: Storms carry more sediment into the water and make the water murky. We will have more storms as a result of climate change. But we also have more sediment in the water because we have coastal erosion due to coastlines and construction work [in the water]. Trawlers stir up the sea ground with their heavy nets. All these things mobilize sediments and make the water cloudy. So the effect of sediment for visibility in the water is very strong. Nature's trick to keep sediment on the seabed is vegetation, like seaweed. It stabilizes the ground with its roots. If the seaweed retreats because of too little light, the seabed becomes even more unstable and the water even murkier. It's a vicious cycle, if you like. Oliver Zielinski: I rather like to tell science in positive narratives. If we manage to grow seaweed again, this will also bind sediment. The water will become clearer and we may be able to go deeper to establish even more seaweed. Speaking of positive narratives, Oliver Zielinski hardly complains as we talk. He has every reason to do so, doesn't he? I mean, people are worried about plastic in the seas or coral bleaching. But darkening water isn't getting that kind of attention. His optimism comes from the fact that darkening is already stagnating in the Baltic Sea in particular, but also in the Mediterranean and North America. In the North Sea, the water has even been brightening again since the 1980ies thanks to regulations around fertilizer use and the ban of phosphate in washing detergents, less nutrients have been entering the North Sea. But with global warming, rainfall and storms will become more extreme, which will lead to more organic matter and sediment being washed into coastal waters, Zielinski says. The best way to stop coastal ocean darkening would therefore be to limit global warming. Oliver Zielinski: Measures are being taken. But the efforts need to be increased, they actually need to be doubled, because climate change is working against us. We have to make an even greater effort to get back to the situation we had [in the coastal waters] before. That's the big picture. Back in the harbor, marine biologist Florian Hoffmanns thinks that very specific, local action is needed too. Florian Hoffmann: Well, trying to use less fertilizer and specifically for what you need. And possibly trying to keep water in the landscape, not pumping it directly into the sea, but letting it flow through a reedbed area where the washed-away nutrients can separate. Today's episode of Living Planet was researched and written by Jonas Mayer. It was narrated and edited by me, Neil King. Our sound engineer was Thomas Schmidt. To download this and past episodes of Living Planet, go to Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what we do, make sure to hit the subscribe button. We're also available on DW's website, that's You can also find this and other great podcasts on our YouTube channel DW podcasts. Thanks for listening and sharing Living Planet with your friends and family. Living Planet is produced by DW in Bonn, Germany.
Scotsman
29-05-2025
- Health
- Scotsman
Why the food we eat will determine the future of life on Earth
Modern humans' diets are pushing the natural world towards a dangerous breaking point Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Sometimes, it hits you in the quiet moments – a walk through a once-bustling woodland now eerily still, the Buddleja 'butterfly' bush with no butterflies, or the absence of bees in a summer garden. The signs are all around us: nature is in trouble. As World Environment Day approaches, I find myself thinking not just about the planet, but about the choices we make every day, especially what we eat. Because behind every meal lies a story, and right now, too many of those stories are ones of loss. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad From the depths of the oceans to the peaks of the highest mountains, life on Earth has flourished for billions of years in breathtaking diversity. Wonderfully diverse civilisations have evolved, powered by an abundance of natural riches. The world is now home to more than eight billion people and a multitude of different plants and animals, all with their part to play in the complex web of life. Buying free-range food is one way that we, as consumers, can make a real difference (Picture: Matt Cardy) | Getty Images Huge declines in mammals, birds and fish Yet nature is now in emergency mode and time is running out. To keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, we must halve annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Without action, exposure to air pollution beyond safe guidelines is expected to increase by 50 per cent within the decade and plastic waste flowing into aquatic ecosystems is set to nearly triple by 2040. In the last 50 years, according to WWF's Living Planet report , the total number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish has declined by 73 per cent. It's no exaggeration to say that what happens over the next five years will determine the future for life on Earth. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad And the primary reason for all this destruction? Our food. Planet-wide, the way we feed ourselves has become a dominant activity, affecting wildlife and the natural ecosystems on which our existence depends. Nearly half the world's habitable land surface and most human water use is devoted to agriculture. Ghost food waste Industrial agriculture – factory farming – is the most damaging. More than 80 billion farmed animals are produced for food every year, two-thirds of them on factory farms. Before factory farming, animals were out on pasture, turning things we can't eat, like grass, into things we can eat in the form of meat, milk and eggs. Now confined to cages, barren warehouses, or feedlots, they are fed on food crops like corn, wheat, and soya which could otherwise have fed billions of hungry people. This creates ' ghost food waste ', where crops that could alleviate hunger are squandered. The fact is that factory farmed animals are hugely inefficient at converting grain into meat or milk. Much of the food value is lost, making it the biggest single area of food waste on the planet. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad But the harm doesn't end there: animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all of the world's planes, trains and cars combined. Yet the global farmed animal population is expected to continue to grow, further stepping up the pressure on a natural world in steep decline. Chemical-doused monocultures As agriculture expands at the expense of dwindling forests, wildlife disappears. This happens even more so when farming and nature part company as with industrial animal agriculture. In this way, meat production has become just another industry, churning out raw materials in a way that is commonly presented as efficient but which, in fact, is grossly wasteful. We seemed to have switched our focus from feeding people to the pursuit of commodity production at any cost. More than half of all the world's food now either rots, is dumped in landfill, or feeds those long-suffering, imprisoned animals. Whole landscapes have been swept away by monocultures – vast, prairie-like carpets of uniform crops. Birds, bees and butterflies, along with the insects and plants they feed on, are in decline. Chemical fertilisers and pesticide sprays have replaced time-honoured natural ways of keeping soil fertile and problem bugs at bay. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Farmed animals have been disappearing from fields and into confinement. Egg-laying hens in battery cages, pigs in narrow crates or barren pens, chickens for meat growing so fast that their legs can barely support their outsized bodies. Nature has been replaced by a horror show. More than enough food for all So, how did this happen? Well, part of the answer is that the food system has become hijacked by the animal-feed industry. Today, more than one-third of the entire global cereal harvest and nearly all of the world's soya is devoted to feeding industrially reared animals – food enough for more than four billion extra people. Paradoxically, we still hear talk of looming global food crises. Yet, the fact that there's already more than enough food for everybody is routinely ignored. The planet is now at a dangerous tipping point but it is not too late to prevent more destruction. What we put on our plate has never mattered more. Eating more plants and choosing organic, pasture-fed or free-range meat, milk, and eggs really can make a big difference for the future of animals, people, and the countryside. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This World Environment Day, let's recognise that the power to change course lies in our hands. By rethinking what we eat and how it's produced, we can help restore balance to our planet.
