The butterfly effect

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Buried treasure

ReportageOver the entire 800,000-year record, atmospheric carbon dioxide has never peaked over 300 ppm. For all of human history, it sat around 275 ppm until about 200 years ago, when we began to dig up and burn coal to fuel the Industrial Age. In 1950, it punched through the 300-ppm historic ceiling. In mid-May, as the forests of the Northern Hemisphere dropped their leaves, the planet exhaled atmospheric carbon dioxide at a new daily record of 421 ppm.

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Transforming landscapes

EssayI stood rooted to the ground, for I realised this almost certainly would have been the first time in 150 years of degrading European management that a reed-warbler had returned to this valley. The powerful song of that small bird became a metaphor of hope for me. It was a symbol of the power of regeneration and the capacity of self-organisation in a landscape. It was a living example of what could be achieved.

Shape-shift

PoetryIn the light that steals across dead valleys like a shallow wave anything that lives has lost its solid presence the shape of life bleeds out...

We all took a stand

EssayNOBODY LOOKS VERY comfortable. There are four faces, angled inelegantly, only one inclined to engage with the camera, the attached bodies mostly submerged in...