Nothing to see here, keep buying! 👀 Last year’s estimated carbon cost from Black Friday equated to 429,000 tonnes of CO2 admitted into the atmosphere from product deliveries alone. – The same as over 4 billion miles driven by an average gasoline-powered car. And then returned items bought during the sales used over 1.2 billion …
Posted on 29 November 2024According to latest estimates, Amazon’s corporation tax avoidance could have cost UK citizens around £433 million in lost taxes in 2023 alone. £433 million could be used to recruit: Or £433 million could pay for:
Posted on 29 November 2024It is estimated that 80% of electronics and clothing bought on Black Friday, plus the plastic packaging they are wrapped in, end up in landfill, incineration, or low-quality recycling after a very short life. 🤦 Better to avoid Amazon
Posted on 29 November 2024…aka Buy Nothing Day. -No better day to get started on the first of my 26 Steps from A-Z to a better world: Avoid Amazon. As one of the least ethical and most harmful companies on the planet check out my guide on why and how to get by without them. 📚 @bookstodon
Posted on 29 November 2024It’s been a blissful start to peace and quiet week here at Ethical Revolution HQ in the run up to Buy Nothing Day aka Green Friday, also now dubbed Unsubscribe Day!
Posted on 25 November 2024The four-day working week could be edging closer as a thousand employees across various industries take part in a new pilot of a four-day week in the UK. Their hours will be cut while their pay-packet will remain the same, with the findings from the pilot to be presented to the UK government in the …
Posted on 20 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/climate-change-is-hitting-women-the-hardest/ The current capitalist system has created two related crises: ecological decline and social injustice. It has led to environmental damage like climate change, which affects some people more than others. The two crises mutually reinforce the consequences of the same flawed systems of oppression and power. Climate change exacerbates global inequalities. This is because …
Posted on 18 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/decarbonisation-of-uk-grid-by-2030/ The National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) have issued a report in which they say the UK’s goal to decarbonise its electricity grid by 2030 and provide clean power might be “a huge challenge” but that it is “credible”, “achievable” and “will put Great Britain in a strong position”. NESO say that achieving out green …
Posted on 13 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/10-reasons-donald-trump-cant-derail-global-climate-action/ If you care about saving Earth from catastrophe, you might be feeling a little down about the re-election of Donald Trump as United States president. Undeniably, his return to the White House is a real setback for climate action. Trump is a climate change denier who has promised to increase fossil fuel production and …
Posted on 11 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/what-about-china/ China’s State Power Investment Corporation connected their largest offshore wind farm (106 turbines over 55 sq miles) to the grid last week as it began generating electricity for the nation. It is estimated to produce 2.55bn kilowatt hours of renewable energy per year, preventing 829,000 tonnes of tonnes of coal from being burnt every …
Posted on 09 November 2024https://spectra.video/w/23mN12piFt5UzqoV3JmCU5 “GDP is an outdated way of measuring the health of the economy – it doesn’t reflect the health of people or the planet.” -has been published in The Conversation. Good to see this notion filtering in to the mainstream! @TheConversationClimate @TheConversationUK @economics
Posted on 08 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/largest-land-sale-in-30-years-a-showcase-for-nature-recovery Nearly 10,000 acres of land in north-east UK is being bought by Wildlife Trusts. Previously used for bloodsports and animal agriculture the new ownership of the Rothbury estate in Northumberland will ban hunting and practice regenerative farming only as they look to give nature the chance to thrive and become a flagship for habitat …
Posted on 07 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/us-humans-are-complicated We often say we want to make greener choices – but in reality, we act differently. Individual climate action sounds great in theory. If many of us chose electric vehicles or bikes, installed solar panels and built energy efficient houses, our actions in aggregate could contribute to wider emissions goals. Then there are choices such …
Posted on 06 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/eu-net-greenhouse-gas-emissions-drop With this place focussing a lot of attention towards negativity in the USA right now here’s some positivity in EU for you… @PositiveNewsUK@press.coop has reported that 2023 saw an 8% total net greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the European Union. For context that’s a level similar to those at the start of the Covid-19 …
Posted on 06 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/chris-packham-forces-uk-government-to-reconsider-green-pledge Rishi Sunak announced in 2023 that he would drop green policies from the UK’s Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP), including: Chris Packham legally challenged this abandonment of green policies. A settlement has been agreed between Packham and the now-Labour UK Government in which it has confirmed that the previous government had acted unlawfully, and …
Posted on 05 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/cattle-cowboys-climate-chaos/ In recent decades, scientists have warned that industrial meat production, and beef in particular, fuels climate change and leads to deforestation, soil erosion, species extinction, ocean dead zones and high levels of methane emissions. Yet today’s average American still eats three hamburgers per week! 🤯 🐮 🤮 The rise of an extensive and powerful …
Posted on 01 November 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/big-oil-companies-ceos-to-be-charged-with-reckless-endangerment Would you say that knowing for decades that havoc is being wreaked on our world by the burning of fossil fuels, but carrying on regardless (AND simultaneously suppressing climate science) amounts to reckless endangerment? 🤔 Lawyers in the USA who have prepared a prosecution memorandum for New York State certainly think so. They are …
Posted on 31 October 2024https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/the-climate-gap-report-2024/ Ethical Consumer Research Association (ECRA) have released Closing the Climate Gap 2024 – their annual report on progress towards sustainable consumer lifestyles in the UK. Sadly they offer no prizes for correctly guessing that we are not on track to meet international emissions reduction targets, but as well as highlighting the gap between where …
Posted on 29 October 2024A report by UK thinktank The Economics Foundation has found that we could raise £54bn per year by simply introducing a frequent flyer levy across Europe.
