How to effectively fight fire with fire. (We’re doing it all wrong).

The day the fire stood still.

The scintillating blazes slithered menacingly around the south-eastern coastline of New South Wales, Australia.

Twenty separate wildfires rampaged their way through the landscape, tearing through a thousand acres of countryside, devouring over 100 homes.

Blackened trees framed the beachside town of Tathra — when suddenly the sea of fire came to a halt.

It was a hot, dry day in March 2018. There was no rain. No firefighters put the flames out.

But to the relief and astonishment of the citizens of Tathra, the flames just stopped, as if someone had taken the oxygen out of the room.

Does the #BirthStrike movement have a point?

Miley’s primal shock response.

In mid-2019 Miley Cyrus set off the internet revealing that she does not plan on having children until the planet is treated better.

She explained her decision: “We’re getting handed a piece-of-sh*t planet, and I refuse to hand that down to my child. Until I feel like my kid would live on an Earth with fish in the water, I’m not bringing in another person to deal with that.”

Miley is not alone. There’s an entire movement called BirthStrike, that shares the sentiment of holding off on having kids due to the climate crisis.

The movement was founded in the UK in early 2019 and is growing, currently counting over 330 members in its organisation. …

Moving past the collective angst with better transport choices.

The Vatican was concerned over neo-paganism.

I remember that back in 2010, following the release of the motion picture Avatar, Vatican Radio reviewed Avatar, stating the film “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.”

At the time, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the need to protect the environment but warned against “neo-paganism” and the danger of turning nature into a “new divinity.”

Avatar went on to earn more than $2.79 billion at the box office worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing films of all time, beating Cameron’s previous record with Titanic.

The Vatican Press concluded, “Ecology is here to stay, and possibly will become the religion of the 21st century.” …

Don’t just protest, vote!

Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world.

At the frontlines of the climate crisis, the Great White North is boxed-in. To the east, rising seas are increasing structural safety problems with shoreline erosion. Recurring flooding is damaging the nation’s water infrastructure. The northern provinces are suffering from aggressive freeze-thaw cycles. The west has frequent storms. The droughts on the Prairies are damaging the asphalt. Heatwaves and intense snowfall are disrupting the electricity grid.

Why fire is sprawling into the suburbs

Burn or don’t burn?

Seeing California on fire in the United States and closer to home, the Canary Islands ablaze in Spain, acres of land flickering menacingly on the television screen, reminded me of a childhood memory: my mother and grandmother bickering over burning or not burning the fields of our farm in Argentina.

My grandmother believed in the cleansing powers of controlled burning. She claimed it got rid of snakes, it got rid of vermin and it got rid of weeds. She conceded, yes, the lands looked a bit scared for a week or two, but the nutrients absorbed into the soil quickly after a bit of rain. …

Fear drives nationalism, bravery drives collective action.

The issue of inequality could not be relocated.

People worldwide are searching for alternatives, and seem to have a restless feeling that they are not being represented.

This belief is being reflected throughout Latin America. The result has been an emergence of an interesting cast of new characters in the region’s politics.

As a result, Chile offered to host the COP25 after the climate-sceptic Bolsanaro government in Brazil backed out of its commitment to host the event.

The regional political landscape is highly fragmented, since these new leaders are having to negotiate to push forward their policy agenda, and this will create tensions amid discontent with institutions and political parties. …

How the failure to reach an agreement began in Chile.

It all began with the Latin American Spring.

During the summer of 2019, I attended the Madrid Energy Conference, an event focused on the energy challenges and opportunities in Latin America.

There was already a notable dissonance between the heightened grassroots concern surrounding climate change impact and the politics in place.

However, those politics were starting to shift. In the backdrop of a new political cycle in Latin America, changes in the political leadership of the Americas were signalling a new era in economic and energy policies.

Close calls, but polarized politics.

Elections taking place throughout 2019 marked the beginnings of a new political supercycle to the left.

The political shifts that took place in 2018 and 2019 throughout the region were driving near-term policy evolution across Latin America. …

Five principles to regenerate our soils to prevent wildfires and flooding

The land started going dry — as if all the life had been sucked out of it.

A few years ago, I was sitting propped up in a dentist chair in Buenos Aires, and my dentist was rabbiting on about something he had just read in the newspaper during lunch. Yes, in Buenos Aires, people still read physical newspapers.

He noticed my eyes widen with interest, and, as he cleaned my teeth, he continued explaining that outside the beltline of the city of Buenos Aires, there had been huge expanses of soy cultivation.

“All monoculture.” …