The Waggle
Issue 89 Water Hyacinths: Invasive Species or Microplastic Solution?
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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a unique view of Earth from the spacecraft's vantage point in orbit around the moon.
NASA/Goddard/Arizona State UniversityWherever You Are Today, Touch the Ground | Rajiv Joshi
As Earth Day arrives, we’re reminded not just of what’s at stake but also of what’s still possible. In a time of overwhelm and fragmentation, a quiet invitation rises: to touch the Earth, to tend what matters, and to restore what connects us.
This week at Regeneration, for Earth Day, we will be participating in Touch Grass Tuesday as a team. We will take this moment as a gentle prompt to pause, step outside, and reorient toward what’s real. It’s not just symbolic. In a world shaped by screens and systems, being in nature is an act of love, a spiritual opportunity, and key to the growth of our movement.
This month, we were honored to gather with movement leaders, artists, and system shapers at the Skoll World Forum. Together with Project Dandelion and a global constellation of allies, we explored how to weave a Movement of Movements—a bold and tender effort to meet crisis with imagination, and fracture with flow. We’re especially grateful for the Regeneration Circle taking shape in the UK and other self-organizing collectives rising around the world.
From reforestation in the Amazon to the courageous acts of Yazidi women in Iraq, this issue shares stories that are rooted in place, alive with dignity, and radiant with possibility. These are not just solutions to protect our planet—they are human responses to disconnection.
So wherever you are this Tuesday for Earth Day, step outside. Plant a seed. Touch the ground. Support a grassroots project. Join us. At this critical moment, we need your voice, your financial support, and your presence.
Let us be the regeneration.
With care and solidarity,
Rajiv Joshi
This week at Regeneration, for Earth Day, we will be participating in Touch Grass Tuesday as a team. We will take this moment as a gentle prompt to pause, step outside, and reorient toward what’s real. It’s not just symbolic. In a world shaped by screens and systems, being in nature is an act of love, a spiritual opportunity, and key to the growth of our movement.
This month, we were honored to gather with movement leaders, artists, and system shapers at the Skoll World Forum. Together with Project Dandelion and a global constellation of allies, we explored how to weave a Movement of Movements—a bold and tender effort to meet crisis with imagination, and fracture with flow. We’re especially grateful for the Regeneration Circle taking shape in the UK and other self-organizing collectives rising around the world.
From reforestation in the Amazon to the courageous acts of Yazidi women in Iraq, this issue shares stories that are rooted in place, alive with dignity, and radiant with possibility. These are not just solutions to protect our planet—they are human responses to disconnection.
So wherever you are this Tuesday for Earth Day, step outside. Plant a seed. Touch the ground. Support a grassroots project. Join us. At this critical moment, we need your voice, your financial support, and your presence.
Let us be the regeneration.
With care and solidarity,
Rajiv Joshi
Reimagining Carbon Credits in the Amazon
Claire Inciong Krummenacher
Claire Inciong Krummenacher
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An intro to the story of re.green, which is working to consolidate large-scale forest restoration as a new economic sector (6 mins.). @re.green_br
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Approximately 90% of the carbon offsets provided by the world’s leading supplier are estimated to be worthless, and a 2024 investigation found that in the Amazon Brazilian REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) project developers often partner with loggers linked to environmental crimes. However, as an alternative solution, Brazilian companies have begun restoring areas of the Amazon and selling the carbon credits they absorb, a far more quantifiable approach than the current REDD methodology of attempting to allocate credits from deforestation that didn’t take place. Key players include Biomas, re.green, and Mombak (a startup that has amassed nearly 50,000 acres of restoration areas since its founding in 2021 and signed contracts with Google and Microsoft). With support from the Brazilian government, scientists are already using Indigenous techniques to carefully time the ecosystem’s growth cycle, provide income for Indigenous communities, and reduce the risk posed by invasive species, forest fires, and cattle incursion. To learn more, see Offsets Nexus and Afforestation Nexus.
Now, We Are Activists | George Biesmans
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The Yazidi women in this procession are survivors of the genocide perpetrated by ISIS that killed over 5000 Yazidis in 2014. Credit: Elizabeth Fitt / Alamy Stock Photo
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On the banks of the Tigris river - in a region ravaged by conflict, ecological degradation, and global heating - hardy Aleppo pines, orange and olive trees now quietly take root. Stewarded by a grassroots group of women known as Clean Green, the trees now number over 2,000. Many of these women are Yazidi, a religious minority that has long known persecution and violence, exemplified perhaps most brutally by the genocide waged against them by ISIS in 2014.
