Amy Boyer

Harnessing the power of algae: I'm intrigued by Brilliant Planet, an organization growing algae in tanks in coastal deserts and burying the sun-dried carbon. It could be called direct seawater carbon capture instead of direct air carbon capture; it's much cheaper than DAC, requires low inputs, and de-acidifies the ocean water, while the high-salinity desert soil preserves the buried algae potentially for millennia. Per unit area it can sequester up to 30 times as much carbon as terrestrial forests. I wonder about scaling up and whether this land is truly unused as they say, but it's promising.

 Claire Inciong Krummenacher

Mobile hydroponic farms: In response to disruptions to the global food supply posed by climate-related desertification and land degradation, Freight Farms is helping decentralize food production by bringing hydroponic container farms to areas around the world rendered inhospitable to agriculture. Capable of producing 2.5 acres worth of food with 20 liters of water per week, the containers use nutrient-rich liquid in place of soil to grow crops in cities ranging from Kodiak, Alaska to Cairo, Egypt. Read more about the role of hydroponic farming in relieving food insecurity here.

 Courtney White

Beavers busy restoring ecosystems: There has been exciting news since I worked on the Beaver Nexus. Here is a story about the diverse, positive effects of beaver ponds near Boulder, CO. In the UK, the annual Chelsea Flower show bestowed its top honor to a wild garden with beaver features. Here’s an update on the Cornwall Beaver Project, which has reintroduced beavers to great ecological effect. Here’s a broader article on rewilding efforts in Britain. Lastly, I love the title of this new research paper: ‘Beaver: the North American freshwater action plan.’

 Emily Jensen

A marine biologist’s case for optimism: This interview with marine biologist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson through the podcast On Being is a beautiful, grounding conversation about possibility in the face of the climate crisis. Dr. Johnson's work is rooted in a reverence for both nature and humanity, and her latest book project offers an inspiring, solutions-oriented framing through a simple question: what if we get this right? Worth a listen.

 Kavya Gopal

Centering women’s decision-making in climate justice: The UN recently published a report on how women experience the impacts of climate change differently than men. Gender-based violence, including child marriage, is on the rise. Many young women are being forced to drop out of schools to take on domestic tasks such as collecting firewood and water. Extreme weather events are also resulting in men migrating to cities for employment, leaving many women behind to tend to land and families without the accompanying legal and social authority. The report drives home the necessity of women's participation in decision-making as integral to addressing both climate change and gender injustice.

 Juliana Birnbaum

Chasing cicadas: Down with Covid last week, I feel grateful to be contemplating emergence from quarantine and was inspired by this personal essay that seems to truly embody Emergence Magazine, a local voice for planetary regeneration. It speaks to the synchronization and unity required of humanity in response to our current crisis within a story on the 17-year cicada emergence cycle.

 Robert Denney

Building the Great Green Wall: The Great Green Wall is an African-led movement with a goal to grow a forest across the entire width of Africa as a means to prevent encroachment of the Sahara desert. The project has recently had some setbacks, particularly from lack of political will and insecurity stemming from extremist groups in countries such as Sudan and Chad. Just 9.9 million acres of forest (4% of the program’s goal) have been planted, but there is still optimism from those involved. In fact, the program started as purely a tree planting project, but the conflicts have expanded the program’s scope to address community concerns such as peace building and youth development. And a group of Chinese scientists recently released a data tool to help the Great Green Wall track its progress.

 Tim Treuer

Finding hope despite bad news: This week was a tough one in the news. From news of the murder of an Indigenous leader and a journalist in the Amazon, to a bleak report on logging in the Congo, to the possibly catastrophic ruling expected from the Supreme Court on the EPA's ability to fight climate change (as if the likely Roe reversal weren't dire enough on its own...). Earth.org recommends fighting climate anxiety by looking for the good news, however small, so here's a happy piece on the return of endangered gharials to a river in Nepal.

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