Coping with COP, cats, cows, and the sounds of rewilding.
This year started with me launching The New Climate with a plea for “like-minded readers” and writers alike. It was, I felt, “now or never for a publication like The New Climate to make a difference.” And now the year ends with a monthly newsletter, a roster full of regular writers from all over the world, thousands of readers, and — at the time of writing this — 727 dedicated publication followers (so if you’re reading this, but don’t yet follow, please do!). A big thank you to everyone for making this a thing.
Years nowadays also end with a COP. And with COP28 (yep, there’s been 28 of them) now rumbling on in the background — amid rumours that the hosts are planning to use it to strike further oil deals — it’s easy to lose faith. But, as George Dillard writes, “we shouldn’t dismiss the COP entirely. Climate change is a problem that requires international cooperation, and conferences like this are what international cooperation looks like.” Whether it’s in the interests of the host nation or not, the first ‘Global Stocktake’ makes for uncomfortable reading: we are not on course to limit warming in line with 1.5C and more must be done to get on track. The Stocktake demands action. Wouldn’t it be deliciously ironic if, in the UAE of all places, we see a commitment to phasing out all fossil fuels, as some hope (and others expect)? For new writer Heather Pegas, it brought to mind a Watership Down parallel.
Other New Climate writers however have had more pressing questions on their mind, such as Aussie cat-owner Mike Grindle. His piece on The Environmental Pawprint of Cats was far from light relief, however. A Smithsonian study estimates that “free-ranging domestic cats… are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals.” Our feline friends kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually. This isn’t a cat-made problem — it’s a pet owner problem. We cause the Anthropocene in so many ways.
Another way we unintentionally perpetuate the Anthropocene is via, well, unintended consequences. Kenny Minker’s fascinating piece How a College Essay Entered the Almond Milk vs. Cow Milk Debate explores how one college professor’s well-meaning assignment for a Environment 159 class ended up becoming commonly cited ‘evidence’ by the international press on alternative milks. Whether malicious misinformation, or journalistic science illiteracy (or often both), such inaccurate reporting — and social media trolling — has very real consequences.
But let’s end on a positive note — or soundscape, to be precise. Tia Merotto’s beautiful piece on Bioacoustics: Symphony of the Species introduced me to a new topic: Biophony. Nature can be understood as an orchestral symphony, and everything from rustling grasses to birdsong and crickets plays a part — none of them are soloists, writes Tia, they all combine or compete: “When the orchestra of an ecosystem thins due to habitat loss, or when a species cannot hear or locate one another due to human-produced noise, individual plants and animals immediately become vulnerable.” This isn’t just a problem, but also a solution: “These data findings can in turn be used to inform conservation plans and protective legislation around particular habitats.” That sounds pretty good to me.
Tia’s piece also made me realise that I had experienced this earlier in the summer. In England, a popular weekend day trip option is to visit a country manor house run by the likes of The National Trust or English Heritage. It remains a weird colonial legacy, walking around the spoils of empire and aristocracy, and being charged for the privilege. While all are grandly (or grimly) impressive, the experience typically blurs into one — with one ever-present being the huge expanses of manicured grass lawn, favoured by the upper classes for lawns games like croquette. But, on one such visit, at Compton Verney House, we found something unexpected where the manicured lawn had been. It has been reseeded and rewilded as a meadow, full of abundant long grass, wildflowers, butterflies and — most noticeably—the raucous chorus of grasshoppers and crickets. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in all its glory for years. Since the 1930s in fact, the UK has lost 97% of its meadows to modern industrial agriculture. To see some of it return, and in the most unexpected of places, was a delight. And my 5-year-old, who normally makes a bee-line for the café ice creams, instead made a bee-line for the bees, and the meadow. And I lay down and listened.
Tim Smedley, The Editor, The New Climate.