For the women of Clean Green, who also run recycling programs and teach children about environmental stewardship, their work is “not just a practical solution; it’s a quiet act of defiance against the destruction they’ve endured.” In other words, it’s more than ecological restoration. It’s a reclaiming of purpose, of identity, of agency. “Before, we were just survivors. Now, we are activists,” as one of Clean Green’s founders puts it.
As the group grows in number and in community acceptance, their efforts point to the urgent need to center regeneration and cultivate local resilience in the face of an accelerating climate emergency, especially in post-conflict, fragile settings like Iraq, where drought, desertification, wildfires, and extreme heat are increasingly common. They also speak to the inextricable links between climate, nature, conflict, and peace. Imagine if initiatives like these were significantly scaled up and replicated elsewhere? In a world of increasing instability and ecological breakdown, stories like these remind us of the power of local, grassroots acts of defiance and resilience.
For the women of Clean Green, who also run recycling programs and teach children about environmental stewardship, their work is “not just a practical solution; it’s a quiet act of defiance against the destruction they’ve endured.” In other words, it’s more than ecological restoration. It’s a reclaiming of purpose, of identity, of agency. “Before, we were just survivors. Now, we are activists,” as one of Clean Green’s founders puts it.
As the group grows in number and in community acceptance, their efforts point to the urgent need to center regeneration and cultivate local resilience in the face of an accelerating climate emergency, especially in post-conflict, fragile settings like Iraq, where drought, desertification, wildfires, and extreme heat are increasingly common. They also speak to the inextricable links between climate, nature, conflict, and peace. Imagine if initiatives like these were significantly scaled up and replicated elsewhere? In a world of increasing instability and ecological breakdown, stories like these remind us of the power of local, grassroots acts of defiance and resilience.
A Nature-based Microplastic Solution? | Jonathan Hawken
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An unexpected ecowarrior, the Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes).
Credit: Jack Sullivan / Alamy Stock Photo |
A recently published paper finds “nano scale, shard-like fragments” of plastic in human livers and brains. Age, sex, and ethnicity had little influence, but the time of death was a significant factor, suggesting that exposure over time is universal. Moreover, those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases like dementia have a greater accumulation of plastics in the brain. While completely avoiding dietary plastics may be impossible, another paper suggests that the best way to reduce your intake is to switch from plastic bottled water to filtered water (I highly recommend getting a reverse osmosis system).
I have long wondered how we will solve this problem, so I was delighted to see a nature-based solution highlighted in Mongabay. The water hyacinth, once regarded as “water cancer” due to its harmful effects as an invasive species, shows great promise in removing heavy metals, agricultural chemical runoff, and even plastics. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, indeed! Researchers deployed the hyacinths in two test environments: one served as a control, while the other contained 50 mg/liter of microplastics. Within 48 hours, the latter group removed 55-69% of the plastic particles, achieving a total removal of 78% after five days. I remain cautiously optimistic that we can tackle this issue, but it will require a monumental effort on a global scale. Fortunately, organizations like PR3 are working to promote reuse standards in a crucial endeavor to eliminate single-use plastics. To learn more, see our Plastics Nexus.
I have long wondered how we will solve this problem, so I was delighted to see a nature-based solution highlighted in Mongabay. The water hyacinth, once regarded as “water cancer” due to its harmful effects as an invasive species, shows great promise in removing heavy metals, agricultural chemical runoff, and even plastics. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, indeed! Researchers deployed the hyacinths in two test environments: one served as a control, while the other contained 50 mg/liter of microplastics. Within 48 hours, the latter group removed 55-69% of the plastic particles, achieving a total removal of 78% after five days. I remain cautiously optimistic that we can tackle this issue, but it will require a monumental effort on a global scale. Fortunately, organizations like PR3 are working to promote reuse standards in a crucial endeavor to eliminate single-use plastics. To learn more, see our Plastics Nexus.
The 89% Project: The People Want Action! | Scott Hannan
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Climate action now placard raised at the Global Climate Strike Rally and March in downtown San Francisco. Credit: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock
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The 89 Percent Project, an initiative from Covering Climate Now, is a year-long global journalistic effort to explore a pivotal but little-known fact about climate change: The overwhelming majority of the world’s people want their governments to take stronger action. The project launches on April 21, 2025, with a week of focused coverage by journalists and newsrooms around the world coinciding with Earth Day.