Posted on 24 October 2024According to the RMI every fifth country in the Global South already has a higher mix of renewables than the Global North. What’s more it controls 70% of global solar and wind resources and 50% of critical minerals.
Posted on 21 October 2024According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) nearly half of the world’s electricity demand will be met by renewables by 2030. However, the IEA said that the growth still falls short of the target set at the COP28 climate summit (let alone our Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees), where nearly 200 …
Posted on 17 October 2024It’s less than six months since they won power and the Labour party have already scrapped their campaign commitment to provide an annual stimulus of £28 billion for green industries. Instead they’ve committed £22 billion over 25 years towards the proven myth of carbon capture and storage, giving existing oil companies the right to pump …
Posted on 16 October 2024It’s a world first! Ads that plug high-carbon products, such as flights and cars, are going to be banned in The Hague from 2025. Whilst there are examples of other cities such as Edinburgh in the UK making similar moves, none have yet gone this far. Sheffield, also in the UK, recently banned any ads …
Posted on 15 October 2024A recent study published in the science journal, Nature, has revealed the truth in the myth of climate overshoot. Ever since the Paris agreement of 2015 set targets for staying below 1.5 degrees, a myth which would appease fossil fuel interests was created: That we could overshoot the 1.5 target and later bring temperatures back …
Posted on 14 October 2024Are you an EDF energy customer? No, allow me to widen that net: Have you seen any of EDF energy’s mid-late 2024 advertisement campaign? If so you might be forgiven for thinking they’re changing their ways and looking to spearhead a revolution in renewables. I decided to dig a little deeper to find out if …
Posted on 11 October 2024Software Freedom Day happens once per year where real world events take place across the globe with the aim of introducing the general public to the benefits of using high quality free (libre) open source software (FLOSS). This year I got on board and put on an event near Cheltenham in the UK. After having …
Posted on 22 September 2024With research showing that 65% of the UK population wear second hand clothing, London Fashion Week has embraced the fashion shift to a circular model by putting on a ‘Style for Change’ show. Organised by Oxfam, who have a vast online collection of second hand clothing, celebrities including Kola Bokinni and DJ Vick Hope donned …
Posted on 20 September 2024The fantastic Manda Scott (@Eceni) chats with JoJo Mehta from Stop Ecocide International in the latest episode of the Accidental Gods podcast. Stop Ecocide International campaign to make ecocide a crime at the International Criminal Court in the Hague. This means looking to enable international legal framework which protects Earth and its current and future …
Posted on 11 September 2024On Sunday 25th August Massive Attack played their first live Bristol show in 5 years in an event marking 25 years of climate activism by the band, which promised to be the lowest carbon show of its size ever staged. It was set up as a first physical fruition of their collaboration with climate scientists …
Posted on 01 September 2024According to a report by Earthsight the world’s largest fashion brands, H&M and #Zara, use cotton linked to land grabbing, illegal #deforestation, violence, #humanrights violations and corruption in #Brazil. Unlike in the #Amazon, deforestation in the Cerrado is getting worse. The #biome is home to five per cent of the world’s species. Many face #extinction …
Posted on 21 August 2024The number of #ClimateDisasters has increased five-fold over recent decades. Not all of these events make the headlines, and some which do are quickly forgotten, despite the fact that there is no full ‘recovery’ from some disasters. @campaigncc have a regularly updated page with news of the most recent events and reports from ongoing crises. …
Posted on 19 August 2024I attended an awards ceremony at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, while Glos were playing against Leicestershire. I was there with my dad who collected the main prize.
I was delighted to see there was a Tackling Climate Change Award. Recognition from The ECB that sports clubs need to play their part in tackling the climate crisis.
Posted on 15 August 2024The good folk at Paccari sent me some of their chocolate to sample. Watch this video of me sampling it! Paccari topped Ethical Consumer’s rankings of over 100 varieties of chocolate from the UK, scoring 88 out of 100, awarding them Ethical Consumer Best Buy status. For context Green & Blacks Organic scored just 8! …
Posted on 16 May 2024There are already millions of users in The Fediverse, but for those who are still new to it how should I explain? 🤔 I know! 💡 I’ll let more articulate people than myself elaborate… This article by Per Axbom is a nice introduction if you’d like to read about it. 🤓 This interactive walkthrough by …
Posted on 27 March 2024Maxwell Boykoff, University of Colorado Boulder and Beth Osnes, University of Colorado Boulder In a catchy YouTube video, British comedian Jo Brand translates a scientist’s long-winded description of the fossil fuel industry’s role in the climate crisis this way: “We are paying a bunch of rich dudes 1 trillion dollars a year to f— up …
Posted on 29 February 2024For its 10th anniversary in 2023 Ethical Revolution went minimal! Inspired by Jack Lenox and his SustyWP Theme Ethical Revolution removed all of the frilly features in order to offer its service at a fraction of the data usage, reducing its carbon footprint as much as it possibly could. As Jack had said, “The Internet uses a lot …
Posted on 29 December 2023Bower Collective kindly sent me a package for review so I made my very first unpacking video and reviewed the products. You can watch that here. Taking inspiration from the Bowerbird (known for recycling brightly coloured plastic scraps to decorate its nest) Bower Collective are a B-Corp who aim to reduce waste whilst providing household …
Posted on 02 December 2023The emptying of supermarket shelves during the COVID pandemic demonstrated the chaos that disruption to the UK’s food supply can provoke. Could this type of disruption have a different cause in the future? And what might the impact on society be? These are the questions we sought to answer in our new study, which involved …
Posted on 12 October 2023Well that was pretty epic. A short drive to the station for 9:45am. Not too early. Time enough to have a relaxed breakfast before leaving. A few beers each on the train (non-alcoholic ones for me) along with snacks I’d bought from FRONT the day before (having met and chatted to Geoff Hurst in there …
Posted on 16 September 2023(By Nick Davies, Glasgow Caledonian University) Holidays are making a comeback after several years of disruption caused by the COVID pandemic. Nearly 4 billion passengers boarded international flights in 2022, up from fewer than 2 billion in 2020. Recent research suggests that people are likely to continue travelling more in 2023 and beyond. But this …
Posted on 15 September 2023Sven Teske, University of Technology Sydney This weekend, the world’s major economies will convene in Delhi for the G20 summit. On the table will be the common goal of limiting global temperature rise as climate chaos becomes ever more evident. When we talk about limiting climate change, we’re really talking about the global carbon budget …
Posted on 06 September 2023Article by Michael Clark, University of Oxford and Keren Papier, University of Oxford We know that meat has a substantial impact on the planet, and that plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable. But exactly how much impact does the food we eat have on environmental outcomes and what difference would following a vegan diet make …
Posted on 22 July 2023Recycling was once considered the obvious solution to the excessive amount of new (or virgin) plastic produced each year. This is no longer realistic. Global recycling capacity simply cannot keep up with the taking, making and wasting of natural resources. Growing mountains of plastic waste are accumulating in the poorest countries as affluent nations such …
Posted on 06 June 2023Article by Gary Mortimer, Queensland University of Technology and Louise Grimmer, University of Tasmania You face a dilemma. You’ve found the perfect shirt, and it’s an absolute bargain, but you notice it’s “Made in Bangladesh”. You’re conscious it was probably made using cheap labour. Do you buy it, or walk away? Today Oxfam released its …
Posted on 23 November 2022Aled Jones, Anglia Ruskin University The three most prevalent myths about tackling climate change allege that transitioning to renewable energy jacks up household bills, requires massive amounts of government subsidy and creates mass unemployment. These concerns are all (thankfully) false. With fellow academics, I studied instances from the past 30 years when governments succeeded in …
Posted on 29 September 2022Victor Galaz, Stockholm University Our planet is altering at a dangerous pace due to climate change. And at the same time, we seem to be entering a period of unprecedented technological transformation. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and internet-connected devices are creating increasingly complex intelligent technological systems. As pressures on the planet and its …
Posted on 25 April 2020Way back in 2017 I carried out a survey of the top 10 ethical online booksellers, ranking them for things including customer experience, packaging and price relative to Amazon. I then combined my results with Ethical Consumer Magazine’s ‘ethiscore’ for each bookseller to give a top ten list of alternatives to Amazon. Ethical Revolution is …
Posted on 24 November 2020Focusing on cutting emissions alone won’t halt ecological decline, we must consume less – former UK chief environmental adviser Reaching net zero emissions has become the focal point of government efforts to halt climate and ecological breakdown. It is easy to aim for but much more difficult to deliver – and worse, we may be …
Posted on 02 September 2019Around the time that I moved to Frome last summer a network of community fridges was started in the UK with the aim of reducing avoidable food waste. Community fridges have popped up in London, Oxford and elsewhere around the country ever since Frome launched the UK’s first one in April 2016. Now embedded as …
Posted on 31 January 2018As a result of promoting various ethical* coffee companies here on Ethical Revolution I was contacted by Gary from Not1Bean who suggested that these coffee companies are rarely ever truly ethical as none of them insist on roasting coffee at source. I asked Gary if he’d write an article for me to express the reasons …
Posted on 19 July 2019