Two initial stories explore popular sentiment in the United States and Mexico, with a focus in Mexico on what ordinary citizens can do to effect change. In the US, despite broad public support for climate action, as evidenced by the Yale Climate Opinion Maps, congressional efforts remain limited. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed without Republican backing, underscoring partisan divides, while Republican districts have received significant investments from the act they opposed, and even in conservative areas, majorities favor renewable energy and carbon emission regulations. This reveals a substantial disconnect between public opinion and climate action on a national scale.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry's substantial lobbying efforts continue to influence policy decisions. In Mexico, with the government's lagging commitment to the Paris Agreement, citizens are working to drive change by focusing on local initiatives. The coastal town of Huatulco exemplifies this approach, having achieved sustainability through community collaboration and clean energy adoption. Additionally, organizations like CEMDA pursue legal actions to hold the government accountable. With continued efforts by citizens and small organizations, combined with pressure on elected officials to enact legislation that reflects popular opinion, all of us can continue to be engaged in transforming our actions in the face of climate change. Now is the time!
Two initial stories explore popular sentiment in the United States and Mexico, with a focus in Mexico on what ordinary citizens can do to effect change. In the US, despite broad public support for climate action, as evidenced by the Yale Climate Opinion Maps, congressional efforts remain limited. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 passed without Republican backing, underscoring partisan divides, while Republican districts have received significant investments from the act they opposed, and even in conservative areas, majorities favor renewable energy and carbon emission regulations. This reveals a substantial disconnect between public opinion and climate action on a national scale.
Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry's substantial lobbying efforts continue to influence policy decisions. In Mexico, with the government's lagging commitment to the Paris Agreement, citizens are working to drive change by focusing on local initiatives. The coastal town of Huatulco exemplifies this approach, having achieved sustainability through community collaboration and clean energy adoption. Additionally, organizations like CEMDA pursue legal actions to hold the government accountable. With continued efforts by citizens and small organizations, combined with pressure on elected officials to enact legislation that reflects popular opinion, all of us can continue to be engaged in transforming our actions in the face of climate change. Now is the time!
The Quandary of Nuclear Fuel Recycling | Jonathan Hawken
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Nuclear fuel is used for 3-6 years, yet remains radioactive for hundreds of millennia. French nuclear fuel company ORANO is one of the few recycling nuclear fuel on a commercial scale (15 mins.). @DWPlanetA
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With renewed interest in nuclear power prompting the development of 4th generation reactor designs, such as sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), molten salt reactors (MSRs), and small modular reactors (SMRs), it may be wise to discuss the “spent” nuclear fuel in the United States. We produce around 2,000 metric tons each year, safely stored without incident in 70 locations across 35 states. However, 90% of the fuel's potential energy remains untapped, so much, in fact, that it could power the United States for a century, so it seems reasonable that start-ups like Oklo and Curio are exploring reactor designs capable of utilizing recycled fuel. Agencies like NASA also have a need for plutonium for fueling some of their missions.
However, therein lies one of the key issues: the primary reason we chose not to build nuclear reactors or recycle fuel is to prevent the extraction of plutonium from fuel pellets. Though recycling nuclear fuel is complex and hazardous, and presently much more expensive than mining/refining fresh uranium, it is being done in France as part of its long-term nuclear energy strategy. Nevertheless, as this detailed Yale360 article highlights, obtaining the materials is the most challenging part of constructing a nuclear weapon.
My view is that if we can develop a responsible and secure process for recycling and reusing spent nuclear fuel, we should pursue it cautiously, although I remain very hesitant to place that kind of trust in any private company or government. As we ponder writing a future Nexus piece on Nuclear (fission) Energy, we are curious about the thoughts of our subscribers on this topic, as it tends to be contentious.
However, therein lies one of the key issues: the primary reason we chose not to build nuclear reactors or recycle fuel is to prevent the extraction of plutonium from fuel pellets. Though recycling nuclear fuel is complex and hazardous, and presently much more expensive than mining/refining fresh uranium, it is being done in France as part of its long-term nuclear energy strategy. Nevertheless, as this detailed Yale360 article highlights, obtaining the materials is the most challenging part of constructing a nuclear weapon.
My view is that if we can develop a responsible and secure process for recycling and reusing spent nuclear fuel, we should pursue it cautiously, although I remain very hesitant to place that kind of trust in any private company or government. As we ponder writing a future Nexus piece on Nuclear (fission) Energy, we are curious about the thoughts of our subscribers on this topic, as it tends to be contentious.
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